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Cybereyes and SURGE Third Eye

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Gorstavich

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« on: <05-18-18/1152:09> »
If a character has the negative metagenic quality "Third Eye" and purchases cybereyes, are only their two primary eyes chromed or is all three of them?

I was reading the description / fluff that comes with Additional Eye Mount and started pondering.  AEM states that using more than two eyes at the same time incurs penalties, but this is never mentioned in Third Eye... maybe because their body is naturally 'wired' to handle the input of that third set of visual data?  The penalty makes a bit of sense if the extra eyes have radically difference angles of view (back of head, etc), but a forehead mounted third eye isn't that radical.

Possible use case:  A SURGE character with a third eye getting cybereyes, with one of them being an Ocular Drone.  This might allow the character to send the drone off to scout without taking the massive dice pool hit for normal actions.  And, yes, I'm trying to take the weird negative qualities my GM randomly rolled for me and make them semi-useful.
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Reaver

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« Reply #1 on: <05-18-18/1402:36> »
Welcome to "fringe cases 101" :P

Things get spooky when you start going outside of the regular metahuman races and into the craziness of the "freaky options"...

Simply put, there is no RAW for this because the books can't cover every possible situation. (there is a limit to the size one can print in a book, and what people would pay... "


But, genetically speaking, if you get extra eyes as a regular human, your brain can't handle the extra stimulus as our brains are wired for Bi-ocular, dual vision and perception of depth for prey tracking. (hence why our eyes face forwards, as opposed to the side as with animals that need to spot predators.)
You stick some eyes to the side or back of your hear, and you confuse your brain!

Now, when it comes to SURGE, the changes are at the genetic level, which means that your brain could be wired to handle the tri-ocular vision of your third eye!
But that doesn't mean you get a "free" eye if you decide to get cyber eyes - it just means you have to pay extra to get a third eye! Any you also have to remember that the bonuses of your cyber eyes do not carry over to your unmodified eye, nor does any advantages of your third eye carry over to your cyber eyes! (For example, if you have natural low light vision in your third eye, your cyber eyes do not gain low light vision! So if you are in a situation that requires low light, any advantages that your cyber eyes give you are moot because that can't "see" in the lighting conditions)

And it doesn't change the fact you look like a freak (you DO have a third eye in your skull!) which can lead to social modifiers (which could be helpful - but mostly work against you).


You also have an additional problem, since your brain has been genetically modified (supposedly) for Tri-ocular Vision, it may suffer impairment effects from only having bi-ocular or monocular vision (such as having a ocular drone and sending it out to scout.) But, once again, this would be a GM call as the books don't (and will probably never) cover this. But the precedent has been set by the simple fact that a "normal" person get a modifier for using an ocular drone, and "normal" for you is 3 eyes instead of 2....



Like I said in the beginning, when you get into the "Fringe Cases" of game play, things get muddy. 
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Gorstavich

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« Reply #2 on: <05-18-18/1518:31> »
...and this may explain why the GM suddenly had to go help someone else when I started going down this rabbit hole.   :-\

I am currently debating just using normal cybereye rules, but increasing the cost and essence loss by 50% (as there is roughly 50% more material / labor involved).  In the end of things my GM is pretty reasonable about things as long as we reciprocate, assuming someone else doesn't come up with a better idea.
« Last Edit: <05-18-18/1521:31> by Gorstavich »
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SpellBinder

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« Reply #3 on: <05-18-18/2053:45> »
I don't recall reading where there were in game effects of having only one cybereye until you went into the visual mods you could use with one (like vision magnification).  Having three eyes and two of them cybernetic shouldn't be all that much of an issue, and going at a +50% cost to nuyen and Essence would be reasonable to have all three done as a matched set.

Personally I'd have no issue with the third (and likely centrally placed) eye being an ocular drone instead of a cyber eye.  No problems to me in letting that third eye scuttle around somewhere, there's still the fact you've got an extra eye in the middle of your forehead that'll freak people out if they see it.