[Beaumis]

So I've had to deal with a few flash-paks lately but simply accepted my GMs modifiers without checking. Now that I've considered buying some myself I looked them up and now I'm unsure how they actually work.

The paks themselves state clearly that it's a -4 modifier uncompensated and that flare compensation reduces this to -2 or -1 if implanted. The reason is the stroboscopic glare. The thing is, glare is defined in the environmental modifiers table (P. 175) and flare compensation is defined in the environmental compensation table (P. 175). Glare ranges from 0 to -6 and flare compensation shifts glare up two rows. However flash-paks kind of fit nowhere into the table at the given modifiers.

This leads me to my question, how do other kinds of compensation interact with flash-paks? Sunglasses seem like something that should help a little by mitigating the flash and thermographic vision doesn't care so much about brightness either. Ultrasound should allow you to close your eyes and ignore the flash altogether. However, since flash-paks don't fit into the table at all I'm not sure if any compensation work at all. An awakened character should be able to close his eyes and switch to astral perception for a -2 modifier instead of a -4.

How do you guys treat this situation?

[8-bit]

Our table always had basic sunglasses as Flare Compensation, so that's how I handle that one. As for the others, those are good questions. I feel like Thermographic would be slightly impeded, due to light usually being accompanied by heat. Not always though, so it might not be affected. I honestly don't know for that one. For Ultrasound, yes, you can close your eyes and ignore the flash altogether IMO. Just note that you have to rely on ultrasound instead of your normal vision; if you switch back to normal vision you get penalties. Astral perception is in the same boat. Probably worse actually, since you can't really see inanimate objects too well when perceiving.

This situation has really never come up at our table though, so it's definitely something I am not 100% sure on how to handle.

[adzling]

we just go with what the paks modifiers say on the wrapper ;-)

and yeah if you close your eyes and use a non-light based sensor (thermal, ultrasound, et al) then no modifiers would apply.
(flashpaks are battery powered led strobes on presumes so not much heat given off)

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Flash-paks work by combining bright light with erratic behavior - which is why flare compensation doesn't let you just simply ignore it.  They are glare, yes - but they're not constant glare, or even the sort of sudden intense glare that's a flash grenade.  They're a flash grenade now, and now, but not now, and now again, but not now, and now, and etc.  This is why flare compensation electronics (and magic) has to strain to keep up - and why stuff that's implanted/innate has better (read: complete) control over handling it, and so gets the better 'compensation' for once.

Sunglasses - straight sunglasses, which are not flare compensation (but which you can certainly buy flare compensation for!!) - would normally apply as per the chart, exchanging one row of glare for one row of light conditions.  (IMO, they should only negate Weak Glare, but that's me - because you still really can't look into the sun with sunglasses on.)  However, sunglasses aren't going to have any sort of effect on a flash-pak, simply because of the pak's erratic behavior, not to mention 'leakage' around the edge of your sunglasses, which your eyes just aren't equipped to handle.

Thermographic vision - only thermographic vision, using which alone has issues as well, and would apply only to someone with implanted cyber-eyes (and maybe goggles, because glasses and contacts have leakage around the side and are not 'full coverage see only what's on the screen') - will negate a flash-pak - but I'd judge they'd be affected for the action they switch over as their eyes and mind adjust.  Trolls, adepts, and those with retinal modifications see multi-spectrum thermographic, meaning they'd get goosed by the flash-pak and can't 'turn off' normal vision.  And since at current thermographic is thermographic vision - the thermosense implant / changeling ability isn't out yet - you can't 'just close your eyes and use thermographic'.  It's vision; you still need your eyes to see.

Last but not least, ultrasound.  With ultrasound, you CAN close your eyes; even if it feeds in through the optic nerve (which for my money it does), it doesn't rely on the ocular structure to do it.  Close your eyes, and light/glare conditions - including those generated by flash-paks - just ... go away.  Very tempting.

[Xenon]

It would make more sense if flash paks acted as a moderate (or a blinding) glare environmental modifier (it would make the rules easier imo), but -as he Wyrm Ouroboros noted- this is not straight up glare; it fire in random strobing sequence in order to blind opponents.

Sunglasses are not flare compensation, but you could probably house-rule that sunglasses limit the modifier to -3 dice if you want.

Ultrasound sensor headware always fully replace your current vision when active.