Infra Red Sight in Necromunda

[The Duke]

Right.

So this is about something I've seen touched-upon in other threads, and something that came up the other day whilst me & my mate @Llewy were playing through the second game in the "only 24 hours to Save the underhive" mini-campaign - high stakes are up for the third and final game with the first two scenarios resulting in horrible bloodbath games and the outright death of my gang leader "The Doc" (despite his stinger-mould and questionable veterinary / 'doktor' skills!) and the capture (by my gang "The Lobotomy Lads") of his leader "Wise Man Kelos" thereby eliminating both gang leaders from the rest of the campaign and upping the stakes very high for the final battle over the adeptus mechanicus reject "Ironheart" and erratic hive sector powerstation "The Big Black" not to mention the favour of the local guilders of S0GG-Bottom (our campaign setting).

This thread however concerns the role of the Infra-red gunsight in Necromunda (using the fantastic, organic and ever-evolving NCE rulesets!)

The infra-red gunsight is a relatively common roll for me on the rare trade chart and can only be equipped to basic weapons and is fairly affordable (within reach of a carefully managed gang-stash / income stream) it usually turns-up as one of my first RTC rolls in a campaign (hense me almost always having one modelled / converted onto one model or another).

alright, sorry,....background & bias stated, i'll get to my point now!

It seems to me that the Infra-red effects in Necromunda should reflect the fact that they allow a fighter to see a reflection of the latent heat-signiature (known as infra-red spectrum) of the target and/or terrain elements and atmospheric effect of the hive - with particularly warm / living creatures appearing as orange / yellow glowing auras and colder things appearing as blue to dark black voids / shapes.

Going on this logic it strikes me that Infra-red items should allow (within reason) for fighters equipped with them to spot hidden fighters that they can see within their vision arc in addition to negating any partial / heavy cover that they may be currently benefiting from as per the original rules (this has been discussed at length on a seperate thread here: https://yaktribe.games/community/threads/infrared-goggles-bionic-eye.5246/#post-95891 )

On the other hand, other sources of heat may well obscure the accurate readings of an infra-red piece of kit, and some items / creatures will simply be too 'cold' to register (rare custom archeotech and scalies for example....)

This seems to be quite well handled in the current rules for Infra-red goggles, but I think it needs just a teensy-bit of tweaking. However it shouldn't be altered outright and clearly requires balancing and further discussion, so I propose the following be debated / discussed:

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Infra-red sight (current NCE text)
An infra-red sight is calibrated to register infra-red rather than visible light. The enhanced image appears in the scope and makes it easier to pick out concealed targets behind cover. The sight works effectively from a stable platform but offers no benefit to a shooter whose own movement disrupts the sensor's image.


An infra-red sight can be fitted to a basic weapon. A stationary fighter using a weapon with an infra-red sight reduces the to hit penalty when shooting at a model in cover by 1. So, partial cover is ignored and cover counts as -1. The fighter is also immune to the effects of smoke clouds when shooting.
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Infra-red sight (proposed change)
An infra-red sight is calibrated to register infra-red heat signiatures rather than visible light. The enhanced image appears in the scope and makes it easier to pick out concealed or hidden targets behind cover. The sight works effectively from a stable platform but offers no benefit to a shooter whose own movement disrupts the sensor's image. To reflect this only fighters who remain stationary for their whole turn may recieve the benefit of the Infra-red sight targeting assistance.


An infra-red sight can be fitted to a basic weapon. A stationary fighter using a weapon with an infra-red sight reduces the to hit penalty when shooting at a model in cover by 1. So, partial cover is ignored and cover counts as -1. The fighter is also immune to the effects of smoke clouds when shooting and in addition fighters who wish to target hidden enemy fighters that are within their sight arc may choose to roll a d6 . If the score is equal to or under thier initiative roll, then the target can be fired at as normal, should a hit be scored then the target loses its hidden status.

Note that any fighters using an infra-red sight are able to test in the same way in order to target enemies otherwise obscured by smoke or gas clouds, also cold-blooded creatures will not register on an Infra-red sight and any attempts to target or 'flush-out' such creatures will not recieve the bonuses described above.
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Infra-red Goggles
These take the form of a pair of goggles or visor which allows a fighter to see the thermal images of enemy fighters. This enables the wearer to see foes who are hiding or partially concealed behind cover.


A fighter wearing infra-red goggles can spot hidden enemy at triple his normal distance – ie, his Initiative x3. However, the enemy model must be within the fighter's arc of sight. Sentries wearing goggles will also spot fighters in cover just as if they were in the open. In addition, any fighters wearing goggles are immune to the effects of smoke clouds, also cold-blooded creatures will not register on an Infra-red sight and any attempts to target or 'flush-out' such creatures will not recieve the bonuses described above.

Note that the goggles will impair the aim of fighters wishing to use them when targeting enemy fighters they wish to shoot at, as such it is assumed that fighters using goggles switch them off or flip them up when performing actions in the shooting phase.
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What do you all think?

 

[Blood Donor]

Just to clarify, is the idea that Infrared Sights/Goggles should (in addition to current rules) give a chance to spot hidden fighters, but also not function against cold blooded characters like Scallies or other characters with like a cold blooded mutation, if such a mutation exists?

I like this idea, if I am reading correctly.

 

[The Duke]

Just to clarify, is the idea that Infrared Sights/Goggles should (in addition to current rules) give a chance to spot hidden fighters, but also not function against cold blooded characters like Scallies or other characters with like a cold blooded mutation, if such a mutation exists?

I like this idea, if I am reading correctly.

yup, thats the general concept (I think scalies are the only thing in necromunda that counts as 'cold blooded' per-sey, but there may be other mutations / bionics / archeotech that people want to create and use that might artificially lower your temperature - I'm not sure about plague zombies, are they warm / alive???)

The Infra-red sight idea cropped up in a game the other day where it occurred to me that my Bs 6 sniper "Silent Socrates" could target the Orlocks behind the heavy cover bulkhead he was stood about 4-5" behind without the heavy cover modifier, just thinking about how infra-red works, it occurred to me that "Socrates" should also have been able to see the crouched form of his targets hidden (flamer-wielding!!) buddy behind the adjacent bulkhead at the same time! This made sense to me as I could imagine that he was scoping with the infra-red sight in the same direction and would be able to clearly see the two forms, despite the fact that one was hidden and the other wasn't (unless going into hiding also makes you go cold in the hive!!!)

It could also be interesting to suggest that flamers / meltas & other burning objects/gangers 'on fire' could throw-off the infra-red readings of the scopes / goggles (including steam-vents and other heated industrial hive terrain) and prevent the ifra-red sight / goggles form getting a reading, thereby negating its bonus and creating some interesting tactical situations....

 

[Strobe]

Milliasaurs and Ripper Jacks would possibly be cold blooded things. Also structures (I'm thinking water still) for some scenarios.

I think having a range from burning/hot targets would be a tricky thing to model in game. Plasma clouds are the other obvious thing to interfere with it.

 

[The Duke]

I think having a range from burning/hot targets would be a tricky thing to model in game

yeah, but not impossible, and hopefully not to fiddly if we put our minds to it

 

[Strobe]

So there are the obvious things like a target who is on fire and the plasma ball. Also I guess a plasma gun which was recently fired high power? Wyrd Pyro? Extremely sweaty Goliath (j/k)?

Maybe a blanket rule someone equipped with IR gear (either kind) can fire on a hot target even if they are hidden. That would be fairly simple and also I wouldn't expect it to be game breakingly powerful. Consider that you have to remain stationary to use the IR sight so the hiding ganger can try to remain out of LoS to hide.

 

[speccy]

Hey @the juke you know that infra red goggle already have the ability to spot hidden enemies at triple the normal distance?

Its no got it built into the gunsight but I dont think it needs it. I get that infra red shows up at targets heat signature but it would them too OP.

In a blind fight, on fire models are always seen so thry cant hide, unless theyre out of LOS ofc.

In the instance of on fire or plasma grenades, etc, it would show much the same as a flare would on a heat signature as white. Must be something to do with being over a certain temp only shows as white.

I think trying to work out illumination in a blind fight is being fiddley for the sake of being fiddley. It sorta like saying 'well technically autopistols and autoguns all machine guns so would they not also be given sustain fire when shooting on full auto much as they do in movies?.' There had to be certain rule in place to simplify games and make things balance out.

Im not saying youre being difficult by any means mate, its really good that youre thinkin about that snd how the wording should realistically mean the area is lit, but as Ive said, in a gaming sense, certain rules have to be kept for balance. Lascannons/melra guns for example are ludicriously powerful weapons and being hit should be instant dead regardless based on fluff but rolling a 1 to wound means the guy is unhurt. Same as rolling a 1 for damage (2 for lascannon - snake eyes) then rolling 1's for injury roll is flesh wounds and they survive even able to fight on! It doesnt reslly make sense but miracles happen n all that

Hope this helps fella

 

[The Duke]

@Strobe
I'm not entirely sure that plasma is hot?.... we don't really know how it's being generated in the 41st millennium, I'm prepared to say that plasma effects register as normal or could even be cold (cold-fusion or super-cooled plasma energy, hense the common idea that plasma guns energy coils usually get painted a nice cool blue or green colour).

I think for the sake of simplicity, it would be easier to suggest that obvious warm / flaming / fire effects are de-facto "hot"

I totally agree with you about adding the Wyrd Pyro effects and the idea that milliasaurs and ripper jacks might be cold-blooded too - great idea!!

@speccy thanks for the input mate, I agree about keeping it simple & the idea that we have to do some of the hard work ourselves 'in-game' by explaining-away silly things that don't make immediate sense in the game setting when comparing it to our own detailed real-world (I think they call it "suspension of disbelief" in the film / TV writing industries)

I personally like rolling dice and that unique & special moment of tension and victory that you get when you manage to pull-off an important dice-roll (I think there is a special word for it in Spanish: "Fiero" or "victory feeling" or "moment of triumph")

I also really enjoy it when the possibility of achieving something is improved or made worse by the ever-evolving characteristics of your gang members / models and their various hard-won (or lost!) expertise / shortcomings, for me it creates narrative flavour and improves my sense of immersion into the storytelling / narrative elements of this fantastic game (and other than the painting, converting & terrain building, this is my 4th favourite part of the hobby, and I believe to some extent what drives us all to keep playing - the sense that we are not only taking-part, but also writing a collective story together!)

This is especially possible when we play small-scale campaign-setting based skirmish role playing games like good ol' Necromunda! (Am I right? @Blood Donor?)

@speccy it also hadn't immediately occurred to how incredibly useful infra-red equipment is in the blind-fight scenarios and this is a very good point, my original post here was mostly focussed on how the "infra-red" game mechanic should in my opinion be interacting with the "hidden" game mechanic (in a blind-fight situation further thinking / investigation about ithe game mechanic interactions must be done)

It's fair to say that "light-levels" & "temperature" or other more haptic perceptions of the Necromunda world are for the most part ignored / skirted-around by the mechanics of the game and thus aids speed of play & simplicity which in turn promotes something we all love = FUN!

If any of you are still interested in getting to the bottom of this I provide further clarification below:



Under infra-red spectrum white shows-up as the hottest area, whereas black is the coldest (I know this from experience having seen many-many thermal imaging reports from building surveyors for the work I do improving the energy performance of building projects I work on with my clients)

However, without getting too fiddly;

The focus of this thread should be to interrogate the idea that because of the relatively narrow focus of vision that a shooter has whilst looking down a scope at his potential target area they would not likely spot anything outside of the circular scope-hole if the IR gunsight, as such it makes sense to me to make them roll an initiative test to spot hidden fighters within their vision arc as a way to simulate this.

Conversely the IR goggles automatically reveal hidden fighters at 3x the initiative distance (as the current rules state) to reflect the fact that whilst positioned over the fighters eyes they would ostensibly provide them with a full 90 degree vision arc directly in front of them, or even 360 degrees if they were prepared or stated by the player to be actively alert to potential threats (as you might expect in a dangerous underhive battle zone or a dark, dingy & hazardous dystopian industrial wasteland or when guarding their home-base once the alarm is raised!)
However the IR goggles do not allow a 'downgrade' of the -1 / -2 to hit cover benefit that the IR gunsight allows - and I think this is fair as they don't magnify or connect directly to the weapon being fired (which a gunsight by definition does)

Both IR mechanics should allow you to ignore smoke / particle effects (positive effect) but I'm suggesting to balance this and create interesting tactical play that we also allow the IR mechanic to be limited by other temperature effects such as the "cold-blooded", "on-fire" & "flaming attack" mechanics (negative effect) - therefore tweaking the improved IR mechanic to provide balance and only really adding an optional additional d6 roll if the player wishes to try to sit a hidden fighter.

This helps reduce (very circumstantially) the effectiveness of the "hiding" mechanic and allows "hidden" models to be targeted with potential for them to be "unhidden" by a nice piece of IR equipment that with this tweak gets brought more in-line with its similar equipment the IAr goggles and provides a third way (bio-scanner) of dealing with pesky sneaky types

I do, of course, fully accept that I'm kind-if "shooting myself in the foot" here as a die-hard stealthy delaque player!!

 

[SirFrog]

From a game-mechanic POV, I'm against the idea. Both items are just in the right spot as they are, I feel. There's also the issue of adding further rules to an already rules-heavy game to further slow things down. Furthermore, in real life an IR camera is often overwhelmed if there's a very large, intense heat source among cooler ones, like a fire, and would be useless in that "arc". If you want to also reflect that, the rules become even more cumbersome.

@Strobe
I'm not entirely sure that plasma is hot?.... we don't really know how it's being generated in the 41st millennium, I'm prepared to say that plasma effects register as normal or could even be cold (cold-fusion or super-cooled plasma energy, hense the common idea that plasma guns energy coils usually get painted a nice cool blue or green colour).

I should point out that every single depiction of plasma weaponry in 40k describe it as eye-searingly bright, violent and hot. They go by the nickname Sun Gun, inflict Energy damage in the RPGs, are known for violently expelling scalding gases from their "Gets Hot" rule, and so on. This is in line with reality, where plasma at atmospheric temperatures is immensely hot. Most plasma forming in atmosphere are at the very least in the 10³ - 10⁴ Kelvin temperature range.
Also, things that glow blue from black-body radiation is very, very hot. Somewhere around 10⁴ Kelvin. An alternative could be Cherenkov Radiation, which is also glowing blue and certainly not cold.


From a fluff perspective, as you also pointed out, the actual field of view highlighted by an IR sight is typically narrow. Usually, you'd see the one you're aiming for and a few metres around them. Even if you could spot people around that, it's certainly not 90°.
It should also be noted that some books note that the underhive is HOT. So a 37°C ganger would be tricky to spot in the 30-33°C hive. IR is also blocked by walls, glass and other solid objects, and work poorly in dusty, smoky, foggy environment, typically losing range. All of which could describe last Tuesday in the underhive.

All in all, I think your attempt at making Initiative more relevant is commendable, but the rules you're suggesting is too complicated to be practical and fun. Not to mention the whole spotting distance thing, which is already being discussed in other threads at this moment. I beg your pardon if I sound too harsh.

 

[The Duke]

From a game-mechanic POV, I'm against the idea. Both items are just in the right spot as they are, I feel. There's also the issue of adding further rules to an already rules-heavy game to further slow things down. Furthermore, in real life an IR camera is often overwhelmed if there's a very large, intense heat source among cooler ones, like a fire, and would be useless in that "arc". If you want to also reflect that, the rules become even more cumbersome.


I should point out that every single depiction of plasma weaponry in 40k describe it as eye-searingly bright, violent and hot. They go by the nickname Sun Gun, inflict Energy damage in the RPGs, are known for violently expelling scalding gases from their "Gets Hot" rule, and so on. This is in line with reality, where plasma at atmospheric temperatures is immensely hot. Most plasma forming in atmosphere are at the very least in the 10³ - 10⁴ Kelvin temperature range.
Also, things that glow blue from black-body radiation is very, very hot. Somewhere around 10⁴ Kelvin. An alternative could be Cherenkov Radiation, which is also glowing blue and certainly not cold.


From a fluff perspective, as you also pointed out, the actual field of view highlighted by an IR sight is typically narrow. Usually, you'd see the one you're aiming for and a few metres around them. Even if you could spot people around that, it's certainly not 90°.
It should also be noted that some books note that the underhive is HOT. So a 37°C ganger would be tricky to spot in the 30-33°C hive. IR is also blocked by walls, glass and other solid objects, and work poorly in dusty, smoky, foggy environment, typically losing range. All of which could describe last Tuesday in the underhive.

All in all, I think your attempt at making Initiative more relevant is commendable, but the rules you're suggesting is too complicated to be practical and fun. Not to mention the whole spotting distance thing, which is already being discussed in other threads at this moment. I beg your pardon if I sound too harsh.

I can't dispute any of that! - especially not the science stuff! - strewth you sure know your stuff @SirFrog !!


Well that about wraps it up - initial thread query solved I think - anyone else want to weigh-in. before we put this to bed...?