True seeing vs cloaking field

[BigNorseWolf]

Laser tripwire probably wouldn't work. If you're bending light around yourself it would probably continue on in a straight path around you.

Although there is the old nemesis of the invisible character... the shut door. Sneak all you want its not hard to notice a door opening.

[Claxon]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Laser tripwire probably wouldn't work. If you're bending light around yourself it would probably continue on in a straight path around you.

Although there is the old nemesis of the invisible character... the shut door. Sneak all you want its not hard to notice a door opening.

Yeah, it depends on how well you envision the cloaking field or invisibility warping light around the character.

Unless the beam goes back to almost the exact same path as though the character weren't there, it would trip an alarm.

But there are so many things that could potentially disrupt the tactic, even something as simple as a door with a guard. The guard doesn't have to notice the invisible character. They only need to notice something weird happening with the door which has a heavy metal latch or something similar on it.

[Darg727]

Lasers don't have to operate on the wavelength of light. In fact, it is highly recommended not to use them as trips when they do because they can be seen. It kind of defeats the purpose if they can be easily spotted.

[Claxon]

That's a fair point, which then raises the question of, would a ultraviolet or infrared laser which isn't visible light be warped by the cloaking field?

In the interest of not letting the cloaking field bypass the equipment you could simply rule that no it doesn't. It only affects visible light waves. So a cloak operative would still set it off if they walk through it.

[Darg727]

Exactly. It's possible to bend visible light and yet have other forms bend even further or not at all because they are slower or faster. Glass is only see through because visible light can pass through it. That same glass might not let infrared pass through similar to how x-rays pass through our bodies but light has a real difficult time.

Cloaking field only makes you difficult to see so it isn't invisibility. The way I picture it is like a set of prisms set around an object. Do it right and the object isn't visible but the image of the background behind the prisms is distorted and blurry. Even so, you can still see light that would normally be blocked by the object in the middle. The blurry outline feels reminiscent of that.