Help with a gadget

[JmOz]

I was watching an episode of Batman the animated series, The one that introduces Man-Bat. Anyways old Bats pulls a aersol can and sprays it in the air in the room, then with (assumed) IR goggles he is able to see footprints (that lead him to a clue)

What is it, and how would you write it up?

[Shoutybloke]

Detect latent footprints (5pts) sense(5pts) OIF real cost 7pts

[Thia Halmades]

Tragically, he's right -- a single footstep doesn't leave nearly enough of a thermal signature to 'show up' as the Bat does it. You're kind of stuck hand waving it to "detect foot print," "requires IR goggles" and OAF Gas (Charges).

[Maur]

Are you sure it is in the IR? I suspect the spray was a liquid form to the dust that forensics experts use to collect finger/hand/foot/etc... -prints. If he was following an IR signature, then he would not need to spray the air with anything, just change his vision to perceive it and hope the target spent time in each step before moving on.

[JmOz]

not really sure if it was IR or not, the goggles made everything look red (so some kind of low light maybe), I suspect that the spray was somehow suppose to stick to the footprints to make them visible...

[Maur]

That it turned red doesn't mean IR. The colors you see from an IR camera are an interpretation of the wavelengths that are outside our vision. You could easily change the interpretation of the wavelengths to all be shades of purple or green if one wanted to. Would be more likely that Bats was using UV like the effect you see with a black light when it strikes phosphorescent materials. The UV causes the material to fluoresce in the visible light spectrum.

[Thia Halmades]

*blink blink*

Yep. What he said. t3h r3ppz0rz!!

(Never mind; I already repped that cat recently!)

[Bloodstone]

Could have also been some type of pheromone trail.

In any event, mechanically it strikes me as some form of limited Tracking for Sight Group bought through a focus. The spray just provides a PER bonus.

[pinecone]

Umm... maybe I'm a minimalist...but I'd buy Tracking for sight group: OIF/OAF, and call the rest SFX...:)

[Steel Legs]

One of the original DC books had a lot of shtuff about detecting prints and like that. I'm guessing Batsy was using one of the powders that like sticks to disaranged fibers or something. The shtuff floureses (did I spell that right), so like maybe the goggles glowed in UV and also shifted UV to visible.

Maybe?