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Alas, this is still photoscanning and offers nothing as far as genuinely new content. However, it seems to be the most promising avenue as far as gaming in the near-ish future, so I'm pushing ahead with that. Once I've got the process refined, I can consider working on new models to scan
There are two versions of the awareness test - the Simple test, and the Detailed test.
As throughout the course of a game, characters will end up testing awareness dozens of times between them, it is recommended that the Gamesmaster normally have them make the simple test in order to maintain the momentum of the game, and reserve the detailed test when it is important to more carefully define what the character may have seen.
SIMPLE TEST
To make a simple awareness test, a character simply rolls Initiative. The GM then narrates exactly what the character becomes aware of in front of them.
On a straight success, the testing character should become aware of characters ahead of them that are nearby and in the open.
On two degrees of success, the character should notice more details or things that are less obvious, such as that such as that the character in front of them is wearing Arbites armour or that there is a silhouette skulking in the shadows of the building ahead.
On four degrees of success, the character should get a strong grasp of the scene ahead, excepting extremely obscure details - the shape skulking in the shadows moves in accordance with Imperial guard scouting doctrine.
On six or more degrees of success, the character will probably spot nearly anything, such as the sniper on the nearby rooftop who thought he was hidden by his chameleoline cloak...
On a failure, then the character may still notice some things, but the worse their failure, the more they will miss.
On a straight failure, they might miscount the number of characters they think they saw.
On two degrees of failure, they might become fixated on only the most obvious character and miss everything else.
On four degrees of failure, they may not work out what they've seen at all, or even misinterpret it completely.
DETAILED TEST
If a character needs to make a detailed awareness test, then they instead spend their degrees of success to spot things in front of them.
By default, spotting another character (or similarly sized object of interest) nearby and in the open has a Difficulty of 0, and can be spotted for no cost. However, by default, this only provides vague details - that there is someone/something there and roughly how they are moving; the character has seen something, but they have not closely examined it.
However, not every character is equally easy to spot.
a) If a character is lightly concealed (with at least three locations hidden) spotting them is at +1 Difficulty. A character who is heavily concealed (no more than two locations visible) instead has +2 Difficulty.
Note that if a character is fully concealed, they cannot usually be spotted by sight.
b) A character who is further away is harder to notice. Each full 10 yards over 20 yards adds +1 Difficulty.
c) Dim lighting conditions will increase the difficulty by +1, but dark conditions may add +2 Difficulty or more.
d) A small object or character (servo skull sized or similar) is also at +1 Difficulty. (Ratlings and Cybermastiffs are not small enough to have this penalty).
e) Objects outside the character's front 90 degree arc, but still within their 180 degree peripheral vision, are at +1 Difficulty.
Some situations may instead make a character easier to spot. Note, however that these will never reduce the Difficulty below zero - spotting a character is never so easy to award additional degrees of success.
f) A walking character is at -1 difficulty to be spotted. A character that is weaving, running, sprinting or fighting in melee is at -2 difficulty. The GM may choose to reduce this further in the event something is moving even faster (such as a fast moving vehicle or flying character).
g) A larger character or object is easier to spot. An subject that is Space Marine sized is at -1 Difficulty, an Ogryn sized one is at -2, and correspondingly more for larger subjects; a Sentinel walker might be -3, and a Chimera -4.
Note that buildings are usually sufficiently large that their overall difficulty will be 0 under almost all circumstances and therefore characters will usually not need to spend degrees of success to become aware of the approximate layout of the area in front of them.
h) If there's other reasons it would be hard to miss something (such as a ganger noisily emptying a heavy stubber on full-auto) the GM may choose to further reduce the difficulty as appropriate.
More detail:
Once they've spent degrees of success sufficient to spot something, the testing character may spend additional degrees of success to become aware of additional information about what they have spotted, such as a basic description of who/what they have seen, working out exactly what they are doing, how they are armed, and the like. Generally, for each new piece of information the character would like, one additional degree of success must be spent.
Note that even if the testing character has spotted something with a previous test, to get more information about it, the base difficulty must first be spent out of the current test; working out what exact weapon someone fifty metres away is carrying is hard even if you've previously spotted them.
Focusing:
A character may elect to focus their attention more specifically. They may nominate an area which has their attention. If they choose an 8 yard diameter, they gain one bonus degree of success against each individual target within, or if they choose a 4 yard diameter, they gain two bonus degrees of success against each target.
These degrees may be spent on either initially spotting and/or further scrutinising a target (and may be spent differently for each target).
However, anything outside this area has its difficulty increased by a corresponding amount; the more a character focuses their attention in one place, the more they are likely to miss other things.
Note that a character chooses whether they will focus after making their test.
Designer's Notes:
The first edition of Inquisitor required that a character had a specific justification to focus in a given area. This requirement has been removed from IRE; Most characters in Inquisitor have years, decades or even centuries of experience, so it's reasonable that they can make judgements about the most likely angles of attack, which direction an escaping heretic is likely to be running or sometimes simply have their attention grabbed by that cloaked figure who's skulking around in the shadows for no good reason.
This is balanced out in the IRE rules by enacting a drawback to choosing to focus a character's attention.
Failure:
Even if a character fails their awareness test, they may still become aware of some things, but it will become much more limited in nature. If they fail their test, and for each additional degree of failure, the Difficulty of spotting anything becomes one level higher.
Obviously, they have no base degrees of success to spend, but may still be able to spot more obvious targets, such as those that are moving, or choose to focus on a specific area in order to gain enough degrees of success to spot something.
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