Does the size of the object you're scriff sensing affect the reading at all? If you had one scriff sense that was pointing to something tiny (your class ring for instance) and another which was pointing to something huge (a room full of gear) could you tell the difference in their size by the scriff sense or is it just a point, regardless of the size?
(Doing Therapy)
Does the size of the object you're scriff sensing affect the reading at all?
No.
If you had one scriff sense that was pointing to something tiny (your class ring for instance) and another which was pointing to something huge (a room full of gear) could you tell the difference in their size by the scriff sense
A room full of gear is actually several vectors - one for each item - but at any significant distance, the vectors would be so close together as to be indistinguishable from a single vector: so, no.
or is it just a point, regardless of the size?
Yes.
That's my understanding. MJ may overrule.
I think in the room full of gear, it's not the intensity of the threads that would point you in that direction, it's the number. Remember, you might consider a case of guns to be one item, but there's a case to be made for each gun being a different item, or even each bullet, depending on the circumstances and your attachment to each one, and therefore you would read 'one item over there' (your ring) and 'five hundred and seven over there' (your deuce-and-a-half full of guns - because you're you and I know you would be a very happy cat indeed with a deuce-and-a-half full of guns).
Edit: Ninja'd by Wodium.
OK, so even if it was a single HUGE item (you're so powerful you can carry an Imperial Star Destroyer with you) it would still be indistinguishable from a single class ring?
(Doing Therapy)
and therefore you would read 'one item over there' (your ring) and 'five hundred and seven over there'
Except at a mile and half away, you wouldn't - all you feel is a direction, so the only way to tell five hundred and seven vectors pointing due north from a single vector pointing due north would be divergent angles. There's no way you could convince me that you could discern the angle of your vectors precisely enough that you would know that two bullets a centimeter apart (both a mile and a half away) were two distinct objects with vectors pointing in distinct directions.
You could easily tell them apart from your class ring due south, though. You just wouldn't know that the guns were north and the ring south rather than the reverse.
Is that at all clear?
OK, so even if it was a single HUGE item (you're so powerful you can carry an Imperial Star Destroyer with you) it would still be indistinguishable from a single class ring?
Yes.
I wonder what will happen if a rope is tied together to form a large ring and you are at the center.
What direction will the the scriff sense point you at?
Maybe it starts spinning you in circles, like what happens to a compass when you're already at the North Pole. Or maybe it doesn't point anywhere because it all balances out, kinda like how there's no gravity at the center of a planet.
I've never actually had to deal with a scriff-infected object so large and so close that it was not effectively less than one degree. Even a car fifty yards distant is not going to have a larger target radius than "that way". A star destroyer might be a pretty big object, but even the moon is not that big in terms of vector diameter as sensed from earth.
Note that if you have one object ten feet distant and another ten miles distant but they happen to be on the same exact line, you've only got one vector. (I used this in one world to create a straight line direction finder. There was an intermittent sense in a constant direction, so I placed two objects about fifty yards apart such that they and the target vector would be on the same line, and then I walked that line by keeping a single sense impression behind me until I came to the target.) Since that's the case, the number of objects is irrelevant.
For what it's worth, the sense tends to point toward the middle of the object, but if you were right up against it you could probably sense its dimensions, if your pointing would sweep some significant distance. Remember, though, that you only have the sense when you relax.
As to being surrounded by one of your possessions, that's a bit trickier. Obviously that happens if, for example, you are in your car or your spaceship. But then, you are usually in your clothes, and these don't interfere with your ability to sense objects beyond that. So I would say that as long as it's on person it doesn't really register, but if it surrounds you independent of yourself you have something more like a vector plane or dome, or even you have the sense of being completely surrounded by your equipment, like you left something in every direction.
It would also obscure objects in the same plane or vector, regardless of whether they are in front of or behind it.
--M. J. Young