Ki sensing and power level

[Malek86]

Hi, first topic here! Hope this hasn't been asked already...

As we know, the ability of the Earth warriors to control their battle aura, as of the Namek saga, is pretty much exclusive to them. Nappa and Vegeta apparently can't do it, as well as any of Freezer's warriors except for Ginyu and Freezer himself. Can we assume that anyone who can't control their aura, goes around with a "fixed" power level? If you measured Radish with a scouter, would he always be at 1200? One example, when Krillin and the others are found by the Ginyu team, he remarks how they are far beyond his level, even if they are pretty relaxed at the moment. So it seems like a safe assumption. Is that right?

Now then, if so, I have a couple questions about this. The first one that comes to my mind is how some of these characters still seem able to charge up before attacking. For example, Nappa. Would he still be at 4000 after charging up? Or would he be higher? Or maybe he is actually lower than 4000 before charging up?

My second problem is with ki sensing. There are some scenes in the manga where characters seem unable to do it. At one point, Piccolo "guesses" that Vegeta must be stronger than Nappa due to how he ordered him around. If Vegeta can't control his power level, then why couldn't Piccolo just feel how much stronger his ki was, compared to Nappa?

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

Yeah, Raditz, Dodoria and Zarbon and a few others would always have their max power come up on the scouter, I believe. Scouter readings seem to be more precise than Chi-sensing, based on what's shown. The scouter will measure their exact powers, whereas the Z-warriors have to rely on actually feeling the power. When you look at examples from namek (like Krillin understanding the Ginyu Force's power like you mentioned, or Krillin noticing how powerful Zarbon, Dodoria, and Freeza were while standing around doing nothing), I'd just attribute that to their sensing abilities improving over time.

As for Nappa's Battle Power: for that example, I'd say that his level would still be the same even while he's powering-up. Perhaps he's concentrating on utilizing all of his power? That's what I think he did against Goku, anyway. He was mainly unfocused, but he seemed entirely different towards the end--so instead of some huge power increase out of nowhere, I'd say his Battle Power remained the same, except this time he just bothered to focus instead of fighting like an idiot.

When Nappa first powered-up, Piccolo was even shocked and couldn't believe he was that powerful. I believe that power is always there (in regards to scouter ratings), but it just doesn't surface until they begin to unleash it (IE Battle Ready), which is why they're often surprised at the power surge. This is why I believe Piccolo had no idea Vegeta was that powerful; he didn't get a chance to see his power revealed before that point, so all he could do was make a guess based off what was seen. It took the Saiyans to start powering-up or using attacks for them to notice how powerful they were. Hell, Goku probably didn't even think Vegeta was above Nappa until the former used that energy attack to blow Nappa up.

Hope I'm making some sense here.