[ThunderCactus]

fake opscore is $90
NOTE: there have been issues with the shroud on some of them, some have required time consuming modification to make it work

rhino mount an J-arm are $200, but both are ITAR restricted so you need to find them second hand or "know a guy". If shipping from the UK, use royal mail since it transfers to canadapost and doesn't go through the US.
NOTE: DO NOT cheap out on the rhino mount and J-arm, the rhino is bungee'd to your helmet, but if a shitty chinese mount or plastic J-arm snap, that's your $500-$3000 NVD falling 5-6ft onto concrete.

As for the NVD, I've used yukon gen1 for a few years (which is one of THE BEST gen1 manufacturers), and recently switched to gen2-HP (high end gen2). I've looked through many cheap gen1 units, high end gen3s, and a low gen2 (~$1200) NVD. So I know what I'm talking about here.
There's a major performance gap between a $500 yukon and a $2200 night optics D300-HP, and in MY opinion, it's not worth buying anything in between.

Yukon Gen1 advantages are;
-same resolution as low-mid range gen2 at 38lp/mm
-incredible clarity due to there being no noise in the tube
(noise is the static in the tube image)
-near perfect quality tubes, no dead spots or blemishes
-very affordable at $300-$500 (yukon NVMT and NVMT riflescope)
-very low backsplash, because the gain is very low, there isn't a lot of light emitted out the viewing end of the tube, so it doesn't light up the area around your eye like a gen3 tube does.

Disadvantages:
-fish bowling. There's a 15deg cone in the middle that good, and continuing out to the 30deg field of view you get pretty disorienting fish bowling.
-obviously it doesn't have a lot of gain compared to gen2, still better than nothing.
-manual focus; you will constantly be refocusing if you're using it to walk around, about every 5ft out to 25ft you need to refocus to see properly, and every 20ft beyond that. The tube is nice and clear, but the lack of gain makes it very difficult to identify objects that aren't in focus.
-near sightedness; if it's rifle mounted, and you turn the integrated IR illuminator on, and the IR light glares off your RIS or front sight, it will cut your viewing range down to about 10ft. It will naturally focus on whatever is close. I was using mine to spot moose on a road trip, and couldn't see past the high beams due to the glare off the road, put a pillow on the dash to cut the glare and I could easily see up to 600ft.
-halo; even something as small as a keychain LED will cause some crazy halo in gen1. Most people don't know this, but the halo will reduce your ability to spot anything around it, so you can actually hide very successfully behind a torch or dim light source against someone with gen1, whereas someone would spot you with a naked eye easily. But this doesn't work for autogating and halo resistant NVD's

Specifically where I've found the performance gap is in the low end gen2 tubes, where the noise is just so bad that the extra gain doesn't actually provide an advantage over regular gen1. You can see the terrain better, but you can't necessarily identify targets due to the noise.
We had a guy come out with one of those low end monoculars, and it was his gen2 against my gen1. It was pretty dark so my gen1 was just about useless, but he ended up team killing 2 people.
Focusing is also a bit of an issue with the low end gen2, but I found with the high end gen2, the gain is high enough and the noise is low enough that you can still identify things out of focus. So I set the focus between 80&120ft and it's pretty satisfactory.

As for the idea of actually walking around with gen1, I definitely would not recommend it.
Some people do it, and it works for them, but I couldn't stand it. Between the fish bowling, lack of gain, and constant adjusting of focus, it was easier to just rifle mount it, and then just point it when I figured there was something that needed looking at lol

Now if you've read all that, I should add; There ARE some digitally advanced gen1 units out there in the $400-$1000 range. Reviews say they're "good" but there's no basis on which to trust a review. Most youtube videos of gen1 and subsequent digitally advanced models are often staged. They'll be on particularly bright moonlit nights, or there will be an IR light source somewhere illuminating the area so when they take the camera off the NVD it seems pitch black.
Anyway, I have not tried any of these myself, but I'd advise you to be very wary of them, make sure you check the waterproofing ratings and battery life on them, read reviews on reliability and TUBE LIFE. No need to spend $600 on NVD every 3 years lol