I talked to a guy who was retired from the Air Force about this. He said they had nods that combined them. IIRC he said they were about 60k each. I googled it and can only find articles saying they are coming out, so I'm not too helpful with that part of the question.
I have been on two night hog hunts in Texas. Night vision goggles are good for walking around, but the nv scopes, and the guides had high end stuff, were blown away by the thermals. (xp50). I was really impressed with how well I could see the hogs with the thermal. It is literally amazing.
With my very limited experience, I think the best way to do it would be night vision goggles on a flip up mount on a helmet or hard hat, then a gun mounted thermal scope. Even better would be a hand held thermal to scan with and a thermal scope on the rifle.
If i lived in Texas, my first purchase would be a thermal scope in a quick release mount, then later NV goggles. I think on my budget I'd look for a Pulsar XQ30 (iirc) which should be $3k, then later a set of NV googles, gen 3, manual gain, autogated, with the lifetime warranty. If I could afford it, the white phosphor ones. Those can be found used for about $3K also.
There are some good Youtube videos that compare the two side by side. In reality, I don't think there is much of a comparison. Thermal is much better for the scope.
Last edited by IDMilton; 01/22/20.
