Vision & Detection
You can only fire at what your side can see, and most of the map starts hidden. This guide covers how an Icaroid draws line of sight, how far it can see, the terrain that blinds it, what gives a hidden unit away, and how the shared fog of war remembers ground once you've laid eyes on it.
Line of sight
Sight is a straight line from the center of the observer's hex to the center of the target's, and it's fundamentally a height contest. Each Icaroid has a sighting height - the elevation of its hex plus its body height (its core and the height of its mobility parts). If any hex on the line between two units stands taller than the line of sight passing over it, the view is blocked and neither can see the other.
Each unit is measured at its own true sighting height, so the line drawn between any two units is the same in both directions - detection is always symmetric: if you can see them, they can see you, whatever the height difference between you (barring sensory impairment effects). Standing on high ground raises your line over intervening Terrain & Environment; ducking behind a tall hex, a wall, or a woodland canopy breaks it. There is one exception: anything in an adjacent hex is always visible, no matter the terrain - nothing sneaks up right beside you.
Sight range
Clear line of sight still only reaches so far. An Icaroid's base sight range comes largely from its brain - sharper brains add their thinking rate to how far the frame can see - and certain components and glyphs extend it further. Whatever the total, effective sight is hard-capped at 16 hexes: no frame sees past that, however it's kitted out.
Range and line of sight are separate gates - a target has to clear both. A unit in the open at 20 hexes is out of range even with a perfect line; a unit at 4 hexes behind a hill is in range but unseen. The Indirect Sensors effect widens the net, while Sensory Disrupted shrinks what you can detect and spot.
Terrain that blinds
Visibility is purely a matter of height. Every Terrain & Environment layer - the base type, weather, and battle damage - contributes a height modifier, and those modifiers stack into the hex's total obstruction. There is no separate "reduced" or "obscured" rating; only the effective height of the terrain and all modifiers are used in vision calculations.
- An obstruction between you and a target blocks the line when it rises into the sightline - the same rule as a hill or a tall blocker. Woodland (+4), fog (+4), a blizzard (+4), or smoke (+6) all stand tall enough to cut most ground-level sightlines.
- An obstruction on the tile a unit is standing in works the other way: it conceals that unit. The obstruction's size is subtracted from the unit's height, so a mech hiding in fog or woodland is harder to spot - and also sees, and shoots, less of the field itself. Cover cuts your own firing lines by exactly as much as it cuts your sightlines: a frame tucked into woodland cannot put direct fire over a wall it can't see past. Depressions count too. A sunken crater from a powerful blast or a dust flat reduces the effective height of a terrain hex - it breaks up a unit's silhouette just as cover does, concealing whatever sits in it.
So weather and cover are blindness you can position around or hide behind. Fog that collapses a sniper line into close-range brawling can be exactly what a short-ranged force wants; a clear lane across open plains is a killing field for whoever sees down it first.
Being seen
Detection goes both ways: the same height that lets a tall frame see far also makes it easy to spot. By default an Icaroid can be picked out from roughly twice its height in hexes away - a squat height-3 frame stays hidden until something closes to 6 hexes, while a towering height-12 Titan is visible from almost anywhere on the map, wherever it tries to hide.
Consider height when designing your units. You usually want your heaviest guns to be in range of an enemy while not allowing effective return fire; a very tall sniper is extremely effective if it can outrange and outrun its opponents, while a unit mounting only melee weapons generally wants to be as low to the ground and sneaky as possible. Several glyphs and components shrink a frame's detectable profile further. Pick a height that matches the role - a spotter wants to see; a flanker wants to not be seen.
The fog of war
Ground you've never seen is shrouded - you can't see its terrain type or height until your side draws line of sight to it. Once you've seen a hex, it's remembered: it stays on your map as dimmed, last-known information even after you look away. That memory shows the lay of the land, but it is not live - it won't reveal an enemy slipping through a hex you can no longer see, and information about temporary weather or terrain destruction effects may go out of date.
You don't start completely blind. Your whole deployment zone is seeded into that memory from turn one, so you begin a battle already knowing your own ground (see Deployment & Setup). And some frames see without a clear line at all: Indirect Sensors do not use line-of-sight rules, and a planted Beacon Signal broadcasts targeting data from where it sits.
Putting it together
Vision is shared across your side and gated by two things at once: a clear, height-winning line of sight, and range under the 16-hex cap. Reduced terrain trims that reach, obscured terrain cuts it dead, tall frames are spotted from far off, and some weather effects may cause partial or total concealment - all while the fog of war keeps the unseen map dark and the once-seen map dimly remembered. Win the sight game and you'll have the opportunity to shoot first and pick your target; lose it and you eat fire from an enemy you can't attack easily in return. Pair this with Terrain & Environment for what blocks a line of sight and Movement & Positioning for how to get your eyes where they matter.