You're staring at the map. Three Gravity Wells under your control, two more visible through Listening Posts, and the rest is grey. Somewhere in that grey space, the enemy has a fleet. You don't know how big it is. You don't know where it's going. You just know your flank is quiet, and quiet makes you nervous.
That's what Fog of War feels like in The Outer Line.
Three states
Every Gravity Well on the map exists in one of three states. Unexplored means you've never been there. It's a grey circle on the minimap. You know it exists because the map shows it, but you have no idea what's inside, what resources it holds, or if anyone else is already there.
Explored means you've sent ships through at some point. You can see the terrain: the planet at the center, the asteroid positions, the layout. But you can't see what's happening right now. The enemy could be building a Military Station in a Gravity Well you explored ten minutes ago and you wouldn't know.
Visible means you have eyes there. Ships, a structure, a Listening Post. You see everything in real time: enemy fleets, construction, movement. The moment your last friendly unit or structure in that Gravity Well is gone, it drops back to explored. You know the geography but lose the live feed.
The cost of not looking
This system matters because of the Jump Drive. In Devlog #08, I talked about the charge-up window, how the defender gets precious seconds to prepare if they can see the attacker charging up. Fog of War is what determines whether you get that warning.
If you have a Listening Post in a nearby Gravity Well, or a Frigate on patrol, you might see the enemy fleet powering up their drives. That gives you time. Pull ships into defensive positions, activate Fortress Mode on your Battleship, call reinforcements from a neighboring Gravity Well. Without vision, the first sign of an attack is enemy ships materializing at the edge of your Gravity Well, weapons coming online, and you scrambling to react.
The difference between those two scenarios can decide a battle.
Listening Posts and scouts
Listening Posts are the cheapest structure in the game. They build fast, they die fast, and they give you sensor coverage in the Gravity Well where you place them. I covered them briefly in the structures devlog, but their real value is here, in the FoW system. A Listening Post in a Gravity Well you don't occupy means you see what happens there without committing a fleet. Early warning when someone moves in, visibility on construction, knowledge of fleet composition.
The alternative is scouts. Frigates are fast and cheap, and sending one ahead to explore a Gravity Well gives you live information. But a Frigate in enemy territory is fragile. If the enemy spots it, they'll destroy it, and now you've lost a ship and the enemy knows you were looking. Frigates also have Sensor Sweep, an ability that temporarily extends their detection range significantly. Pop it, get a snapshot of everything nearby, and decide whether to stay or run.
The Support Ship has Sensor Sweep too, which is interesting. It's a heavier, more expensive ship, so you're risking more by sending it forward, but it can take a hit that a Frigate can't. Different risk profiles for the same information-gathering job.
The Sensor Array hardpoint
There's another layer to this. Every ship has a Sensor Array as one of its hardpoints, and like all hardpoints, it can be targeted and destroyed. A ship with a crippled Sensor Array has its effective range cut in half, both for weapons and for vision. It can still fight, but it's fighting partially blind.
This connects to the hardpoint targeting system from Devlog #02 in a way I find satisfying. Destroying an enemy's Sensor Arrays before the main engagement means their fleet sees less, shoots at shorter range, and can't detect your movements as easily. It's a soft advantage that compounds over the course of a fight.
Weapon Range Extension and the vision connection
Here's something that emerged naturally from this design: since vision equals weapon range, the Weapon Range Extension module chain from the Mobile Shipyard doesn't just let your fleet shoot farther - it lets them see farther too. Installing these modules extends both the effective engagement range and the detection range of your ships globally. It's a double benefit that makes the module chain one of the most versatile investments you can make.
I keep coming back to this trade-off when I think about the FoW system. Every piece of information has a cost. A Listening Post costs Supply. A scout Frigate costs Supply and might die. A Weapon Range Extension module costs slots that could have been an Armor Plating or a Shield Capacitor. The question is always: how much is knowing worth?
What I'm still figuring out
The part I'm least confident about is the transition from visible to explored when you pull your ships out of a Gravity Well. Right now it's immediate: the moment your last unit leaves, you lose the live feed. I'm wondering if there should be a short delay, a few seconds of lingering vision, to make retreats feel less punishing. You pull your fleet out under fire, charge up the Jump Drive, and the second you leave you go blind to what the enemy does next. That feels a bit harsh. But maybe harsh is right for this game. I honestly don't know yet.
The next devlog is about the resource that makes all of this possible and all of it expensive: Supply.