Bret Devereaux

But there's also what the game calls (somewhat misleadingly) ELINT, by which it means passive radar detection. Radar can give you a precise fix on a target (but not tell you what it is) at 750km, but it tells every ELINT system in 1500km your general direction and range.

You have ELINT too, of course, but it can't see enemy groups that don't run their radar. You also have IRST, infrared tracking, which can track things out to around 300km. Much shorter range, but works on everything, totally passive.

Finally, you can decode radio intercepts, though the information you get is often fragmentary and requires other information (like knowing enemy callsigns) to interpret. Capturing enemy signals relays helps with filling in which callsigns are convoys and which are strike groups.

All of this forces the player to work under situations of uncertainty. You can't leave the radar on, because strike groups will just lob radar-seeking cruise missiles at unknown radar signals. Enemies that spot you will try to report your location...

...which brings strike groups to try to engage you directly, but also potentially long range missile and air-strikes. Its often best to avoid until you can fight on ground of your choosing, but to avoid you have to know where the enemy is!

So you are left guessing, trying to correlate that ELINT contact with the radio intercepts you are getting, trying to keep a mental map of the intel you have (all of which becomes more dated by the second) to process the intel you are getting.

Every so often you might get some quality human intelligence (HUMINT) from a settlement, but that too begins aging from the second you get it. Worse yet: stick around too long repairing or refueling and the locals will sell you out to the enemy.

In short, the game actually simulates a fog of war.And it's kind of brilliant. In most games, the 'fog of war' is just a binary: you can see perfectly where your units are and not at all where they aren't. Highfleet forces you to deal with variable and uncertain information.