Federation Commander

Do labs need line of sight to gather data? Would line of sight be blocked by planets and asteroids and such?

I asked a similar question in regard to the Raid on a Mining Planet scenario that I wrote. I wanted to find out how scanning various hex sides of a planet would work. The answer I got back was that there had to be a line of sight to scan a hexside of a planet.

This is probably not exactly what you wanted to know, though. Are you asking, does a planet or asteroid block scanning from occurring if it is between the object doing the scanning and the object it is attempting to scan?

While it isn't explicitly stated, I would apply the rules in (6A1d) and (6A2) for direct-fire weapons to labs (and transporters, for that matter). So "line of sight/fire" is required, but only a planet can block it (moons and asteroids won't).

OK. I had already figured LOS was needed for transporters (you have to "aim" the beam).

Cool, this means that parking on the other side of a planet actually does confuse scanners--as we see so many times in Sci-Fi series.

Thanks Mike!