TerraBite Exploration Guide: Fog of War, Scanning & Map Discovery

Exploration is TerraBite's opening game — a 21×21 sector map shrouded in fog until you spend Energy to scan. Revealed terrain unlocks building placement, deposit discovery, and contamination readouts. This guide explains discovery states, scan costs, routing strategy, and research that changes how far you see in Phase 1 prototype.

Start with the Beginner guide, then play TerraBite and scan your first ring of neighbors.

The three discovery states

• hidden — Fully obscured by fog of war.
• scannable — Adjacent to revealed territory; can be scanned for energy.
• revealed — Terrain, contamination, and deposits visible; buildings can be placed.

At game start, a small central area is already revealed — terrain, contamination, and any deposits there are visible immediately. Everything else begins hidden. Hidden tiles adjacent to revealed territory become scannable automatically; you pay Energy to scan them into revealed status.

After each successful scan, newly adjacent hidden tiles flip to scannable. Exploration propagates outward like a frontier — you cannot skip into the map interior without revealing a chain of sectors.

Scan mechanics

Cost

Base scan cost is 10 Energy per sector. The actual cost uses your current research bonuses:

• Efficient Scanning (100 Data) — 10% reduction
• Minimum cost floors at 1 Energy per scan

Energy is deducted immediately on successful scan. Failed scans (wrong state, insufficient Energy) cost nothing.

Requirements

To scan a tile:

1. It must be in scannable state — not hidden, not already revealed. 2. You must have enough Energy (respecting your cap — you need available stored Energy, not just production rate). 3. Select the tile and trigger scan from the tile inspector.

If the inspector shows "Sector not in scan range," the tile is still hidden — reveal a neighbor first.

What scanning reveals

Revealed sectors display:

• Terrain type — Barren Wasteland, Industrial Ruins, Wetland Basin, Reclaimed Forest, Exposed Bedrock, or Toxic Sector
• Contamination — 0–100 percentage in tile inspector
• Resource deposits — materials, water, data, or biomass traces where present
• Scan flavor text — terrain-specific messages like "Groundwater traces detected" or "Old industrial ruins detected"

Deposit discovery titles include "MATERIAL RESERVES DETECTED," "SUBSURFACE WATER DETECTED," "TERRA SIGNAL DETECTED," and "BIOLOGICAL MATTER DETECTED" depending on deposit type.

Deposit Analysis research (180 Data) adds quality labels to deposit readouts in the inspector — valuable for picking optimal Salvage and Data Relay sites.

Map navigation

Pan and zoom

Drag to pan across the 21×21 grid. Zoom controls (and scroll) adjust camera from 0.5× to 2.3× — default zoom is 0.85×. Use zoom out for frontier planning; zoom in for tile selection accuracy.

Tile selection and inspector

Click a sector to select it. The tile inspector panel shows summary data collapsed, full detail expanded:

• Sector coordinates (SECTOR XX-YY format)
• Terrain and contamination
• Deposit information
• Building status and output on occupied tiles
• Scan cost display on scannable tiles
• Action buttons — scan, build, upgrade

Sector labels help communicate map position when planning scan routes across long sessions with localStorage autosaves every 30 seconds.

Exploration strategy

Ring expansion

The default approach: scan outward in concentric rings from your revealed center. Each ring costs Energy proportional to tile count — the frontier grows roughly as radius squared.

At 10 Energy per scan, budgeting 100 starting Energy means roughly ten scans if you spend nothing else — but you need Energy for buildings too. See Energy guide.

Targeted scouting

Before scanning an entire ring, prioritize directions that lead toward terrain you need:

• Wetland scans for Water Extractor deposits
• Ruins scans for Salvage and Data Relay deposits
• Toxic sector scans for high-contamination restoration challenges

You cannot see hidden terrain type before scanning — but map edge exploration eventually hits all terrain weights from generation (wasteland, ruins, forest, wetland, rock, contaminated).

Energy cap and Battery Nodes

Large scan sessions drain Energy fast. If production refills your cap between scans but you want burst exploration, build Battery Nodes (+50 cap) before marathon scanning. Efficient Scanning research reduces per-tile cost — unlock early if you explore aggressively.

Long Range Protocol

Long Range Protocol (350 Data, requires Deposit Analysis) adds +1 scan range. Normally only tiles directly adjacent to revealed sectors become scannable. With this research, hidden tiles two steps away from any revealed sector also become scannable — skipping intermediate rings for frontier jumps.

This dramatically accelerates late-map discovery on the full 21×21 grid. Prioritize if your goal is map completion over tight early economy.

Scan failure messages

Common failures and fixes:

Exploration and building placement

Buildings require revealed tiles. The build menu locks on hidden or scannable sectors with "Sector must be scanned first." Plan scan order before hauling Materials to a build site you cannot yet access.

Deposit-dependent buildings (Salvage Station, Water Extractor, Data Relay) need both revealed tiles and visible deposits — scanning is not optional for those economies.

Exploration and contamination

Contamination values appear only on revealed tiles. Scanning toxic sectors exposes high contamination readouts (Toxic Sector base 80) before you commit Bio-Reclaimers. See Contamination guide.

Scanning does not change contamination — it only reveals existing values.

Central TERRA node

The map center hosts your TERRA network node — the starting anchor of your revealed area. It is not a buildable tile but orients you on the grid. Exploration radiates outward from this restored core.

What exploration is not

Phase 1 prototype has no multiplayer shared maps, no cloud-synced exploration progress across devices, and no combat encounters during scans. Fog of war is purely informational — hidden sectors do not attack or decay.

For hex exploration genre context, see the hex strategy game hub and browser games with persistent progress.

Related guides

• Energy guide — scan budgeting and Battery Nodes
• Data guide — Efficient Scanning and Long Range Protocol
• Materials guide — finding ruins deposits
• Water guide — finding aquifers

Return to the Guides hub or play TerraBite and push your frontier one scan at a time.