W.I.P.
"row": a straight line formed of tiles.

If an element provides cover the direction your agent should stand on will shown with an eye icon. Tiles can have cover elements on multiple sides and thus provide cover from greater degrees.

A cover element will provide 180 degrees of full cover in the opposite direction of the eye, including the "row" that contains the cover element. This means you cannot be seen unless the detector is on the same "row" as the agent or beyond, no matter how far away the detector is.

This also means that if you stand between two cover elements in opposite directions, then you can only be seen if the detector is on the same "row" as the agent.

Examples:
C: a guard can stand here and cannot see the agent
#: the cover element (desk, table, wall, etc)
A: the agent

CC
CC
C#A
CC
CC

CCCCC
CCCCC
#CCCC
A
#CCCC
CCCCC
CCCCC

It does not matter how far away something is from the agent, if they have cover facing in that direction, they will not be spotted.


Credits:
Dragondave17
Teal Quest
.

This guide is intended to provide a basic understanding of the cover mechanics (cover was mentioned in other guides but so far not exactly how it works), and to have a reason to upload the advanced part which is less intuitive.

If someone wants to rewrite this guide so that it's easier to read, add me and I'll add you as a contributor.

W.I.P.

Full credits to Teal Quest for this section, which covers when you can receive an investigate marker even though the ingame UI is telling you that the move is a safe one to take.


First, lets start from a statement that there are 2 types of cover: 1 that blocks line of sight, and 2 that does not.

1. First one are walls and some other cover like bookshelves that you need to walk around to actually see what's behind them, with this type of cover, if you use it for hiding, moving to outside of guard's los won't trigger an interest point (that goes to spot by sight, as you might still trigger an interest point by sound). Since he couldn't see what's going on on that tile anyway.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315456784

Moving like this won't trigger any reaction from a guard since even though his los kind of goes through the doorway, the wall Decard uses for hiding blocks los on the tile Decard in for that guard.



2. Any other cover that does not block los will trigger an interest point from a guard on a tile that you move out from, if that guard got los on that tile. Your finish tile doesn't matter, as long as it provides no cover against a guard.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315456812

Here, even though tooltip says its a hidden location, guard got LOS on that spot...

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315456828

...so moving Decard to non-hidden spot would trigger an interest point from that guard


Note that interest point will be spawned on a tile you begin from, not finish. Also, some previously triggered interest points (like a disabled body spotted by this guard or spotted agent) might override spawning of interest point am talking about in this post.

W.I.P.

Before you read the final section, forewarned that the following may be considered an exploit. It's currently possible within the game and mechanics given current guard behaviours, so if you don't want to spoil your game or risk making things easier than perhap they should- skip this section entirely.


This final section describes how you can slip past patrol guards without using cover at all. With the game being in Early Access this may change later on, however as of current patch it's still possible, and you can decide to use it or not.

Examples:
1AA and G1: Guard will not spot agents at either A when he turns around
AA2 and G2: Guard will not spot agents at either A when he turns around
-: Guards patrol path

1AA............AA2
.G1----------G2
1AA............AA2

When guards turn around, their POV is immediately recalculated as what they can see from their new tile only, so they will completely miss agents to the side and beside and behind them this way.

This happens for all of the guards movement, so frequently you can have agents out in the open or besides doors etc and a guard will patrol past and they will never know the agent was there as long as they didn't appear in the guards 90 degree cone of vision. This means you can slip past guards sometimes without ever being in cover from them.