while not required, aerial reconnaissance is usually necessary for victory. dedicated reconnaissance squadrons (and combat squadrons, if necessary) fly circuitous routes across the search board. the controlling player may ask his opponent if ships are present in any space flown over. however, asking about "every" space flown over tends to reveal to the opponent where the plane originated from. once ships are encountered, the controlling player may elect to spend extra fuel to refine the search results. depending on success, the opponent may report simply that "ships are present", that "[up to double the actual number of ships] are present", or potentially an exact number of ships by class are present.