I usually play with a friend and while we have game pretty much down there's one thing I don't full understand while watching other people online play armada. How does tracing line of sight work?

I was under the assumption that you traced from the yellow dot and had to keep the firing stick parallel to the green (imperial) or red (rebel) line of sight lines. However i've seen people just ignore the yellow dot and as long as the firing stick is parallel with the green (Imperial) or red (rebel) line you could fire from any part of the cardboard edge. Is this right? Because then what's the point of the yellow dot?

1) Measure to see that Any Part of the Target Enemy Hull Zone is Within your Arc of Fire.

2) Measure Dot to Dot, to determine that you have line of sight (ie, that it is not obstructed), and that you can actually see the target Hull Zone (ie, its not hiding behind the enemy ship while you're in the Front.

3) Measure Range, based on the Closest Points between Your Ship, and His Target Zone, that is within your Firing Arc... (If you only Graze the back part of his hull zone with your arc, that's where you need to measure range to.

Essentially, the important part of doing 2) is to make sure that your shot is not obstructed by an obstacle (and thus, losing a die), or that you're not targeting a part of the ship you can't actually "See"...

14 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

2) Measure Dot to Dot, to determine that you have line of sight (ie, that it is not obstructed), and that you can actually see the target Hull Zone (ie, its not hiding behind the enemy ship while you're in the Front.

To amplify this a bit...

Things that obstruct line of sight and decrease your dice pool by 1:
Other ships (including the plastic base, but not including the shield dials or frames)
Obstacles

Things that deny line of sight and prevent you from having a shot at all:
Hull zones on the target ship other than the target hull zone
Dust Field (for ships only)

Things that someone somewhere will tell you deny line of sight but don't:
Your own hull zones, even those other than the one you're attacking from

Here's something someone put together:

Like the others said above, answer the questions 3 ere the attack you'll see.

1. Is it in arc?

2. What is the range and do you have the weapons to hit it?

3. Do you have LOS from your hull zone to his? This is connect the dots.

I always make it a point to emphasize that the three checks are entirely independent of each other. (the range-in-arc is sort of dependant, but not really)

Check the Arc. Check the Range. Check the LOS. One does not affect the other.