Intelligence is the information a player gathers about neutral and enemy systems in Star Wars: Rebellion, where what is known at the start of a game is often incomplete or out of date. The manual's section on analyzing intelligence information treats it as a basis for anticipating attacks.

Starting information

For opposing and neutral systems, the Sector window is reliable at the start only for resources, popular support and production facilities in the core. Its reports on defenses, troops, personnel and ships may be wrong or partial, and later changes go unseen. Control and popular support in core systems are always current. The tutorial adds that without Espionage missions, the information on a target's planetary defenses may be incomplete. The information on Death Star shields is only as accurate as the last report received about them.

Sources

• Espionage missions to an enemy or neutral system make the Manufacturing and Production and System Defenses windows for it accurate, as a snapshot that can later go stale. An Espionage mission to a system the player controls helps detect enemy missions and enemy personnel on blockading fleets. Bothan Spies can perform only this mission.
• Reconnaissance missions cover facilities, military units, resources, the system's popular support and which side controls it, but not the characters and Special Forces present, and not what the Manufacturing window shows. They are the only missions that can go to an unexplored system, and the units able to carry them out are the Longprobe Y-wing Recon Team and the Imperial Probe Droid only. The same information is revealed whether or not the system is populated. See Reconnaissance mission.
• Fleets sent to an unexplored system reveal the same information as a Reconnaissance mission when they arrive, and they stay there.
• Informants on enemy systems occasionally send reports, much as if an Espionage mission had been sent. The information is often incomplete, though it can equal an Espionage report, and informants are more common in systems in uprising.
• Foiled missions are reported by the player's agents, and the Mission messages category also carries news of enemy missions that were foiled.

After a system is explored, the usual resource and loyalty bars appear under it. A system that shows no facilities, defenses or loyalty indicators is unpopulated.

Uses

The manual advises using espionage intelligence to pick out important enemy fleet headquarters. It also says that enemy sabotage of key defensive systems, or successful sabotage, may signal an imminent attack, and that repeated enemy missions against Alliance headquarters suggest it has been discovered. For the Empire, finding Alliance headquarters is a step toward victory, and the manual suggests Reconnaissance missions followed by persistent Espionage missions for the search.