q about initiative

[da_hal]

i remember initiative used to be overpowered in 1.2, but i thought it was disabled in 1.31, eg. attacker always gets first attack. but, i've seen some posts here where people "like the new initiative rules."

is there something i'm missing?

[vmxa1]

Version 1.31 Changes
====================

New Features
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Tactical combat ship initiative is now an option on the Game/Settings screen. When this option is enabled, ships in combat will move in the order of their initiative rating. The initiative rating is equal to the ship's total beam offense bonus divided by 10 plus the ship's
current combat speed [Offense/(10+speed)]. Thus, smaller ships should move before bigger, slower ones.
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This is the way to go IMO. You must select it, so many people may not even be using it.

[Iasius]

"ship's total beam offense bonus divided by 10 plus the ship's
current combat speed" actually is an equation that looks like initiative = offense / 10 + speed.
Otherwise slower ships fire earlier.
Just wanted to point that out.

[da_hal]

thanks for the clarification

[vmxa1]

One thing you can do on early missile ships to improve init is to not fill it all the way up.
Watch as you add components to the ship combat speed. This can be critical for some early battles.

[da_hal]

i was messing around a little bit with initiative. why do battlestations/star fortresses always seem to go last, while star bases seem to go sooner? i seldom build anything bigger than a battleship nowadays, but even bships seems terribly slow.

[Iasius]

Because early in the game ships are usually slower than later because of inferior drives. Also, in the beginning with say positronic computers, the fact that a star base has a battle scanner (if the tech is researched) gives it usually quite an initiative boost.
For example:
star base initiative: (75 + 50) / 10 + 0 = 12.5
bb initiative: 25 / 10 + 9 = 11.5
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star fortress: 125 + 50 / 10 + 0 = 17,5
bb: 100 / 10 + 16 = 26

So, because speed (and experience) goes up for ships in late game and bases just get better computers ships tend move before bases in late game pretty much every time.

[vmxa1]

Slap in those augmented engines to up the combat speed and hence the init.