initiative sinks

[Shadow Queen]

what is the initiative sinks ?

 

[Tankdriver]

I believe initiative sinks are small ships that are bought in bunches and moved early in the turn so that your larger ships can get better position on the enemies larger ships.

 

[noobdelux]

exactly what he said

 

[inq101]

Especialy useful when you need to line up boresighted weapons.

 

[darknight]

its like all stopping a ship as well so that it puts initiative onto your opponent so he moves first allowing you a possible shot or advantage

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Since when do you ask noob questions, Shadow Queen? You've been at this longer than I have, haven't you? :?

 

[lastbesthope]

Initiative sinks don't have to be small, say a Victory had a Speed 0 crit, might as well declare it's movement first and use it as an initiative sink.

LBH

 

[Banichi]

A carrier that is safely out of the way, and busy spiting out flights is also good.

 

[Greg Smith]

Or a scout, lurking behind asteroids.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Even ships in hyperspace can be initiative sinks, can't they? They have to activate in the turn as normal, but only have one option - IJP! - so if they don't open the jump point this turn they can init sink.

 

[Blu_Majik]

in my list it's usually some Ka'toc.

alltohough the police cutter is now a two for one! ideal Narn initiative sink IMO.

 

[Shadow Queen]

I was not sure what it was that was all, so I asked

 

[Iain McGhee]

Even ships in hyperspace can be initiative sinks, can't they? They have to activate in the turn as normal, but only have one option - IJP! - so if they don't open the jump point this turn they can init sink.

Afraid not, if you have them IJP then you have to open the point when you declare the SA. Otherwise they can't be activated.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Must have changed it for 2nd ed, I'm sure you could do that in 1st ed... :?

 

[Iain McGhee]

You weren't supposed to be able to do that in 1e either, it was clarified in the forums (and/or Armageddon) at some point.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Ah right. That's my memory for you...

 

[Kyle81]

This was my biggest issue with the 1e that I wanted fixed, but the initiative system in CTA is still a broken mess. The initiative rules more than anything needed a complete revision. Swarm fleets are still much more effective than majority of large ship fleets in the game. They buffed up larger ships, but still only ships that can really effectively battle swarms are those with special attributes like shields and adaptive armor. For many races, taking large ships is just stupid still, when taking tons of initiative sinks and loading up on tons of attack dice is the way to win.

 

[madpax]

There was a good space fighter game (sorry, can't remember the name), where you use a similar initiative rule. But, the one winning the initiative could always keep a spacefighter as the last unit moving, thus after all enemy units, even if being overwhelmed.

Marc

 

[Chernobyl]

FASA's Starship Tactical Combat Simulator dealt with the problem differently. You had to count up the number of ships (they didn't have squadrons) and compare the numbers.
If you had more ships than your enemy, you had to move 2 ships every activation until you had an equal number ship ships left unmoved.
if you had between 3x and 2x more ships than your enemy, you moved 3 ships every activation until you had an equal number, and so on.
they also had 3 movement phases, and could fire a particular weapon in only one of them (IIRC)
It nearly cancels out the movement advantage of high activation fleets.

So, if you have 8 ships, and your enemy has 5. You win initiative, and elect him to move first.

so it goes like this (bold face indicating your movement)

1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1

if he had won initiative, and elected you to move first, it would be

2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

so the initiative winner still gets to move last. it not terribly unbalanced, and it works.

Chernobyl

 

[Voronesh]

Yer i know their system from battletech.

Though for some reason i like the initiative system. Maybe because it keeps swamers viable. (sometimes a little bit too much). With the FASA system, one ship fleets, would mean a standard Drazi fleet is NOT going to get a single boresight targeted.

The current system has some kinks, but it kinda needs to be this way for boresights.