by Hannibal Rex
We already have RotA at our gaming table. I played Rho Indi in my first game, and I got a harsh reminder on the importance of initiative in that one, though the circumstances were a little different.The Syndicate can make good use out of interceptors, and they have to, since they get no dreadnoughts. But even their interceptors are fragile, and losing them hurts since they cost 4 materials instead of 3.
I made one huge mistake regarding initiative in that game: The Lyrans had shut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy, and had just started to build orbitals. I upgraded the Jump Drive I had held in reserve onto my cruisers, and attacked them. He built a couple of starbases and moved some ships up.
I upgraded my ships for combat, and here's the kicker: As nice as the Jump Drive is, it doesn't provide initiative at all. But since it would be gone forever if I removed it, I left it in place. Big mistake. With a regular drive, my cruisers would have shot before his starbases. As it turned out, he got the first salvo, and he rolled hits with all his dice, blowing up two cruisers and winning the combat without losses eventually.
There's one key element to the initiative inflation issue: There were already the Ion Missiles discovery from Supernova, providing 3 yellow dice. So when the Flux Missiles got designed, someone probably thought, "2 dice and one initiative makes them rather lackluster compared to Ion Missiles, better give them more initiative." The inflation on the other components probably started there.