Ship initiative is a feature introduced in patch 1.31 intended to make combat more balanced. If enabled, all ships of both players act in the same and every combat round, and move in order of their initiative, from the highest to the lowest.
If wait is employed ships continue to cycle in the same order until all ships are done acting.
Changes in 1.50
In 1.50 initiave is calculated in a more detailed way to avoid arbitrary ties. Instead of classic formula:
trunc[beam_attack / 10] + speed
another one is used:
beam_attack + speed * 10
This way even +1 attack makes a difference unlike in classic formula where it is lost to rounding. If initiative tie still happens the ships are further compared in the following order:
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By having ship crew, if one of the ships has no crew and the other one does, the ship without a crew acts first. The ships without crew are monsters and the Guardian.
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Else, by crew level, the ship with a higher crew level acts first.
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Else, if one of the ships is combat-only and the other one is not, the combat-only ship acts first. Combat-only ships are defensive Antarans, combat satellites, and ground defenses.
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Else, if both ships are combat-only ships, then they are compared by combat ship ID: the ship with the higher ID acts first (planet acts last with ID 0).
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Else, by crew experience points, the ship with greater crew experience acts first.
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Else, by overmap ship ID, the ship with the lower ID acts first (having a lower ID generally means the ship is older).
This leave no possibility for ties, so turn order is always determenistic.
Improved Initiative (aka Strict Combat Sequencing)
This combat mode is an 1.50 enhancement over the classic ship initiative. If enabled it also force-enables ship initiative regardless of it being enabled in the Game Settings. It changes rules for selecting which ship moves next:
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Combat is split in two stages, pre-wait and post-wait.
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In the pre-wait stage ships move as usual, in order of their initiative (highest to lowest) and can wait if they want to act later.
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In the post-wait stage, ships move in reverse order (lowest initiative to highest) and cannot use the Wait button anymore. Because the Wait button can be used only once for each ship, the player can no longer cycle ships endlessly.
Missile Initiative
In classic games with ship initiative off, missiles move at the end of each combat turn, but with ship initiative on, missiles move at the end of the next turn. In 150i, missiles move at the end of the combat turn the same way as in classic games with ship initiative off. In addition, missiles launched in different turns will not glue together. Under classic rules, missile stacks from different turns can join and form one stack.