From: "John Tailby"
When you have fleets of ships where the size of one combatants is
different initiative by ship gives the larger ship a significant
advantage and favours bigger ship.
You are correct. There are a couple of ways of dealing with this:
a) adjust the point value and use Combat Point Value instead of
standard NPV:
CPV = NPV - TMF + (Adjusted TMF)^2 / 100
"Adjusted TMF" is after subtracting non-combat systems, eg hangers,
passenger berths, holds, and any PTorps on Indy's ships.
Example: a mass 50 CE , 175NPV has CPV = 175 - 50 + (50^2/100) = 150
A mass 200 SDN, 700 NPV including one fighter bay, would be 700 - 200
+((200-9)^2/100) = 865
(both of these assume I've done the arithmetic correctly -- not
guaranteed).
So instead of pitting four CL against one SDN for 700 points on a
side, you should really bring more like six CLs.
b) tamper with the initiative system. Use simultaneous fire, for
instance. Or have each ship roll a d6 for its place in the firing
sequence. Ships which roll a 1 fire first (and simultaneously with
all other ships that roll 6's); surviiving ships that roll an
initiative 2 fire next, and so forth.
If you're using Crew Quality rules, then you can roll using the ship's
Quality die instead of just a d6.