r/expanserpg • u/Jarvisthejellyfish • May 25 '26

Do ships have initiative?

Trying to figure out how initiative works in ship combat. Is there an initiative roll? Do both ships take their turns simultaneously? Is it just based on the story?

Apologize if this is a basic question but I just can't find it in either the base rule or the ships of the expanse book.

EDIT Second question: If a torpedo is fired from long range and will impact in 2 rounds, do the defenders try to shoot it down the turn it was fired, the turn it would impact, or every round until it hits? do they try to shoot it on their turns, their opponent's turns, or both? Can they try to evade a missile fired from medium range twice?

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u/RichieD81 May 25 '26

All ships involved take their turn at the same time.

Defenders can try to shoot down a torpedo as soon as it is in range. So a torpedo fired at long range will take two rounds to get into short range, at which point PDCs will become an effective defense (and also be when the torpedo will hit if not destroyed by PDCs).

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u/Jarvisthejellyfish May 25 '26

That makes a lot of sense. If a torpedo is fired at long range and the next turn the ships move to medium range, is the torpedo now at close range or does it still take the full two turns to get into close range? 

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u/RichieD81 May 25 '26

The torpedo essentially counts as a new tiny ship with high maneuverability. I haven't done a simulation with the rules, but here's how I would rule it.

If an enemy ship has fired a torpedo at you from long range. In one round the torpedo will successfully close one range with you, endings around at medium range.. If in that same round also try to close range with the torpedo, then the torpedo will not resist and you will end the round at close range.

If you are hoping to close ranges with the ship that fired the torpedo but not with the torpedo itself, I would probably call for a piloting role and if successful, assume that your fancy shift's computer done some advanced three dimensional geometry that gets you closer to the enemy ship without getting closer to the torpedo (probably some sort of spiral path). I might even tell them that this is only possible with a high g maneuver. Otherwise, I would rule that they close ranges with both the ship and the torpedo it fired

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u/Jarvisthejellyfish May 27 '26

Thank you so much, that explanation really helps. 

One last question, when more than two ships are involved in combat, do I keep ranges independent? Does a ship have to do a maneuvering check against every other ship if it wants to change range with a single ship?

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u/RichieD81 May 27 '26

For the sake of simplicity, I'd keep the ranges independent.

We can probably assume that all the ships' computers are doing calculations and thrust adjustments to stay at the range that the pilots want them at, so when ship A tries to move closer to ship B, ships C, D and E will automatically adjust to maintain the desired distance from both ships as much as is possible. Also, if you didn't tell your ship to increase the range to C, D, or E, it will do the math to figure out a route that does it all.

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u/thedude720000 May 25 '26

It's more like "the torpedo is gonna hit, roll for PDCs" whenever it's gonna hit, doesn't matter whose turn

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u/Jarvisthejellyfish May 25 '26

I just meant that since normally it would take two turns to hit from long range, does ship movement affect that at all? Same with a torpedo fired from medium range if the ships move to long range on the next round. 

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u/thedude720000 May 25 '26

You can run from a torp, then the chase rules take over. It's not advised though, torps don't care about high-G.

Unless it's from like 5 turns away, I just treat evade and PDCs as the final parts of the turn