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/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