I don't see how tech trees complicate matters. I mean look at the combat attack / defence modifiers: They are calculated battle by battle according to a combination of hull ability, racial bonuses, ship experience, fleet experience and researchable components - exactly what we are proposing for initiative - and that works fine.
Sure, it would probably require a major re-write to many parts of the game, but I should think much of it could be copy/ pasted from the code which controls the other combat modifiers.
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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to
my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.