I've been beta-testing the game since last February. One thing I've never liked is the balance between weapons and defenses.. What's there was fine for beta, but I was hoping for a different balance for release.

My largest point of contention is that you research ~8 technologies to get an offensive capability of 1 (per component).. Then, it's almost the same amount of work for each defense line. Why work on both, when you still need to keep up with 'social' technologies?

Then, I was wondering why it takes 10 units of internal space to weld metal to the outside of your ship.. (Specifically, the Armor Defense line of tech).

Missles should be expensive, take up a bunch of room and pack a huge punch (more than 1 for the first X techs).

So, I'm assuming these bits (cost, size and firepower) are moddable, and I'll play with them when I can.

But, the question I have here is that in playing the game, I'm getting annoyed by dread lords firing their missles and hitting me before my lasers go off. I mean, there's some time to recognise missile fire and pushing the button to fire instantly.

I was wondering if there was a way to configure 'initiative' into the battle sequence? The person attacking gets +1, defending gets 0. Lasers get +1, Rocks get 0, and Missles get -1.. There might be other initiative modifers, but I really want my beams to hit before my ship disintegrates into dust.

I'm thinking that initiative would be part of the 'decision' of which weapon path to follow (along with damage, to hit?, space and installation cost)..