in what situations do you want initiative?

there are some situations when initiative is bad right?

example. two players have a PS9 pilot. the player who has initiative has the advantage of firing first but also moves first and places their ship first right? isnt this bad?

Depends if you care about that or not. For example, in the case of whisper vs fel, whisper wants initiative because she wants to fire first, getting her ACD to trigger and giving her 4 evade vs Fel's return fire. Fel doesn't want initiative because he wants to move after Whisper and rely on his arc dodging tricks to deny her a shot completely thus negating the advantage whisper has of shooting first.

However, if I was playing whisper vs Fel I might decide to forego having the initiative to deny Fel the better opportunity to arc dodge me, accepting that the advantage of moving after Fel outweighs the advantage of having my ACD trigger.

Of course, this decision won't be made in the vacuum of Whisper vs Fel. There's the rest of both lists which will also effect the decision. If Vader was with Fel, then as Whisper I'm going to be thinking that having potentially two ships shooting me without cloaking up is too risky to give up the initiative.

Ultimately neither having initiative or not having initiative is better. They're both just things. Which thing is better will be completely depended on the lists being flown and what stratergy you think will work best for you based on this.

For this reason, it's best when building a list to figure out when you want initiative and when you don't against specific pilots and ships. You won't always have the choice, but making the right choice at the right times will give you a huge advantage and improve your game immensely.

EDIT: typos

Correct, if you have a ship capable of repositioning you want to move last. Honestly with simultaneous fire moving last is usually better. Some times when it's not is when you have good blockers and you want to shoot before whisper reloaks.

In most matchups it a question of blocking versus arc dodging. Usually when you have low PS ships you want to block while high PS wants to dodge.

When ps is equal swarms usually want initiative, while elites often don't.

One of the few exceptions are Whisper vs Han (or Echo vs Chiraneau etc.), because Han can get a shot of on Whisper no matter where he goes and wants to shoot before whisper recloacks.

If PS isn't equal anywhere in the lists obstacle placement is the biggest consideration.

In a match where it looks like it won't matter (e.g. your pilot skills are all lower than the opponent's, or higher) always take initiative. For practical reasons, this helps with placing the first asteroid.

For the insanely unlikely, but good-to-keep-in-mind-in-case-it-happens situation of your last ship and your opponent's last ship both being at pilot skill 0 due to a Damaged Cockpit crit, and you simultaneously fire and both destroy each other, the player with initiative wins. Is this likely? Not at all. Could it happen? Yes. If initiative doesn't matter for anything other than rock placement, you may as well take it for contingency purposes.

If you're using ordnance vs. low PS ships odds are good that you don't want initiative. In a recent game I gave it up just so that my Zs could lock all homing missiles on a Black Sun Enforcer, and it was rewarded with the bloody thing blowing up.

In a match where it looks like it won't matter (e.g. your pilot skills are all lower than the opponent's, or higher) always take initiative. For practical reasons, this helps with placing the first asteroid.

For the insanely unlikely, but good-to-keep-in-mind-in-case-it-happens situation of your last ship and your opponent's last ship both being at pilot skill 0 due to a Damaged Cockpit crit, and you simultaneously fire and both destroy each other, the player with initiative wins. Is this likely? Not at all. Could it happen? Yes. If initiative doesn't matter for anything other than rock placement, you may as well take it for contingency purposes.

Placing the 1, 3, and 5 rocks are potent.

Placing the 2, 4, and 6 rocks are also potent.

The former describes location, and the latter describes shape/density.

If you have a bunch of ps2's and your opponent has a bunch of ps2's, then initiative sounds super good. Being able to move first (not getting action blocked) AND shooting first? But like said above, for arc dodgers, sometimes being the last one to move is more important. What's really important here is that sometimes, you need the choice for initiative or not.

In a match where it looks like it won't matter (e.g. your pilot skills are all lower than the opponent's, or higher) always take initiative. For practical reasons, this helps with placing the first asteroid.

For the insanely unlikely, but good-to-keep-in-mind-in-case-it-happens situation of your last ship and your opponent's last ship both being at pilot skill 0 due to a Damaged Cockpit crit, and you simultaneously fire and both destroy each other, the player with initiative wins. Is this likely? Not at all. Could it happen? Yes. If initiative doesn't matter for anything other than rock placement, you may as well take it for contingency purposes.

If you tie, you tie. Init doesn't determine who wins anymore in that respect.

Placing asteroids first really made a difference for me my last couple of games yesterday. Yeah, I still lost, but being able to force aggressors to deal with a dense asteroid cluster in the middle of the map is sweet.