Right up-front, I'm going to point out I'm not a tournament player, which is why I'm asking the larger crowd to tell me just how bad this would be!

One thing I've noticed with the point costs is that it seems like FFG severely undercosts initiative values. They're basically fixed cost of 1 point per level - going from IN 1 to IN 2 costs 1 point, as does going from IN 5 to IN 6. So, raising a ship from IN 1 to IN 6 would cost a total of 5 points. This seems to bear out pretty well with most ship prices (especially if you look at rev 1 of the 2.0 points!)

This is part of what leads to ships in the middle ranges of IN not being terribly useful - IN 3 isn't really good at blocking or at being an ace, since IN 1 is cheaper, but IN 5 only costs 2 more points.

But what if the cost to increase initiative wasn't constant? What the number of points to go up was linear? IN 0 -> IN 1 cost 1 point. IN 1 -> IN 2 cost 2 points, all the way up to IN 5 -> IN 6 costing 6 points.

That would make the difference between an IN 3 ship and an IN 5 ship cost 9 points, instead.

Would this lead to more of the mid-range IN pilots being taken? Or would it just lead to the death of aces, and the domination of low-IN swarms?

What would be the effect on list building?

I really don't know where you saw that going from Init 5 to 6 costed only 1 point. It really depends on the chassis for one, but looking at acey high initiative pilot :
Guri pays 10 points to go from initiative 4 to 5, and arguably she gets a discount on that because she loses the focus action, so it might be closer to 12.
Blackout (with a fairly useless ability) cost 6 points more on his chassis to go from Init4 (with another meh ability) to 5.
Fenn Rau pays an extra 12 points on a chassis that can't even double repo to go from 5 to 6.

in average, if the ship has at least one repo action, the jump from 4 to 5 seems to be around 6 points, and if it's a double repo that goes from 5 to 6 it's more like 12 or 13 points, like with anakin in the delta.

However, i still think you are right on one thing. In most case, being Init2 is worse than Init1, because being very low initiative, you probably were not counting on arc dodging or init killing in the first place, and so taking a init1 to at least get consistent blocking is just better. Saving a point here and there is just cherry on top. Honestly, I think most chassis shouldn't bother with having both a Init1 and Init2 generic, because one of those might as well not exist. Init1 should maybe be reserved only for swarmy ship that dies fast, Init2 for the base generic of most chassis.

As of the July 2020 points update, Rebel Han Solo (IN 6) in a YT-1300 is 79 points. Rebel Lando Calrissian (IN 5) in the same ship is 78 points. So it's not like they've entirely moved away from IN 5->6 being one point.

Even aside from that, as they've adjusted points over time, the jump from IN 5 to 6 has gotten higher for some pilots, but it's more about particular pilots with their abilities in particular ships rather than an overall cost to an increase in initiative.

Plus, they haven't really adjusted 4->5 much at all, much less the lower initiatives (see the cost of Thane Kyrell vs Garven Dreis, for example).

My basic thoughts were:

1. Spread out the costs more, and there's less incentive to just jump up to a higher IN, thus making the middle INs more useful - if the higher INs are more rare, having a higher IN than the opposing ship, even if only IN 2 over IN 1, becomes more useful.
2. It might just swing things too far in that direction, making it so there's no point in ever taking a high IN pilot, because the cost is too high.

I'm really not sure which of those is more true.

4 hours ago, Freeptop said:

As of the July 2020 points update, Rebel Han Solo (IN 6) in a YT-1300 is 79 points. Rebel Lando Calrissian (IN 5) in the same ship is 78 points. So it's not like they've entirely moved away from IN 5->6 being one point.

Even aside from that, as they've adjusted points over time, the jump from IN 5 to 6 has gotten higher for some pilots, but it's more about particular pilots with their abilities in particular ships rather than an overall cost to an increase in initiative.

Plus, they haven't really adjusted 4->5 much at all, much less the lower initiatives (see the cost of Thane Kyrell vs Garven Dreis, for example).

My basic thoughts were:

1. Spread out the costs more, and there's less incentive to just jump up to a higher IN, thus making the middle INs more useful - if the higher INs are more rare, having a higher IN than the opposing ship, even if only IN 2 over IN 1, becomes more useful.
2. It might just swing things too far in that direction, making it so there's no point in ever taking a high IN pilot, because the cost is too high.

I'm really not sure which of those is more true.

For Lando and Han, the difference is only a point because Lando's ability is tremendously good (free range 3 coordinate every turn). Some high IN pilots should probably go up, as many aces are underpriced (which is a discussion for a whole other time, definitely ties into player skill level where things are fair for casual play but top caliber players can exploit certain ships and make them provide much more value than their cost).

I think the main issue is that I3-4 generics across the board are too expensive and don't really justify the bonus points from lower generics and at a certain point the named pilots are a better value for just a few more points. It would be interesting to see FFG drop some of them to the same cost as the other generics on the platforms or release additional generic-only talents like Dedicated to give a reason for taking them.

On 9/22/2020 at 6:19 PM, Freeptop said:

As of the July 2020 points update, Rebel Han Solo (IN 6) in a YT-1300 is 79 points. Rebel Lando Calrissian (IN 5) in the same ship is 78 points. So it's not like they've entirely moved away from IN 5->6 being one point.

You also have to be careful using a Large based ship as your example. They have said that large bases have struggled a bit, competitively, and they’re trying to push them a bit.

A more fitting example might be to talk about the First Order’s TIE/ba. Ember, at i4, with decent pilot text, costs 48; Holo (i5), with pretty great text, is 53, and Vonreg (i6), whose text barely ever has a measurable impact on a game, costs 55. So the spread here is 48 (at i4) to 55 (at i6), which is a seven-point differential. Holo sits closer to the high end of the curve, partly because Holo has great text, but also partly because the jump from 4-5 may be better than the jump from 5-6. LOTS of pilots have i4, and quite a few have i5, but i6’s are breathing rarefied air... only 1-3 pilots per faction have initiative 6 (Wedge, Fenn Rau, and Han, for the Rebels, Soontir and Vader for the Empire, Anakin’s Y-Wing and Anakin’s Delta-7 for the Republic—though you obviously can only fly one Anakin at a time... Sun Fac for the CIS, Young Han, Dengar, and Fenn for S&V, Poe and Han for Resistance, and Vonreg, Quickdraw, Midnight, and—conditionally—Null and Rush for the First Order). Thus, jumping from i4 to i5 is a big deal, as you can typically be the quickest gun in the Outer Rim at i5... UNLESS you face one of these elite few. Granted, some of these elite few are amazing and seen all the time, like Vader, but a lot of them you’re only gonna see occasionally, for funsies, like Rebel Fenn Rau.

So if you accept that the i4 Ember got wiggled down a point because her text is good, and/or that Vonreg gets a one-point discount because his text is forgettable (really, good luck remembering it, though it totally won me my most recent TTS game, so it isn’t totally useless), you’re looking at an i4-i6 differential of about 8 points, which is more than you’re postulating by a fair bit. I haven’t gone and done any more comparisons with other factions, but off the top of my head, Poe Dameron is paying an IMMENSE premium for his 6 initiative, compared to the initiative 5 Ello Asty or Nien Nunb (the latter two are just 55 points, and have cool text; Poe is 67, and his text is... comparable, I guess?). That’s a 12 point differential, and the main benefit really is ONLY the single point of initiative.

I won’t even bother comparing the Force-enabled i6 guys like Vader and Anakin to their non-Force Sensitive counterparts; the Force changes all of that math. Though, just quickly, Delta-7 Anakin vs. Delta-7 Obi-Wan, both with three Force points, are 62 and 49 points, respectively. That’s a 13 point jump, and Obi-Wan has (arguably) better text... and Anakin locks you out of using the only other i6 in the faction (Anakin in his Y-Wing).

The initiative tax is higher than you think, at the high end. Though I won’t weigh in here on whether the initiative tax is too high or too low; there are a few other threads which have addressed that already.

EDIT: Forgot to list Resistance Han as an i6!