I played my first game of nova starmada the other day. Our group is 3 players, which makes some games a bit awkward. I felt the existing starmada initiative was in that category, plus I'm not keen on the predictable move/fire system after the roll off.

As an alternative I was thinking of the following, which retains the basic gist of the existing system, whilst fitting better with multi player and being less predictable, you will never be sure when you move or fire a ship, only the odds.

1)For each ship on a side at the start of move or combat place a marker for that side in a cup.
2)to see who has to move or fire next pull a chit from the cup, that side moves or fires a ship next. Do not put the chit back.

So if one side has 5 ships left and the other 3 there will be 8 chits in the cup, 5 for side 1 and 3 for side 2. This means that to start with side 1 is most likely to have to move a ship, it is also more likely he will get 2 moves in a row to start with. Equally he will start the combat phase with a better chance of being first to fire. The odds keep changing though, if side 1 gets the 2 first moves they will now have 3 chits each and a 50/50 of being next.

At the start of a given turn the smaller fleets will have an edge in move order, but larger fleets an edge in combat order. Though nothing is guaranteed.