Master of Orion/Tactical initiative and movement

Ships involved in space combat move in an order determined by their initiative rating.

The initiative of a ship is primary decided by its maneuverability. The maneuverability rating is the level chosen for "maneuver" in the ship design plus two if the ship has an Inertial Stabilizer or plus four if it has an Inertial Nullifier. In addition, Battle Scanner adds 3 initiative.

The ships move in this order from highest to lowest. Ships with very high maneuverability can move twice before slower ships move once if the slower ships have very low maneuverability. The attacker wins all ties.

A teleporting or decloaking ship will always fire first regardless of initiatives.

When a ship is ordered to retreat from space combat, it must do nothing for one whole turn, at which time it will leave the battlefield.

During its turn, a ship can move one square on the grid for each two maneuverability it has (round down). The Inertial Stabilizer and Inertial Nullifier add two and four maneuverability and add one and two movement squares respectively.

These squares can be in any direction including diagonal.