[Tommy]

It's definitely the case that in earlier iterations of the game, defenders fired first where the inits were the same. I'm in favour of a more variable design, and this sounds like an interesting idea - though there's a risk that it may lead to an even greater dichotomy of attack and defence ships, with the limited fleet variation and strategy that comes from that.

While we're stuck with a clear attack / defence dichotomy, however, I think it makes perfect sense to work with it. It certainly shouldn't be difficult for the battle code to work out which side's which.