As with all other professions, Initiatives are a major skill category that has to have IP spent in because the faster you can use your weapons the more effective they are. Thus the most important thing people take into consideration is how to fire their weapon the fastest. The following are some general Init rules followed by more detailed examples for Ranged Inits.
General Rules
- Any extra Init you have over 1200 is not as effective
- 600 Ranged Init takes 1 second off attack time and 2 seconds off recharge time.
- Your final attack and recharge times for weapons can never go below 1 second each
- One half the length of the agro bar is equal to 1 second attack and 1 second recharge time
- Neutral on the agro bar for Weapons is 87.5%
- If you move the agro slider to the left of neutral your attack/recharge times increase. If you move them to the right they decrease.
Ranged Init Example - How to fire at 1/1
In this example I will be pretending to use a Nova Flow Mk4, which has a base attack time of 1.5 seconds and recharge time of 2.5 seconds. To see your weapon's attack and recharge times, view its stats and you should see it a couple lines down from the top. First, set your agro bar to neutral like so...
Neutral means that at that setting your agro bar does not effect your attacking speed any. If you move the slider more to the right it decreases the amount of time it takes you to attack. If you move the slider more to the left it increases the time. Why move it to the left then? Because the more you move the slider to the left the more you evade things and the harder it is for monsters to agro you.
Now most lower level soldiers start off setting their agro bar to 100% since its an easy way to fire faster. Later on when they have higher Ranged Init they tend to lower their agro bars more. Slide your agro bar to 100% (full agro)
Now remember that moving the slider by half the bar is equal to 1 second. Since you moved the slider that far to the right, that means you can take 0.25 seconds off your attack and recharge speeds. Since I a using a Nova Flow Mk4 in this example that means the attack speed has changed from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds and the recharge time has changed from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds. If you check your weapon stats it won't show this change, but that is what you'd be firing at.
Now lets work out how much Ranged Init you need to fire your gun as fast as you can. Right now with the agro bar set to 100%, your novaflow is firing at 1.25/2.25 (1.25 seconds attack / 2.25 seconds recharge). Since the fastest you can get is 1/1, that means you have to make up 0.25 seconds attack (1.25 - 1) and 1.25 seconds recharge (2.25 - 1). Now comes the math, the best equation is
[Amount of Init to take off 1 second]*[# seconds you want to take off] = [The Amount of Init you need]
Since 600 Ranged Init takes 1 second off attack speed and you want to take off that last 0.25 seconds attack, your math will look like 600*0.25 = 150. When you do the same for recharge speed you get 300*1.25 = 375. You simply take which number is bigger (the 150 or the 375) and that is how much you need to fire your weapon at its fastest (1/1).
Now lets try changing the agro bar to a lower setting. Lets say 50% using our Nova Flow Mk4 again.
Since half the length of the agro bar is equal to 1 second attack and recharge, moving the slider from neutral (87.5%) to the left to 50% is like adding 0.75 seconds to your attack and recharge times. Since we are using a Nova Flow Mk4 your attack time is 1.5 + 0.75 = 2.25 and your recharge time is 2.5 + 0.75 = 3.25. Now you want to get rid of 1.25 seconds attack and 2.25 seconds recharge so simply use that equation again.
For attack speed: 600*1.25 = 750
For recharge speed: 300*2.25 = 675
Since 750 is the bigger number, you need 750 Ranged Init to fire at 1/1 while your agro bar is set to 50%