why does higher power capital ship go second?

Power does not equate speed.

Faster ship goes first. In the event of a tie it's an RNG coin flip.

"Ultra;c-1819132" wrote:
on offense, AI seems to win the coin flip 80% of the time when both cap ships have equal speed

80% of the time, all the time. :wink:

Also, just checking, is it the same capital ship? Because different ships have different speeds. Ackbar, for example, is significantly faster than Thrawn.

If it’s the same ships, it’s probably because your opponent has g12+ gear on the captain. It adds speed while keeping GP lower.

on offense, AI seems to win the coin flip 80% of the time when both cap ships have equal speed

5A mods give more GP than 5E mods but contribute exactly the same amount of ship stats. So always check ship speed, not GP which is a waste of time.

It seems more 50% coin flip for me in attack. And during the battle it also seems coin flip is tested for every new turn of capital ship (without tm gain generate). I had problem with mirror rebels flip with nearly same pg ships. Win or lose was often decided by which akbar goes first. As i don't like that i upped my akbar g12 with 2 6E mods just to now always start against this adv.

It can't be based on anything you are saying because I give second 100% of time, I have never gone first in arena even with same or higher speed