Why not try chasing them down? Unless they're Sophons / Science Boogieeing it shouldn't be _that_ hard. 

I have to agree with OP.  Had one game where AI retreated into one of my other fleets and kept going back and forth.  Without full reserve battle tactic, I wouldn't be playing this game.  Ai can spam so much more ships then I can and the retreating gets, as noted annoying.  Another thing I would like to see is full reserve not used from a battle tactic but maybe from a high Lvl skill from your Heroes, this way your not stuck using just one battle tactic all the time.

Aea wrote:

Why not try chasing them down? Unless they're Sophons / Science Boogieeing it shouldn't be _that_ hard. 

It's not that it's hard, it's that it's annoying and not fun. 

Yukon wrote:

I have to agree with OP.  Had one game where AI retreated into one of my other fleets and kept going back and forth.  Without full reserve battle tactic, I wouldn't be playing this game.  Ai can spam so much more ships then I can and the retreating gets, as noted annoying.  Another thing I would like to see is full reserve not used from a battle tactic but maybe from a high Lvl skill from your Heroes, this way your not stuck using just one battle tactic all the time.

Yeah, it's not always necessary, but a lot of times if you don't cleanly take out an opponent, they start spamming small fleets and seiging newly conquered territories which have minimal manpower, so you will get tied up for ages without it.

A well-designed game has balance. Currently, there is no technologies or skills to counter retreating fleets.

I agree with tempted that there should be a way to counter-act the fleeing.  

One of the problems for the game is actual fleet orders.  I propose that someone make an idea for better hyperspace communications. where you can give fleets orders at any time and they change course immediately.  Then, maybe there will be less need for retreating by both the AI and the Player. This should be at least a level 4 tech.

Tractor beams also work and should lower the percentage gained from evasion techs.

I'm not talking about a big AI Fleet, they do lose some health from retreating.  What happens to the player when one ship retreats most of the time, you die right?  Should be no different for the AI.  Just a suggestion.  A fleet should not be able to retreat more than once in the same turn.

Tempted has right, the AI has a problem with the retreat. They do it all the time, and its annoying.

Retreat spam is annoying as hell.

Where are my Sheredyns?

Oh wait..

bump~

A Jammer module for Support type ships could be introduced, which reduces the chance of an enemies successful retreat by a certain percentage. The module then could come in different tiers with different efficiencies.
* Warp Jammer I            reduces success rate by 25%
* Warp Jammer II        reduces success rate by 50%
* Warp Jammer III        reduces success rate by 75%
Higher tiers require strategic resources.

BarbeQ wrote:

A Jammer module for Support type ships could be introduced, which reduces the chance of an enemies successful retreat by a certain percentage. The module then could come in different tiers with different efficiencies.
* Warp Jammer I            reduces success rate by 25%
* Warp Jammer II        reduces success rate by 50%
* Warp Jammer III        reduces success rate by 75%
Higher tiers require strategic resources.

If balanced properly, this could be an awesome idea!

Personally I'd go for 15%, 30% and 45% success rate

Yes. A known issue. Was discused before here.

Actually not happening as often, but persists. I used same tactic as Tempted.

Also found rare the fixed % loss of HP. I too think this will be more consisten relate it to fleets military power proportion. Same way one ship should be killed against 20Cp late-game fleet, a 8CP vs 10CP mid-game fleed, should not receive that amount of damage.

Another option, may be to relate the probability of retreat to fleet speed and add a bonus to scouts (making them a bit more durable). The bad about this option is that it will clearly play against Riftborn or custom-made factions with low speed.

Yes, it is very annoying. It's frustrating when the AI constantly throws their ships away by retreating, whereas it would be satisfying to destroy them all in combat if the AI stayed. From the AI's side, if the fleet will be destroyed either way, it is more rational to fight and do some damage than die via retreating - and the AI should behave rationally.

Similarly they often fly towards a battle they (presumably) know they can't win (entering a system they have vision of), then just retreat, which is stupid. If they didn't intend to attack and fight the battle they shouldn't fly into the system.