Right now fleeing mechanic is really annoying, as if you have enough dust and you are able to flee to your own territory you can just insta repair ships. On the other hand in enemy territory you have no way to avoid getting destroyed, meaning any kind of raiding just for making damage is way too hard and already pretty pointless. But could be the only thing to deter someone from waging war with you.


So my suggestion is that fleeing becomes more chance based. Ships taking damage randomly within a range, like 30 - 130 % (100% being effectively more likely). And that range could change depending on the speed of each individual ships and the size of them. For example small ships have 0 - 120 %, medium 30 - 130%, and carriers 50 - 150 % damage. And having higher movement speeds can make those odds better for individual ships. Also if you are under your influence area then you can get a bonus, lowering all percentages by 20 %, and in enemy territory increase all by 20 % for example so to retain the home advantage, just less deterministicly. That way if you flee with a large fleet, some of them are gonna die, but at the same time you can perhaps go around with a fleet of small ships making havoc in enemy territory, bombing and invading not for take over but for damage.


The whole goal is to give smaller ships some kind of unique advantage and also to make fleeing more interesting.