ever since a certain patch.. like 1.40? maybe.. they changed how "missiles" work in the battle.. (didn't used to work this way) aka they don't hit till ROUND #2.. this creates a huge hole in the strategy against the AI..



What I mean is if you have lasers or kinetics.. you can fire 2-3 rounds in the 1st round/beginning.. and then you can AVOID all the missiles by retreating.. so it's like a "get out of jail-missile" free card



I found/noticed this strategy.. where I'm playing really hard games with super NEGATIVE modifiers.. like I have "eternal war" on.. (eternal war means you can't steal all the AI's tech-dust through trading/diplomacy without consequences)



And so to implement your kinetic and or lasers free hit (don't bother with missiles.. cause yours have to reach medium range for that to count/hit) and execute a 'retreat' on the first turn.. then you can repeat it as often as you like weakening the enemy down or effectively killing him.. which I have done quite a few rounds.. without losing ships those missiles would destroy



In effect you could say that the patch that made missiles hit at medium range round.. really made the cards "retreat" or "offensive retreat" more effective cards..

What I read was missiles fire on round 2, and delay hit till round 4 - of each phase. (with each combat phase being 4 rounds). While kinetics fire and hit on each round.



If the fight lasted the entire 3 combat phases, missiles would fire once and detonate once each phase (on round 2 and 4 respectively). While kinetics would fire 4x and hit 4x each phase.



So on the first combat phase, if you have overwhelming kinetic firepower in your fleet - you can actually destroy all ships on round 1, before they can even fire missiles on round 2.



Re: the offensive retreat without any risk of taking damage - it only works if the enemy (AI or human) has 100% pure LR missiles, and I don't see that too often. Use missiles sure, and sometimes a fleet here and there with mostly missile power but usually it is mixed range and weapons, so laser and kinetic hits will land on the first 3 rounds executed before offensive retreat happens.



I get your point though. If I had to design an exclusive offensive retreat fleet, I'd design one with next to zero defense tonnage uses - just a few kinetic shields since the only thing that can hit you to do any decent damage would be LR kinetics before offensive retreat happens - and stacked max with LR kinetics to get my 3 rounds of fire in.



However, and this may just be my own personal XP, maybe luck involved - not sure - my situation on higher difficulty play is that you are usually up against many, many stacks of heavily armored AI fleets. Either you get the dreaded roll of the dice (your retreat has failed and your fleet is destroyed automatically because of the failed retreat roll) or there really is nowhere to retreat to since in stack warfare you're usually trying and wanting to tie down a huge armada of the AI fleet.



So on serious or under, offensive retreat could probably be a good tactic, but on impossible and for sure on endless, you need stack tanking fleet designs with hopefully not having to ever retreat since if you do then the stack of doom will be free to invade further into your territory.