Fleets randomly going missing in battle... Appearing in my home system later.

[Fried Noodles]

This happened to me twice in my war...

It's still early game (Like 2260s), so I can't imagine any weird technologies going on. (Unmodded game with all DLCs installed).

I am playing a Fanatical Purifier and am waging war against some Hive Mind empire. While I was fighting off an enemy fleet in a system that I'd just taken from them, my fleet suddenly disappeared (gone missing) and when they reappeared, they were in orbit over my home system, which is very far away from where the war was going on.

Something else weird happened when I brought in my second fleet to finish off the enemy fleet... Combat started as normal and I started overpowering their fleet... Once they got down to like 73 fleet power, both fleets stopped firing on each other and just started flying in circles.

Then my fleet went missing.

It's really quite a pain that my fleets are suddenly warping across the galaxy. They have to travel like 30-40 jumps to get back to the front-line against the Hive Minds.

What could be causing this?

[Storm]

Is the Hive MInd at war with anyone else besides you? And are you fighting in Hive Mind systems which either the Hive has occupied from a different empire or in Hive Mind systems that are currently occupied by another nation?

Fleets will go missing since they aren't "allowed" to be in territory of someone which you aren't fighting. Most noticeable when you kill a starbase of an enemy empire and the system would normally go to you but you actually liberated that system for a different empire causing you to be kicked out.

Only thing I can think of in this scenario besides the basics of your fleet getting "beaten" by an enemy one and emergency jumping out when whatever is left in your fleet has already withdrawn from the battle (flag symbol in combat window)

[Fried Noodles]

Actually yes. The Hive received a war declaration from a neighbor to the northwest.

But the territory I was fighting in was on their southernmost region of space... And I am fairly certain it was already their space before either of us declared war on them.

I've never had the problem of my fleets withdrawing from combat before... And this is my most aggressive empire to date.

Maybe I was being beaten. Not sure.

Or the northwest empire made claims on the Hive's southernmost systems.

I dunno if it matters, but I was definitely at war with the Hive Mind first. The other empire declared war after I was already eating up their space.

Edit: however, after the war ended... I retained ownership of just about every system I attacked. I think I have before/after galaxy screens of this Hive Mind war.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1721932654

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1721046798

[Valentine Michael Smith]

your fleets automatically retreat at ~50% losses