Retreat?

[alexshiro]

How does retreat work? I gave the retreat order from the autoresolve screen, and all my guys got blown up. Then I played the battle, took me a while to find the retreat order, and when I found it it din't seem to do anything. What's the trick?

[Spud Dastardly]

You can only retreat if you didn't move your ships during your turn before the combat. Then in tactical combat you have to wait 20 or 30 seconds before your ships are able to retreat. It's better to enter tactical combat if you want to retreat so you can make sure your ships avoid the enemy ships before taking the retreat.

[alexshiro]

So it's basically useless?

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Spud Dastardly:

You can only retreat if you didn't move your ships during your turn before the combat. Then in tactical combat you have to wait 20 or 30 seconds before your ships are able to retreat. It's better to enter tactical combat if you want to retreat so you can make sure your ships avoid the enemy ships before taking the retreat.

Ah, see, I didn't know that, and was in a similar boat to the OP, looking for the retreat button ont he autoresolve screen, assuming there wasn't one, and kept losing scouts to pirates. Thanks for the tip.

[alexshiro]

Scouts don't have one. Armed fleets do, but it doesn't do anything.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by alexshiro:

Scouts don't have one. Armed fleets do, but it doesn't do anything.

Well that's dumb.

[luisdlc]

I've found retreat is readily available if the battle in question is happening on asystem where you have another planet to retreat to.

For instance, I had some ships at a warp point, didn't niticed the attacker incoming on the starlane. Battle triggered, and I used assisted command. After the ships started moving I noticed the retreat option was ready. I retreated a couple of ships and saw the battle to the end. After the resolution screen, back in system view, the retreated ships moved to the colonized planet on the system.

[roland.johansen]

Originally posted by luisdlc:

I've found retreat is readily available if the battle in question is happening on asystem where you have another planet to retreat to.

For instance, I had some ships at a warp point, didn't niticed the attacker incoming on the starlane. Battle triggered, and I used assisted command. After the ships started moving I noticed the retreat option was ready. I retreated a couple of ships and saw the battle to the end. After the resolution screen, back in system view, the retreated ships moved to the colonized planet on the system.

That's because your ships hadn't moved the turn before the battle and thus they had the retreat option available. Spud Dastardly already explained how it works in post 2.

It all works somewhat logically. You can't get extra moves out of the retreat option. You can retreat if you hadn't moved that turn, but you won't get an extra retreat move if you had already moved that turn.

[alexshiro]

Originally posted by Bomoo:

Originally posted by alexshiro:

Scouts don't have one. Armed fleets do, but it doesn't do anything.

Well that's dumb.

+1

Originally posted by roland.johansen:

It all works somewhat logically.

Basically, if you played MoO2, it works the exact opposite of how you'd expect it to work.

[roland.johansen]

Originally posted by alexshiro:

Basically, if you played MoO2, it works the exact opposite of how you'd expect it to work.

The opposite would be that you would be able to retreat if you had moved the turn before and you wouldn't be able to retreat if you hadn't moved the turn before. That would have been an extraordinarily counter intuitive way of handling retreat and I'm happy MoO2 didn't do that.

MoO2 just always allowed you to retreat; no special rules regarding the movement in the previous turn.

[luisdlc]

Originally posted by roland.johansen:

Originally posted by luisdlc:

I've found retreat is readily available if the battle in question is happening on asystem where you have another planet to retreat to.

For instance, I had some ships at a warp point, didn't niticed the attacker incoming on the starlane. Battle triggered, and I used assisted command. After the ships started moving I noticed the retreat option was ready. I retreated a couple of ships and saw the battle to the end. After the resolution screen, back in system view, the retreated ships moved to the colonized planet on the system.

That's because your ships hadn't moved the turn before the battle and thus they had the retreat option available. Spud Dastardly already explained how it works in post 2.

Yes but will they be able to retreat if they are for example at a hostile system?

[Buxbhai]

I did move before, but made it like in post#2, entered tactical battle and did wait for a lot longer than 30 sec and it did not enable the retreat button!

[WhatIsSol]

If your fleet moved then the retreat option will never be enabled.

Your fleet currently must have a free move for it to work. It is something I almost certainly will change at some point - just do not know when or how.

[WhatIsSol]

Here is a video of how the retreat works: http://www.orderofmidnight.com/MOO/V59/retreat.m4v

As you can see I skipped my turn on the ships thus they had a "free" move to retreat on the 2nd and 3rd battles. In neither case I managed to actually retreat but the option was there.

Please do not take this as how I think it should work this is just how it currently works in the game.

[UberMega]

Of the bad design decisions the developers made, retreat has got to the one that drove me the craziest when I first played the game.

In my ideal 'fixed' version of this game, retreat is a constant option. Individual ships of a fleet, or an entire fleet, whether defender or attacker, could retreat by firing up their FTL drives. When fired up, power for shields and weapons is lowered, and retreating ships focus on maneuvering (quickly) to a warp bubble created far in front of them. During this vulnerable time, they naturally could be attacked, if in range of enemy weapons. Slower ships with far more mass will take longer to reach their warp bubble compared to smaller, faster ships.

There could be new techs for how fast the warp engines can 'fire up', as seen in the space strategy game 'Distant Worlds.' Earlier tech could mean that retreats take a long time. More advanced tech reduces that time.

Ideally, in my perfect game, ship systems such as warp drives, could also be damaged and knocked out as well. Precise targeting. If you want to trap an enemy ship, and perhaps board it, zap its drives first.