[dmm]

Refer to several posts below for discussion of this problem. It turns out, I'm dumb. The quick-and-dirty solution is obvious. Just use those anti-missile missiles instead of PDC, if you want to give your missile ships some defense against missiles/fighters/drones. Their range is 9, just like missiles, so you don't run into all the problems that I brought up in earlier posts. True, they don't work as well as PDC, but your missile ships will be running away anyway, trying to keep at max range, so enemy missiles will run out of fuel before hitting you while enemy fighters/drones will only catch up slowly. (Note that you still need to change the 'maximum range' strategy to put 'nearest enemy' at the top of the targetting list.)