[PvK]

With tactical combat in SE III, you can use a warp point to retreat, which I always thought was neat and appropriate.

In SEIII I think the AI won't use warp points when retreating, but will run for the nearest map edge, so it is possible to break through a warp point IF your ships are fast enough or survivable enough to get through the defenders intact. In fact, I remember designing warp point blockade runner ships with retreat orders to try to do this versus a human player blocking a warp point, although I didn't end up using them.

With the defender firing first (as of Gold), I would expect the situation to be OK - a warp point defense fleet would get to bLast anything coming through, but it might be possible to try to break through - sounds interesting rather than a balance problem to me.

A ship that manages to break through a warp point will need a speed advantage of two to be able to elude pursuit from the defenders in turn-based mode. With retreat implemented though, it seems like a "pursue" yes/no order might be called for for simultaneous mode games.

To work really well, the whole issue will doubtless want some careful design, then testing and tweaking, and should probably be an option that can be turned off if desired.

PvK