[Barnacle Bill]

My two cents worth on retreat & other tactical issues...what I'd do if I was the programmer:

This assumes turn-based play. "Attacker" = the side whose strategic turn it is. "Defender" = the side who's strategic turn it is not.

If the attacker is entering via a warp point, defender gets to set up first anywhere he wants, but without seeing what the attacking force is first. Attacker starts with all ships stacked on the warp point but can't leave them stacked (excluding any which lose movement capability as a result of defender's first fire). Defender moves first in this scenario, meaning warp point defenders get a free shot at their best range at incoming attackers.

As a note, in the various editions of Starfire (as noted by others, the board game inspiration for the SE series of games) the various rules editions & optional rules have handled the above differently. Sometimes as described above, with all Attackers appearing on the warp point together. Sometimes one ship appears each tactical turn. Sometimes the warp point size and the ship sizes together determine how many ships can come through at the same time. Sometimes you can exceed that but lose a certain percentage to "interpenetration", which is how the latest Starfire rules handle it. I personally prefer to let them all come through together, as the Defender has enough advantages without making them spread it out over several tactical turns (plus Starfire has no limit on the number of tactical turns per battle).

Mines should only work against ships transiting a warp point. It would not matter which end of the warp point was mined. If the Attacker enters combat through a mined warp point (hostile mines), the mine attack is resolved first (and no combat is initiated if the attacker is wiped out by the mines).

Other than combats initiated by warp point transits, Attacker should move first.

The tactical map should scroll infinately - no border, no "cornering" a fleeing enemy.

Any ship in the same tactical map square as a warp point and with at least one movement point left could retreat through the warp point (suffering mine attack if applicable).

Otherwise, retreat would be an option for any mobile unit if both of the following conditions are met:

1) It is currently outside enemy weapons range.

2) It has a tactical speed equal or higher than the fastest armed enemy mobile unit.

Retreating attackers must also have at least one strategic movement point left for the turn, even if retreating trough a warp point. Retreating defenders would be using a point from their next turn in advance. In both cases, this would impose a limit on how many times you could retreat in a single strategic turn. A fleet with a higher strategic movement rate would be able to avoid combat by continually retreating.

After combat, units which retreated then get placed one sector away from the sector they retreated from on the system map. This could potentially initiate a new combat.