What are the characteristics of your favorite race?

[Suicide Junkie]

Yep. And in P&N, gravitic manipulation too.

Repair can be reduced greatly because ships rarely survive damage in unmodded SE4.

In fleet-on-fleet combat, you either do not get shot at, or you die.
Also, with the preponderance of shields, your enemy has to do between 80% and 99% damage to hurt you without killing you. That is pretty rare.

So, for the most part, you get X dead ships, Y undamaged ships, and a 20% chance of a single crippled ship.

Even for retrofitting ships, all you need is a second dedicated repair base. The extra cost in bases and repair ships is minimal.