Why does this fleet retreat?

[Raapys]

Actually, the screenshot is from Starjack's save. Guess the game might have some sorting issues with capital letters or some such, which would explain why other people's fleets sort alphabetically while his doesn't. There's definitely some sorting going on there though, since ships removed and put back into the fleet will appear at the same place that they were previously. At any rate, the game seems to always give the uppermost ship on the list the title 'leader', then they're assigned Core 1,2,3,4,..., etc. and unfortunately, weaponless ships can *never* be prevented from auto-retreating when under computer control, regardless of which strategy they have, which is why Starjack's weaponless leader ship, and therefor the whole fleet, will run as soon as combat starts.