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The air combat retreat forced by running low on fuel is VERY bad. So bad that it's worse than if it didn't exist at all. I've lost more interceptors to it doing something stupid than to all other possible reasons combined. If I select 'Yes' in the out-of-fuel-retreat dialog, one of these things happens: - the aircraft gets redirected out of the air combat area in such a poor way that the exit point is so far that the aircraft runs out of fuel completely and crashes. I haven't figured out how exactly the exit point is chosen (it doesn't seem to be towards the base), but sometimes the choice is obviously wrong - I've had already a case where a far corner was chosen and the aircraft would need to fly at least 5 times the distance it was from the nearest end of the air combat area. - the aircraft gets redirected in a way that it'll get in the sights of a UFO that'll take down this sitting duck. As there's no way to cancel this retreat, the aircraft just has to take it. Presumably if there was a squadron of 3 Condors going after a single UFO and this happened to them, the UFO would just shoot them all down for without any hassle, even though it'd make much more sense to sacrifice one of the Condors to cover the retreat. - the aircraft actually manages to get away. Listed for completeness. I actually now usually chose 'No' in the dialog and let the aircraft crash, since that way it'll at least crash after doing something useful, such as shooting down the UFO, instead of just mostly crash after doing something stupid. Given that aircraft cannot stay indefinitely in the air combat even if retreat is chosen and the game counts down the fuel until the aircraft will crash, I fail to see why this is enforced at all. It just doesn't make any sense, as it doesn't add anything except for trouble. I suggest to alter the retreat the following way: - it is always possible to redirect an aircraft, even if it's retreating - possibly alter the automatic retreat dialog to just inform about the situation and suggest what to do That should be all the magic needed, problem solved.

so, this happens: 2 interceptors + cruiser fight, me with 2 condors and a fox, kite the cruiser with the fox engage interceptors with condors, shoot them down nuke cruiser with torps + the 2 condors from behind, so far so good cept the damn ship doesnt go down, ok no biggie ill just fly away refuel rearm and come back. fly to a safe distance an click x.... the condors turn around and fly towards the cruiser with no guns fox makes it out the cruiser turns to face the condors and annihilates them without me bein able to do anything since im leavin the combat and the condors arent takin any more instructions, cannot reroute em (i had plenty of fuel left since this happened next to my base) they happily fly into the cruisers range. not sure if this really is a bug but i must say this felt kinda dumb. maybe allow me to cancel the retreat order or something?