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[BigBrainEnergy]

Right now ironmode is unappealing to most players because losing a single battle is insanely punishing, mostly because you can only recover ships if you win a battle.

The big problem here is it makes you feel like a complete idiot moron if you decide to retreat halfway into a battle after you realize it's tougher than you expected. Now any ships you lost are gone permanently. Might as well try to fight to the bitter end for the chance at a Pyrrhic victory. Except it's not so bad actually, because you can recover your lost ships. Compare that to retreating after you lose a couple frigates and a destroyer... even if your remaining ships all manage to escape, you are still worse off than the "Pyrrhic victory" scenario.

My suggestion is simple: once you do enough damage to the enemy to qualify for a "clean disengage" you should be able to spend a story point to unlock the option to recover your lost ships. If that feels too easy, maybe they come with 1 extra d-mod when recovered this way because your recovery teams are in a rush.

Narratively, I'd say it makes about as much sense as the "emergency repair" SP option you get before combat when your ships are damaged. Mechanically, this smooths out the overall experience; it gives you a reason to perform a "fighting retreat."

Also, it would be nice if there was a more obvious visual indicator of your progress towards a clean disengage. Something like a big progress bar at the top of the screen whenever you open the tactical map. This would help retreating from battle feel like an actual part of the game, rather than an afterthought.

[Phenir]

Just make a debris field that contains all the ships that qualified for recovery at the site of the battle. Not only does this solve being unable to recover your own ships but this lets you snipe ships from enemy fleets, as in for bounties (a strategy alex himself mentioned making use of), and still come back to pick those ships up if they were of interest.

Also, it would be nice if there was a more obvious visual indicator of your progress towards a clean disengage. Something like a big progress bar at the top of the screen whenever you open the tactical map. This would help retreating from battle feel like an actual part of the game, rather than an afterthought.

This is already a thing, it's right below your command points.

[ithis]

I can see why they'd want it to be more obvious as a UX thing - honestly, I wish it was a little more clear just how many ships I'd have to kill for a clean disengage.

The debris field idea doesn't sound half-bad (although I don't know if fields can actually contain more than just one or two ships, maybe spawn some as derelicts as well?). I think the SP option is fine though, so long as player ships aren't difficult recoveries (or if you can view them before spending/confirming, maybe) - the malus could go either way since you will always have a chance of permanently losing ships.

[Bungee_man]

I'd rather let the player spend a story point to be able to redo a given battle from the start. It lets arbitrary or janky losses get overridden, which is extremely valuable to iron mode, while maintaining consequences. I'd trade the 'spend an SP to instantly get away from any fight' option for that - the player has to be smart about his engagements, but can experiment during battles and has no need to worry if the AI bugs out and gets something expensive killed at an inopportune moment.

[Doctorhealsgood]

I'd rather let the player spend a story point to be able to redo a given battle from the start. It lets arbitrary or janky losses get overridden, which is extremely valuable to iron mode, while maintaining consequences. I'd trade the 'spend an SP to instantly get away from any fight' option for that - the player has to be smart about his engagements, but can experiment during battles and has no need to worry if the AI bugs out and gets something expensive killed at an inopportune moment.

Having a savescum button via s-points on the no savescum mode kinda misses the point no?

[Bungee_man]

Having a savescum button via s-points on the no savescum mode kinda misses the point no?

Not really, no. Iron mode means that you have to preplan your expeditions, your jumps into systems, and your engagements. I don't think forcing the player to spend a bunch of credits due to e.g. a Conquest bugging out and not shielding itself from a bunch of reapers adds all that much.

I think removing free disengages and adding 'replay battle' in its place would make for a much more hardcore experience overall. Logistics ships would be in jeopardy, the retreat battle mode would actually get used, the player would have to deal with challenging fights. As it is, iron mode isn't really harder than non-iron - you can skip battles where you don't have an overwhelming advantage, and, frankly, you're more incentivized to do so because you have to go through a tedious (but not difficult) repair/replacement/grinding process if anything goes wrong. On the other hand, you'd be pushed to seek out solutions to hard problems - if a big fleet ambushes you, you don't just reload or click the green text, you have to deal with it one way or another.

[Thaago]

I'd like the "S point to run away" option removed entirely in iron mode. I don't like how it made in combat burn speed not matter, and also made sensor mechanics less impactful.

[Bungee_man]

I'd like the "S point to run away" option removed entirely in iron mode. I don't like how it made in combat burn speed not matter, and also made sensor mechanics less impactful.

I'd second that. It feels like an option that would be restricted to 'sandbox' modes.