I have noticed that the best way to survive combat is to try to more or less run away from all the ships and let them come to you, picking them off with powerful long range weapons.
I don't have a general problem with this, but is there any reason for me to take more risks? Should I be willing to jump into the fray for any reason?
As far as I can tell, the only motivation for me to gamble at all is to save solar months, however the difference in time if I take even twice the turns to finish a battle seems negligible.
I have only played on normal, and I know that higher difficulties take longer, but is there any other way we could be motivated to get into the fray and take a risk?
Missions have a set number of turns?
More solar months pass during battles?
Smaller available area to run/kite?
I'm not sure of the best solution.