I think that the hit and run with lots of capital ships to get them repaired won't work very well. I found that when I retreated, my ships would take serious damage before getting out, and that a retreat can be very costly in the middle of a battle. So the only way to ensure that you don't lose any of your capital ships is to make sure that none of them get seriously hurt. But this wouldn't give you much time to accomplish much in the battle anyway. And while your retreating for a long 10 seconds, the defender could easily concentrate all of his fire on a capital ship and destroy it. We also need to consider the population cap. I don't think that it will allow you to have enough ships to go hang out in the corner while other ships are fighting. The only ships that could get to the corner anyway would be the smaller, faster, and weaker ships. The capital ships move pretty slowly enough that it would take serious damage while trying to run away. And you can't retreat only a couple units at a time. I do want repair in the game, I just don't think that it will be a major flaw to not have it in the game.