Drive-by shootings; how the rules constrain them

It has occurred to people that you could beam into a system, shoot up the scenery and/or passing ships and then bug out again, personally untouched by it all.

When making such evil plans, keep these points in mind.

If the hostile fleet leaves, for any reason, the hostile is counted as defeated.

A system only counts as contested or interdicted if there's an undefeated hostile task force in it throughout the turn. Otherwise, it goes right on delivering income to the current owner.

When a fleet leaves a system during combat, it has to specify immediately, without time for thinking about it, where it's going next, and that is where it will in the next strategic turn.