I find myself retreating about one out of every five or six games.

Why?

Because I usually play my KM SS and quite often I am the the last ship alive on my
team. I look for the Flagship, but if the probability of me finding it is real low, then I
just retreat for the benefit of all players in the game. One Minute to retreat is less
than 4 or 5 minutes hunting for the flag and wasting everyone's time.

I also retreat underwater when I can, to avoid being clobbered and lose experts
while waiting to end the game. For some reason, that makes players upset
because they can't just blast me and end the game.

If I would make one change, it would be that the ship (during retreat) be unaffected
by bombardment and attack. Why should I just sit there and lose experts when I
chose to retreat.

...As for aborting the retreat process, I am okay with the current setup.

You cannot abort a retreat in any way, moving does not cancel it, and I do not think
you should be able to. Putting in the ability to abort a retreat would mean pleayers
could start to retreat when theyre in danger but then should thier opponents move
onto other targets (targets that are still shooting at them) they would cancel the
retreat. Just seems kinda exploitation?

Although I do not think the retreat should be removed and in fact I think you should
also be able to use it whilst near enemies, but once retreated you should always
loose the game and once the retreat is started you should not be able to see enemy
ships in your sight range. As I would rather give an enemy vessel the chance to
surrender rather than using the shells to sink them and move onto another enemy.

Retreating in order to avoid being sunken is a legitimate reason in my opinion also.
Just as in reality, in those times that your crippled or are vastly outnumbered why
continue to fight with inevitable destruction when you can abandon ship (retreating
on the spot) or retreat (retreat out the map) saving your ship being destroyed and
your crew being killed.

i think moving cancels it

does it not abort if you start to move your ship before the countdown reaches zero? or
if an enemy comes within the allowable range?

better yet, why retreat in the first place? granted, there's the rare legitimized reason
for it (you have no ammo, wrong FCS, or some such), but overall, the ones that are
retreating are doing so to avoid getting sunk or losing a game.