[Taqwus]

It depends on the base ship design, really. One bit where fighters MIGHT be a bit strong, 'tho, is their ability to fly about a system and guard a warp point for years on end -- that seems a bit strange.

In 1.35 you still don't need fighters to beat fighters, if you have a mass of fast ships with a fair bit of PD. When at war with the Rage, Darloks, Narn and EA (all of whom use fighters to some degree, especially the first two), my usual attack fleet included only 10-12 attack BC/BBs (and occasionally a DN), with 3 or 4 PDC V's each (or 5 on the DN, methinks), with zero carrier support. There might have been a few more PDCs per fleet due to shipyard and sweeper ships (Darloks and EA were pretty mine-happy), but that's it.

In a massed formation like Dark Wing where the ships could cover each other, even strategic mode generally resulted in the thrashing of all planetary defenses including upwards of 60 fighters, and tactical mode guaranteed it.

One of my (then quite low-tech) fleets very early in the Never-Ending War had demolished a Darlok fleet with 2 CVs (w/ ftrs) and 13 LC/CAs in a battle that probably went a long way towards earning 'em all Legendary status, again without either carriers or dedicated point-defense ships. Admittedly, that was fought tactically. :-)


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night