[Alneyan]

My biggest problem with Fighters in the stock game is how the tech area is handled. The first level is incredible (you have all fighter weapons, armour, shield, the Light Cruiser and the Small Fighter for 100,000 research points. A bargain), but the results after this level are much less impressive. The same goes for the Carrier hulls; the first one is very good (on par with a Light Cruiser), but the later ones cost a lot to research and aren't nearly as good.

Another, smaller matter is to bring the fighters to the offensive. While they are deadly if you can ensure they have first strike (wormhole defence), and it is easy to deploy fighters on a particular spot, it doesn't work so well for offence. The Fighter Bay is only able to launch one fighter per combat turn, so your average Carrier will launch 20 or 30 fighters per combat turn. With fighter numbers reaching four or five figures rather easily, you would need one hundred Carriers to start having a proper launch rate (that excludes unusual situations where the standard measure to count your fighters is 10,000).

So I would say fighters aren't really that weak (unless fighting the Talisman, and even then numbers can wreak some damage), as long as you use them in numbers and have the time to mass produce them. You should expect huge losses as well, but then, so will your opponent.