I don't normally like to play with fighters (too much micromanagement during combat) - but I've been using them in my current game - and with the fighter stack bug, they are very powerful...
Example:
The Jraenar have a fleet of 7 "mid-tech" ships, 4 Dreadnoughts and 3 heavy carriers with 75 fighters total, hovering around one of my systems. Annoyed, I dispatched a fighter group of 100 large fighters to soften them up in strategic mode. To my suprise, I destroyed the entire fleet - losing only 13 fighters in the process!
I just read the current patch info - I don't recall seeing a fix for this bug yet...
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