[Seik]

I like fighters and use them much in early and midgame phase.

Vs.AI they will help because the AI mostly did nt put enough PDC onboard.
Vs.human players ... well, they use it to counter my fighters.

In the end-phase (all-tech, much resources) fleets tend to be much bigger - and so there is also much more PDC.
I think fighters are not worth building them for such battles.

I use fighters to hunt down such little raider/-fleets because one carrier can fight a stand alone battle with say 75 medium fighters easily vs. 3-5 Dreadnoughts and lost only one half of his fighters.