[solops]

Thanks for the comments. My limited experience in SEIV 1.49 was that missiles/fighters became useless in the face of an enemy prepared with med-hi level PD, particularly if the line combatants each had 2-4 PD mounts and were supplemented by purpose-built PD cruisers, bristling with nothing but PD and perhaps one beam weapon (which seemed to keep them from running away). I hoped (hope) that Gold makes missile/fighters survivable enough to make them a useful part of the fleet mix throughout the game, if deployed in adequate numbers. I do wish that there was some way to force the AI to wait a bit before launching them in simultaneous combat mode so that attacks could be coordinated between beam and stand-off weapons, or so that one could launch late and hope some of the enemy PD mounts had been damaged.