AI performance with no fighters? (stock, TDM)

[God Emperor]

I hardly ever build fighters as I play Tactical Combat and have ships heavily equipped with PDC's. The only occaisions I do build fighters are as planetary defenders.

Against human players, I believe that support fighters are necessary to support capital ships, in order to combat the tactic of massively overwhelming the point defence (which the AI is not capable of arranging).

In Strategic Combat, fighters are necessary as the computer does not include them in its threat assessment for distance calculation - ie it doesnt make sure that ships maintain maximum PDC weapons distance + fighter movement capability.