Fighters are incredibly powerful if built in sufficient numbers. If the AI doesn't put point defence cannons on its ships, then you can build six small fighters equipped with just the small anti proton beam at any of your planets in a *single* turn and utterly destroy any escort, frigate, or light cruiser which the AI may spend two to three turns building at a space yard planet.
They don't need to be built at a space yard so it is easy to spend all your excess resources building up quite a stockpile of these things. I figure that the average system can build at least 40 per turn. There are just too many advantages to list. You didn't need to build a space yard to start producing these fighters so you can start producing them the same turn you colonize the planet instead of waiting five turns. They don't require any maintenance so you can spend more resources on expansion. They don't effect your score. So, you can have enough fighters to utterly lay waste to the AI and still seem harmless--thus not invoking MEE. Fighters can leave planet orbit and attack targets inside the system. This is something that satellites and weapon platforms and mines can't do. Pack them on a carrier or a transport if you have a planet in the next system over, and you now have a mobile offensive force. Fighters are better than satellites because they are always on the correct side of the planet. They are better than WEP's because they can go out and meet the enemy. 40 small fighters can easily take on a cruiser or battle cruiser and destroy it. Remember that small fighters are incredibly hard to hit while packing quite a wollop...
Later in the game, the AI will put Point Defence cannons on its ships. But if you play an EA-like game and mass produce fighters, you'll quickly find that even putting your fighters in much more manageable Groups of 20 or more, you will easily be able to defeat AI ships with PD V cannons by englobing his ships. It seems that the PD cannons don't fire if neither your fighters nor the enemy ships move?
Fighters are much more convenient to build than mines, satellites or weapon platforms because a planet can launch an infinite number per turn, and then you can move the fighters around inside a system without using another ship as is required by the other unit types.
As you can see, I'm a very big advocate of fighters. Even before I installed the Mod Pack and observed the numbers of fighters the EA builds, I found fighters to be extremely powerful. Of course, a human player could easily counter my fighters by building ships with *only* PD V's on board. But he'll spend one heck of a lot more resources on maintenance than I will.
IMHO, you would be extremely surprised at how effective just the small fighter is. Playing a high bonus game against the current AI, I think you could probably play a game where you never leave your current system and stop researching after you get the small fighter with the small anti-proton. Once you get that, I might make the ridiculous claim that you could declare war on all your enemies and survive. Of course, that might be a little extreme. However, I *was* at war with THREE empires at once and survived. (Hopefully, get rid of the defense base bug, and I would have been toast!)
(Stepping down off the podium and stopping the auto-salesmen like pitch of fighters...)
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Notes for those of you who don't spend more time playing the game than you do reading this forum.
1. MEE - Once you reach a certain score, which is influenced heavily by the number of ships and bases you have, all races in the game decide you are a threat, break their treaties and declare war on you. The game is much easier to win if everybody *loves* you. With careful diplomacy, you can maintain peaceful relations with everyone in the galaxy until the turn before you start laying waste to their colonies.
2. EA - Earth Alliance - Awesome race created by Mephisto which you can find in the Mod Pack 1.01 over in the Scenarios/Mods forum which is up a level from this one and down a few.
Re: Value of Fighters
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