I don't want to hijack the thread, but fighters have been a sore point for me with this game.
They have their niche - the trick is to not think of them as aircraft but rather motor torpedo boats and their ilk.
Currently the game has the Rampart, which is essentially an F-104-ish manned interceptor, or more rather a "bullet with wings" (and a cockpit), but really pales in terms of its ability to do anything.
At TL15 a manned 'fighter' is not much use in the line of battle vs capital ships, but it does have uses - missile interceptor, scouting duties, screening duties.
I use 'fighters' as scouts and forward observers...
I bring this up because carriers in today's navy exist because aircraft can cover more territory faster and deliver a payload a lot better than a naval gun. It's why BBs are all but obsolete in modern naval warfare (though the rail gun may change that).
The manned plane became the delivery system for the high explosives that used to be fired by the big guns and miss a lot. A lot of bombers were needed to achieve kills on capital ships, and those bombers needed to be protected by escort fighters.
Today we do not need a piloted aircraft to deliver the explosives...
Traveller has not had an effective smallcraft delivered weapons system, nor does it have smallcraft that are ten to a hundred times faster than the ships they go hunting.
TL;DR - you can only apply the analogy of modern naval and air warfare so far to Traveller ship combat and far too many people get hung up on 'this is the way it worked in the pacific' or 'this is how a modern CNV battlegroup works'. Traveller ship combat games model combat in space in the Traveller universe.
In space it becomes problematic because of magic tech. Since typically there isn't a whole lot interfereing with LOS, then you can see (or even guess based on visual date) where your opponent is and fire away. Ergo there's no real need for fighters, QED.
Again it depends upon your view of what a 'fighter' in the space combat paradigm of TL7-15 Traveller is capable of. They are not aircraft. They do not dogfight (sorry Star Wars fans), they can not launch a torpedo that can kill a capital ship (although with the missiles special supplement and LBB2 combat a fighter or six armed with nukes will make a nasty mess of the capital ships possible in LBB2).
What they can do is extend the range of your sensor net, act as a forward controller for missiles and AKVs, and make a mess of civilian ships...
Either way I think rail guns are interesting. Most of my Traveller sessions had ACS combat ... I think once, maybe twice or three times I had players wander into a full scale battle, but it was more for flavor, and not really endemic to the game itself; i.e. "You've come out of jump, and see a line of Sylea class BBs taking out a fleet of Zho BCs... what do you do?!" And so it goes.
My favourite Traveller space combat game remains Star Cruiser for T2300. You had to get to within one hex range to use your weapons.
The movement and sensor rules make the ten/thirty minute turn 'sub-hunt' phase of combat interesting as you maneuver your assets into position.
Add a vector movement system and you can instantly convert this phase to a more normal Traveller game.
Once ships are in weapon lock range I switch to a one minute combat turn system; sometimes even down to a 15 second round during a rpg session I may have the players frantically describing what they are doing...
