I just remembered something from my wargaming past that may, or may not (you tell me) bear proof on the value of "fighters". If not laugh at the story:
Long ago in high school days the game Starfire from Task Force Games came out, the one where you could design space combat ships and slug it out. There was a person who was quite good at the game but also quite a prick about it. So I took him up on a his "I can make the best ships." We agreed on a budget and came to battle the next week at the schools game club night. He comes in with 5, I will say well made, dreadnought class ships with all the good defenses, armor, weapons the take up multiple spots in the right spots, the shebang. I put down 20 counters on the board and he starts laughing thinking its a cakewalk, until I tell him each counter represented 10 corvette class ships, the smallest ship class the game had (unless you count the actual fighters/fighter bays from Starfire II and Starfire III games) each with a single laser and the absolute minimum engine, shield, etc. to complete the frame. He thought I was crazy and lying until I showed him my paper with my design, cost and budget (this was before PCs, Visicalc and such). I won because in that game, a ship can only target one enemy ship per round, unless you have a Multitarget Unit (rated 2 thru 5). Yes he had an M5's installed and quite handily destroyed 25 corvettes the first round. But the 200 Corvettes got their licks in destroying 1 dreadnought. I was not going to risk firing at multiple ships ("Concentrate all firepower on that Super Star Destroyer."). Round 2 was 4 DN vs 175 Corvettes. He refused to play round 3+. Well, I said he was a prick.
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The point is: In situations without a ship killer Spinal, (damaged, never developed, ship tonnage too small, small stellar empire budgets, etc.), do fighters (and Riders) regain value simply by throwing enough metal in the sky and thus overloading even multiple fire-control stations or the computer? IIRC that's what to do in CT Book 2 fights. I don't know T5 ACS or BCS well yet. I've gone thru the other stuff more thoroughly.
Long ago in high school days the game Starfire from Task Force Games came out, the one where you could design space combat ships and slug it out. There was a person who was quite good at the game but also quite a prick about it. So I took him up on a his "I can make the best ships." We agreed on a budget and came to battle the next week at the schools game club night. He comes in with 5, I will say well made, dreadnought class ships with all the good defenses, armor, weapons the take up multiple spots in the right spots, the shebang. I put down 20 counters on the board and he starts laughing thinking its a cakewalk, until I tell him each counter represented 10 corvette class ships, the smallest ship class the game had (unless you count the actual fighters/fighter bays from Starfire II and Starfire III games) each with a single laser and the absolute minimum engine, shield, etc. to complete the frame. He thought I was crazy and lying until I showed him my paper with my design, cost and budget (this was before PCs, Visicalc and such). I won because in that game, a ship can only target one enemy ship per round, unless you have a Multitarget Unit (rated 2 thru 5). Yes he had an M5's installed and quite handily destroyed 25 corvettes the first round. But the 200 Corvettes got their licks in destroying 1 dreadnought. I was not going to risk firing at multiple ships ("Concentrate all firepower on that Super Star Destroyer."). Round 2 was 4 DN vs 175 Corvettes. He refused to play round 3+. Well, I said he was a prick.

The point is: In situations without a ship killer Spinal, (damaged, never developed, ship tonnage too small, small stellar empire budgets, etc.), do fighters (and Riders) regain value simply by throwing enough metal in the sky and thus overloading even multiple fire-control stations or the computer? IIRC that's what to do in CT Book 2 fights. I don't know T5 ACS or BCS well yet. I've gone thru the other stuff more thoroughly.