Hey all. I've been watching the AI combat tournament, and I've noticed something that's bothered me a bit since 0.8 came out. Specifically, it had to do with carriers. Right now the Meta is skewing towards carriers being a bit too powerful for their class, and in my opinion I feel it has to do with several problems. Within the context of this discussion, fighters refers to specifically 'fighters', not the general ship class of 'fighters' (such as bombers, fighters and so on):
1) Small kinetic PD weapons find it difficult to kill nimble fighters. While vulcans and light machine guns can kill missiles and torpedoes relatively well, this is because they move in a straight line towards the ship. A fighter, however, does not move just towards the ship, but also over and around it. Due to the way the aiming works on ships, and the fact there is delay between the weapon firing and reaching the fighter, kinetic PD weapons just can't hit fighters. This is also problematic when flak cannons are attempting to fire on a nimble fighter at close range. This can be mitigated somewhat by skills from captains, but it's easy to get more carriers than captains. Larger weapons and burst PD can also be more effective at deleting fighters, but often this makes the ship less suited for ship-to-ship combat, and the ship is not able to adequately deal with fighters anyway.
2) Shielded fighters are difficult to kill. Traditional anti-fighter weapons like flak cannons and swarmers can't really hurt a shielded fighter. Sure, they can probably knock down a shield and then the craft given time, but during that time they aren't firing at anything else, like torpedoes or other fighters. When combined with a fighter deathball, this means that even properly PD dedicated ships are easily overwhelmed.
3) Fighters with projectile weapons are terrible at dogfighting, but way too good at ship suppression. These ships are supposed to be able to cut through enemy fighters, but due to point (1), they can't hit them unless they're in a mass. On the flip side, they are brilliant at fighting against larger ship classes, who find it difficult to fight back, again due to (1). This can often lead to destroyers and even light cruisers being mobbed by a deathball of fighters and becoming stun-locked and dying horribly, even with suitable PD options.
4) Ships end up 'target saturated' when being attackedby three or more wings. This can also happen with frigates, but I've noticed it a lot more with fighters. The current AI can't seem to prioritise which target to go after, as it seems to try and target one fighter wing, then another, then a ship, quite often as the fighters are strafing the ship. This can result in a rather frustrating situation where a ship under AI control is destroyed by a missile strike it should have been able to deal with because it moved to focus on a wing that was flanking it with heavy weapons.
5) There isn't a true hard counter to carriers in a big fleet situation except carriers. Right now it's difficult for an AI ship to flank and take out a carrier if escorted, as the fighter swarms are often able to catch and kill them, while heavier ship classes are often both mobbed by fighters and the escort ships. This means a carrier can fight with impunity from behind the line, reforming a fighter wave and sending it out at roughly the same time other carriers do, replenishing the deathball and giving only a small window of opportunity for ships to try and break through the escorts before another deathball appears.
Due to this combination of no really suitable hard counter for fighters at close range, difficulty in killing shielded fighters, the current difficulties in AI fighting fighters and difficulty in dealing with carriers in general, the general Meta has begun to lean towards carrier fleets feeling overpowered.
Now, in all honesty, these issues are not overly distracting, as Alex has done a wonderful job of balancing. However, during the early to mid game when it's difficult to get a dedicated PD boat, and the fighters available aren't up to scratch at killing other fighters, these problems become rather annoying. The AI problem also persists from the mid game to the late game. Some mods also compound the issue, as they bring in very flashy fighters and effective carrier options that can form deathballs way too easily. While I know that Alex has fixed / is fixing the AI issue with fighters, I still feel the other problems are worthy of discussion. I also have no real idea how these problems could be fixed, and whether they should be fixed at all - maybe this isn't an issue with you, and you've found fighters to beunder powered (I have seen this statement once or twice since 0.8 came out). So, have you found these things to be bothersome in your own gameplay? Or do I just need to git gud?