While we're talking about fighters again, I have a few things on my wish list I want to put out there:
1) If a carrier is under threat, and has appropriate fighters (like interceptors or heavy fighters for fighters and frigate threats, or even bombers if the threat is a cruiser+), and has not been specifically ordered to a strike or escort, it will recall its fighters to help protect itself. Perhaps modified by personality?
When I fly around with a Hammerhead + makeshift hanger it is really apparent that the ideal behavior if I'm being attacked by fighters and frigates is to recall my own, but the AI doesn't unless the wing gets mauled.
This would also help the situation where, in a carrier vs carrier fight, an interceptor-carrier won't effectively kill a strike-carrier's bombers.
2) In general more interceptor vs fighter targeting? As an example, if I have set some sparks or talons to escort a ship, they do a good job protecting it from fighters. But otherwise they tend to attack ships rather then seek out and destroy fighters. Perhaps this could be modified by ship class, like if you have a wing of interceptor and a wing of heavy fighter, target an enemy ship, and press engage, both wings will fly towards the enemy ship. The interceptors would preferentially engage fighters in the region of the enemy ship, attacking it if there are none, and the heavy fighters would preferentially attack the ship.
3) Fighters be a little more aware of slow missile threats when flying around. Maybe this is intentional, but if there is a lone rocket or LRM floating gently through space, there is a good chance fighters will sweep right through it. I don't expect fighters to survive a 4x Annihilator salvo from an Enforcer, but at present they don't seem to try to dodge. This may not be fixable, as if the fighters get too 'shy' it will also be a real problem.