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« on: February 20, 2012, 02:50:23 AM »
The only real-world excuse for fighters in space aside from arbitrary technological limits (we can't make missiles that can track sufficiently well, or sensors that detect that far away, etc.) are as something to deliver ordinance in a more direct and efficient manner than a missile, or as more efficient countermeasures to missiles or other ordinance delivery systems. If you want to shoot a missile at me from way over there you need: Boatloads of engines/fuel to get here. At least some basic guidance, more if you want it to put any effort at all into avoiding my defenses, which would likely get pretty costly as quality increases (We can probably write off wireless guidance by people on the ship. It doesn't have to be "hacked" just jammed and all your missiles are useless). It needs some armor or defenses of its own so I can't shoot it down with a stern glare, the amount of which goes up exponentially as the volume of the missile increases (Since it's got all that fuel/engines it needs to get here from far away it's probably got to have quite a weight or at least cost of defensive measures of some sort.) And of course it's got to have a warhead that needs to be big enough to hurt me and justify all this cost of its delivery, but not too big that it's so unwieldy and slow that it can't hit me or help but get shot down.
With all this there's probably some pretty well defined size ranges for missile dictated by available technology/physics/economics beyond which it's either ineffective or impractical. If it's too small then there just isn't enough bang, and if it's too big then you end up spending way too many bucks.
Now for starters, with a fighter you can cut out that expensive guidance system from all of your missiles, and instead you only need one, which is capable of effectively applying itself to a relatively large number of missiles. This guidance system (pilot, ai, whatever) may be extremely costly, but it's also able to effectively guide whatever large number of missiles/bombs/death not only to its target, but also to some degree around whatever defenses the target may have, and then it can even return to be reused later, so you're not blowing up an expensive guidance package with every missile! Never mind the entirely reasonable possibility/likelihood that even your best computerized missile guidance system can't think or deal with changing circumstances as well as a human pilot, and your financial/ethical constraints prevent you from having a trained human piloting each individual missile.
Not only that, but I could also have some fighters that could fly out and meet your long range missiles or fighters at the halfway point between us, when they're still weighed down by at least half a tank of fuel plus all their ordinance and simply don't have the mobility to avoid being shot down at that point. Sure, I could've fired smaller missiles at yours, but they'd probably have to cope with some sort of limited defenses or decoys or something and then I'd need more expensive guidance systems or to fire more missiles and then we hit the point where it's more cost effective to send out one expensive fighter with 1000 rounds of dirt cheap ammo than it is to send out 100 interceptor missiles that each cost some little bit.
And then of course you need to utilize fighters specifically to shoot down my fighters so they don't shoot down your missiles or bombers or whatever and hey, look, everyone's using fighters!
Really, it seems to me that the only point at which fighters in a realistic space setting cease to become advantageous is when you have guidance systems that not only outperform humans at a whole slew of very difficult tasks, but that are also significantly cheaper to produce than a trained human pilot. And sure, you can have that, there's no limit on science fiction technology, it's just way way further out there than the very broad zone of "tech level" where humans outperform technology at certain tasks and that most science fiction setting reside in.
Nevermind that the drama, action, and personal feel attached to a tense dogfight between two fighters or a heroic squadron of bombers is generally more entertaining and engaging in any entertainment medium than bland waves of missiles crashing into each other... oh damn, some go through... ok reload all the tubes and launch another round.
Edit: Nevermind. Avan's right. Biggest missile is best missile.
