Fighter astrals seems like a waste of time, as do bomber drovers.
It is today, but it was not in 0.8a releases when Remnant fighters and Warthogs (and carrier skills) were stronger. Sparks had two burst PD, and could solo any campaign challenge, even a full strength Remnant Nexus. Warthogs were very strong, cutting down ship after ship in seconds. With non-bombers, Recall Device was a defensive power. If a fast ship got close and ready to tear Astral a new one while fighters were halfway across the map chewing on bigger ships, Recall Device would recall them all and engulf and destroy any assailants, then those fighters can go back to where they left off.
@ pairedeciseaux: Daggers are effective against frigates too! It is the main reason to use Daggers instead of loading up on cheaper bombers like Cobras, Perditions, and Khopesh. Daggers are useful against a wide range of targets. I am not too worried about fighters from the enemy. NPCs do not mass fighters like the player can.
Pilums are useless like old pre-0.8a Thumper was. No weapon is better than Pilums. When I build a Pilum spam fleet and the best they can do is kill one ship before the Pilums run out then wait to regenerate, it has problems. Meanwhile, I can build an unskilled Spark spam fleet and wipe out a single max strength Ordos fleet. Also, Pilum spam tends to make the enemy more cowardly and run away more. AI already griefs enough with its cowardice and turtling, and I do not want to make that annoying behavior even worse!
Conventional missiles that are useful enough do not last long enough, except maybe Locusts with Expanded Missiles Racks (which is a big chunk of OP). But, if I want Locusts, Conquest can do that job better. Also, why would I use normal missiles when I have even better missiles called fighters? On a ship designed to use said fighters or especially bombers?
Guns can be used on Astral, but that is clearly sub-optimal to the one that does not use guns at all. I have used unarmed Astral and it wrecks fleets efficiently, and at range! I do not want to trade that away for shorter-ranged guns and weaker fighters! That was not the case before 0.8a when fighters did not cost the ship anything to use (but it did cost the fleet resources like Logistics, and carrier stats were inferior to those of proper warships), even if it was worse than Odyssey in every way except number of decks at the time.
About Drover, at least when needlers had 800 range, needlers and annihilators was a viable build to brawl with. It was inferior to the one that had no weapons and ran away while better fighters killed.
Currently you can choose to fill Astrals with guns but why would you do that when fighters do that work for you at much greater range and no risk to the carrier? It's not really an ''option'' if you're choosing to shoot yourself in the foot on purpose.
This is sooo right!