@ hydremajor: I was pointing out that fighters (aside from maybe the Drover and Spark combo) are not that overpowering unless player specializes in them. With Expanded Deck Crew and skills being the biggest culprit. (Fleet with nothing but carriers is another way, too.) However, fighters are better than Pilum spam, and one reason why I call fighters better missiles than missiles.
As for specializing in fighters, I do not like the way player can specialize in fighters.
Expanded Deck Crew is a significant OP tax for all dedicated carriers and Legion. Legion needs both ITU and Expanded Deck Crew. Combined with good fighters costing 8 OP or more, there is usually not enough OP left to properly support guns, so it is a good idea to leave carriers mostly or wholly unarmed. Sure, carrier could eschew Deck Crew, but it hurts like other ships not taking ITU to support their guns. Carriers have mounts, and they should use them, but the current gameplay discourages that.
Most carrier skills are piloted-only. This may be fine for officers, but for the player who cannot re-spec skills, this really hurts because it locks the flagship to Drover, Mora, Heron, or Astral for the rest of the game. (On the other hand, player can grab generalist skills and be good with warships or phase ships, and there are many more of them than carriers.) Carrier specialist gimps conventional combat power much the same way a colony industrialist would by spending skill points in highly specialized skills (that he may not use once he is not in a carrier) instead of more general combat skills that should be given to a combat character, and the game is mostly about combat.