Frigate-swarms are now worth using, but carrier swarms are not. That's one less option and makes me a sad panda. I think fighter skills should be re-assessed and opened up to work not on a maximum of fighter bays but fleetwide again. Adjust the strenght of the skills if necessary.
fighters overall are... kind of in a weird place... cause on one hand, yes they SHOULD be strong af, you sacrifice a whole combat vessel for basically a brick in space doing nothing but hosting fighters (unless its bae legion 14), AND by USING fighters, (the good ones) and bombers you have a constant upkeep of crew to pay and keep an eye out, possibly putting your fleet on negative crew to maintain after enough fights
on the other hand... bomberspam
which lets be honest... i dont understand why everyone is making such a big deal out of it
yes its a playstyle
yes it was a GOOD one
was it more effective than... other options? debatable
prolly not, the issue wasnt "bombers and fighters are too strong" the ACTUAL problem was a balance with dp
which is ALWAYS the problem in this game, and its ALWAYS going to be a problem unless fleetcaps are removed, or dp is going to be seriously changed (basically you could project way too much force with cheap dp efficient carriers than you should have)
which is a shame cause i find fighters super cool, but they always require so much investment, and upkeep, and escorting to use effectivly, compared to things like "spam a frontline of onslaughts", or "spam 4 paragons", you know
fighters (and bombers, sadly needs more shield killers imo) are one of the few things that can effectively kill tac lance paragons
aka, fighters and bombers are actually one of the few reasons to spec some pd escorts (cause lets be honest, missiles arent that good unless in the players hands)