So, thinking about some of the planned stuff... I have a question to ask: What would be the balance concerns if you could, at any time, start construction of a fighter squadron you have the schematics for? I'm not entirely convinced this is a good idea, but... it might be, and seems worth bringing up for discussion.
Say, for instance, I have the plans for broadswords. If I have enough supplies, and crew, and available fleet points, and a carrier - what would happen to the game if I could, during combat, order a carrier "Start building another wing of broadswords"? (This would, presumably, be slower than repairing even a heavily damaged broadsword wing.)
Some obvious effects:
If you have enough freighters to carry supplies, you can always pull out more fighters during combat - up to the current deployment limit. Large battles would tend to stay large.
There would be much less incentive for the player to chase down the last fighter in a wing, since a destroyed wing can still be replaced.
Crew losses in a pitched battle where both sides are building fighters as fast as they can... might get kinda absurd. Skills to reduce casualties from fighter squadrons would be a good idea.
An "undefended" ship with a flight deck could pop out several squadrons of fighters when they see a hostile fleet approaching... and, if necessary, scrap those again after the threat is dealt with; not very efficient on supplies compared to carting a few wings around all the time, but still a potentially interesting tactic, especially if you're running near your fleet point limit.