How huge is huge?  The launch rate restrictions limit how many any given ship can put in the air per turn, even with launch tubes.  Yours are kind of high-end and operate in big flights to minimize that, but how many were there, and did the enemy fleet have fighters/strikers/seekers of its own built for defense against that sort of thing?

That's what I was thinking myself - or cheap striker/seeker designs built for anti-missile/anti-fighter work.  A few of those are generally worth bringing to the table IME.

With a point build kit of a game, making the fleet is half the fun.  But I do agree that it can break the playing part of the game if you hit on a single note that is exactly what the other guy's fleet isn't ready for.  But only in a one-off game.  If this was in the context of some campaign (like the Simplest, which I love) then the losing side would have the ability to adjust their fleet.  A missile interceptor designed to just sit on a 100 point missile can be made for 15.  (4 12 6+ 0, No Hull Damage, Non Piercing, Interceptor)  Now that's a savings.  Then we'd see what happens to such a specialized fleet.

Because if you don't, the enemy will.  Or more accurately, the enemy will regardless of whether you do or not, so it's kind of advisable if you want to win (because winning is fun, and losing is distinctly less fun).  And yeah, it'd be nice to play fair / light / non-cheesed...  but I'll be damned if I can convince the people I play with to do it.  And so the minmaxing goes on, until the game ends (like it's kinda doing now...).

But yeah, CAP-dogfight fighter interceptors are definitely the counter to use (as opposed to striker / seeker interceptors who can't dogfight and thereby guarantee detonation / destruction next turn).  The trouble with those is that they're self-countering; if you know the enemy's bringing interceptors to dogfight, all you have to do is bring about the same number (for the same cost), try to dogfight them before they get your missiles, and then you're back where you started...  it's just a point-tax on both sides.  But it's the only reliably effective counter we ever found against striker saturation (besides also using striker saturation and hoping you're the last one standing when the dust settles); Point Defense wasn't enough, upgrading AFBs so they could fire reactively barely helped, interceptor strikers or seekers weren't enough, long-range AF weapons sometimes worked but not nearly as reliably, shields have been right out of the question since the Halves / Ignores traits were released...

Do you feel the same way about Piercing?  Or is it mild enough to be okay?  (I use Pierce 3, Extra Shield Damage on mine and fights have trouble making it to round 3.)

That was our opinion as well - we play Piercing +1 only.  I'd halfway forgotten Piercing even came in +2 and +3 variants, truth being told.  You'll note that it doesn't in SFO, which is again a Good Thing in my book.

I think part of the problem is that the number of options (when using everything unrestricted) to bypass defenses is much larger than the number of ways to make yourself tougher to kill.  There are millions of combos of weapon traits, most of which make weapons better at poking holes in things.  Defensively, you've got shields, a few things like countersmeasures and cloak, and other than that you're counting on luck and clever maneuvering.  You can't even buy extra hull boxes, unless I've missed something in a supplement somewhere.  Just plain fewer options.

Thanks for the numbers there.  Going back to my side-point for a sec, you fired 1200 out of your 4000 points in missiles.  30% losses before the fight starts is kinda pyhh... pyrh... lose-y for a win.  The reason this isn't off topic is that it shows there is a balance vector (number of shots/fights) that isn't being handled in a one-off game.

We banned Ammo our third game after we realized it was balanced to be even for ten shots and our fights lasted three rounds.  Strikers are the same way.  It isn't a handicap to super front-load your attacks if there is no long term to worry about.  Dunno what to do about it, but I've been thinking about campaigns a lot recently and strikers were on my mind.

Getting to this belatedly, I think the problem may be that it isn't "consistently" a problem, it's an occasional rock-paper-scissors mismatch that occurs, and therefore the shock makes it feel like more of an issue than it really is.  The strikers the OP was using are easily countered for a fraction of their cost if you expect them, or are just building to cover a wide variety of potential threats.  Even the shield-ignoring/halves shields/high-piercing traits I hate so much are easily countered - they're a huge waste against a swarming fleet of ships with low or no shields, or a mob of fighters/strikers for that matter.  We skip on them locally because we prefer to keep the shield penetration mechanic meaningful, but that doesn't make an argument for everyone doing it.  There's something that "breaks" just about any fleet configuration out there - just a question of how often you wind up facing it.

I love how in the Klingon and Romulan Armada you can fire drones (read strikers/seekers here) in a defensive role before offensive drones attack.  Might be something to add.

Of course, others have talked about a great counter for those strikers already so  I won't get into that!  When we were playing, we got 3 to 5 random weapon traits and 3 to 5 random starship traits and had to make a fleet with that.  It was a lot of fun to 'figure' out how to use the effectively.  You guys might try that!

-B