In my opinion fighters are not very effective.  They combine two hits with a pretty terrible gun and come out to 25 pts each.  If your opponent brought ECM or Stealth you shouldn't even bother deploying them.

I've been trying various methods to make them more effective.  So far I've come up with either making them a small ship with hull equal to fighter numbers, short range weapons and a high thrust value (10-12) or making them a seeker type weapon and just abstracting things.  The seeker method has the advantage of being simple and cost effective.  The ship method has the advantage of being closer to how fighters worked in previous versions of the game, but the disadvantage of the "flight" being slowed by damage.  If flotilla rules are reintroduced at some point that would be ideal.

Example one: (From Dockyard)
NAME:
Centauri ALTARIAN-class Destroyer  (179)
ARMOR[_][_] [_] [_]
HULL    [_][_][_] [_][_][_] [_][_]
THRUST    [5][4][3][2][1]       WEAPONS    [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM    [2][1][1][1][1]    SHIELDS    [_][_][_][_][_]
Hyperdrive
WEAPONS    ARCS    RANGE    ATTACK DICE    -4         -6         -8    -10
3× Matter Cannon    [FX1][AA3]    4-8-12    12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1    0    0
4× Twin Array (Pnp)    [TT2][FX2]    1-2-3    24    17    12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1
1× Sentri Fighters (Acr/Skr/Slw)    [TT]    6-12-18    4    3    2    1    1    1    1    0    0    0    0    0

Example 2: (also from Dockyard)
NAME:
Centauri SENTRI-class Fighters  (36)
ARMOR           
HULL    [_][_]    [_][_]    [_][_]
THRUST    [12][8][6][4][3]       WEAPONS    [_][1][2][3][4]
ECM    [_][_][_][_][_]    SHIELDS    [_][_][_][_][_]
Stealth (2)
WEAPONS    ARCS    RANGE    ATTACK DICE    -4         -6         -8    -10
6× Ultra-light Particle Beam    [FR]    1-2-3      12    8    6    4    3    2    2    1    1    1    0    0

Hello everyone,
The ships I played in the game here in Jacksonville Thursday were fairly typical ships of mine; they had no shields, no ECM, and no stealth.  They did have good firepower tho.  If you look in the B-Basin, you can get an idea of what my DNs look like.
I am puzzled with how ineffective fighters are in S:NE.  In earlier editions, they were formitable, having good firepower.  Here are some simple ideas to bring them up to par:
One idea is to give fighters "Accuracy", they will now hit on 4+  at no added cost.  This will boost their firepower 50%, and will involve no changes to any ship designer programs. 
If this is not enough, perhaps fighters can hit on 3+ at no extra cost.  Again, I am trying to make them more cost-effective with as little trouble as possible. 
:idea: Maybe we can try these ideas here in Jacksonville...  What are other people's thoughts?

We played another game of Starmada here in Jacksonville with my friend Jabba6z playing a swarm of fighters with his fleet.  We kept the costs & hit points of the fighter-flights the same as in the book and on the DryDock, but let them hit on a 3+.  Although the fighters did more damage, my fleet of 2 DNs and three DDs triumphed.  I lost one DN and had two DDs damaged, but all the fighters were shot down and the ships escorting them were destroyed.  Only the lightly armed & armored CV survived of the fleet Jabba6Z brought.  This CV wisely stayed far away and descretely warped out.
:idea: What we may try next is giving fighters twice the number of shots.  A regular fighter-flight gets 6 shots and a strong-fighter flight gets 8 shots.  This might make the fighters Cost Effective.
No one here in Jacksonville used ECM, Stealth, (or even shields) so these things are not a problem.  Perhaps a fighter-flight could half the ECM/Stealth rating, rounding down.  So an ECM/Stealth rating of one would be ignored, a rating of 2 or 3 would give fighter flights a -1, etc.  This would reflect the fighter pilots attacking at shorter range than ships do.
We will continue to find a way to make fighters cost effective without changing their cost, etc, but rather by adjusting their firepower.
Cheers

I think that we have been successful in increasing the firepower of fighters to make them more worth their cost.
:idea: We gave the fighters twice the number of shots as they have in the Rulebook. Thus regular fighter-flights have six shots, strong fighter-flights have eight shots. We have them hit on either 3+. This made them cost effective, without having to change their CRs or SUs. This way there is no need to modify the DryDock or any of the ships in the supplements.
Having them hit on a 3+ can be justified by the manuverability of fighters; the much-bigger ships are easier for them to aim at and fire at.
But more important is that this worked; this increased firepower makes fighters much more formitable. 8-)
Cheers

I quote myself, that's a first. 
Finally, I won't. My problem was not -only- that there are not powerful enough, it's mainly that their cost is horrendous. Here are two versions of the same carrier:
- The common basis is hull 24, thrust 5, Shield 3+, armor 18, hyperdrive, 12 point defense phaser (TT, BAS .8, RNG 3, Pnp)
- Seeker mode: Add 24 fighters (TT, BAS 1.5, RNG 15, Skr, Gid, Dx2, Slw), cost 494
- Real Fighter mode: Add 30 medium fighters, cost 1157

Thus, filling the basis with fighters as seekers cost less than half than filling the same SU with real fighters. I can say that the fighter-mode carrier is more efficient, especially with twice the number of shots and 3+ (hence four times the power of official fighters), but my wish is to have carriers costing about the same as ships the same size. For instance, replacing fighters as seeker and point defense phaser with 6 x photon torps (FF, BAS 1, RNG 15, Gid, Dx2, Prc) and 12 x phasers (TT, BAS 1.2, RNG 9) costs 486.
Almost the same cost, two different ship using the same hull.
With a cost of 1157, I'm sure it will never ever be deployed on my table.

Marc

I know they are not effective, but they can be very when worst comes to worst...
During a VASSAL gamme, 6 regular fighters fire on a lioght cruiser. Of 18 dice of fire, 8 are striking a 5+ shield. Only one goes through... Next impulse, another group of 6 fighter fire the same cruiser, but from the front and with directionnal defense, they have 12 dice. Only 3 hits... and worst, two are blocked by the 5+ shield. 30 dice and 2 damages where on average I would have 10 hits meaning at least 6 damage...
I know some pilots who are going to be shot down when they come back to the carrier...

Marc

SEVEN 5 or 6 saves out of a throw of eight dice!!!!

Fighters are not effective against those dice..... where can I buy some?

Paul

Sounds like a plan

What we do with fighters is allow all of the fighters in a hex (up to six are allowed) to fire just as a ship would during the owning players time to fire a ship.  The player can hve the hex of fighters fire instead of firing a ship.  This makes manuevering them important.  This has worked well.  It makes drones significant because once they attack, there is no opportunity to fire at them and weaken their number the way that fighters can be fired at with the next turn in mind. 

Suncoast Comics & Games here in Jacksonville has changed owners and is now called the Friendly Local Gaming Store.  The store's Grand Opening is today and I will be running Starmada @ 1pm.  I am hoping to have a game with four players, with c3000 points per side.
Cheers

Those are the rules, no?

I tried drones once and they didn't seem effective. Just having to fire small numbers of them each turn isn't very interesting. Maybe I overlook something.

Marc

Right, I was talking from a strict rules point of view.

That doesn't solve my problem. If I want to use the same hull for, for example, a DN and a CV, the DN will be far cheaper than the CV. If my budget allows me to deploy one  DN, along other smaller ships, it will not allow to deploy a CV.
Your solution is a solution, making fighters much better for the same cost, my solution would have been to make them cheaper for the same efficiency. Unfortunately, my solution means a modification in the way to create ship. It's simple to do, but has profound effects on the ship design.

Marc

Agreed with you totally. The only problem I see is when creating ships from another design. If, for example, a CV has 48 'real' fighters, and that is translated by 24 or 16 Nova fighters, I fear the CV's CR will be horrenduous...
No that I said that, I will design some carriers with modest fighter number ad see what I obtain.

Marc