Arioch wrote:And hopefully we can get Starfighters implemented soon.

I love all sorts of small crafts, but am not sure if I would use fighters as stand-alone squadron. Is there a rationale for them?
Are they filling in some kind of fleet role?

I think it is a good approach to make fighters, bombers very effective in some specific situation but limit their application to carriers
If we have an all-rounder swarm of small fighters, that is cheap to produce and is not required to return to the hangar after each run, will these not outright replace all sorts of carriers and possibly even all other types of ships? As they are cheap to produce, pack a punch, are fast and numerous aka: swarm tactic trumps everything else right?

I think Fighters (small craft in general) are in a pretty good place right now. When massed up and properly supported by missiles, they are extremely strong. But carriers are expensive (especially metal) so that helps make that massing difficult.

If fighters didn't need a carrier, they would need to be extremely expensive on their own in order to keep them from dominating (or relegating carriers to uselessness).