There is no fM-a, only fM-b and it only does 2 pts of damage. Fighter missiles can't accept AM warheads only AAM ones and their effect is reduced in 3rdR. Even against smaller ships the fM fails to be effective because even a DD datagroup (Z or Zi) can muster either 8 or 16 shots (from the other two ships in the data group) and given even a F4 can only launch 24 missiles it is an uphill battle.
Well, maybe it's time to revisit fM-a vs fM-b and change it so that fM-a does exist and does 2 dp, and fM-b does exist and does 3 dp. if they have that difficult a time get any hits thru a target's PD, then it seems to me that the change would be warranted.
Armed small craft are the Pn2 and Ast2 and those are canonical (see Imperial Starfire and Crusade). The pn is supposed to be armed (see Honor Harringswine's On Basilisk Station for a good description of what Weber was thinking of for it). Again I am not a fan of fighters, and other armed gnats but apparently it is such a staple of space combat games you can't avoid it. The use of suicide shuttles bothers me equally as much since I don't think a small craft that has no warheads in its cargo would do sufficient damage to even an escorts drive field to effect it. Again this is something that I think Aurora handles better, but then Steve had lots of experience with fighters in starfire. I'd perfer to avoid any fighters and armed small craft but...
Yes, I'm aware that pn2 and ast2 are canonical. But I also think that they're bad for the game, as is allowing any PD to be carried by small craft.
Also, I tend to agree with you on kamikaze smallcraft without any warheads. I think that it'd probably be better if smallcraft without any warheads were nothing but bugs on a windshield.
That said, supposedly st's, ast's, and pn's carry bombs (which do 1 dp of nuke damage), though there's no mention in SM#2 of how many they carry, only that they can drop 1 (for st) or 2 (for ast/pn) bombs per turn. I suppose that given that bombs are 1 csp per bomb, they'd be limited by their cargo capacity ... which wouldn't be much of a limit since st/ast have a capacity of 100 csp and pn's a capacity of 200 csp. That's a lot of "bombs", though with the Large Explosions table that comes out to 5 dp for a st or ast, or 6 dp for a pn. And since bombs are only 0.01 Mc per bomb, that's 1 MC for the st/ast payload or 2 MC for the pn payload, and not including the cost of the smallcraft that'd be lost as well (20 for a st, 30 for an ast, and 45 for a pn). That seems rather pricey to me, but I suppose if you've got a boatload of money to spend and a higher TL enemy that traditional means aren't able to defeat, it might be worth the cost particularly if there's no defensive counter in existence at the time other than ship-mounted PD and other weapons. (It's also worth noting that if you're going to use this strategy with bombs, that's a LOT of Magazine space you'd need for the bombs.)
It is clear that ground combat was the left handed step child hidden under the stairs of starfire. I just think it is an important part of conquoring a race, and should not just require a few TL 1 escorts with G or R to clear the enemy ground troops.
Different people having different opinions. Some people will want to go thru the motions of ground combat. Others won't. I suppose that the PCF model was Dave's way to attempt to split the difference with an abstracted ground combat model that may end up not satisfying either camp.