I've been toying with fighter design, and it turns out my lasers are way too big to slap on my fighters at this tech level. So, I ended up going with a mason cannon. Here's the final design:
Warrior class Fighter 480 tons 60 Crew 108.5 BP TCS 9.6 TH 23.04 EM 0
10000 km/s Armour 3-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 96% IFR: 1.3% Maint Capacity 0 MSP Max Repair 32 MSP Est Time: 0 Years
Lockheed InCoFu FTR Drive E300 (1) Power 96 Fuel Use 3000% Signature 23.04 Armour 0 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (34 hours at full power)
R9/C6 Meson Cannon (1) Range 90,000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 6-6 RM 9 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0
Magelan FTR FC S02 48-12000 (1) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 12000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Siemens InCo Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (1) Total Power Output 6 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a fighter for production and combat purposes
One glaring issue is a lack of engineering facilities. Haven't researched those yet (small ones). I suppose I can offset that by slapping Maintenance module(s) onto a mothership. Mothership, or nearby AWACs ship would provide active sensors for the fighters.
Now for some general questions. Does this fighter make sense? Would it be useful? Is it missing anything obvious? I understand that masons ignore shields/armour. Does that mean that a swarm of these guys could tear a ship apart from inside, assuming they can get close enough? Would these guys make a reasonable missile defense? If I do not have missile tech developed, would fighters like this work as a means of chasing down an enemy with beam weapons? I have level 3 armour on these guys (basically padded them as close to 500 as I could with armour). Is that good, bad, stupid, smart?
For a beam fighter this is not a bad design. Personally I rarely add armor over level 1 to fighters. If you expect to have operation in a nebula then the armor makes sense. Otherwise the more speed the better since it degrades the accuracy of in coming fire.
Based on the engine tech your using the missile intercept role is going to be iffy. Your tracking speed is 10k and the missiles you can expect are going to be in excess of 30k. For this role even fighters need turrets to truely be effective. In my opinion, gunboats tend to be a little better choice for the detached intercept role.
Anti-shipping is going to have them well inside PD envelopes. Large swarms of them will be effective though.
Expect loses and plan resupply accordingly. Currently the this means either returning to a population that has a stockpile or carriers dedicated to ferrying fresh fighters forward.
If you plan to have these fighters picket somewhere then the engineering will be needed. Or if you plan regular long range sorties.
A maintaince module on the mothership will normally be useless. They only function when in orbit of a colony that has sufficient mined minerals on hand.
As you've already noted they will require another platform with active sensors to paint targets for them. Not neccessarily a bad thing.