Am I the only one who feels it would be appropriate to have another mission type for ground support fighters called "Suppress STO?" This would allow ground support fighters to attack revealed STO elements without fear of reprisal. Weapons built to engage starships at quarter-light-second distances wouldn't be able to engage low-flying fighters. It'd also obligate hostile ground forces to assign AA units to their STO formations.
Using airpower to attack rear-echelon troops like this is standard military practice, but given the importance of STO units - and the fact that they reveal their location when they fire by dint of their massive power plants and output - it makes sense that we'd be able to attack them directly. It would also go a long way towards solving the current collateral damage problems in the game - while collateral damage values may need tweaking eventually, the fact that the only viable way of suppressing STO's is with direct naval bombardment certainly doesn't help. While free-ranging Seek and Destroy missions might well find and engage STO units already, the chance is greatly diluted by all the normal ground combat formations... which is the entire point of having STO units hold fire to begin with; to hide them and retain a threat that can "pop up" later to surprise enemy space assets trying to move in and provide close support. (Much how modern SAM systems are often used.)
This would help make ground fighters far more crucial for allowing the capture of a planet without mass devastation of population and infrastructure and, conversely, make AAA defenses much more important for repelling invasions. A combination of AAA and STO units would be instrumental in denying the enemy orbital superiority, making it hard for them to land troops, resupply them, or provide orbital bombardment support.
This change should probably wait till the version after next, however, as the STO bug that let them fire on fighters on ground support missions has prevented anyone from playtesting how fighters v. STO's work with the extant rules.