My whole fleet is meant to be modelled on Freespace at the moment. I decided to go for more roleplay this time and actually set guidelines for how I design ships and how I perform most of my fighting. These limitations mean that most of the combat ships I use are fighters and FAC bombers.
All of my offensive capital ships have one of three roles. They're either a carrier, a point defence ship (to protect carriers or support assets, not strike craft), or a beam assault ship (of which I don't have any yet because my "doctrine" hasn't progressed in-story yet). Some may be a hybrid of two of these roles (The Daedalus is part carrier part defence ship), but not all three.
I've tried to be as efficient as possible within these limitations. However, actually, I think FAC bombers could be better than multiple small ones.
Maintenance is kind of a non-point to me, since all ships are free when they're in hangars. As for the poorer stealth, I figure you can make up for it with layers of armour and the healthy application of combined arms with other escorting strike craft. Overall they'd also be cheaper, since you don't have to build as many fire controls (uridium shortages are absolutely f**king me atm) as if you had four size 250 fighters for every FAC bomber. You also have the potential of carrying even bigger bombs than you feasibly could with the smaller fighters. They'd also triumph over four of the smaller ships in raw firepower with the space potentially regained from lesser crew requirements (less fire controls), allowing them to probably mount maybe 1-3 more launchers depending on the size of your torpedoes, or another layer of armour.
The main downside with FACs for me is micromanagement stresses due to FACs not being able to use the fighter wings screen. Usually I actually don't even use FACs of any kind for this exact reason; because repetitive micromanagement isn't fun and if I can get away with not having to do it then I simply won't.
As for the Hector, well it's a "relic" of the early days when I just needed a wing of cheap ships to make my sol system colonies STFU. It was upgraded and then carried into the second generation fleet due to a concern over what to do if for some reason either
A) The Sky Marshal is an idiot and the Orion class destroyer (carrier) carrying the bulk of our killing power has no cruiser escort, or
B) Plans end up FUBAR and the Orion class destroyer (carrier) carrying the bulk of our killing power has no cruiser escort, or
C) The Sky Marshal did remember to assign an escort cruiser group to his flagship but it ran out of ammo due to an enemy NPR Macrossing them.
I've even stated before that its actual role is in some doubt, but the chassis is considered a "classic." Spoiler alert but I actually intend to replace it with beam interceptors after I finally finish this battle and post the next part of my story. My current Sky Marshal (and the predicted next one) aren't idiots and are fully aware of the fact that each Orion class destroyer basically has 4000 tonnes of scrap metal collecting dust in their hangars that would be better spent on other types strike craft.
The thing about carronades is really disappointing though. I wish they had something like the size reduction tech that lasers get, that might make them competitive again.
