I think you have to add to the above the PD benefits of beam fighters. While missile fighters can be better in the right circumstances on attack, they have no defensive benefit at all, while at least half the overall value of beam fighters is on defence.

Yes... that is true... but the issue are that you can't rely on them for PD as you use them for both offence and defence. If they leave the carrier then the carrier are very vulnerable. From a resource perspective fighters are relatively expensive PD rather than using a turreted gauss. A clever opponent can wait for the fighters to leave the carrier. Having dual purpose laser cannons in turrets means you can use them for both at the same time. Improved PD, attack fighters and enemy ships. There is very little loss in efficiency.

As for missile fighters being useless that depend on how they are designed. My heavy bombers tend to get some additional 5t fire-controls of either resolution 1 or 5 sometimes both. That means they can be used against enemy fighters or missiles in last ditch efforts. So they can be to somewhat dual purpose even if not very effective. I also could potentially use bombers to intercept enemy missile fighters if I'm desperate.

I have used some dedicated beam fighter concepts in my campaigns with multiple factions and they do work if used, especially if the other side have not taken measures to combat them. Like deploying anti-fighter corvettes. One faction had 2500t anti fighter corvettes attached to their escorts with tractor beams. These where just a few thousand km/s slower than the enemy fighters but their long range weapons and heavy armour where formidable. For some reason I like to put tractor beams on larger main combat ships, they double as tugs for damaged ships or they often can bring along stations and other equipment that is needed. Perhaps not super efficient, but can be quite useful as it make the ships more useful outside their designated role.

Another development in most campaigns are anti-fighter fighters/FAC.... like really fast fighters with a miniaturized long range laser cannon or just a long range cannon. These would rush out and attack the fighters with lower ranged weapons. The side with the best engines would often be able to neutralize the other side using beam fighters but not always. It also created a race to who had the best anti-fighter escort for the beam fighters, which was an interesting development too. If I remember correctly these anti-fighter assets just tended to get bigger and bigger... the reasons for this is quite clear. Bigger ships are just better at beam combat.

In my campaigns fighters with beam weapons have mainly always eventually been relegated to interceptor duty, that is intercept enemy scouts, fighters and other lone ships or smaller groups of ships that have little or no defences against fast beam armed fighters or FAC. They also double as PD of course. These interceptors usually are well armoured and big, mostly 500t with a big long range gun and/or really fast, depends on the faction and technology at hand. But they usually are big so they can have some armour. They have to be able to take some hits. In addition to those I also have PD fighters, their role is to protect the bombers carrying missiles from enemy missiles.... these are railgun armed fighters.

So yes I deploy a large numbers of beam fighters in my campaigns too and they can be very effective in the right circumstances.

But when you come down to the nitty gritty, the fact is that the larger the ship the better and more efficient it is at beam fighting. A fighter sized craft completely waste its main purpose of stealth when used as a beam fighter. The smaller the ship the easier they are to neutralize in beam combat.

Beam fighters does have it's purpose as do any other weapon type and platform. Missiles are best use when you are able to overwhelm the enemy but if you can't it is going to be very costly to use missiles. Likewise would beam fighters be suicide against an enemy that knows they are part of your doctrine and have weapon systems designed to counter them. It would be much cheaper to destroy the fighters than the cost of building the ships countering them, that is almost always the case with fighters due to them having very expensive engines in comparison with their size. Just adding some of the medium calibre laser cannons on turrets rather than normal mounts would directly kill any beam fighter strategy while not really increase the opportunity cost of the fleet very much. If the enemy fleet mainly uses rail guns it would definitely be a suicide strategy.

I do think that against certain AI races and strategies then beam fighters would work fine, but you would still need to consider a relatively high attrition rate in general. Likewise are missiles not free either but it is easier to carry more missiles than fighters so a missile fleet could likely have more endurance the beam fighters if there are high attrition rate on the fighters. Having expensive carriers running around with empty hangars is generally more expensive than commercial ordnance ships with empty magazines.

I would rate fighters and missiles to be on the same level of attrition rate. It can also be a question on the type of resources you spend on either. Both will require allot of Gallicite. I say you would get around 15 size 6 for every 300t fighter... roughly. I also think fighters would cost you the most Gallicite, so that might also factor in to the calculation as missiles will have most of the cost in Tritanium.

I do think that in general beam fighters is the worse option, especially against an enemy that knows how to counter it. But they still have a use, but not as a main hitter against enemy main capital warships but more against enemy scouts, fighters and other lightly armed and armoured targets.

The main issue I have with beam fighters is that once they are committed the cost of misjudging the enemy strength are likely greater than using missile fighters. With missiles you launch one volley, if it does too little damage you can likely just withdraw the fleet in peace. You only lost the cost of those missiles launched... with the beam fighters the cost of loosing the fighters will be much greater.

I think you have to add to the above the PD benefits of beam fighters. While missile fighters can be better in the right circumstances on attack, they have no defensive benefit at all, while at least half the overall value of beam fighters is on defence.

Beam fighters does have it's purpose as do any other weapon type and platform. Missiles are best use when you are able to overwhelm the enemy but if you can't it is going to be very costly to use missiles. Likewise would beam fighters be suicide against an enemy that knows they are part of your doctrine and have weapon systems designed to counter them. It would be much cheaper to destroy the fighters than the cost of building the ships countering them, that is almost always the case with fighters due to them having very expensive engines in comparison with their size. Just adding some of the medium calibre laser cannons on turrets rather than normal mounts would directly kill any beam fighter strategy while not really increase the opportunity cost of the fleet very much. If the enemy fleet mainly uses rail guns it would definitely be a suicide strategy.

I do think that against certain AI races and strategies then beam fighters would work fine, but you would still need to consider a relatively high attrition rate in general. Likewise are missiles not free either but it is easier to carry more missiles than fighters so a missile fleet could likely have more endurance the beam fighters if there are high attrition rate on the fighters. Having expensive carriers running around with empty hangars is generally more expensive than commercial ordnance ships with empty magazines.

I would rate fighters and missiles to be on the same level of attrition rate. It can also be a question on the type of resources you spend on either. Both will require allot of Gallicite. I say you would get around 15 size 6 for every 300t fighter... roughly. I also think fighters would cost you the most Gallicite, so that might also factor in to the calculation as missiles will have most of the cost in Tritanium.

I do think that in general beam fighters is the worse option, especially against an enemy that knows how to counter it. But they still have a use, but not as a main hitter against enemy main capital warships but more against enemy scouts, fighters and other lightly armed and armoured targets.

The main issue I have with beam fighters is that once they are committed the cost of misjudging the enemy strength are likely greater than using missile fighters. With missiles you launch one volley, if it does too little damage you can likely just withdraw the fleet in peace. You only lost the cost of those missiles launched... with the beam fighters the cost of loosing the fighters will be much greater.

Disadvantages of beam fighters:

• High casualties: since warship beam weapons have longer ranges than fighter beam weapons, you will most likely lose several fighters each sortie. This means that your carriers will frequently need to return home for reinforcements.
• Expensive to upgrade: It's not really economical to upgrade beam fighters - you basically have to rebuild your fleet each time you inaugurate a new generation.
• More tactical micromanagement: It is tedious to coordinate dozens/hundreds of fighters' fire controls. Fire at will might not focus on priority targets.

It's worth noting that the tactical micromanagement can be mitigated somewhat with micromanagement when the carrier is first build or using "assign fleet"/"assign sub-fleet" as those assignments copy targeting assignments as well. I like to split my carrier wings into squadrons so that I can group up fighters and have them target the same thing within the squadron without having to deal with it one-by-one. Granted, this also helps with missile fighters so the overall point about the beamy bois being more micro intensive still stands, especially as enemy ships get destroyed, forcing you to go back and designate a new target.

Missile fighters get killed less often, as they fight from a distance, but they can only fire once and they have to get through point defence. They will do more damage with a single attack, but it also costs money and resources every time they fire.

Beam fighters can fire for as long as their MSP last, so they can do a lot more damage overall in the right situation. They also usually fire every 5 second so can be devastating in swarms. They will take more losses than missile fighters, but replacing those losses is often cheaper than replacing the missiles expended by the missile fighters. Finally, beam fighters are very good at defending fleets against hostile missile attack.

A mix of both is probably best, but if I had to take one or the other, I would take beam fighters every time.

Check out this campaign for an example of beam fighters in action.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12909.0