Fighter use in FT

Hey guys a quick question. Now admittedly I'm not the most experienced
Full
Thrust player, but every game I've ever seen involving fighters has cast
them
in a much different role than they are used in 20th Century.

Instead of using them autonomously for long-range BVR (Well actually BDR
<beyond detction range> of the main fleet that launched them.) fighter
only
strikes, they are used in main fleet actions in support of capital
ships.

This would be equivalent to a battleship or cruiser surface action where
you
have fighter involved flitting around taking pot shots at everyone. Is
this
the general use of figherts in FT, (that is in combined operation with
close
range fleet actions) or are these games I've witnessed anomolies.

Anyway, nowadays, fighters (I'm using the term generically to mean
carrier
based aviation) are supposed to be a (relatively) low cost and effective
means of striking at enemy targets without exposing very high costs
assets to
destruction (like surface vessels). In our hypothetical discussions we
seem
to be loading incredible amounts of sophistication into these crates.
What's
the economic cost of these things and can governments like the NAC/NSL
etc
etc bear the burden of kitting out these everything to everybody craft
and
still amintain aenough forces to cover their vast empires? Especially if
one
fights their fighter arm as described above?

Los