Thougth's on Fighters and PDAF...

Option 1:
Reduce the mass and points cost of ADFC to 1 mass and 4 points.
Design real escorts, not the jokes in the fleet book.

Example:  NAC Furrious Escort Cruiser has 1 ADFC and 3 PD's.  That's a
joke at area defense.  Re-Design would replace the class 3 beam with 1
class 2 beam, 1 ADFC, and 1 PD.  Replace the Pulse Tropedoe with 4 PD's.
 You now have a ship with 2 ADFC's, 9 PD's, and 3 class 2 beams.  That's
the firepower of a destroyer, and 3x the PD's of the orginal.  That will
cause fighters to think.  

Basic rule for "real" escorts is that they have the weapons mass of a
ship two class smaller, and tons of PD's and ADFC's.  

Option 2:
Remove ADFC's from the game.  Replace them with 1 FC and 1 PD on
existing designs.  Allow all ships to use FC's to either engage ships or
fighters defensively.  Basically, a ship can use a FC to shoot at one
fighter group, or one missile salvo, or one ship.  This with
significantly increase fleet defenses.

ias