Fighters

For use on starbases as a long range defense against attacking enemy starships. Starships with fighter launch bays can carry fighters to attack enemy ships at ranges far greater than torpedoes or beam weapons. A starbase can hold up to 60 fighters. Some larger carriers can hold over 200 fighters. All fighters fire very powerful, tightly focused energy beams that do a good job of wearing down an opponent's shields and can punch holes in vital parts of enemy ships. Fighters are very good at defeating very large and heavily armored ships. In some cases a fighter can do more damage than even the best torpedo and if the fighter survives, it can be used again.

Fighters can be destroyed by enemy fighters that can gain a weapons lock as the fighters passes within close range of each other as they close in on the enemy ship.

An enemy ship can fire a beam weapon at a fighter to destroy  it. Very few ships, however, can defeat a large scale fighter attack with beam weapons alone.

It is possible for some races to receive free fighters each turn at each starbase. This number is set by the host. The default is 5 for the Evil Empire only. The fighters still require minerals to build them. Each fighter requires 3 tritanium and 2 molybdenum units to build.

The Rebels, Robots and Colonies of Man are all by default able to build free fighters in space by placing 5 supplies, 3 tritanium and 2 molybdenum units for each new fighter that they want to build on a ship with at least 1 fighter bay. After the fighters are built they can then be transfered to a starbase or other ships. The Robots and Colonies of Man must set their ship mission to Build Fighters In Space in order to build the fighters. The Rebels do not need to set the ship mission to anything for this to happen. The Rebels droids will all perform this mission automatically, without being told to do so, this leaves the ship free to perform some other mission while the fighters are being made.