The evolution of ACTA fighters:
Original Edition: Fighters were all armed with precice weapons, in large swarms they were utterly devastating. They were fired 'as a ship' as a single initiaitve step, this basically meant you could if you wont initiative strike first with your fighters (before any chance at anti fighter firing) with large numbers of powerful weapons that would score lots of critical hits, combined with the very lethal 1st edition crit tables that could disarm or even outright destroy a ship completely in one hit most people found this a little over the top to put it mildly!
Sky Full of Stars/Revised 1st Edition: Fighters had their precice weapons stripped, and now moved after all ships and fired after all of them too. The end result was basically that fighters could fly rings round enemy ships but when they actually came in for an attack they got shot pieces before they could strike and even if they surived their frankly pitiful weaponry meant they tended to inflict minimal damage except to the very weakest enemies. However they DID gain the ability to perform scanners to full and became the bane of stealth fleets everywhere!
Armageddon: The change here was minimal but signifigant. Fighters now fired BEFORE ships. They also ingnore stealth while very close to their target. This one was a mixed bag really. On the one hand they could get their strikes in before antifighter weaponry toasted them all, but the problem was that some fragile ships, mainly Minbari and Vree were TOO vulnerable to fighter attack, biggish swarms could utterly destroy such ships before they ever had a chance to fire their anti fighter weaponry rendering them more or less pointless! However generally fighters were still useless against tougher ships unable even to do much of consequence before being destroyed by large amounts of antifighter weaponry now.
2nd Edition: Fighters lose their scanners to full ability but this is replaced by the fact that they effectively perform this same function by the mere act of attacking a stealth protected ship (which in many ways make more sense anyway, just because they're targeting a ship doesnt mean they woulndt just pull a trigger too!). The big change though is the change from the antifighter weapon trait to the special antifighter x ship trait. Basically this allows ships to try and shoot down x fighters within 2 inches before they fire, it means that some ships with high AF ratings are suicide for fighters to attack but most will only stop a few fighters a turn leavign the rest free to attack, combined with second edtions wider variety of fighter (many that have gained much better anti ship capabilities and increased toughness) have left 2nd ed fighter as a genuine danger to ships but one that can be countered. In other words if you leave your fleet vulnerable to fighters you WILL now regret it but similarly you do now have plenty of ways of stopping them (and even dedicated escort ships that can provide valuable fighter screens).
In short fighters in 2nd ed ARE much imporved in my eyes. Theyre not overpowering (well unless your playing Gaim I suppose....) but theyre still a genuine threat that you can no longer afford to simply ignore. In short, I LIKE the fighter rules as they are now
