(1) slowing down capital ships + (2) implementing FTL + (3)
greatly slowing down the turning rate of big turrets + (4) new weapon system update = little ships more important
why?
because:
1 - fighters would be able to manouver around capital ships, running away from them or catching on them;
main capital ship weapon systems would be useless against small ships, so pilots would need to depend either on fighters or turrets - there will be fights fighters vs fighters and capital vs capital and each of this confrontation would matter.
Also the capital ships are usually in the center of battle. Right now this center can move even up to 150 km/h (speed limit on my server) and changing sectors pretty fast. If the capital ships would get slowed down, the battle around them would more or less stick to the same place.
But what\'s supposed to be the speed limit? I have no idea. I can imagine battles with capital ships flying with max speed 20 km/h but this kind of system, if was about to be implemented, should be discussed more.
2 - slow moving capital ships would be a pain and moving around the universe would take hours, so the FTL is necessary. In my opinion one of the best FTL system ideas is here:
http://star-made.org/content/my-take-ftl
3 - without this fighters would be taken down in a matter of seconds. When slowed down, the bigger turrets would rather focus on the enemy capital ship, while smaller turrets would be attacking enemy fighters.
smaller turrets = much less damage output + slower flying lasers (yeah, there will be beams, missiles, etc., but you get the idea) ---> fighters have a chance to survive flying around capital ships
4 - Right now we can mostly imagine how the new weapon system would work, but i guess we are going to get at least few weapon combinations which could be used by bombers. Of course not typical bombers but ships which would be able to destroy enemy capital ships turrets and gaining this way an upper hand in the battle. The turrets don\'t need to be the first target of the bombers, but before capital ships shields are down, they\'ll be the easiest target.
Now \"
What if...\":
- capital ship does not have turrets? - much easier target for bombers and fighters/interceptors
Of course taking down the shields of capital ship would require plenty of them, but here is where frigates (or something like that) come in handy - still fast and manoeuverable enough to stay on capital ships tail and have enough fire power to take shields down.
- one side does not have an escort fleet? - again - much easier target as balancing of the fleet (and capital ship turrets) would be the key to victory, rather than \"more blocks = win\"
Tl:dr
capital ships more useless and vulnerable while on their own --> need of the escort fleet
this way each class of ship would be needed in the fleet and the problem is gone