One of the main issues for fighters and bombers (and their interaction with larger ships) in Starmade is how weaponry works. Ships have no armor at all, to speak of, and all weapon power is generated locally.
In real life, armor tends to be all or nothing solution on vehicles as a non-penetrating hit doesn't generally cause any significant damage while penetrating hits tend towards debilitating. Sure, there's occasional tank that gets penetrated dozen times and still functions, but it's very rare I think. I don't know how many penetrating hits it takes to disable a tank or a warship, but most interior systems can't take a hit and function so current build method of massed system blocks would probably be highly vulnerable if we went this route. Similarly, fighters would be pretty much useless against armored targets like in real life no matter how many you deploy. Starmade style "all damage deals real damage" is both a boon and a curse, as nobody likes invulnerable ships but also it really makes it impossible to make a strongly defended ship against massed drones as absolutely no weapon, no matter how puny in comparison, can be ignored. That's like taking down a tank with assault rifles, and in Starmade it's a valid strategy.
As for weapons, usually there are no warmachines that generate their own damage. In nuclear powered ships, laser and railgun technology is being tested but that's pretty much an edge case. A fighter could never carry such weapons with any degree of usability. However, warheads and ammunition are easy. Sure, you get only few shots of significant sized warheads, maybe 4 missiles on a heavy attack fighter or 10-20 bombs in a big bomber but they are all very, very effective. Deploy in the dozens or hundreds and you got significant damage potential. Downside is the fairly costly maintenance work to keep them flying and the need for landing strip near the target due to relatively short operating range. Similarly all a ship has to manage is the recoil of its cannons. The power of the gun is not tied to the vehicle that carries it... but let's be honest, I don't see Starmade switching to munitions based weaponry and maintenance and space requirements that would be required to balance weapons around that.
So, my opinion is no, we don't need minimum damage. Trying to build realistic sized craft based on what goes in WW II in Starmade is silly, although cool in its own way, but you'll get better results if you go the Warthog route and make a gun that does what you want and then figure out how to make it fly.
