I have noticed that Starmade seems to be based around scifi tropes... things like star wars, battlestar galactica, and various science fiction universes.
Almost universally within these tropes, one simple rule seems to hold true in universes that contain various sizes/types of craft, including fighter craft:
Fighters are DANGEROUS to a capital ship that is not protected by it\'s own fighter screen, or anti-fighter boat (medium-sized craft with lots of tiny turrets to blitz fighters). Capital ships were generally intended to be incredibly dangerous to stations, other capital ships, planets, and OTHER capital ships, as well as being able to throw out screens of chaff and mines, but were not particularly capable for one-on-one engagements with much smaller ships.
While this change may not reward the largest size ships the way some may feel is appropriate, capital ship vulnerability to swarms of smaller or tiny ships is actually a positive step. I am hoping it is accompanied soon by other systems such as chaff, boarders, and a better version of AI-controlled fighters.
Now, there is an argument for huge ships invulnerable to everything fighter-wise, but in general, the genres that contain these sorts of things (Berzerkers, Borg, etc.) are all about out-thinking the enemy in an RPG style framework... something that is clearly not possible in a game such as this, clearly cementing this into a more star-wars style framework (remember the death star and rogue squadron) rather than a more star-trek style. (where anything smaller than a capital ship is simply a shuttle and more or less useless for combat, and every episode is about out-thinking the enemy)
