Science Fiction Concept Art of Earth Based Space Carriers Cruisers

More than commonly called a Starfighter, this is an admittedly ubiquitous trope in Science Fiction (and especially Space Opera): A small-scale, 1-human Cool Starship equipped with Boring Lasers and Macross Missiles, used by the Ace Pilot for Old School Dogfighting.

A great many Science Fiction protagonists are Space Fighter pilots.

Some Infinite Fighters have room for ii (or, rarely, more than) crewmembers rather than a single pilot, but all are small and nimble, in dissimilarity with larger Cool Starships such as The Mothership or The Battlestar. Typically Space Fighters are dependent on a larger vessel, since they themselves lack the space for supplies or (oft) a Faster Than Lite Drive; however, at that place are exceptions.

Battlestars will deploy Space Fighters confronting enemy Absurd Starships with an appropriate Fighter-Launching Sequence. Fortunately for the Ace Pilot and his Fly Human, big enemy ships volition usually plough out to exist Bespeak Defenseless—at least equally far as the protagonists' Plot Armor-equipped Space Fighters are concerned. Thus the enemy will need to scramble Fighters of their own. An Old-School Dogfight volition ensue. Expect many a Red Shirt Space Pilot to lose their life, thus underscoring just how risky The Hero's profession is, and making him or her seem all the more than glamorous and heroic for it.

Quite oftentimes the Infinite Fighter will look just like a Absurd Plane, because Space Is Air. At the very to the lowest degree, it's likely to have wings. This goes forth with the apply of the Quondam-School Dogfight, and is largely Rule of Cool: Whether a Space Fighter has wings or non doesn't necessarily have whatever begetting on whether it will always be shown operating in an atmosphere. If it can fight in the air equally well every bit in infinite, information technology'southward also a Space Plane.

Hard science fiction may instead employ more utilitarian-looking starfighters, with lots of engines and a completely un-aerodynamic shape. Some works may even opt for replacing Space Fighters with unmanned weapon systems controlled remotely or by AI—though in a setting involving Brain Uploading and The Singularity, the differences betwixt a manned Space fighter and an Attack Drone could be very subtle.

Every bit far every bit Real Life goes, actual designs for manned orbital spacecraft that could charitably be called space fighters do exist, and the Soviet Union even launched a Space Station (the Almaz program) armed with a cannon like to those used on atmospheric fighters as a exam of the concept (they destroyed some defunct satellites).

Come across also Humongous Mecha (some may part equally or fifty-fifty turn into Space Fighters). Space Fighters are a major part of the Standard Sci-Fi Fleet, and a mutual form of the Mook Mobile. If y'all're interested in discussing factors affecting the feasibility of Space Fighters in different settings, check out the Analysis page.

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Examples:

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    Anime & Manga

• The various universes and timeliness of Gundam evidence space fighters either as predecessors that were entirely replaced by Mobile Suit Mecha or continue to be used as support units for mecha. Yet in many respects these Humongous Mecha are THE Space Fighters in the metaseries, simply humanoid to account for the AMBAC (Active Mass Balance Motorcar-Control) organisation, which shifts the mass of hands and legs of the mecha to change the management the mecha is facing to salvage propellant and shift the centre of mass away from the primary body for evasive action.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam had both the Federation and Zeon using Space Fighters in combat earlier they adult their ain Mobile Suits. Zeon'southward Gattle fighter was one of the odder designs in the series, with a 2nd cockpit off to the side of the main 1. While space fighters were mostly replaced by MS they continued evolution and production well past the One Year War for instance the FF-S4 Daggerfish.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's Moebius fighter is actually one of the more realistic designs out there for a space fighter. They were completely armored, with the pilots seeing everything over monitors, and their main weapon was a long range linear cannon, with four missiles as backup and twin Gatling guns for emergency usage only. They didn't accept wings and their engines were movable. Ironically, before developing their Mobile Suits, ZAFT also had infinite fighters that had glass cockpits and wings, and these are noted in the fluff to have stood no adventure in fighting a Moebius. Fighters similar the FX-550 Skygrasper and its infinite variant the Cosmograsper can equip them selves with mobile Suit weapon packs either to back up the MS or transfer them to the MS in the field.
  • Many Gundam universes contain Core Fighters which are combination of Escape Pod and Space Fighters. When the MS gets destroyed the Core Fighter will disassemble and try to escape at high speed. While extremely weak confronting MS they tin can be armed and can be used equally fighters on their own.
  • Other variation common to many Gundam universes is Fighters that can both fight independently AND play the Combining Mecha to merge with with MS to boost information technology. Notable example include M-Falcon from Gundam Ten, GN Arms and GN Raiser from 00 and Kutan Type-III from IBO.
• The Affections Frames from Galaxy Affections.
• The Valkyries from the Macross serial. Notable for i of the first anime example that was also armed with missiles instead of just guns. Them looking like modernistic aircraft is also justified: they are meant to wing in both infinite and temper, and the latter requires a certain shape.
• Omnipresent in Star Blazers / Space Battleship Yamato. The Argo/Yamato doubled equally a carrier, after all.
  • The 2010 Live-Action Adaptation added the twist that the fighters were used to gather targeting information for capital ships and their heavy guns.
• Legend of Galactic Heroes has Space Fighters, although the activeness mostly focuses on large fleets of battleships. They are decidedly non-planelike.
• The xv subunits making up Dairugger (AKA: vehicle-team Voltron) were all supposed to exist able to deed as infinite fighters(yeah, fifty-fifty the cars). The other, non-combining space fighters that appeared were normally just cannon fodder.
• The Autobots and Decepticons in Transformers Armada both use Space Fighters when they join forces to boxing Unicron.
• The three master bandage members of Cowboy Bebop each crew accept one, and they're all named after fish. Spike has his Swordfish Two, Jet pilots the Hammerhead and Faye uses the Redtail.
• Moonlight Mile has more realistic depictions of space fighters which use reaction control organisation thrusters in a vacuum for rotation and movement instead of bold Infinite Is Air. Thus, they don't demand to be aerodynamic.

    Comic Books

• Wonder Woman
  • Wonder Woman (1942): At the tail terminate of the Golden Age and dawn of the Silver Age the Amazons had fighters capable of space travel and portal jumps which helped Diana out against extraterrestrial foes. Fascinatingly the crafts' defenses required the pilots to go out them and stand on them to deflect bullets with their bracelets while relying on auto-airplane pilot.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): The Sangtee Empire have infinite fighters which are sent to escort the slave transport freighters when Wondy's revolutionary crew beginning hijacking them en masse. Near of the fighters end up surrendered to the revolutionaries since their tech whiz finds a fashion to remotely disable their scanners and other parts of the ships, allowing the revolutionaries to surprise them.

    Fan Works

• Origins, being based on Mass Outcome, Star Wars , Borderlands, and Halo has scads of these. They by and large be every bit Zerg Blitz flavor-text, but several examples stick out. Par for the course with Star Wars-inspired fighters, they're all capable of fulfilling the part of Space Plane by operating in-temper if needed.
  • Fireant blastboats have plenty weaponry to level cities (and are unsurprisingly used to exercise exactly that). The younger version of Maya takes to piloting one when immune, and the Fireants become an Awesome Personnel Carrier...IN Space!!!!!
  • Punishers are basically what happens if a Necktie Defender and Tie Phantom had a infant. Some have cloaks (not the one the main characters utilize of course), all take Slow Lasers, can unleash a Macross Missile Massacre, possess self-healing hulls, and heavy Deflector Shields. Unlike the Open Secrets surrounding cloaking devices, superlasers, and a behemothic not-military-military, these monster TIEs seem relatively well-hidden by comparison, every bit virtually people don't know about them.
  • The maneuverability of Normandy SR-two.5 plus its heavy novalasers allow it to act like one compared to "frigate"-weight ships from the Star Wars universe.
  • Raptor fighters are completely boilerplate past comparison but rack up a three:i ratio against Reaper Oculus.

    Motion-picture show

• The Fifth Chemical element: Space fighters brand a cursory appearance, shooting downwards the friendly alien transport conveying the protagonist.
• The Last Starfighter: The Gunstars and Ko-Dan fighters (though the Gunstars are really more like a gunship or weapons platform than a true fighter).
• Star Wars: The Trope Codifier that influenced all subsequent designs to one extent or another. The bones designs of the most famous Star Wars fighters are instantly recognizable to anyone with fifty-fifty a passing knowledge of pop culture. In the original 1977 Star Wars, small one-man fighters are famously used to assault the gigantic, planet-destroying Death Star because they are small and manoeuvrable, and tin can evade the Death Star'south defensive fire where larger ships—which are the only threat the evil Empire considered when designing the defenses of their gigantic boxing-station—would have been blown autonomously.
  • Fighters without faster-than-calorie-free drives are the exception, rather than the rule; they are normally either erstwhile designs predating the days of easy travel, made explicitly to not be autonomous—like the Empire's Tie Fighters, or as well pocket-size/light to carry the equipment (the Jedi Starfighters of the 2nd and third prequels).
• Lost in Space played with the conventions of this trope, featuring several space fighter designs; the enemy raiders flew rather bulky, jet fighter-styled bombers, while Major W and his crewmate flew in bubble cockpits with gyroscopic seats, asymmetric, unfixed single wings and a main engine plus orientation thrusters that but fired when maneuvering. Still, both followed Star Wars' example of ships cyberbanking like planes while withal dogfighting on a completely 3-dimensional aeroplane.
• Partially subverted in Independence Day, where the alien attackers are certainly capable of flight and combat in infinite, only the vast majority of scenes involving them happen within the atmosphere.

    Literature

• C. J. Cherryh's Hellburner centres on a moderately realistic Space Fighter—the titular Hellburner. Being essentially a carrier launched missile-firing-missile it is exceptionally difficult and physically punishing to fly. Beingness such a pure chunk of engines and guns it is a mortal threat to starships. In the novel, human intelligence right at the controls justifies the performance penalty of a living pilot. The Hellburner is interesting in that information technology has a minimum of four people operating information technology: a pilot, a navigator, a gunner, and a fourth person who analyzes all of the ship's sensor data in order to effigy out what the gunner should be shooting at. In operational trim, the 4th bod's information is pre-filtered by some other thirty people, to avoid the problems caused by depending on lightspeed-limited radar when operating at a significant fraction of lightspeed. A big part of tactical success is outguessing the other guy on fragmentary and outdated sensor data.
• Alan Dean Foster'south Humanx Democracy series. The Commonwealth has stingships, two-person assail ships each carrying a single SCCAM missile.
• David Weber includes starfighters in both his Starfire series and Empire of Human being serial, though in the later serial (co-written with John Ringo) they're not of import to the first three books.
  • The closest thing to starfighters in his Honor Harrington series are Light Attack Craft, or LACs for short. David Weber has gone to some length to explain that they are not actually fighters, simply rather old school torpedo boats in space. They are VERY large by Space Fighter standards (over lxx metres long and massing over xx,000 tonnes) and require a minimum crew of 10, with almost early examples being relegated to Cannon Fodder status. Later on send-killer "Super" LACs carrying battlecruiser-grade grasers are introduced, "anti-LAC" LACs begin appearing, but they are nonetheless besides big, also clunky, have likewise large a crew and are nowhere near manouverable plenty to be true Space Fighters. Even so, when explaining the usefulness of the new LAC carriers, Honor does draw the parallel to the 20th-century World and the impact of shipping carriers on naval warfare, especially since the new LACs have spinal-mounted weapons, significant they accept to confront the enemy to fire. However, the development of bow and stern walls means they tin take "downward the throat" and "upward the kilt" hits and withal have a take chances of surviving (although they tin't maneuver quickly or accelerate while using these walls). A large emphasis is placed on the different LAC doctrines used by the star nations fielding these. Manticoran LACs are primarily designed for anti-capital letter transport roles (although they normally can't go up against dreadnoughts or superdreadnoughts). The less powerful Haven LACs are designed for anti-LAC roles. This also affects the size of each side's LAC carriers (CLACs). With the need to assault, Manticorans build dreadnought-sized CLACs, while Havenites, using them mainly for defence force, tin afford to build the slower superdrednought-sized carriers. Of note are the Grayson Katana-class LACs, which are designed from the commencement to go up against enemy LACs, fifty-fifty though, at the time, no such thing exists. They are, basically, The Brotherhood's equivalent of Oasis's Cimiterredue south, just with the advantage of Brotherhood tech.
    • Manticorian LAC doctrine subsequently shifts to focus more on the screening part with LACs (especially Katanas) being used to provide additional anti-missile defence force for the wall of battle in place of the traditional destroyers and cruisers. They also brand extensive use of LACs in a system defense role. While they can't terminate a major set on they are more than sufficient to defend against raiding squadrons, specially when backed up by big numbers of missile pods.
• The protagonist of Tomorrow War is a flugger pilot. The setting is rather hard, so they engage each other at a long range (no Old School Dogfighting) and assail big ships that aren't crippled only at several megameters, with missiles. Oh, and pilots have to amend their acceleration tolerance past eating an conflicting biostimulant.
• The Star Wars Expanded Universe introduces dozens of new space fighters, though they're called starfighters or snubfighters most of the time. And, nearly of the time, fighters introduced outside of the movies see very limited utilise, generally due to Small Reference Pools. Ane series is all about 10-Wing pilots flight under an Ascended Actress.
  • In the New Jedi Order serial, the coralskipper is the ubiquitous fighter flown past Yuuzhan Vong pilots. Information technology's so-called because information technology's actually grown from a kind of coral, though manifestly the name loses a great deal of menace in translation from the Yuuzhan Vong language(Yorik-Et). Merely the skipper is very formidable its plasma cannons rip through shields and steel, and its engine can also suck up blaster burn with a mini black pigsty.
• Legacy of the Aldenata has the Space Falcon, developed to supplement the makeshift frigates guarding the solar system. Information technology'south explicitly stated that they are non capable of operating in an atmosphere.
• There are nominally fighters in The Forever State of war, simply they're the size of gunboats (normally crewed by 3 people, but can take up to 12, they need to be that size to fit in all the support equipment for the crew when manoeuvring at 25 Chiliad), and end up getting treated more like shuttles (Drones can motion at 100s of Gs, and are smaller).
• Animorphs has several. The Yeerks use Bug Fighters, which expect like mechanical insects. They were stolen from a similar Andalite ship, the main difference being the position of the "tail" that contains the dracon or shredder cannon.
• The Star Carrier series has the SG-92 Starhawk and Turusch "Toad". Starhawks have variable hull geometry (nanotech is involved) that allows them to reconfigure themselves between several forms: a slim needle for launch and space combat, an airfoil for atmospheric flying, and a sperm-like teardrop for crossing distances at near-c. They're armed with kiloton-yield nuclear missiles, Gatling railguns, and a particle beam. Toads are armed similarly simply are more massive, less maneuverable, and lack the variable geometry which makes them crap for air combat.
  • All ships in this 'verse use gravitic propulsion involving projecting a singularity in front of the ship, "winking" it out, then projecting it a little farther every bit the ship is constantly falling into it. By doing that billions of times per second, Starhawks tin quickly accelerate to a high percentage of the speed of lite in about 10 minutes. Since the pull of the singularity is roughly the aforementioned on the entire craft, neither the pilots nor their fighters experience whatever of the 50000 or then g-forces (no Inertial Dampening necessary). Turning is done past projecting the singularity to the side and letting the fighter simply move along the curved space/time (i.e. the fighter is not changing its local directional vector; it's the space itself warping around it). One time again, no g-forces, but a fighter that gets as well close to its own singularity tin can be spaghettified by it. In a later volume, a fighter pilot learns to use the singularity projector every bit a weapon by getting to "pocketknife-fighting" range and projecting a singularity inside a upper-case letter ship, so leaving without "winking" information technology out.
  • In later books, it'southward mentioned that new fighter designs are being introduced into the USNA fleet faster and faster, and the biggest obstruction to replacing all the fighters is not the number of the new fighters (they're nano-grown from asteroid thing) but the number of pilots with the upgraded neural hardware and software to fly them. The SG-420 Starblades made all the fighters earlier them obsolete well-nigh immediately, including the nonetheless relatively new SG-101 Velociraptors and SG-112 Stardragons. Information technology'due south nano-hull can menstruum effectually the pilot, redirecting enemy kinetic shots and growing weapons in whatsoever management on demand.
• In The Flight Engineer, there are Speeds and WACCIs. Speeds are fast, agile ships armed with a pair of mass drivers that burn down molten copper particles, while WACCIs are stealth recon ships with a unmarried mass driver for defence force.
• Averted in The Lost Fleet novels. Due to the mass/thruster ratio, fighters are simply no match for larger warships (i.eastward. they can't maneuver as atmospheric fighters), and any figurer targetting system capable of hitting anything while traveling at 10% of the speed of lite can definitely track a small fighter. Fast Assault Arts and crafts (or Short-Range Attack Arts and crafts, equally they were known in Geary'southward time) are capable of space and atmospheric flight, which is why they are commonly used near planets or space stations. Corvettes become slightly more utilise by the Syndics, specially the then-called Hunter-Killers, which are a cross betwixt a corvette and a destroyer. "Nickel" corvettes are used to patrol systems far from any border, as they're nigh useless.
• Numerous types of fighters (commonly, of the aerospace variety) are present in Andrey Livadny The History of the Galaxy serial. One novel is focused on a new Confederated armed services doctrine for protecting its Border worlds (the Standard Sci-Fi Fleet is relegated to protecting the Core colonies). This involves a series of planetary bases and a new class of fighter-carrying cruisers (Russian sci-fi writers, equally a dominion, hate the word "carrier") that human action as mobile bases for a new modular type of fighter. These fighters are powered by a special Anti Matter reactor that uses anti-tritium for its supposed power to only react to tritium and no other normal matter. It's too equipped with a Deflector Shield of sorts, based on Logrian Veil gravity generators that curve lite around it in a continuous loop to create a light-based shield. The "modular" part comes from the ship existence able to be refitted for a different office in nigh an 60 minutes with proper facilities by but swapping out equipment packages. It tin can be a space superiority fighter, a fighter/bomber, or a long-range FTL strike craft.
• Numerous types of fighters in Iar Elterrus' multiverse, the shared setting of the Order of Aarn novels and Mad Bards novels. Notable types are
  • "White Bird" of the Order of Aarn. Every bit all Aarn spaceships, these are living organisms with integrated modules and armaments. They can be equipped with FTL drives and can carry a rider, but tin only be piloted by those with the Born Pilot power.
  • "Phoca" of the Farsen Federation. Built afterward the Farsenians institute a cache of technology left behind past the Ker'Eb Vr'an a fraction of Advanced Ancient Humans. As all Ker'Eb Vr'an technology, these consist of a tiny fabric core (the Phoca core is small plenty to be worn equally a necklace), which upon activation encapsulates the pilot in the actual spaceship consisting of various forcefulness-fields.
• Subverted in Paul Naughton's VALKYRIE: Into The Heavens serial. The series protagonists are 'pod pilots' who operate starships through a set of neural interfaces. Information technology sounds at first glance to be a story near starfighter pilots, until you realize that each send they're piloting weighs over 300 tons, is nearly the size of a commercial frigate, and classed as a frigate by the navy.
• In John Robert Maddox's Space Angel the titular spacecraft is a tramp freighter and the story takes identify some years subsequently a devastating state of war. Her (female) captain and one of the crew had been airplane pilot and gunner in a class of small picket/fighter craft which had been deployed (and expended) in vast numbers during that war. This was revealed when the new quartermaster wondered aloud why the helm kept the hard-drinking man on as part of her coiffure.
• Space fighters are a feature within the Nameless War setting although some officers question whether their usefulness really justifies the expense of their fighter carriers. Every bit well as serving in the strike role, man fighters also provide a forward screen against Nameless Macross Missile Massacre.
• Since space combat in Ark Royal is primarily carrier-based, fighters play a large role. Their chief goal is to keep the plasma-armed alien fighters away from the titular carrier. Unremarkably, there are also the heavier bombers, which can launch nuclear missiles at enemy capital letter ships, but the aliens' point defence force is just too expert, so no bomber can go close to launch a missile. Human fighters are ugly spherical pods with thrusters all over the hull to allow for maneuverability in space. As usual, a fighter is a One-Hit-Signal Wonder. It's specifically stated that no one has been able to successfully design an aerospace fighter, since the requirements for air and space combat are radically different. 1 airplane pilot does suspect that the more than streamlined alien fighters may be able to state on planets.
• Spinward Fringe is all over this trope. Although larger ships are variously described equally destroyers, battleships, carriers, and and so on depending on their intended role, nearly all of them comport at to the lowest degree a few fighters. They vary from OneHitPointWonders consisting of niggling more a paper-thin hull with a couple of guns glued on, to overpowered beasts capable of seriously worrying smaller capital ships.
• Testify upwards in the Worldwar series, built by Globe's nation to assail the Race' orbiting ships with nuclear weapons in case of a new war and by the Race to defend the ships. When the Nazi do resume war with the Race, their fighters become wiped out by their more advanced opponents simply not without taking down a few ships.
• The Lucifer'due south Star serial has starfighters playing a huge role in combat. They're specifically noted equally weapons designed to get effectually majuscule ship'due south defenses and soften up shields for larger vessels to destroy or to take downwards smaller ships. They have a lot of prestige, though, with Ace Airplane pilot characters being propaganda tools.
• Soviet infinite fighters known as Elektrons announced in the Dale Brown novel Silver Tower, attacking the titular space station. Lampshaded at one point by the pb Soviet pilot, who at ane indicate starts to refer to his Elektron equally a Space Plane before correcting himself. In later books, the Americans develop their ain armed spacecraft, including unmarried stage to orbit Infinite Planes.
• Laszlo Hadron And The Wargods Tomb features some of these, such as the Estoc bomber and the Claymore heavy fighter, the latter of which includes Laszlo'south personal fighter, the "Eaglehawk".

    Alive-Action Telly

• Andromeda had the infamous Slipfighters from Archlike to Cerberus, all of which could operate in an atmosphere and could carry Nova bombs in add-on to their assortment of seemingly overpowered conventional weaponry. Nietzschean Garuda-class fighters were also OP, with small packs of them being able to destroy Loftier Guard and other Commonwealth capital ships and warships with ease.
  • This could really be ane of the few cases where fighters would brand sense, as Slipfighters are capable of traveling FTL and Slipstream drive has quite a few limitations. Namely that it doesn't permit FTL Radio, is confined to certain paths, and can't be navigated past A.I.s. Those factors brand fighters invaluable as scouts and raiders.
• Babylon 5:
  • Earth Alliance has the Starfuries, a comparatively difficult example. So hard, in fact, that obviously at that place was at one point some serious interest from NASA in really edifice one, albeit more equally a infinite forklift/tug than a space fighter. JMS agreed, on the condition that they retain the proper noun "Starfury". However given the lack of action it seems that project has been shelved.
    • There were several variants of the Starfury depicted: the standard single-seat Aurora Starfury, a once-seen heavy Starfury with a tail gunner's seat (called Muskrat by the production but mistaken by many fans for the designed but never shown Annoy Starfury), and the Thunderbolt starfury, with two pilots sitting in tandem, an elongated fuselage, and folding wings to allow information technology to operate in atmosphere equally a bomber. Additionally, there was too the "flying forklift", which only had one wing with 2 thrusters (instead of 2 wings with four), manipulator arms instead of guns, and a bright yellow paintjob in the style of a slice of structure equipment (which it was).
  • The Narn have the Frazi, another relatively hard example (even if less hard than the Starfury series).
  • More technologically avant-garde races who accept mastered Artificial Gravity accept softer examples, such as the Sentri used by the Centauri Democracy, looking similar a crescent and flight circles effectually Narn fighters while still carrying enough weapons to smash them in one shots, and the Nial, the heavy fighter of the Minbari that is faster and more manouverable than other Younger Races fighters, has guns powerful enough to tear apart enemy warships, and a stealth technology that makes them extremely hard to striking.
• Battlestar Galactica: Both the original and new serial were largely congenital effectually the Vipers.
  • Fun fact: the pilot nickname for the F-xvi Fighting Falcon in the US Air Strength is the Viper, what with the F-16 inbound service the same yr that BSG was aired. If the design of the Viper Mk. Vii from the new series is anything to go by, ^note In particular, the abdomen engine scoop that fact has come full circle.
• Cadet Rogers in the 25th Century used rejected models from Battlestar Galactica.
• Farscape has Peacekeeper Prowlers.
  • Also, Scarran Fighters from the Miniseries, and D'argo'southward Luxan fighter.
  • The Sheyangs launched fighter pods from their capitol ships.
• In Firefly, Alliance ships comport squadrons of "gunships" which are for all intents and purposes space fighters. Gunships are deployed past Alliance ships to pursue smaller, lighter craft that the cruiser itself cannot pursue, every bit the bigger transport is much slower—essentially a carrier/metropolis in space.
  • According to the RPG, the gunship (officially ASREV, for Alliance Short Range Enforcement Vessel) differs from the Star Wars model in a couple of respects. Instead of being basically a fighter jet in space, it is about the same size as a regional rider jet at 83 anxiety long and 48 anxiety broad. Gunships carry a crew of four and are besides used as the interplanetary equivalent of police squad cars.
• Space: Above and Beyond had star fighters used past both the Humans and the Chigs. The human fighters (the Hammerheads), carried missiles and mounted gun turrets in the mentum and tail, while the Chig fighters used some sort of energy cannon.
  • The Chigs' Super Image, a fast stealth fighter that was almost invulnerable to the Hammerheads' weapons fire, flown by Chiggy Von Richtoffen. After three different squadrons tried and failed to take him downward, the paradigm was finally destroyed in a ane-on-one fight with Colonel McQueen.
• Eagles, the workhorses of Space: 1999, were sometimes fitted with a laser and pressed into the role of fighters to defend Moonbase Alpha. Ane episode featured Mark IX Hawks, a specialised space superiority fighter congenital on Globe yet somehow existence used past hostile aliens, which should probably take raised some red flags.
• In Stargate Atlantis there are the Wraith Darts, that fit the function perfectly. They are commonly used in capturing victims for the Wraith, and shoot down any flying targets. They also actually, really suck; they've been shot down by infantry with set on rifles.
  • The Pool Jumpers could too deed in this way, although that is not their primary purpose.
• Stargate SG-ane: Notable in that the villains accept space fighters from the very start, but the expert guys have to develop theirs slowly, over several seasons. Just, as with all Goa'uld technology, their Death Gliders were more impressive than applied. They were mostly used for strafing basis targets, but were frequently shown fighting in infinite as the testify went on and started featuring more Space Battles.
  • We see the commencement Tau'ri endeavour to build a Space fighter in Flavour 4. Information technology is congenital using 2 damaged Goa'uld Expiry Gliders that were stolen at the get-go of Season 2, and that were besides shown getting worked on in a lab in an earlier episode. This prototype fails spectacularly. It'south not until Season six that a successful prototype Infinite Fighter is fielded past Stargate Command, and it's not until Flavour 7 that the production model gets built, and sees bodily combat for the commencement time.
    • Though if you consider information technology, that's only v years between initial capture of the technology and fielding a practical unit of measurement. 5 years in which they have to reverse-engineer advanced engineering and re-create it with human tech. Non half bad for an R&D project of that magnitude.
    • It besides constituted a nice alter of footstep from Failure Is the Only Option and Status Quo Is God, since the SGC'southward mission was to find conflicting technology to bring back to World to assistance build weapons against the Goa'uld.
    • The X-301 prototype failure in Season 4 occurred considering the engineers left too much of the original Expiry Gliders' engineering science in the fighter, including, as it turned out, a remember device installed on Apophis' orders later Teal'c's revolt. In the later seasons, they figured out how to opposite-engineer more of this technology, finally allowing for the creation of a fully human being-congenital fighter, instead of a hybrid of human being and Black Box conflicting engineering science.
• Star Expedition: Largely avoided Space Fighters in favour of larger ships, but they did show up on some rare occasions, mostly in Deep Space Nine. The Maquis used small-scale ships somewhat like to Space Fighters, and some rarely-seen onetime Bajoran ships fit the bill. The Dominion had ships called fighters, merely these were really small warships, and had enough space for a full-sized coiffure. Usually, it seemed large ships in Star Trek had weapons both accurate and powerful plenty to easily take out fighters, no affair how minor and manoeuvrable (which would certainly explain why they're rarely seen).
  • Maquis fighters were shown to accept a crew of four, except in the pilot of Voyager where one inexplicably has a crew of near twenty.
  • In some of the afterwards episodes of Deep Infinite Nine, the unimaginatively named "Federation Fighters" could occasionally be seen. These fully fit the trope. In one episode, we see squadrons of them zipping in and out, harassing Cardassian warships. We see that while the fighters are very fast and nimble, they only take 1 or two shots from a starship's axle weapons to get swatted. These fighters ◊ themselves announced to be considerably bigger than a shuttle however.
  • All incarnations of Star Trek featured pocket-size shuttle-arts and crafts, and these were commonly armed, but almost never filled the role of a Space Fighter (with the Delta Flyer in Voyager occasionally beingness an exception).
  • Despite the rarity of Space Fighters, the Expedition Poetry did eventually characteristic Old School Dogfights, peculiarly during some of the boxing scenes of the Dominion War: abandoning their previous Space Is an Bounding main analogies, they showed their starships maneuvering similar infinite fighters. (The Defiant gets something of a adieu for being tiny by Star Expedition standards.)
  • "The Best of Both Worlds" did feature a wave of (automated?) fighters sent to accept on the Borg Cube... that lasted for all of most 3 seconds.
    • In the Star Trek Novel Verse, Starfleet finally gets around to creating avant-garde space fighters dedicated to gainsay in the backwash of the Borg Invasion. They're introduced in the later one-half of the Star Expedition: Voyager Relaunch.
  • Small aerodynamic craft were likewise flown by an acrobatics group Wesley Crusher was a part of.
  • The Kazon made utilize of both unmarried-person fighters, boarding shuttles with modified hull-piercing tips, small warships called "raiders" (which were autonomous vessels with multiple decks) and huge carriers (rarer than the raiders, but could carry multiple raiders and fighters). The raiders resembled scaled-up fighters with several decks and a bridge instead of a unproblematic cockpit.
  • The Romulans and Remans have Scorpion-class fighter shuttles.
  • Star Trek: Picard introduces the Romulan Snakehead fighter, a single-airplane pilot scout ship that packs a lot of firepower for its small size.

    Pinball

• Used past both sides in Williams Electronics' Stellar Wars
• Both Firepower and Firepower 2 have Space Fighters for the defending human forces.

    Tabletop Games

• GURPS: Spaceships has a supplement that covers fighters. The examples culminate in the Delusion Star Fighter which is loaded with superscience to the point that it is actually congenital mostly of strength fields.
• Traveller had a variety of small fighter ships.
• Task Force Games: Star Fleet Battles, Federation and Empire and Starfire.
• The Paranoia adventure "Clones in Infinite" had Pie Fighters (a Shout-Out to Star Wars TIE Fighters).
• The many editions and iterations of the Star Wars RPG, obviously, take had many starfighter variants, most of which are from the Expanded Universe.
• Battlelords of the 23rd Century supplement No Man's Land Planetary Atlas. Fighter bases are part of the defensive construction protecting Alliance planets. Fighter types include Superiority, Advanced Superiority, Multi-Function, Fighter Bomber and Interceptor.
• BattleTech has Aerospace Fighters, which are every bit as well-armed and armored as the setting's Humongous Mecha (in some cases even mechs themselves can qualify for this trope). FASA even created ii specialist games, Aerotech, for those who wanted to play the transatmospheric battles betwixt fighters and Drop Ships that preceded the state battles of the main game, and Battlespace, for full space battles between Dropships and Warships. (The mod edition of BattleTech puts basic aerospace combat into its cadre rulebook, with more 'advanced' options—such as the alternative movement rules mentioned below or the use of unit types across just fighters, small craft, and DropShips—handled in subsequent volumes.)
  • The interesting thing about AeroTech is that it also allowed you to actually choose whether you wanted to play Erstwhile-Schoolhouse Dogfight straight or avert it birthday past using the advanced motion rules for space-based gainsay.
  • The "cool plane" designs are justified equally the Aerospace fighters of the setting are intended to operate in or out of atmosphere.
• Iron Crown Enterprise'south Infinite Chief.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Space-based fighter and bomber craft are more similar gunboats, with crews of between four and sixteen depending on pattern and enough armament to level cities; necessary when the starships are at least a half-kilometer long and oftentimes plated in fourscore-100 meters of solid armor.
  • Many Imperil aircraft, called Aeronautica, are capable of brusque periods of infinite travel, but lack the armor and engine power to mix it up with truthful spacecraft. It'due south more intended to allow them to launch from a spacecraft, conduct a mission against a planetary target, and render to the transport.
  • In their 8th Edition background, the Tomb Blades used past the Necrons are said to have originally been developed during the State of war in Heaven every bit modest, highly manoeuvrable void fighters. Fitted with loftier-yield weaponry and fielded in hundreds potent squadrons, the original Tomb Blades proved to be highly effective at destroying even enemy uppercase ships.
• Rifts Infinite Opera Stage World/Iii Galaxies setting features a number of Fighters.
• A few ships in Spelljammer could qualify, but the standout example is probably the Locust from Toril.
• For a truthful, but now lost to time, Difficult SF starfighter game, there was Marc Miller's Triplanetary originally published by Game Designer'south Workshop and at present in SJ Games' hands. One of its primary features was hex-mapped based vectored movement organisation.
• Total Thrust has rules for infinite fighters, although the mechanics accept received a lot of complaints due to balance problems—the pre-designed fleets have serious Point Caught issues, to the point where dedicated carrier fleets easily dominate confronting everything else.
• Starfleet Battles uses fighters extensively, despite there being none in the source materials. They primarily function to saturate enemy defenses and kill ships past simply being as well numerous to stop. The result varies with the fighters and the target. Particularly constructive are Hydran fighters (which are deployed on most Hydran ships) which were described in i tactical analysis equally being like "roving nuclear spacemines". Ii of them at betoken blank range will leave a cruiser a gutted wreck.
• The Blobs and Empire factions take their own variants in Star Realms. As the two virtually militant groups, they're the merely ones the field space fighters. Based on the art piece of work, the Viper bill of fare looks the part, but is rather cryptic in regards to classification.
• Both the nations of Earth and the Kafer brand employ of space fighters in 2300 AD. They are useful as contained missile launch platforms. Well-nigh of them are streamlined enough to enter an atmosphere as well, but some are designed only to operate in space.
• Since the setting is called Rocket Age, it'due south practically mandatory for there to exist Rocket Fighters, modest two person rocket ships equipped for dog fighting.
• The first game in the Renegade Legion series, Interceptor, was entirely about these. After games included various ways to factor them in - tank-warfare game Centurion included rules for strafing by fighters, while uppercase-ship game Leviathan included rules for how groups of fighters could harm capital ships and vice versa.

    Video Games

• Simulation Games prepare in space very, very frequently cast the player in the office of a Space Fighter airplane pilot. Space fighter simulations are a genre of their own, and a fairly well-populated one.
  • Elite, from 1984, was perhaps the primeval instance of this type of game, and 1 of the earliest abode figurer games to characteristic 3-D graphics. In this Wide-Open Sandbox, the player starts with a lightly-armed trader, and can (amidst other things) make enough money to outfit a proper Space Fighter for engaging Thargoids and Infinite Pirates in an Old-Schoolhouse Dogfight. The game is named later the highest rank the player tin accomplish in combat proficiency.
    • Oolite is a modern open-source remake.
  • The Wing Commander series is all about starfighter gainsay, with some of the fighters also being atmospheric capable. The first game came out in 1990, and heavily influenced how the genre developed. Spiritual Successors helmed past the same designer, Chris Roberts, include Starlancer, Freelancer and Star Citizen, and as well retain the emphasis on starfighter gainsay, though the latter two let yous offset veering into larger ships.
  • X-Wing is a classic from the early 90s, prepare in the Star Wars universe. Information technology was later followed by the popular TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs. Necktie Fighter and X-Fly Alliance.
    • The 10-Wing serial of games made the names of Insubordinate and Majestic craft popularly known amid gamers, even those who were not interested in the Expanded Universe details.
  • Descent was some other of import example, from the mid-90s.
  • Freespace has y'all flying fighters in the Standard Sci Fi Setting. Freespace 2, the still-quite-popular sequel, has an involving storyline, and received numerous awards.
• Early examples can be institute in Space War and Asteroids, though the "ships" involved are simple icons.
• Shoot Em Ups depend on space fighters every bit much as, or more than, they practice conventional fighter planes. Famous examples include:
  • The Vic Viper of the Gradius series
  • The R-9 Arrowhead of the R-Type serial, along with a hundred others in R-Blazon FINAL and R-Type Tactics 1 and ii.
  • The Arwings of the Star Fox serial
  • The Fire LEO and RVR serial of fighters in the Thunder Force series
  • Accept off every "zig!"
• StarCraft's Terrans used Wraiths. By extension, Scouts and Corsairs from the Protoss.
  • The Terran Vikings and Protoss Phoenixes from StarCraft Two supercede Wraiths and Scouts in the fighter category. One of the scrapped Terran ships was the Predator, a fighter with a point defense organisation.
  • The Scouts even look like they're more of a plane than starfighter.
  • The Zerg have the Scourge, Mutalisk, Guardian, and Devourer every bit Living Send equivalents to prowl missiles, fighters, bombers, and gunboats, respectively. Starcraft II phases out all of these except the Mutalisk, instead introducing the Corruptor equally their air-to-air specialist (replacing Scourges and Devourers), which can morph into a Brood Lord, which is basically the aforementioned equally the Guardian except its attack also leaves behind a Broodling to nibble on enemies.
• Halo: The Covenant Seraphs and UNSC Longswords. Rarely seen on photographic camera just in the novelizations they are threats to be reckoned with. Achieve introduces the Covenant Space Banshee and the UNSC Sabre, and Halo 4 gives u.s. the UNSC Broadsword.
  • Notably, the Longsword is more of a missile boat than a fighter, making information technology somewhat more plausible than most implementations of this trope. The C-712 variant is 35 meters long with a wingspan greater than its length, and masses 180 tons. The larger C-709 variant is 64 meters with a wingspan of 75 meters, and (scaling from the C-709) would mass over i,100 tons. It's equipped with three automatic 110-120mm cannons (virtually the aforementioned size equally the 5-inch guns mounted on modern navy destroyers) and four high-explosive missiles that, judging by the epitome in Warfleet, compare favorably in volume to modern medium anti-ship missiles. It can as well carry a unmarried tactical nuclear warhead. There's a reason that even massive upper-case letter ships similar Marathon-class and Epoch-class only carry a couple dozen Longswords - with much smaller lite carriers presumably carrying only a few.
• Gratuitous Space Battles: A strong fighter fleet tin can be a game-winner. Each fighter simply has handful of slots and a tiny powerplant, frequently having to do without shields or armour. However, you tin have lots of them: fifty-fifty mighty battleships can be worn downwardly past a ravening horde of fighters.
• In EVE Online, Fighters and Fighter-Bombers can exist launched past Carriers and Motherships. Unlike other ships, they're too pocket-sized to fit the sheathing system, so they can't exist piloted by players. Instead, they're piloted by expendable NPCs, and functionally behave similar to the Attack Drones other ships have.
• Master of Orion II has Interceptors/Bombers/Heavy Fighters carried past ships and planetary bases.
• In Mass Effect, though rarely seen, they exercise exist, albeit generally as back up arts and crafts to keep enemy fire away from larger Frigates, Cruisers and Dreadnoughts. Their main job in combat is to Zerg Rush enemy ships, cause the point-defense lasers to overheat, and deliver torpedoes to weaken kinetic barriers so bigger ships can use their mass accelerators to have downwardly opposing vessels.
  • That being said, their original apply was somewhat express until information technology was revolutionised past the Alliance who introduced the concept of a Carrier to the Milky way, allowing for large squadrons of their to be launched at in one case. The Brotherhood besides appears to take pioneered the employ of Interceptors in social club to counter-attack enemy dogfighters, leaving their Fighter Squadrons free to bring downwards enemy ships.
  • They are finally featured in all their glory in Mass Result three.
• Star Command focuses on larger ships, and the smallest of the ships encountered in either the game or its sequel wouldn't actually count as a fighter. However, the Ur-Quan Dreadnought, one of the deadliest ships in either game, is a Battlestar (it even looks like the original one!) that launches minor autonomous fighters every bit its secondary assail. Though they're only a few pixels in size, the way these fighters work in the game makes quite a flake of sense: They deplete the Dreadnought's crew, they accept express fuel and must caput back to the Dreadnought subsequently a cursory sortie, and they carry only a weak weapon and tin can be destroyed with a single hit. Withal, they are able to outmanoeuvre most opponents and so option autonomously big ships picayune by little... Except for the ships that are not Signal Caught. An AI-controlled Dreadnought won't even bother launching fighters against an opponent with point-defense systems.
  • "Launch Fighters! Launch Fighters! La-La-La-La-La-La-La-La-Launch Fighters!"
• Homeworld features multiple types of "strikecraft" which fulfilled diverse duties—scouting, defense force, interception, and bombing. They tin somewhat exist used out of their roles with creativity, only the sequel Homeworld 2 intensifies the presence of Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors.
  • The semi-canonical sequel Homeworld: Cataclysm features the Acolyte-course heavy fighter used exclusively by Kith Somtaaw, based on Bentusi blueprint. They are highly versatile and can fulfill multiple roles (armed with standard mass drivers merely could also burn down missiles). Additionally, ii Acolytes can combine into a single Avenger-form equanimous vehicle (a corvette), which can bring downward much larger ships with its EMP generator. A few missions feature the Bentusi originals; they don't have all the extra tricks of the Somtaaw version, but since their guns will tear through enemy craft of all kinds like tissue paper they don't need them.
  • Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm as well accept Attack Drones. The original ones were non very effective, but the design has evolved past Cataclysm.
• Sins of a Solar Empire also has "strikecraft" of two kinds — fighters and bombers. Bombers are designed to attack cruisers, capital ships and structures while fighters take on lighter vessels, bombers and other fighters. The TEC fighters and bombers, and Appearance fighters await like atmospheric craft with streamlining, although they aren't meant to assault planets at all. The Advent bombers and Vasari strikecraft do non look atmospheric, but aren't utilitarian either — they're but Rule of Cool based Shiny-Looking Spaceships. All strikecraft act like atmospheric aircraft in terms of maneuvering, partake in Old School Dogfights and strafing, and tin only be targeted by flak frigates, certain capital ship abilities and enemy fighters. TEC and Vasari strikecraft are classical one-human types, while Advent strikecraft are remotely piloted drones. The Rebellion Expansion Pack adds corvettes, which are slightly larger than strike craft, but are also meliorate armed and armored. They are able to assail both strike craft and capital ships and can be used every bit fighters when in swarms.
• The Ten-Universe serial' infinite fighters are clearly designed to exist similar to atmospheric ships, but not so like as to look silly. Each race has five different fighter classes (M5 scoutship, M4 interceptor, M4+ ^note pronounced em-four-plus heavy interceptor, M3 fighter, M3+ heavy fighter) that may be further subdivided into variant models.
• Infinite Space allows the player to mount hangars on ships to launch fighters. Even so, only ships with a built-in catapult can use fighters.
• Averted past blueprint in Sword of the Stars. The makers have stated that, with destroyers about 30 metres already, fighters would be at least one-half that size, FTL-incapable and autumn chop-chop to signal-defense, so they will non be included for at present. The closest to them are the diverse unmanned Attack Drones, which are indeed FTL-incapable and swattable by PD.
  • The second game has "battleriders" that are the size of the first game's destroyers or larger, have no FTL drives, and are launched from carriers or stock-still bases. More like gunboats than fighters, specially since they max out at dreadnought size.
• Independence War: There are starfighters, and y'all sometimes command them equally wingmen in add-on to fighting them, simply the arts and crafts y'all pilot is generally much larger (commonly a corvette), command section aside. You never pilot the starfighters direct.
• The R-352 Sepia in Ace Combat iii: Electrosphere is flown in the single mission that takes identify in space. Information technology is armed with diverse Beam Spam generators and used to shoot downwards enemy satellites.
• Tachyon: The Fringe's gameplay takes identify entirely in fighters, given that Jake Logan is a fighter pilot past merchandise. Capital ships exist, but seem to mainly be used as carriers.
  • Additionally, while fighters are not FTL-capable, they use TCG gates to jump between sectors, while capital ships are too big to fit into the gates.
    • They may be too big, but all cap ships have their own tachyon coil generators and can enter Subspace or Hyperspace at will (usually preceded by the typical "accelerate fast into nothingness" animation), although the fluff indicates that they still use the gates equally navigating beacons.
• Nexus: The Jupiter Incident is mostly focused on tactical majuscule transport combat. While fighters and bombers are present and available to exist launched, they are usually fairly quickly swatted out by flak lasers. The only mode to employ them successfully is to have out the enemy flak grid first before deploying fighters. Fighters can also human action as an anti-fighter or anti-missile screen in addition to flak.
• Freelancer has the bulk of pilotable spacecraft being fighters. You lot tin go yourself a beefy freighter, but so yous may every bit well paint a large target on its hull. On the other hand, the loftier-finish space fighters in this game tend to be incredibly overpowered, as throughout the campaign you'll find yourself routinely taking out cruisers and battleships in your ane-human fighter.
• Present in every Escape Velocity game.
  • The original has by far the biggest assortment, ranging from the strictly anti-fighter Defender on up to the Rapier, a heavy fighter-bomber that can take on capital ships in skilled easily.
  • EV Override gives a single fighter model to each faction (except the Miranu, who use the standard Crescent fighter (then do the Igadzra and the Strandless, merely the Crescent fighter is that faction-divided species' design, and not an import), and the Voinians, who has a heavy fighter and an interceptor).
  • In EV Nova, carrier-based fighters are pretty useless confronting annihilation except other fighters; they don't mountain weapons big enough to be anything more than an irritant to majuscule ships. The exception is the game breaking Polaris Manta, which is well-shielded, faster and more than maneuverable than any other send in the game, and mounts a gun worthy of a calorie-free capital ship.
• Strange Adventures In Infinite Space has fighters for several races, including humans (although the only human fighter you find during the campaign is that of Ripcord O'Reily). However, they are extremely easy to destroy and are only a threat in big numbers (or if they come in at you from behind, where your weapons tin can't target). The sequel has several races feature carriers that periodically launch fighters (one is a full-fledged Battlestar and will rip you to shreds if you lot get too close).
• Haegemonia: Legions of Iron has fighter wings as your first buildable warships. They're fairly weak and unremarkably get downwardly from one or 2 shots, just each wing has 7 of them (the Expansion Pack has larger wings). Like larger ships, fighters can be armed with ane of four types of weapons (proton, missile, ion, quantum). Turreted corvettes tin usually take out fighters pretty quickly, effectively making them obsolete. Their only real employ later on that is to raid Asteroid Miners, go later on discovered spies, or harass larger ships not equipped with turrets. Given the Arbitrary Headcount Limit, most players finish building fighters once they inquiry larger ships. The intro, though, has extremely-advanced fighters (equipped with two weapon systems) ambushing the Martian ambassador'southward shuttle, sparking the state of war between Globe and its colonies.
• Conquest: Frontier Wars has fighters as the main offensive weapon of the Mantis. Fifty-fifty their near powerful transport class, the Tiamat, is aught more than than a huge carrier that launches wings of anti-ship bombers and has no other weapons. Strangely enough, humans are the ones who don't take any fighters until the Mantis rebels give them plans for their own carrier. Even then, humans don't apply them nearly every bit much every bit the Mantis. The Celareons don't fifty-fifty have fighters and rely on capital ships instead. Nearly ships are Bespeak Defenseless. Each race only has one type of ship with whatsoever sort of anti-fighter weaponry (usually the cheapest). Fighters do oftentimes allow the Mantis to attack from beyond visual range, though, often requiring the fleet beingness attacked to look for the carrier (sometimes across a nebula or Asteroid Thicket). This is the reason why, of all the resource, the Mantis tend to rely on "population" the most.
• Star Citizen has a broad variety of space fighters, which are mostly the starting point in the player'southward carrier. The bulk of fighters have a Cool Plane artful as they're capable of surface-to-orbit flight, though others like the "Aurora" expect more like a lawn dart - and logically should fly most as well as one - simply handles just like ships with atmospheric wings. All but the most basic fighters are capable of Faster-Than-Lite Travel and have a cabin for the airplane pilot to sleep in.
• The titular duo of the Ratchet & Clank series regularly flew in an FTL-capable spaceship which occasionally doubled every bit a space fighter, admitting a piffling sluggish compared to other space fighters in the series. This was more prominent in the first two games which included pitting the duo against waves of smaller ships while either between planets or fighting certain bosses. Ratchet & Clank Time to come: A Crevice In Time restricted space combat to a 2-dimensional plane (while enemies and other vessels were capable of moving beyond this plane), just space combat in general has taken a backseat in almost of the series since Going Commando.
• In Rodina your ship functions as ane in combat. You take a variety of weapons and quite good maneuvering capabilities. Notwithstanding, information technology is larger and has crew quarters and storage areas, plus a completely customizable interior.
• Stellaris has Strikecraft divided into two categories, fighters and bombers. Gameplay-wise, they take slightly differentiating stats that allows them to take on whatever upper-case letter ship and other strikecraft, through judicious upgrades of their attack speed and overall harm.
• Crying Suns has Fighters as one of its four squadron types, along with Drones, Frigates and Cruisers. Fighters trump Drones but lose to Frigates in the game'south Tactical Rock–Newspaper–Scissors system.
• In Star Expedition Online fighters are classified as "shuttle" ships and include most of the examples in the television receiver entries; they're obviously much weaker than regular ships and are only used in story missions where the actor's regular ship can't be used, similar infiltrating a heavily defended space station that would obliterate your chief ship if spotted. Carriers as well use fighters as "hangar pets" that can be deployed to wear down enemy defence while your ship pounds them and can be very effective depending on the type of fighter used and the abilities of your character and send, with all of the fighters you tin pilot having a hanger pet variant and more exotic versions existence bachelor like fire-damage dealing lost souls used by the Klingons' version of the Legions of Hell to entire frigates if your ship tin equip them. There are fifty-fifty consumable items that will grant you the use of fighters regardless of your ship form, though unlike hangar pets they don't regenerate so you tin launch more than.

    Webcomics

    Spider web Original

• Atomic Rocket is one of several difficult sci-fi sites arguing that manned starfighters are nonsensical. Their writers claim that Attack Drones are the simply applied application for small military ships, and postulate that the just reason starfighters might ever show upwards in reality at all is due to "cultural inertia."
  • They do make a possible exception for orbital warfare, where in that location'due south a horizon to hide behind.
• Orion's Arm makes a few references to nano-scale space fighters. Simply for the well-nigh part, self-replicating "Autowars" are preferred to craft piloted by flimsy hominids.
• When The Empire Falls has both starfighters and drones being used. Hither, in that location is no good AI, but there is good wet networking, so heavily-augmented pilots take the role.
• Mahu: In "Second Chance", fighters are a common sight of the latter fleet of the Galactic Commonwealth. Yet, though they are quite effective when used correctly, they are still considered a minor tool when compared to the huge, uppercase ships the Commonwealth is able to deploy.

    Western Animation

• In Steven Universe, Stevonnie pilots a custom-fabricated fighter ship chosen the Star Skipper that was designed by Lars in the battle against Emerald'southward ship.
• Both played straight and averted in Il était une fois...... Infinite. Cassiopeian fighters as well as the Omega Confederation Dragonfly-form are somewhat large ships -seemingly with the size of a Real Life airliner-, with a crew of at least two people. However other races such as the Humanoids employ small, one-human being fighters.
• In Archer 1999, Carol Tunt pilots an escort fighter that tin can be launched from and docked in the cargo bay of the Archer Crew's transport, the Seamus.

    Real Life

• The U.South. Navy's "Space Cruiser" high-operation space aeroplane would have been a borderline existent-life example—if it were ever built. The design called for a small, single-person arts and crafts that could be launched relatively cheaply and covertly, and would orbit the Earth once or twice, hopefully taking out Soviet spy satellites in the process. Not equally glamorous as most fictional examples, given the fledgling military machine presence in space, but it would take looked adequately cool—and how many fictional infinite fighters feature an open up cockpit? (Don't forget to pack your space-suit!) Other similar projects can be seen on this page.
  • The Soviets had their own equivalent designs for manned anti-satellite spacecraft, and sent armed Almaz space stations into orbit to test the concept. Since The Space Race didn't upshot in a more than established manned presence in infinite, unmanned anti-satellite weapons and surface-launched missiles were pursued as more practical alternatives by all sides.
• A amend Soviet example would perhaps exist the Spiral projection, which aimed to produce a manned combat vehicle capable to launching into orbit, destroying enemy satellites (and starfighter interceptors), and landing once more. Unfortunately for sci-fi fans everywhere, such vehicle was never congenital only an atmospheric epitome, the MiG-105, did take to the skies and tin can requite you the basic idea of how a Soviet starfighter would have looked like.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceFighter

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