Hangar Bay, Cargo Hold & Steerage Cargo

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by wellspring

space fighters don't make much hard sci fi sense anyway, so why not enjoy yourself?

That really depends. It's a badly overplayed card.

Fighter as missile bus...they usually acknowledge that but treat it as not counting. Being a missile bus is a major part of the modern jet fighter's role. They haven't been replaced in that role by disposable drones, so far, though the not-terribly-disposable UCAVs are coming for them.

'Fighter' as the logical end-point of an eggshells with sledgehammers missile and PD setup also makes perfect sense. If adequate armor is unfeasible, slicing your ship into lots of littler independent ships is the obvious way to improve survivability. Dice it fine enough and I'd call it a fighter...

Space dogfighters, of course, don't make a lot of sense unless your setting is massively altered from reality in ways that prevent them being annihilated by beam weapons from far too far away to properly 'dogfight'.

And obviously regardless of any of the above, if your electronics are smart and capable enough there's no reason to put canned monkeys on any of your ships.