Loserboy & Mask both make great points. I thought that ships turned broadside in combat only if their side batteries were stronger than their forward firing arc. It's been so long since I've been in tactical mode I can't say for sure. Maybe you could rev up the "cap fighters" sublight speed and maneuverability values in Rebed to make them seem more like fighters. Then have them execute waypoint moves just so they don't park in space and try to duke it out with the heavies. Or have them do surround moves if engaging enemy fighters. Hopefully they'd keep following them around until the opposing fighters are all gone. As far as making strong fighters, I'm not sure where you would put the values. Originally I thought you'd want to make them really vulnerable. Maybe the opposite is the way to go in order to simulate "misses" by the enemy cap ships. You could make their hull and/or shield values high, just so the first hit doesn't blow them away. And make their damage control settings such that if they did survive the fight, they could be repaired very very quickly. (on the theory that it's a lot quicker to repair a fighter than a cap ship.) In this way, maybe you could simulate misses and minor battle damage by the enemy cap ships' laser batteries. LB is almost certainly correct about having to handle fighters by task group, which wouldn't be very realistic. In a melee I'm sure it would be almost impossible for fighters to maintain squadron formation. I don't know if there's a way around that. Personally I never play as the Alliance - I just love those ISDs and SSDs too much, beside which Vader is 'da Man! And there are some cap ships I never build, like strike cruisers and star galleons. I'd be happy to give those up to be able to build a fleet (squadron!) of TIE defenders that I could send on their own raiding missions. For any fighter I turn into a "capital fighter" , Ill remove it from the fighter list and replace it with something else. Sorry for the long post but this website, plus all the discoveries in modifying dlls and exchanging models just have me incredibly psyched about playing Rebellion again!