Not much to this one. I think point-defense weapons designed to take down small missiles should also be able to take down (or at least damage) fighters, assuming of course that they can hit.
I would also like to see this weapon come in beam, bullet, and missile varieties.
Oh yes! By the blessed Saints Bofors and Oerlikon, [size=150]yes[/size].
Why? Do you realize that this would be overpowered? Anti-missile and anti-fighter all in one?
point defence is useless atm anyways,everyone uses scrablers
this would give PD`s some real usage,as they would be lower fire rate BUT would target both missiles and fighters
good idea imho
I love this idea. That would make PDs useful in pretty much any scenario (everyone has fighters) and help against the missile spam fleets, which are incredibly prevalent.
Perhaps to address the overpowering issue, make PD capable of hitting fighters as a brief EMP effect? No damage, but the fighter’s weapons lock up for half a second or so. Improve the PD’s ability to neutralize missiles a bit and you might have a defensive module that people would use.
Then people would start putting on PD instead of scrambler beams - and they would have to balance - crappy missile defense with fighter defense vs good missile defense? Or taking up multiple hardpoints. It would also give frigates a fighting chance in AA defense.
Berny
Frigates already have strong AA defense. Possibly even stronger than cruiser tractor beams, cost-wise. A change like this will do nothing to improve frigates viability, and will probably just make cruisers spam even more overpowered than it already is.
Regarding perceptions of being overpowered… the situation RE: defense against fighters and missiles is already imbalanced too far to the detriment of the defending ship. We’re trying to brainstorm creative solutions that introduce the least amount of additional imbalance into other areas. If a high-powered solution is needed to repair these two broken aspects of the game, then let’s not hesitate to fix what we’ve long known is inadequate.
I have no problem with a single module that is a dynamic do-all gun that can engage both types of targets and come out on top with a high kill ratio. If all that goodness is present in a single module, it should also cost appropriately for such ability; likewise for the favor of freeing up at least one additional module slot aboard your ship. The decision to use it or stick with existing countermeasures is up to the player; an additional layer of balance, if you will. A bunch of separate single-barrel 57mm machine guns, or a single CIWS with a six-barrel Vulcan autocannon inside? Yes, i would love to have that choice. The cost or the weight or whatever may be prohibitive for me, depending on the situation. But at least give me that choice.
I disagree about it being strong. The frigate-based anti-fighter missile launcher is cursed with an lethargic (1100!) rate of fire, rendering its superb (12.50) tracking mostly useless. Even in concert with frigate tractor beams, it is hardly a cure-all for rampaging enemy fighters. Does that mean it is useless? No. Less than effective? Oh yes. Every time I use it, I am left grinding my teeth in frustration when i see how slowly that launcher coughs out those precious missiles.
The frigate pulse laser and rapid fire laser, despite their descriptions, are also relatively ineffective against fighters owing to their small damage output trumping their fire rates or tracking. Many opposition fighters are unarmored, but even with relatively light durability plus their high speeds that’s a dismayingly effective defense against a frigate energy weapon that does only 10 and 5 damage, respectively. With such guns you’re going to need, on average, 3 to 6 hits to down a typical fighter. Your main hope is that the first few hits might slow it down enough that its reduced engine output lets your crummy tracking lock onto it for the coup de grace. You don’t have the luxury of patting yourself on the back for that sort of performance when the other 15 fighters in the typical enemy squadron are busy doing their damndest to turn your armor into Swiss cheese. 
With a slow rate of fire against this particular kind of threat, added to the inadequate damage output, your defending ship is looking at some signifigant hurt. If the ship is a frigate, well, triple the hurt. I’d prefer a better firepower-based solution of dealing with this weakness.
On the contrary. If one doesn’t care about the willing suspension of disbelief, then just create a somewhat effective version of the so-called “combo gun” for cruiser use, while creating a superior frigate only-version. If you hate frigate spam, then don’t do the latter. The frigate spam vs. cruiser spam debate is parallel to this one, but still separate.
I do know that I loathe enemy fighters, and I likewise know that existing anti-fighter solutions (frigate-based or not) need signifigant improvement. Non-guidance scrambler solutions for seeking weapons (Swarm smart bomb excluded) also fall well below the mark. PD guns with fire rates in the 1200-700 time range are laughably useless when up against even a medium-sized enemy fleet. Frankly, that performance is beyond pathetic. As it stands now, existing PD modules are about as useful as putting a miniature golf course into that same module slot. If you can give frigates a specialized combination anti-fighter + anti-missile/torp/rocket gun that can actually do the job, that goes a long way towards making cruiser spam less useful. My gut feeling is that ship spammers are going to hype their preferred hull class no matter what i say here, so I’m not about to throw my entire argument in this thread into the crossfire of that other debate.
In short…there’s got to be a better way of taking down fighters and missiles. That’s why we’re debating this. 
Feel free to comment further, guys; lurkers, too!
The rapid fire laser has a tracking of 1.5. It’s a completely inappropriate weapon for attacking fighters, I’m not sure where one would get the idea that it is.
I disagree entirely.
Using missiles is an all-or-nothing affair for many fleets, as the fact that you have to “overpower” the opposing scrambler/PD defense creates a threshold that needs to be overcome. This ranges from extremely easy to near impossible as fleet engagement sizes get smaller. This dynamic is backwards for gameplay; Diversification to other weapon types is actively punished, as doing so reduces the available flood of missiles flying downrange and thus the percentage of missiles getting intercepted goes up.
The thing to remember is that missiles are weapons too and should ideally always be doing some damage. We should be looking for something that allows small amounts of launchers to be effective and punishing spam, not the other way around. Increasing the general effectiveness of existing PD just raises that spam threshold and leaves the original problem.
And fighters… well, I find it a bit ridiculous that we could be talking about fighter spam and cruiser spam in the same breath and not notice that one solves the other. There’s many ways to foil or slow fighters as-is, and laser fighters are one of the few ways to attack those nearly unapproachable fleets of slug-like cruisers. I’m not sure what is to be gained by killing them faster.
What I am saying if PD is allowed to hit fighters as well as missiles (low damage to fighters on the terms of a rapid fire laser and no armour or shield penetration) is that people might start using that module instead of relying solely on the guidance scrambler. It would also give frigates a more usefull role ability to screen cruisers. I do not say make the PD better at missile defense, just give it the ability to pick on fighters. I do not think in the grand scheme of things it would really unbalance the game that much.
This is where things get confusing. There are people who say fighters are overpowered - and others who say it is underpowered. I think it depends more on how you use those fighters.
Berny
I would love to see PD also attacking fighters.
A fighter and a missile are the same sort of target with regards to the gun. A fast moving, maneuverable, highly damaging but fragile target. The same type of weapons should work on both.
For example, this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
You can be sure that any aircraft that gets within range is going to have a very exiting, and very, very short life span. Yes, the weapons system is primarily designed to down missiles, but an aircraft is just as squishy, except bigger and slower. Easy target to hit. The depleted uranium Gatling gun will shred it.
PD weapons should be prioritized for missiles, but if there are no missiles to shoot at they should also shoot at nearby targets of opportunity, which would be fighters. GS weapons should be missiles only. But PD weapons are basically just lasers on an agile turret that shoots down fast moving, fragile things heading towards the cruiser they’re mounted on.