Since there is no reason to mix siege ships with combat ships (in the same fleet) I find it very hard to justify using the "balanced" version of fighters/bombers. In my combat fleets I want to maximize fighting power per fleet and while it is nice to have some killing power in siege fleets (to pick off scouts or fodder fleets intercepting you) specialized siege fighters already offer this and since my siege fleets are supposed to be protected I want to maximize siege power.



Therefore I suggest replacing the "balanced" versions with elite versions (very strong, but cost-inefficient). These fighters would be better at space combat than combat fighters and possibly better at siege/invasion than siege fighters but be prohibitively expensive. They would be similar to the +tonnage modules where one module is almost the cost of a full cruiser, and could also cost a resource as well. While they (if properly balanced) would still be a worse investment than cheaper fighters most of the time, you might want them for protected elite ships or hero fleets.

Cost is never a good limiter for anything.



If the balanced fighters become better then combat fighters and siege fighters then you replace one undesirable with two.

If you put the +tonnage module on every ship as soon as you get it you are not playing optimally. The module has only benefits with cost as only penalty. The reason this works is because cost is actually a pretty good limiter for most things.

I cannot claim to playing optimally anyway, thats not enjoyable for me.



But the problem is that cost has a way of becoming a binary choice when it is used to balance things, where either you always get it despite the slowdown of production or you just do end up using it at all.



Know what I mean?



But yeah making the balanced fighter better then the specialized fighters is a bad idea, personally I do like to make my carrier fleets into both war and siege fleets, but like I also said I don't like playing optimally.

Generally speaking, if you're spending far more than you're gaining out of +tonnage modules you're doing it wrong. But +tonnage is pretty bad before you have tech to get more out of it.