If u want to make fighters useful in combat do this:
1) Take fighter from before 2.01 patch
2) Make them cost 100x materials less, and build faster. Average 1 minutes per average fighter. With high-end ones to go for 5 minutes.
3) Make hangars 100 larger ( to fit extra replacements)
4) Make each squadron to have a surplus of 108 bodies and consider fighters as "remote drones", which are stored in hangar and launched when drones get shot down.
5) Give them base speed of 1000 m/s (with short boosts up to 2000 m/s if Xsotan or Pirates have base speed of 1500 m/s), which can be upgraded when building new ones in Fighter factory, so that they will be able to catch up to enemy capital ships.
6) Give them turrets to shoot at enemy while NOT FLYING FACE-FIRST INTO PDC. So they could orbit enemy and shoot them.
Logic of combat: U launch 1 squadron of 12 fighters, they catch enemy and orbit around it shooting it. Enemy PDC have hard time hitting them, but when they hit they kill them quickly. <--- that balances low durability against new move pattern
But since each squadron have extra 108 replacement drones in storage, u can launch replacement immediately after loosing some in combat. < --- that also balances low durability with big extra replacements that can be stored in hangar, if hangar is large enough to hold so much extra bodies.