Finally made contact with an alien species, and the first of my two fleets were destroyed almost immediately. I then send my other fleet to secure the jump point on my side, and it's again destroyed with little effort. Is it normal for the enemy to have a 60,000 ton ship with 600 shields, 13 meson cannons, and then carry 16 fighters, which area also armed with meson cannons? Also, other then my lack of ECM ability (That's the main thing that killed me. I was unable to engage at range, and was well within point defense range by the time I could actually fire), what is wrong with this ship (Since I was only able to get three kills total. On the 600 ton fighters)
Lexington class Battlecruiser 21,550 tons 1885 Crew 4938 BP TCS 431 TH 420 EM 0
2784 km/s Armour 9-68 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 29 PPV 107.64
Maint Life 4.97 Years MSP 2721 AFR 195% IFR 2.7% 1YR 183 5YR 2752 Max Repair 394 MSP
Flag Bridge Cargo Handling Multiplier 5
Magneto-plasma Drive E7 (15) Power 80 Fuel Use 70% Signature 28 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres Range 83.5 billion km (347 days at full power)
Twin ASL Turret (4x2) Range 256,000km TS: 6000 km/s Power 20-8 RM 4 ROF 15 10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Twin PDL Turret (4x2) Range 120,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 6-8 RM 4 ROF 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
ASL (2) Range 256,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 10-4 RM 4 ROF 15 10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
CIWS-160 (3x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Fire Control Main (3) Max Range: 256,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Fire Control Point Defense (3) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 16000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.1 (4) Total Power Output 105.6 Armour 0 Exp 10%
Active Search Sensor PD (1) GPS 42 Range 2.5m km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor Fleet (1) GPS 1575 Range 42.3m km Resolution 5
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
As others have said, that's no ordinary carrier/fighters you're up against. Those are
SPACE BEES.
You have two real options: long-range missile spam, or very fast ships (10000+ km/s) with fairly long-range beams. The latter option takes more tech research, but is cheaper to implement. A single fast beamer can eventually take out all the fighters without damage by waiting for them to pursue, then steadily allowing them to catch up until in weapons range (but outside their meson range) and firing for *hours* until they're all dead. The good news is that with the engine changes in 6.0, this is now feasible even at lower engine techs.
Taking out the "Queen" is trickier. I've never gotten around to it in any of my games. Typically, when I found a system with a Swarm presence, I just interdicted that system and never visited again. With the 6.0 update, their AI seems to be more aggressive. Last game I ran, a Queen killed my scout, then headed directly for Earth and irradiated the planet while wreaking havoc on everything in its path.