Elite Dangerous

Their main benefit is that they are fun as hell.

I sometimes park my Krait/Gunship and just fly around in the fighter to find and kill targets. Their damage may seem low, but their STUPID manouverability means you can dodge damage like in nothing else.

They also have the benefit of being remote controlled. You can die in a fight with your "mothership" pretty far away and just re-deploy instantly.

If I need the big guns to take something down, I tell my crew ro fly in the big ship to help, or switch places and have them pilot the fighter. Flying two ships at the same time is a little tricky, but fun in its own way. The important part is to treat the fighters like they're disposable gun platforms.

You can also deploy two at the same time, if you have someone join you via multi-crew. Two fighters with the mothership far away is a force to be reckoned with, and your main ship essentially becomes a respawn point for some co-op carnage using the most agile crafts in the game.

Edit: The Krait also has three pilot slots. That means you can bring two AI crew, meaning it's the one smaller SLF-capable ship that can deploy two fighters simultaneously even without multi-crew. I do this all the time and it ups your damage potential to stupid levels, and takes a lot of fire off you as your targets now have to split their fire between you and your fighters.

Edit2: I might be misremembering. Even with more crew, maybe you couldn't launch more than one?

Edit3: Figured it out. You can launch two fighters solo, one piloted by you, the other by AI crew. Your mothership gets left "empty" and you need Odyssey to do it. This is what I used to do.

For solo, the most efficient eay to use them is to have decent AI crew members pilot them. They'll die a lot, but you can just keep deploying them and the damage they add is no joke. Just having a second ship to keep the shields on your target from regenerating between main volleys is huge, but on the Krait you can have two!

It's almost like being a wing all by yourself.

Well, if those don't work for you then those don't work for you

I like them:

• it's an additional set of guns, which IMO gives more than just another hull reinf
• allows you to keep pressure on the shields when you can't
• sending one after an enemy far away brings them closer
• are a lot of fun to switch to from time to time
• you can bring a buddy in telepresence without them risking anything
• I feel the combat ends sooner when I deploy an SLF

Beyond combat (which other comments have already covered), a fighter could provide some nice camera angles if you ever take your krait out exploring.

When you have an NPC pilot hired, they ALWAYS take some of your earnings, from ALL activities not just when you are using them.

They also take some of your combat rank, which may be the grindiest to raise.

So if you think it would be fun, go for it. Fixed beam Taipan is best unless NPCs still can't aim. If it's not about fun as much, then I wouldn't use one.