Because the only real differences between drones and fighters are that Fighters deal more damage, have more HP, and have more options/perks. All at the cost of having more difficultly hitting smaller targets.
Literally, that is it.
It is almost exactly the same paradigm between light drones, medium drones, and heavy drones.
I do not buy the idea that people need to have access to fighters in sub-capitals to know how to use fighters in capitals.
They. Are. Drones.
They function just like drones.
They are simply better in every way except for tracking small targets up close (which can be worked around with various modules and micromanagement shenanigans).
It is like the difference between a Heavy Neutron Blaster (for a battleship) and a Triple Neutron Blaster (for a dreadnought).
The mechanics don’t change between the classes. The latter simply hits harder and is worse at hitting smaller stuff.
With some exceptions; even battleships are quite inflexible in terms of the whole “don’t have to rely on a gang/fleet” thing.
We don’t.
Marauders may have “Bastion Mode” that increases their tanking abilities, but they do not have the raw damage-dealing ability (both in and out of siege mode) nor the buffer of an actual dreadnought (which gives it better survivability all around) or a jump drive.
This is why, when given a choice, people will field a dread over a Marauder. The latter is simply better with the sole major caveat that it don’t have any point defense… which is functionally pointless for the Marauder in most situations as no sane person is going to take on either ship unless they are buying time for others to come.
The few things a Marauder has over a Dread are:
- It can MicroJumpdrive.
- Bastion mode has a 1 minute cycle compared to Siege Mode’s 5 minutes cycle.
- It can align and warp faster (which, admittedly, is a big deal in some situations)
But Fluffers… if Dreds are better than Marauders why have Marauders at all?
That is a good question. Marauders have existed well before any meaningful balancing efforts were made to the game. This makes them legacy items, so they can’t simply be deleted.
Right now Marauders exist in an unfortunate spot of not being cost-effective (even by Tech 2-price standards) for most scenarios while also being effective enough that they can’t do amazing things in very specific circumstances.
The reason there is not too much wailing about this (aside from the occasional min/max PvEer and PvPer) is because there is a cost-effective alternative to Marauders (see: Dreadnoughts).
Until the DEVs can resolve this and find an actual niche where Marauders can exist in a reasonable state I wholeheartedly oppose any pseudo-capital ship like them.