Shields on Fighters

[Brutoni]

So I have a question.

It appears like X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, B-wings and Tie Defenders do not have their shields? Is this a game engine limitation in terms of giving star fighters shields? Just curious because the higher number of squadrons mixed with the larger hangers currently rip through my New Republic fighters (or if I play IR my fighters rip through NR fleets). Seems a bit off as the Alliance/NR was always famous for its fighter supremacy??

Shields might help even that balance.


EDIT:

On a separate note the Fighter escort ships tear through fighters. Atm it seems like there is literally no point even worrying about fighters. Dock bombers in your combat ships that have hangers. Then add loads of escorts (Corellian Corvettes for example) due to their low supply cost. Tear down the enemy fighters. Launch bombers. WIN. 

[tlmiller]

I seem to recall the no shields is a limitation of the game engine.

Reason the loading up on corvettes doesn't work that well is twofold.  First, and most important with the NR/Eoth, is because they still take vital fleet supply.  With IR/PA it's not QUITE as important (as they get additional supply from their research), but with NR/EoTH you're very limited until you start researching fleet, which cuts down on your income.  If you've been unfortunate/unlucky enough to not have a much larger economy than the IR, then losing that income with researching fleet will be disastrous.

The second reason is because that's what Frigates are made for.  As the PA, Vindicators/Enforcers will TRASH your corvettes.  As the IR, the Strike Cruisers and Dreadnaughts will do the same.  Same with the NR and EoTH, Frigates aren't insanely powerful, but they're more than capable of tearing through corvettes.  So you bring in tons of corvettes, enemy moves his fighters behind the main fleet, his Frigates rip your corvettes to pieces, then he redeploys the fighters with no corvettes left, and you've wasted all the resources that went into building those corvettes.

The one thing I do like about this game is that you really NEED to use all the available units.  While you can win without fighters/bombers, it's really difficult.  When you get a REASONABLY large fleet, the bombers are able to strip the shields even of an ISD in 2 passes.  leaving it exposed to be ripped apart by the rest of the fleet.  They're absolutely huge in making the game much easier, even if they're not absolutely necessary.