photonic fleets are roughly the space equivalent of Engineers popping off drones or Tac's deploying Security Teams in ground pvp. it helps you feel more like a General, imo, and isn't really op being that both factions have it.

the counter in either scenario, ground or space, is simple. as a Sci captain i often find myself switching between targets, healing, cc'ing, w/e. teammates help me stay on target, keep your eye on who the tac in the group has targetted.

too bad you werent around before the carrier nerf when we could swap the bays out and summon every type of fighter at the same time, a 5 carrier team literally had 26x5 kinds of fighters out, 8 siphons each 8 shield healers each 8 attack fighters each and 2 birds of prey each. thats a total of 130 ai pets, only downside was you couldnt swap bays in combat, but you could park at 15 km while the swarms of fighters siphons and bops tore up the fed ball and keep churning out new ones with mes on so they couldnt even see you doing it

and then if they were science kdf they also had photonic fleet pets on top of that. and you cry about how it is now