There are two design possibilities with fighters: Beam armed and missile armed.
Missile armed fighters have the advantage of pushing out the combat distance to your more valuabe ships (the carriers). They are usually able to fire missiles at 50-150mkm and therefore mount box launchers. To survive, they rely not on armour but on the enemy's insufficient range (due to the need to target small targets) and (if necessary) the other missiles missing.
For missile fighters, you want to deploy two or three types of fighters: The actual missile-armed attack fighters (box launchers). An SWACS-type fighter (mounting a giant sensor) to find the target. And possibly tankers if you want to stretch your flight's wings a bit. Usually, you can build all of these from the same components: The SWACS exchanges the box launchers and fire control for sensors, the tanker for fuel tanks. You can look at Steve's NATO vs Soviets campaign to get a feeling for it (starting designs
here, an example of what happens if you're outclassed and using fighters
here, for a good attack
here, though the whole document - at 230 pages - is definitely worth it; also note that this is an old version).
Missile fighters are basically the logical conclusion of the missile doctrine: You are even more logistically challenged, but you have a large advantage in battles.
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