Sure, you could use fighters as picket ships, scouts, and raiders, similar to how the Maquis seemed to operate. Break contact and run as soon as something bigger comes along. Generally in Trek the larger ships have a higher maximum warp speed and longer endurance, so pursuits are not going to favor starfighters.
Also there are not a lot of strategically relevant points in deep space. In 'The Phoenix' a weapons range of nearly 200,000km is stated. So a single starship or station(or defensive satellite) mounted weapon array can cover a lot of area. You'd only need a couple arrays to cover a planet, less for a moon or station. Commerce raiding? You'd force the enemy to adopt convoy tactics, but only a single decent sized escort would be needed unless you plan on using overwhelming numbers of fighters.
Look at the 'Blue' water navies of the present, how many of them operate significant numbers of surface combatants that are smaller than corvette size? Few, very few, and they generally have specialized roles. Deep space is very, very far from any coasts.
In space, there are no disadvantages to size, gravity, inertia, mass, draft, none of that matter much anymore so larger ships would have even more advantages in the Trek universe than say a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer v. some 50-foot patrol boat in the present.
Also there are not a lot of strategically relevant points in deep space. In 'The Phoenix' a weapons range of nearly 200,000km is stated. So a single starship or station(or defensive satellite) mounted weapon array can cover a lot of area. You'd only need a couple arrays to cover a planet, less for a moon or station. Commerce raiding? You'd force the enemy to adopt convoy tactics, but only a single decent sized escort would be needed unless you plan on using overwhelming numbers of fighters.
Look at the 'Blue' water navies of the present, how many of them operate significant numbers of surface combatants that are smaller than corvette size? Few, very few, and they generally have specialized roles. Deep space is very, very far from any coasts.
In space, there are no disadvantages to size, gravity, inertia, mass, draft, none of that matter much anymore so larger ships would have even more advantages in the Trek universe than say a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer v. some 50-foot patrol boat in the present.
