Starfighters are impractical.

[scvn2812 504]

The high yield explosive route is fairly difficult in space due to both the power of the explosive rapidly diminishing as the explosion expands and any explosive sufficiently powerful to pose a risk to a tightly packed squadron of fighters probably poses a risk to your ship too at the ranges fighters typically engage in and much further out if the explosive uses flechettes or shrapnel of any sort to increase its lethality. The beam weapon route works in a low acceleration 'verse IF there's no hand waving to make beam weapons ineffective or inefficient. nBSG for example would seem to have some unspoken hand wave that they've solved the problems inherent in drives that can push a Viper at a few gees (heat, fuel, propellant) but for whatever reason can't weaponize the underlying technologies. They apparently can't take an engine and tighten the particle stream to turn it into a beam weapon of any significant capability or use the incredible heat management that Vipers dog fighting with multi-gee engine burns implies to deal with the heat of a laser. Somehow nBSG took a technology path that ended with 500+ machine guns spewing lead augmented by multi-meter bore cannons launching flak shells being the best anti-missile and anti-fighter defense for capital ships.