Just curious if there's a way to upgrade fighters?

I'm enjoying the game but seems a bit odd that they are all still on Lt Lasers when I've moved the rest of my fleet over to Crystal Cannons! I am mostly asking just because it seemed like some of the AI ships had improved fighters (way more HP).

Thanks!

No there is no way to upgrade the fighters, at least I have not seen any.
I never thought of it actually, but it would be nice to be able to do so

Fighters auto-upgrade but I think the player fighters aren't getting updated to new designs since they are flagged as player ships (and player ships are set to only be designed by the player). I've made a note to review it. Thanks.

Update: after reviewing the code everything is fine. Fighter designs don't update for any race (every race including player do get level upgrades of their design though automatically). No plans to change this behavior at this time.

Does this mean, if I am playing as Human, my fighters will always use my best available level of Laser (Size L), but if I play another race - for example Gargal then my fighters will use my best available level of Ion Cannon (Size L again)?

For fighters, they will always use your highest level weapon with a preference for racial weapon if of equal level.

eg: Humans start with Laser Cannons. If particle cannon is higher, they will use it instead. If both are the same level, they will prefer Laser Cannons.

Thank you for clarifying this.