the easiest way to make fighters easier to hit is to make the weapon travel speeds faster. Shouldnt just be for battleships either IMO, most gunboats -cant- use turret view effectively in combat because they have fewer guns, less sheilds/hull, and limited firing arcs. Trying to use turret view removes your ability to dodge, which is the only saving grace gunboats and gunships have at the moment against most enemies (fighters/bombers as well as caps).
Gunboats right now may seem like they're whored over a lot, but it's only for the reason that they're fairly inexepensive compared to other capships. Most players dont want to spend a month trading to afford a ship. They're really not that effective in most pvp combat though, despite their 'capital ship' status/shields/hull, they dont work well against anything other than npcs. Gunboats lack the firepower to effectively combat larger ships, despite their manuverability advantages, and they lack the agility to fight fighters and bombers.
Here's how I think things should be balanced, or rather what each ship's role in combat should be:
Battleships:
-Effective against other large capships due to high firepower (meaning effective against cruisers, destroyers, battlecruisers, carriers, and other battleships).
-Effective against smaller craft in that they have a lot of hull/shielding, but other than a few point defense turrets they should be vulnerable to smaller craft due to the agility those ships have.
-----Heavy hitting, but slow turning/travel/refire turrets.
Cruisers/Destroyers/Battlecruisers/Carriers:
-Should be 'middle of the road' craft, effective against the larger battleships when in numbers or when well flown (higher agility than battleships), and slightly more effective against smaller craft than battleships are.
-----Quicker turrets than battleships, but still fairly slow. More energy efficient, but less damage.
Gunboats/Gunships:
-Should be the 'fighter escorts' for larger capships. Their agility and small size allows them to keep up with smaller craft in combat, and should let them effectively dodge fire from larger craft.
-Weapons should be mostly effective against fighters and bombers, but they should have a couple effective options against larger capships (though nowhere near as proficient in that area as larger caps or bombers). Basically, It's the gunboats I see having high travel rate weaponry to take down the smaller, quicker ships.
-----Medium refire / very fast travel speed turrets, but with relatively low damage. Sustained fire could bring down a larger ship, but it's difficult to maintain sustained fire while trying to dodge those heavy hitting shots from those larger ships.
Bombers:
-Should be vulnerable to gunboats and fighters, but extremely effective against larger capital ships (high firepower of torps/cannons, and decent agility to dodge fire from larger ships).
-----Primary weaponry would be torpedoes/heavy cannons (like the supernova). These weapons should have a low travel speed and very low refire rate, but hit extremely hard. Would make them primarily effective against cruisers to battleships, and good pilots would be able to take out gunboats, but ineffective against other ship types.
HF's/VHF's:
-Very effective against bombers and other fighters of their type, but vulnerable to gunboats. Should be able to easily dodge most fire from larger capships, but should not have the firepower to take them down.
-----Same as now, pretty much. Weapons are weaker than capship turrets, and they have significantly less hull/shielding, but they use agility to their advantage.
LF's:
-Very effective against bombers, HF's, and VHF's, but lack the firepower to take down larger ships.
-----Same as HF's/VHF's but much more manuverable and with less firepower.
It may seem lopsided, and that sort of balancing does make some ships immune to others, but it puts a focus on more organized group combat. A battleship is vulnerable to bombers, so the battleship player will want fighter/gunboat escorts when it goes into combat. A gunboat is great against fighters/bombers, but lacks the firepower to destroy cruisers-battleships, so it'll need bombers or larger capships assisting it against those.
Though, this does inadvertently put more focus on player factions, because the 'independents' often fight on their own and not in groups, and they'd be considerably weaker against some opponents than they are now.