Many of the things explained in Ship to Ship combat can be used in Ship to Sector Fighter combat. The same damage calculations are used. The major difference is that the tech level settings for the sector fighters are taken from the highest tech level found on the planets in the sector (sensor, cloak, fighter bay and torp levels). If you want to make your sector defenses more effective you need to upgrade those four tech levels on your planets.

When you realspace or warp into a sector with enemy sector fighters you will be asked what you would like to do...

Retreat

This will abort your move and take you back to the sector you started. The only disadvantage is you will spend the turns to go both to the sector and back. So if you were going to realspace to a sector with fighters and it would have taken 15 turns then you would have spent 30 turns total retreating.

Attack

You jump into the sector and immediately attack all sector defenses. If you have a higher ECM than the highest planet sensor then you will gain a higher attack advantage. If the planets highest cloak is higher than your sensors then the sector fighters will have a slight advantage.

The attack happens in five phases...

Fighter to Fighter Phase

Sector Fighters attack ship fighters.
Ship fighters attack Sector fighters.

Fighter to torpedo/mine Phase- If all fighters are destroyed then nothing happens for that player in this phase.

Sector Fighters attack ship torpedoes
Ship fighters attack Sector mines

Ship Torp to Sector Fighter Phase - If all ship torps are destroyed then nothing happens in this phase.

Ship torpedoes attack Sector fighters

Sector Fighter to Ship Armor Phase - If all Sector fighters are destroyed then nothing happens in this phase.

Sector Fighters attack ship armor

Resolution

If the ship loses all armor it is destroyed. If it doesn't then it enters the sector even if there are remaining sector fighters.

Attack and Run

Attack and Run allows a player to whittle down overwhelming sector defense fighters by making lightening raids on the sector. The player realspace or warps in and out as fast as they can. During that time they drop off all fighters and torpedoes they are carrying. The same combat is followed as a normal Attack listed above. The difference is you are running out of sector at high speed. If your engines are higher than the highest Fighter Bay tech of the planets in the sector you might escape with very little damage, if any.

If the sector fighters do catch up to your ship as you are leaving you can take from a fraction of the normal damage of all fighters in the sector (as low as 0.01%) to as much as enough to destroy your ship (200% to 300%). So it it a good idea to have very high engines, ecm and cloak on your ship if you plan on doing attack and runs.

You will eventually whittle down the number of fighters in the sector to a point where futher attack and runs are useless. You will then have to use a normal attack. If you you normally get a bounty when attacking any of the planets in the sector then the attack and run will not work. You will have to use a normal attack.

Cloak

You can try to sneak into a sector if your cloak is high enough. If the highest sensor tech on the planets in the sector detects your ship then you will have to go through the normal Attack listed above. So be careful.