Having worked on episode 5 of season 2 and not having seen any episode prior to it (which could be magical crystallized weed made from powdered Oxycontin and essence of Willy Coppens for all I know), my opinion is that the show sucks. Why? Because it seems like at some point they tried to make this all semi-realistic and such but then said, "Screw it; you know what would sell DVDs? Space battles and sex." Meanwhile, they seem to have forgotten a few things. Warning: there may or may not be spoilers ahead.

(1) Everybody knows that there's no sound in space, right? Right...

(2) ...however, were you also aware of Newton's Laws of Motion, specifically the second one? F = ma. Force = mass *acceleration --> If you apply a force, you will accelerate a mass. Not simply put a mass in motion (First Law!), but accelerate a mass. So each time a Star Fighter's engines are firing for a prolonged period of time and move the craft at a constant velocity, God kills a theoretical physicist.

(3) Star Fighter? Seriously? That's the best name they could come up with? Did the USAF and USN take all the good names. Or were they so jealous of the USSF's cool toys that they blackmailed the defense contractor into giving it the name that recalls a 1980s film about a kid being picked to save an alien race because he was good at an arcade game which was actually a scouting tool (The Last Starfighter. Go watch it. Or don't.)?

(4) Back to science. So the Americans say, okay let's use lasers to take out the enemy because we don't want to cause explosions. Meanwhile the Chinese use missiles because idk they are stupid lolololol. Yes, exploding spacecraft is not a good thing for stealth and secrecy and military-political intrigue BUT ALSO Kessler Syndrome. Some debris will burn up, some debris will fly off into deep space, but some debris will just float around... at ~18,000 mph (~29,000 kph for you folks in the civilized world). Back in 2007 IRL China tested an ASAT missile on an old weather satellite and herp derped thousands of pieces of golf ball-sized debris. Anything in the path of flying debris is going to have the shit kicked out of it and create more debris, which goes out and create MORE debris and so on. Congratulations: you can no longer get things into space past that level.

(5) At a defense complex outside Beijing:
"Sir, why are we programming our space fighters with all these extraneous inputs?"
"Because one day when one of comrade taikonauts gets his space computer fried he can salvage a space motherboard from an enemy imperialist craft that he disabled but didn't blow up and get himself back to earth."
"Ah, the motherland truly is great in valuing the life of each and every citizen. But how likely is that scenario, sir?"
"Shut up and code."

There's more in this episode - plenty more - but every second spent thinking about it makes me that much dumber.The amount of suspension of disbelief this show requires would have kept the Tacoma Narrows intact.