Can I get some tips for aerial combat?

[Bellatrix]

-Is it sensible to store aircraft as I build them up by putting them on a patrol, both for additional base defence and to keep them safe from artillery fire?
-Can I do the above tactic without screwing myself over by having a fraction of my air force at only a sliver of fuel?
-Is it sensible to use a mix of low and high tier units, with T1s for target saturation (making SAMs less effective) and T2s/T3s so that I actually get to keep some units after the engagement?
-How do I quickly select a group of air units? It's a bit harder selecting them as they move so fast.
-How competent are bombers with untargeted bombing?
-When to use bombers, and when to use gunships?
-What are the strengths of various factions in air combat? I know at least that Cybrans have the best T3 ASF (because of homing missiles and stealth), UEF have the worst T3 gunship (no homing missiles) and that the Aeon T3 gunship has almost half the ground DPS but extremely good AA, significantly more health, and a much lower cost (making it arguably the best).

Oh, and perhaps most importantly, how accurate is the supcom.fandom wiki? I've noticed that sometimes stats aren't quite accurate, do stats sometimes get tweaked? I notice that the Ahwassa costs less than half as much in game (something like 19k mass) as it supposedly fdoes on the wiki (48k mass).

[OutsidR]

Join FaForever.com u may find answers there..........

[Antineutron]

its best to keep air landed until you need to use it, or if you keep them on patrol you can build air staging so they automatically refuel when they get low on fuel, but your air will keep chasing enemy into their base if you do that so its better to micro them instead

I dont think theres ever a point of not using the best fighters you can build, but for bombers and gunships it depends on what you are attacking, t1 bomber spam can destroy low tech land units better than t3 bombers mass for mass

you can press ctrl+a to select all air units on screen, or ctrl + left click on a unit to select every unit of same type (ctrl + clicking on a fighter selects all same fighters for example)

idk what you mean by untargeted bombing but if you mean them attacking automatically, bombers can hit moving targets as long as those targets dont change direction or speed in meantime (aka move in a straight line at constant speed)

you use bombers when you need to hit something fast and hard or enemy has aa, and gunships when you need constant damage or enemy has no aa, because bombers do more damage in initial hit than gunships, but less damage over time because unlike gunships they have to do loops during which they do nothing, to drop another bomb when they fly over enemy while gunships just hover there and shoot constantly

idk about steam fa balance but I dont think cybran asf are the best there, considering they overkill a lot because of slow missiles instead of fast projectiles like other faction asf, stealth is useful however, UEF gunship may seem bad because of weak aa, but its anti ground guns are very strong, esp. with multiple gunships, aeon t3 gunship may be op on steam because of its sams

I think aeon may have the best aa air (t3 gunships and fighters) and they have the only *really* t2 fighter, they have guided missiles too on t2 that do a lot of damage and cant miss but die in 1 hit from any aa nad cant fly very far or refuel

cybran have best t3 bombers because of stealth and their t3 scouts can get past enemy aa because of stealth too, and best t2 bombers for sniping units like acu because of how fast those missiles move, and the only t1 gunship, their t3 gunships can mess with enemy aa with jamming too

and uef have nothing particularly strong except all their units have more hp than any other faction's same unit, but their t3 fighters are better than cybran if you exclude stealth, ofcourse theres a t3 air transport, and their janus can destroy low tech concentrated landspam better than any other bomber

sera t2 bombers are pretty strong against buildings and units as long as they dont move while rest of their air is fine enough, their t1 scouts give intel for a few seconds after crashing too which is sometimes useful, their transports have more capacity than other faction's, and ahwassa probably the strongest air t4 with its mini nukes as basic bombs while being the fastest t4

and idk if any wiki is up to date with steam fa, but you dont really need unit stats, wiki can tell you general strategies and similar, or like outsider said, you can check faf