Bombers work well for attacking enemy capital ships.  If you're up against a TEC with Marza, they may not even have fighters to attack your bombers.  On the other hand, long range frigates are weak to fighters, so you usually err on the side of fighters early on.  Typically you keep at least two fighters to every one bomber, and usually it's more like a 4:1 ratio.  Bombers are pretty useless if your enemy has more fighters than you, so you either need abilities like jam weapons, telekinetic push, or flak barrage to cover them if you don't have fighter supremacy.

I don't even use the bombers anymore.  Maybe if I have 40 or so squardrons of Fighters I'll build some, but the fighters rock against frigates, so I focus them on frigs and have my caps go against theirs.

Unless I need a specific ratio for some reason, my generic fleets run at a 2 fighter to 1 bomber ratio.

If I need to control all strike craft "skies" I will run at 4:1 ratio in favor of fighters.

If there is a rough starbase in front of me with little strike craft support, I will load up on bombers for that specific instance.

But to answer your question, it all depends on the specific engagement, forces contained therein, if I am playing against a human or AI, and what my current mood is.

Well, reguardless of the "ratio" you use, I SO vote for some sort of "auto build" setting for Fighters/Bombers.  Ever since they made strike craft so usefull and needed, and THEN doubled the number of SC in carriers, the "lack of micro" in Sins is anything but.  I can't count the clicks; fighter; figher; bomber;fighter; fighter; bomber x 1000.  It is SO frigging redundent.  The main reason I hate making carriers now is that I have to set the fighter/bomber clicks over and over and OVER.

Seriously, I usually just make so much flak ships just for the sole reason that I don't have to micro the fighter/bomber settings hundreds of times a game.  Omg, just try counting how many times you have to do this per game; how much time you spend with this mindless micro, and I'd give anybody my retirement savings for a mod that does away with this. . .

I agree with hack, if you set by fleet with shift it is quick and easy to set strikecraft balances to suit your self and the mission at the time

harpo

Man you guys are nuts and over building fighters.  Bombers are brutal.  I go these crazy fighter ratios only if they other person is getting lots of carriers as well.  But if a guy shows up with a LRM,  cap ship,  and some support ship spam I go bombers even early game cause they will wipe him clean.  He will than think about getting anti air but that is when I shift to fighters to deal with it.  Bombers take out everything better that is not a fighter itself or bomber...that includes frigates.

no they don't. read the damage charts. 

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p7xc_snd9Cc-6o2UwvPEWUg&gid=0

anti-light does 200% damage to sieges and long range and bombers. 100% damage vs. fighters. 50% damage to everything else.

anti-very-heavy does 100% damage to Heavy Cruisers. 75% damage to cap ships. 50% damage to everything else.

base damage on bombers is about twice as high on a per ship basis relative to fighters, but the squadron numbers are unequal. the per squadron damage numbers i get are as follows

TEC: Fighter - 9.6 ; Bomber - 16.5

Advent: Fighter - 11.7 ; Bomber - 17.5

Vasari: Fighter - 10.4 ; Bomber - 17.1

also take into consideration things that the charts alone won't tell you such as the fact that fighters are faster and will tend to get in more strikes than bombers and be less vulnerable to anti-squadron stuff. and also that each fighter plane in a squadron rebuilds faster than each bomber in a squadron (total squadron rebuild time is identical, but since there are more fighters in a squadron each ship builds faster).

the result is that fighter squadrons get in more hits, are harder to destroy and regain their DPS more quickly during rebuilding. overall better performance. the damage numbers alone don't tell the whole story. 

but more to the point is that fighters are REALLY REALLY good at killing bombers. that blow them to space dust in seconds so its basically impossible to use bombers at all unless you've already got total air superiority in the grav well, which is the real reason we like fighters so much. you add the bombers in only once you're sure they won't just get killed on the way in. 

It does really depend on what you're up against. I would recommend building more fighters than bombers as they are better against more types of ships. Transitive had it pegged

So here's some tips on using bombers effectively:

1) Keep bombers docked until you're ready to use them.

2) If there are fighters in the well:

 a.) Use bombers on a launch and recall basis, launch against a few targets and then recall and dock them.

 b.) Remember that to fighters, bombers are priority 1, so unless they have pre-ordained targets, they'll target your bombers next, the longer they're out, the less you will have.

 c.) Draw fighters away from your carriers with your own fighters by using the local area attack range and moving them to the opposite side of the gravwell before launching your bombers.

 d.) Move your bomber carriers as close to your target(s) as possible without entering firing range before launching.

3) Bombers are great in hunting down fleeing cap ships, if you see one trying to get away launch your bombers after it, most of the time, it'll be toast.

4) Anti-matter is everything to carriers, without it they are useless. Adding AM enhancing ships, structures and techs will help you out a lot.

With enough micro management you can kick some ass with bombers, but NEVER rely solely on them. Fighters are generally the way to go.