That is a good strategy. However, it all hinges if the opponent has researched flak soon enough. I've also found Bombers to be quite useful in dealing with early caps. A good counter to an early Marza is a Carrier capital ship with two Bombers, since they can fly around and never be injured while dealing good enough damage.

I disagree.  Bombers are only effective in the early and mid game against cap ships and structures.  On the other hand, fighters can take out other bombers, other fighters, and enemy LRMs, which are the primary destructive unit.  Because they focus fire very well and deal lots of damage quickly, they are good at overcoming repair and shield restore abilities.  Using a mixed fleet in the early or mid game (some bombers in the mid game, or even entire bomber fleets are justified only if you are consistantly fighting in enemy gravity wells) means you aren't using your fleet effectively.  In any case, if you aren't targeting something specific with your bombers they should be docked.

the only issue with building bombers early is keeping them alive since they're extremely vulnerable to fighters. even a small amount of enemy fighter squadrons will make your bombers almost worthless unless you can dispose of them. this basically means you don't get to use your own bombers until you've got enough Fighter squadrons or Flak frigates to cover them. thats the real obstacle for early game bombers. 

the real reason we go fighters early game isn't just that they kill LRFs faster (which they do, and thats good) its that they perform two tasks at once. they fighter for squadron supremacy at the same time as providing offensive fleet support. its basically a way to save yourself some fleet logistics that you would otherwise have had to spend on Flaks. 

let me put it another way. 

there are two very common configurations for offensive fleets. 

1) LRFs screened by Flak Frigates

2) Carriers(fighters) screened by LRFs

both of these have the same general template of <offensive ship> with the unit that counters the thing your offensive ship is weak to. its 2nd level gameplay, you're countering the counter so your primary strategy works.

if you were to go with

3) Carriers(bombers) screened by Flak Frigates

you wouldn't have your counter counter available. this configuration runs a severe risk of being dominated by Light Frigates, particularly so if the light frigs are supported by a few repair cruisers. 

Hmmm... looking at my list, I might want to switch LRM's and Hoshiko's (I just double checked on my current game)

Koda0

you can use hybrid strategies if you want but its more or less just an exchange of potency for versatility. the pure Carrier/LRF build probably packs the greatest amount of offensive punch of any frigate fleet in the game (at least until late game when you can use Heavy Cruisers). diluting that mix with Flaks in order to add more bombers in to your squadron mix probably won't do much for you in the end. 

what will happen is that you're losing both the offensive support and the light frigate countering ability of the LRFs that you swapped for flaks. this makes you more vulnerable to light frigates. this might be an acceptable trade off if you can be certain that you're gaining more offense from using more bombers then you are losing offense by swapping LRFs for Flaks. in my experience this is simply not the case. 

i generally push a fleet of Carrier(fighters) mixed with LRFs until i reach a critical mass point of about 16 fighter squadrons and 10-12 LRFs. at that point i consider adding bombers or just teching up to heavy cruisers. i dont generally think its a good idea to compromise the strategy in the early game though. 

Just like to point out I killed Tyr's egg just now in a game using the strategy I outlined at the start of this thread.  It isn't foolproof and it isn't a push button win but it is very effective at halting an early rush.  Without his egg (and I'm assuming he scuttled his cap yard) Tyr couldn't push through and capture planets from the ally I was assisting.