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Aeon Air
Tech 1
Air Scout: Mirage
The Air Scout is one of the most of useful units available to you. It allows you to quickly and easily see a large portion of the terrain below, including enemy units and buildings regardless if they are under a stealth field generator or not. Built a radar? Don't know what those gray dots are? Use an air scout to pass over these areas to find out what your enemy is really up to.
One tactic I commonly see players use is to set aside one air factory that just continually produces scouts, which has a rally point that passes over the enemy base. In addition to be incredibly distracting, this tactic allows you to constantly see what your opponent is building, and be ready when your opponent decides to attack. Building scouts is quick and efficient, costing -1 mass and only -40 power.
Interceptor: Conservator
The Interceptor is another popular air unit. With a cost of only -1 mass and -60 power, it is simple to churn them out in large numbers, providing an effective, mobile air defense. Interceptors are good for taking out any air unit - bombers, air transports, scouts, and gunships. Many players usually make dozens of interceptors as a large number of them still provides a decent air defense even at T3. The Interceptor is the most useful unit in defending against the Aeon Mercy.
Attack Bomber: Shimmer
The Aeon Attack Bomber uses a single bomb to damage its target. This unit is rarely used in multiplayer games, and should be avoided. However, I have seen it have some practical uses in early mass extractor harassment and mass fabricator farm destruction.
Light Air Transport: Chariot
The Light Air Transport has two practical uses. The first is to drop engineers in appropriate locations to create additional outposts. The light air transport may not carry your ACU. The other use to create what the community has dubbed a ghetto gunship.
In order to create a ghetto gunship, create up to six light assault bots and load them into the transport. Then, use the transport to ferry these units around, patrolling near enemy structures. The bots inside the transport will shoot as if they were on the ground. This tactic is particularly useful if your enemy has no T1 interceptors. Ghetto gunships can withstand a beating from a small number of T1 mobile anti-air, but die relatively quickly to interceptors. When attacking a target, make sure to use the patrol command since it will lower itself to the ground if it stops moving. It's good practice to have at least 3 ghetto gunships when trying to kill an enemy ACU.
Tech 2
Torpedo Bomber: Skimmer
The Torpedo Bomber is used to take out enemy naval units. Much like the other bombers, it is slow and dies quickly to anti-aircraft fire from Cruisers and Interceptors. In fact, torpedo bombers are also easily killed by standard AA guns from destroyers, frigates, and attack boats. If the enemy has taken the sea with a superior number of submarines, using torpedo bombers is one way to fight back.
Guided Missle: Mercy
The Mercy is the most controversial unit in SupCom patch v3260. It's a suicide unit that explodes well before its target, inflicting an unavoidable 3000 damage when it hits. To make matters more interesting, the Mercy costs only -3 mass and -60 power. The Mercy cannot land or be refueled. The missile will fall to the ground once its fuel runs out.
As an Aeon player, this is great. The Mercy makes turtling way more attractive - you can stay where you are and fire missiles from the safety of your base. In addition to wrecking outposts with little to no air defense, Mercies are well known for commander snipes - it takes 4 mercies to kill a Cybran or Aeon commander and 5 mercies to kill a UEF commander. In addition, it is the cheapest and easiest way to defend yourself against both land and air experimentals.
Defending against the Mercy is difficult to manage, but it can be done. The most effective Mercy defense I've seen is using a combination of scouts and interceptors. Use the scouts to patrol around the periphery of where your base or commander is. Using radar helps too. As soon all scouts are in place, have a group of interceptors on standby, ready to intercept incoming missiles. Yes, it takes a lot of micro-management, but that's what the Mercy is about. On smaller maps, if you rush your enemy, usually your enemy will not have the chance to build mercies.
Gunship: Specter
The Specter gunship is the basic gunship for the Aeon. It is the worst of the T2 gunship series. It uses a fast-firing laser gun that does light damage to most units and structures. The bullets do not lead the target so the gunship is used best for stationary targets. These gunships are rarely ever used to kill units since the laser guns are easily avoided. If the unit is moved erratically, the gunship will never, ever hit it. The same is true for an enemy ACU. If the ACU walks in circles, the T2 gunship will never hit it.
Air Transport: Aluminar
The Aeon T2 air transport is useful for ferrying T2 or T3 units over large distances. The transport can carry 4 T2 units or 2 T3 siege bots/sCUs. In addition, the T2 transport has anti-aircraft guns. The T2 Transport can also transport your ACU, but be cautious since if killed mid-flight, the ACU will die along with the transport.
Tech 3
Spy Plane: Seer
Spy planes are the next step up from t1 scouts. Although rarely used since multiple T1 scouts are cheaper and can do the job better, the spy plane is fast and can see much of the enemy base before it is shot down by anti-aircraft fire.
Air Superiority Fighter: Corona
The Air Superiority Fighter is the next step up from the T1 interceptor. It is incredibly quick and does a significant amount of damage to enemy aircraft. Air Superiority Fighters can take on a squadron of T1 interceptors that is much larger in numbers. They are the also helpful in defending against flying experimental unit such as the Aeon CZAR and the Cybran Soul Ripper.
Strategic Bomber: Shocker
The Strategic Bomber is used to do massive damage to a single target. Since the bombs home in on the target, it is irrelevant whether the unit is stationary or not. Good targets for the strategic bomber include any land experimental, sCUs, and, of course, the enemy ACU. Strategic bombers are also effective against Cybran sCUs with the self-repair upgrade. It takes one strategic bomb to temporarily disable a T3 shield. It takes 2 strategic bombs to kill a Cybran and Aeon ACU, and 3 strategic bombs to kill a UEF ACU.
Experimental
Flying Fortress: CZAR
The CZAR is probably the worst experimental out of the bunch. Since it is slow moving, it is easily intercepted by air superiority fighters and even T1 interceptors. It dies fairly quickly to SAM Launchers as well. When it dies, it falls from the sky and leaves a massive crater in the ground. It does do a fair amount of damage when it falls on things, making it a very expensive flying bomb. However, if the CZAR dies in front of an enemy base, the enemy could easily reclaim its remains for lots of free mass. The CZAR is also capable of building air units and refueling and repairing existing ones. Although a neat idea, the CZAR rarely is ever used for this purpose. The CZAR is also the mascot of the _CZR_ clan. All hail CZAR!