Question about general Combat mechanics

Hi there, I actually have a lot of questions about ES2 but I will reduce them to the topic of the combat system. I am playing the game since 3 or 4 weeks and the combat mechanics are still not entirely clear to me.

What I know is there are 3 types of weapons and they all have their biggest power spike at the 3 different ranges, long, medium and melee.

Let's assume I build a ship with only Rockets. In Disharmony, I can choose the specific range of those weapons, but why? What does that affect? If my rocket ship has only rockets and I set those to Long Range, where is the difference to when I would set the same rockets to Melee? Would they still be fired in the first phase or would the ship actually wait all the way until melee range has been reached?

If there are specific ranges the weapons are best in, why would they even offer the option to choose, e. g. melee for rockets who have the best accuracy at long range?

Furthermore, I keep hearing about Long Range Kinetics. According to the wiki, Kinetics have a base accuracy on long range of 20%, rockets have are at 90%. However, rockets only fire once and Kinetics fire four times. So, which one would be better in which situation? Could it be that rockets are better against big ships in the late game because those don't die before the rockets reach them? Or would Long Range Kinetics still be better (not taking into account defenses here, just talking about the basic system)?

I am confused.

In addition, what is the actual purpose of fighters and bombers in space combat? Do they add significant effects or advantages to my fleet or can I just ignore them? I notice many late game AI fleets featuring fighter squadrons, essentially, but I can't tell if those are effective in any way. I have never ever used that specific defense module against fighters and bombers as well. Any advice why those things are even in the game aside from a possible use for invasions?

EDIT: Just tested the following:

I have a 20 CP fleet, 1 dreadnought and 16 small ships. The dreadnought was equipped with Long Range Kinetics and Medium Range Beams. The small ships where equipped with Melee Range Kinetics and Medium Range Beams.

During the first phase, all ships seemed to use their Beam weapons and their Kinetic weapons, although those were definitely set to melee (except for the dreadnought) or medium range. What gives?

EDIT: Screenshots

small ship stats

big ship stats

first phase, you can clearly see all of them firing their medium range lasers

so what exactly does the range you give them when equipping change?

EDIT 2: Ok, I looked the ship designer up again and apparently the version you choose directly affects the damage and tonnage of the weapon. Well, that's great and all, but why would I then ever choose anything else but Medium Range for Beam weapons anyway, since both other ranges are worse for those? Why even give me that choice?

EDIT 3: I made another test. 2 x 20 small ships, packed full with missiles. One batch with Long Range missiles, the other one with Melee Range missiles.

I fought against the same enemy fleet composition. Both fired their missiles from the getgo, however, the melee range missiles only killed one or two enemies during the first two phases. The missiles seems to miss much. In the third phase, the enemy got obliterated, but I have lost 6 of those 20 ships as well.

The Long Range missiles squad... well, what do you expect, I killed all enemy ships in the first phase and only lost 2 ships due to focus fire.

Please explain to me why I should ever use something aside from Long Range versions when building missiles.