April 23, 2010

ECM in depth: Part 4 Kitsune and practical piloting

We are over half way there!  Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 have all been tweaked, reformatted, modified and updated to include extra details, slight corrections and more ECM loving so have a look back to see if you have missed anything.

Things on the to-do list today are the Kitsune, Thermodynamics and the Overview and without any further ado here it is!

I just finished training for the Kitsune, what do i need to know?
1. The average sell price is just under the 20mil mark
2. They are fragile
3. Max ECM strength mods are a must
4. Make sure you train Electronic Attack Frigates to at least level 4.

Kitsune skill bonuses:
Caldari Frigate Skill Bonus: 20% bonus to ECM target jammer strength and 10% reduction in ECM target jammers' capacitor need per level

Electronic Attack Ships Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to ECM target jammer optimal range and 5% bonus to capacitor capacity per level


Skills and Skill Plans
I would recommend getting behind the controls of a Blackbird before skilling up to the Kitsune as they are comparatively much more expensive and being a T2 variant offers almost no payout compared to their actual costs.  Insurance payouts are due to be changing to be more in line with actual hull costs, rather than some mumbo-jumbo-brown-magic figure created by CCP.

You will want these skills trained to the corresponding levels to enable you to fit the Kitsune in the best way possible for ECM.  For the other modules such as the MicroWarpdrive, Armor plates and Damage Control you will want Hull Upgrades to level 4 and High Speed Maneuvering to 3 in order to fit them.

Long Range Targeting 4
Electronic Warfare 4
Jury Rigging 3
Electronic Superiority Rigging 1
Caldari Frigate 5
Electronics Upgrades 5
Electronic Attack Ships 4

Fitting the Kitsune
Being a frigate hull the Kitsune is subjected to the lower end of the scale when it comes to the number of available low/mid/high slots so the amount of customisation for general use fits are quite small.  For your sampling I have two fits;

[Kitsune, speed and tank]
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II

ECM - Spatial Destabilizer II
ECM - Phase Inverter II
ECM - Ion Field Projector II
ECM - White Noise Generator II
1MN MicroWarpdrive II

Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I


Once again you will notice that the High slots have been left empty, this time it was done simply because there was no more power grid to use.  Higher survivability is the objective of this fit and with 3,606 EHP with my skills that is very respectable.  The MWD to dictate the range, since the base locking range is a limitation with this ship rather than the modules effective range.  Be careful with the MWD though as it makes you as it makes your sleek body balloon out to epic proportions.

[Kitsune, max range]
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II

ECM - Spatial Destabilizer II
ECM - Phase Inverter II
ECM - Ion Field Projector II
ECM - White Noise Generator II
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range

Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I



80km targeting range with your optimal being at that range also.  To use this fit correctly; blip in, jam what you can and stay aligned to something close by to reduce the downtime between being safe and being on the field.  See Part 2 for a short list of pointers on how to operate as an effective ECM pilot.

I have had some feedback from Manasi from A Mule in EVE about using Meta 4 modules over T2, he has some good points and the figures do show that the Meta 4 versions of ECM jammers are in fact a better choice if you are short on CPU or your cap is highly unstable.  The downside Meta 4 though is often the cost and availability, Meta 4 items normally run for double the price of T2 while being hard to find outside of trade hubs.  In the fits shown there is not much of an issue with cap stability or CPU so use your own discretion as to how you spend your ISK.

Thermodynamics
From the EVE WIKI: "Allows you to deliberately overheat a ship's modules in order to push them beyond their intended limit".  Thermodynamics otherwise known as overheating lets you get that little bit extra out your gear for a stronger ECM cycle, faster missile reload time or a quicker cycle of your energy neutralizers.  To be able to take advantage of this you need to have the following skills trained up:

Engineering V
Energy Management III
Science IV

The Thermodynamics skill is about 4.5mil so it is not overly cheap but the benefits are worth the cost as it can be used on pretty much every single active module, passive modules cannot be overheated but can suffer heat damage.  Each module has hit points much the same as your ship does, overheating modules chews through those hit points quickly and once you are out the module effectively dies.  Using nanite repair paste or the repair facility in a station can patch your modules up.


Starting with the top, you can overheat a module by clicking on the small green section, you can also activate/deactivate overheating by right-clicking on the module.  If you have a whole rack that you need to overheat then use one of the buttons to do so, but beware that this will burn out your modules very quickly.  The red portion of the outer circle displays how much damage has been done to a specific module.

Carrying on from the Meta 4 note I made in the fittings there is also an additional bonus with using it, the heat damage is significantly reduced when comparing to T2 modules.  So this means you can overheat more modules or entire racks for longer than you could with a sole T2 fitting.

The overview
It can be an unforgiving mistress capable of causing you horrible distress, but luckily I have found someone who has created a terrific set of tab and brackets profiles for you!  Brother Benthor over at the EVE-O forums has a great post listing the details of his overview settings and a download location for them, click here for the thread and download details.  Further details about the overview can be found on the EVE WIKI.

That wraps up Part 4 of the ECM guide, the next part will be looking at the Rook and Falcon Recon ships.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for talking me out of fitting rockets to my Kitsune :P

    ReplyDelete