Eve Online ECM How-To

Written By: Al’ar Darkwind

There are many, many types of Electronic Warfare (EW) in Eve, Warp Scrambling, Tracking
Disrupting, Stasis Webifiying, and Sensor Dampening are all categories of EW. However, I will
be writing this short (…its short…right?) FAQ to cover Target Jamming.

Target Jamming in Eve is the process of using Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) to overcome
a target ship’s sensor strength. This in turn makes them lose any target locks that they had at the
time of the jam and prevents them from locking any targets for the duration of the ECM that was
used to jam them, which is currently 20 seconds.

ECM Bursts operate on the same principles as regular, single target ECMs, but jam any ships,
including allies, in a radius around your ship. They suffer from the drawbacks of only being able
to have one active on your ship at any one time, and they also do not “jam” the target, they only
make them lose any locks they had at the time of the burst.

In Eve there are five types of Electronic Counter Measures.

-Spatial Destabilizer: Gravimetric jammers against Caldari ships
-Ion Field Projector: Magnetometric jammers against Gallente ships
-White Noise Generator: RADAR jammers against Amarr ships
-Phase Inverter: LADAR jammers against Minmatar ships
-Multispectrum: Jams all sensor types equally

The first four types are very strong against one particular race’s sensors, and fairly weak against
all other sensor types. Bonuses to these are less capacitor usage and greater range. Those are
compared to Multispectrum jammers, which jam all types of sensors equally at a lower strength
but have higher capacitor usage and slightly shorter range.

In addition to the jammer modules themselves there are Signal Distortion Amplifiers which are a
low slot module that increase the strength of your ECM jammer modules. These are very
effective and are an important module on any dedicated ECM ship.

ECM Calculations:

Jamming is a chance based calculation of your jam strength versus their sensor strength.

The basic formula is as follows:

C = J/S * 100

J = your jammer’s strength

S = sensor strength of target ship
C = your jamming strength in percent

Example 1: Jamming a Kestrel (10.00 Gravimetric sensor strength) with an ECM – Spatial
Destabilizer I which has a base strength of 3.00 against Gravimetric Sensors.

C = 3.00/10.00 * 100
C = 30 %

Example 2: Jamming a Raven (22 Gravimetric sensor strength) with one of my jammers. Each of
my jammers has a 7.65352431 strength after ship and Signal Distortion Amplifier bonus applied.

C = 7.65352431/ 22 * 100
C = 34.78 %

For calculating your chance to jam a ship using multiple jammers, use this formula:

C = (1 – (1 – J/S) ^ N) * 100

J = your jammer’s strength

S = sensor strength of target ship
N = the number of jammers you are using
C = your jamming strength in percent

Example 1: Back to that Kestrel from the first equation with three ECMs this time.

C = (1 - (1 – 3.00/ 10) ^ 3) * 100

C = 65.7 %

Example 2: Lets jam that Raven from the first section again but this time using five ECMs.

C = (1 – (1 – 7.65352431/ 22) ^ 5) * 100

C = 88.2073 %

Calculating chances with falloff:

Many of the EW modules have a falloff range.

A module has a 100% chance to hit from 0km to it's optimal range. At optimal+falloff the chance
to hit drops to 50% and at optimal +2xfalloff it is 0%. This means that at optimal+falloff there is a
50% chance that the module will fail and not do anything.

To determine the chance of success in falloff range, we use the following formula:
C = 0.5^((R-O)/F)^2)
Where R is the range from you to the target, O the optimal range of the module, F the falloff
range of the module and C the chance of success.
As a result, you will get a multiplier. This is a chance multiplier. In case of jammers, just multiply
the calculated chance by it. In case of other modules, this will simply show you the chances of the
module succeeding at a given range.
ECM Counters:

If you find yourself being jammed constantly by enemy fleets, you may want to consider some
ECM defense. There are currently three ways you can do this: ECCM, Sensor Backup Arrays, and
Projected ECCM. All of these modules operate on the same principle of providing a bonus to
your ship’s sensor strength, thus making it much more difficult for you to be jammed.
ECCM are midslot modules that must be activated to be in effect but provide a high sensor bonus.
While there is a multi-spectrum version of this module you should only use the ECCM type made
for your ship’s sensor as they use half as much capacitor to keep active.
Sensor Backup Arrays are the same as ECCM but are low slot modules that are not required to be
activated in order to be in use. However, they give half the bonus to sensor strength as similar
ECCM modules would.
Lastly there are ECCM Projectors. These midslot modules also increase sensor strength but only
affect a targeted ship, not yourself. They must be active to be in effect and are used on another
ship just like a weapon would be. The good side to these modules is that they are provide a 100%
bonus or more to the other ship’s sensor, making it extremely difficult to jam. The downsides are
the medium range of the module and you must be in a coordinated gang for it to be effective. One
strategy for the use of these modules is to have a moderately sized ship in your gang that would
be low on an enemy fleets priority list fit a large quantity of these modules and use them to break
jams on your fleet. Using a ship such as this has the possibility to counter several enemy jammer
ships.

ECM Ship loadouts:

There are many ways to outfit a ship for ECM, but here are a few setups that I have used to great
success.

Griffin:
Highs:
2x Standard Missle Launchers
Mids:
4x Multispectral Jammer I
Lows:
Signal Distortion Amplifier I

Blackbird:
Highs:
3x Heavy Launchers
1x Medium Smartbomb or 1x Medium Neut or 1x Medium Remote Armour Repair
Mids:
6x Racial Jammers
Lows:
2x Signal Distortion

Kitsune:
Highs:
3x Standard Missile Launchers
Mids:
Sensor Booster II (sensor script optional)
4x Racial Jammers
Lows:
2x Signal Distortion Amplifier II