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Continuing on with the “Contributing To Fleets” section this post will cover the different types of Frigate Ewar, How they work and what you should be doing in them.

What Is EWAR?

EWAR or Electronic Warfare is fitted to many different ship sizes including Frigates, Cruisers and Battleships. Whilst these ships do very little or no damage to the enemy they act as force multipliers.

Having a healthy number of EWAR ships on the field in a large fight is often the difference between losing and having a dominating victory. The concept is simple, EWAR is applied to the enemy ships and it reduces the targets effectiveness and ability to deal damage, Hit targets or even apply logistics to friendly ships.

EWAR is split into 4 types and each type is specific to one race, Whilst any ship can fit EWAR modules each of the nations have massive bonuses to their respective EWAR choice. So lets take a look at each of the Nations and the respective ships

Types Of Ewar

Sensor Dampening

Sensor Dampening is the chosen choice of EWAR for the Gallente and is often referred to as “Damps”. Sensor Dampening affects the enemy in two ways.

You can reduce the enemies maximum targeting range forcing them to close in on you which is ideal for fighting long ranged targets. You can increase the time it takes the enemy to lock targets, This is ideal when put on the enemy logistics as it increases the chance the target dies before logistic ships can respond to help.

Due to its effectiveness against all targets and in all situations it is a very common sites to see this type of EWAR getting applied in big fights.

Sensor Dampeners can be fitted with scripts which double the effect of one of the above side effects but completely removes the other. These scripts are cheap and can be swapped in and out during a fight and they do not get consumed ever.

Weapon Disruption

Weapon Disruptions is favored by the Amarr Empire and is very strong against specific targets. Like Sensor Dampening, Weapon Disruptor’s are split into 2 types Turret Based and Missile Based and also apply 2 different affects to the target.

Turret based Disruption

You can reduces the targets optimal range of their weapons drastically reducing the damage output by the target. Ideal against long range ships which then either deal significantly less damage or come closer to you. Reduce the targets tracking speed. This results in them having a harder to hit smaller or faster ships and can even result in them not being able to land a hit at all. Ideal against long ranged ships using Artillery or Rail guns which already track badly. Can also be used to reduce the damage of blaster and autocannons.

Missile Based Disruption

You reduce the missiles flight time, This results in the missiles range being reduced drastically forcing the target to close in. This is ideal for dealing with missile based kiting ships such as the Garmur or even Caracal Fleets. Allows you to reduce the damage the missile deals. effectively you disrupt the warhead and it explodes without being in an optimal position. The missile will still apply damage but you reduce the damage you take. if used against Heavy missiles or larger it can negate large amounts of damage.

Due to the split nature of the Weapon Disruption it is often only used on reinforcement ships, when you know what the enemy fleet is flying or when you are defending local space and can change modules quickly.

As with Sensor Dampening you can fit scripts to these modules to double the effect of one side effect but remove the other effect completely. These scripts can be changed as and when needed during a fight and do not expire.

ECM

ECM is my personal favorite and is used by the Caldari Navy, Whilst the other nations EWAR effects are guaranteed to apply EWAR has a chance to land successfully and complete remove the targets ability to lock any target.

A ship that cannot lock is unable to participate in the fight in any meaningful way. Landing jams on the enemy logistics completely prevents them apply any reps to friendly ships for the duration. Apply a jam to DPS ships makes them completely useless for the duration.

ECM is split into 4 main sections with 2 side sections. Targeting systems are split into 4 types within EVE, Radar, Magnetometric, Gravimetric, Ladar. These have absolutely no bearing on how a ship is used and all ships lock and target objects in exactly the same way.

However ECM modules are split as well into the above types. Matching your ECM module to the ships sensor type massively increases the chance of landing a jam. Sensor types are also conveniently color coded

Radar (Gold/Yellow in color) = Is used in all Amarr Ships

Magnetometric (Turquoise/Green) = Is used against all Gallente Ships

Gravimetric (Blue) = Is used against all Caldari Ships

Ladar (Red) = Is used against all Minmatar ships.

Some ships require two nations skills to fly You can check which sensor type it is using by checking the ships attributes. However you can work out what colour jam to apply to a target by looking at the background of the ships portrait. Blue space = Blue Jam, Gold/Yellow Space = Gold/Yellow Jam.

Conventiantly these backgrounds show up when you target a ship and this method is always 100% accurate regardless of the ship you target.

Multispectrum Jams are another type of ECM in the game and it has a base chance to jam the target regardless of the sensor type. The price for this however is less chance to jam then matching the sensor type but more chance to jam then using the wrong type of jam.

Burst Jammers are the final type of ECM to cover. Once this jam is activated it will send out an immediate strong signal to all ships within range. Each ship hit then has a relatively high chance to lose all of the targets it has locked. They can however start locking targets again immediately.

More information can be found on ECM as it is more complicated then the other EWAR types in terms of being chance based at EVE UNI ECM 101

Target Painting

Whilst the other races EWAR affects the enemies ability to deal damage Target Painting effectively makes the target appear bigger to all sensors on your ship. Target Painting is favored by the Minmatar.

The resulting affect from this is module is that the ship has a bigger Signature Radius and this is a massive Bonus often overlooked by newer players, A bigger signature radius means the following:

Other players can target the ship quicker. Turret Based weapons can track the target quicker Allowing even larger weapons to hit smaller targets. Missiles deal more damage to smaller targets and Larger Missiles can hit smaller targets for more damage.

All in all Target Painting makes the target more vulnerable to all aspects of fleet combat. Making the Frigates & Cruisers more susceptible to fire from your Battlecruisers is a massive advantage and in many cases can result in a large ship instantly killing the smaller ship due to the sheer damage output.

Optimal Range & Falloff

Like most weapon based systems in EVE EWAR also has an optimal range in which it applies its full effect. As you enter Falloff range the effectiveness of the module is reduced. Your sensor damp might increase the targets lock time by 20 seconds at optimal range but in falloff range it might only increase the time by 10 seconds.

Types of EWAR Ships

Each Nation has access to Frigate, Cruiser & Battlehip sized EWAR ships.

The frigate sized ships are very fast, Cheap and often flown in large numbers. With limited slots you can affect fewer ships. You are however incredibly fragile and should be at the edge of the fight at your maximum range.

Yes you will apply your EWAR within its Falloff range but if you close to the targets you will be killed immediately. In the event you start to get targeted by the enemy you should warp off immediately and then return to the fight.

Cruiser sized EWAR ships have more slots available for fitting more EWAR modules meaning you can massively reduce the effectiveness of one ship or split them against multiple ships.

A small group of cruiser sized EWAR can cause massive problems for a logistics wing of the enemy fleet. You are also effective at a much larger range with some ships & Fittings reaching out beyond 150km.

The downside to this however is you are still very fragile for a cruiser and you are much slower then the frigates. You should be at the furthest range possible and only approaching in when you are certain there is no threat.

Again you warp off the moment you start to get locked and return to the fight again to annoy the enemy fleet.

Battleships are among the largest EWAR ships in the game and still are very fragile for their size however they can fit massive amounts of EWAR modules and have huge ranges. If you get caught you are going to die very quickly and due to the size and nature of being a battleship will be focused very quickly.

Flying EWAR

When in a fleet setting EWAR ships will usually be in a different wing and once in the target system will flag exempt from fleet warps. You wait for the rest of the fleet to land and start fighting and then you warp in at a safer range.

Upon landing at a fleet fight you immediately begin to burn out to your maximum range and pick a few targets and make their life a misery through the use of your EWAR modules.

If you start to get targeted you immediately warp out and then return back to the fight by warping to the fleet at a suitable range again.

In the event your fleet is in position and you are waiting for the enemy to come to you say in the event of a structure defense you can prepare yourself and make it even harder for the enemy to deal with you.

Once you land in position you immediately start burning in a random direction and every other EWAR pilot does the same. Once you are at your optimal range you create a bookmark and then warp to another EWAR ship and create a bookmark at this location.

If you keep repeating this you can have a the battlefield surrounded with bookmarks at the edges allowing you to quickly warp from one side of the fight to the other. Not only does this increase your chance of getting to a suitable range but when you get targeted you can warp to the other side.

By warping to the other side of the field you force all targets to drop locks on you wasting their valuable time and they often choose another target.

But Really How Effective Am I?

EWAR ships are incredibly effective even when flown by new players. Your frigate which likely costs less then 1 million isk can turn the enemies ships into floating piles of scrap waiting to be destroyed.

EWAR is so effective you can even ruin the day of pilots flying capital ships worth multiple billions of isk by preventing them from doing what they need to.

Closing Up

Thats it for now, remember EWAR is a force multiplier and you should stay out of the enemies engagement range. You often do no damage or so little you need not bother.

Despite how long this article is this is only grazing the surface of EWAR.

Fly Safe,

Marroc