For a more introductory guide to Electronic Warfare, see Electronic Warfare

This article deals with the more advanced aspects of Electronic Warfare.

Logistics ships should take priority when looking for ECM or RSD targets. Make an effort to memorize the names of the ships below so you can quickly pick your targets. HAve your logi overview ready to go. These ships offer the best value in terms of Usefulness/Sensor Strength, so take them out.

Perma-jamming a ship has little or no benefit over a 40-50% jam, and is a waste of a jammer. Consider that when a lock is broken, the ship must:

1. Wait out the jam
2. Relocate each target
3. Lock that target

All of this takes time, and this time will be greatly amplified with lag.

Unless it is absolutely unavoidable or imperative that you do so, never jam a ship outside of your optimal range.

If for some reason you are unable to determine the race of the ship, consider the background of the ship icon or use the 'Info' feature and check the requirements. Do not make a habit of the latter method as it is slow and won't help much in laggy situations.

A colour-coded list of ships in alphabetical order with the race indicated is available here.

• Due to the ship tiericide and other rebalances that have occurred from 2012 to 2014, never allow a HAC to get close. They are now effectively EWAR killers with much improved sensor strength, locking speed, and locking range.
• ECM has been nerfed again. A Blackbird flown by a pilot with all level 5 skills and with maximum links has an optimal+falloff range of 127+78km. Use it all.
• Range is your tank. The range of the Blackbird, Griffin, and Scorpion allow them a significant amount of time to react to threats.
• Always be aligned to warp out. The range of ECM allows for much greater freedom of movement than guns/missile, so use this to your advantage by aligning.
• If you are tackled, try switching your ECM over to the ships who are tackling you. You should have an overview with tackler-sized ships on it. You can now utilize the new EAR icons that pop up above your HUD. Shift-clicking on these will lock whomever is the source of the EWAR.
• Always be prepared to be primaried, and watch out for signs of incoming damage such as a large number of BS and tacklers locking you.

• Range is the ECM ship's main tank. A single plate or LSE and a T2 Damage Control is all you should be fitting in terms of a tank.
• Always take one of each racial jammer. On Scorpions you can double up on 2 jammers. If you plan on jamming BS instead of the recommended Logistics ships, then consider doubling up on Amarr or Gallente as Ishtars, NApocs, and Rail Megas are the FotM doctrines these days. Do not be afraid to ask your FC what kind of jammers he wants for any particular fleet. Just make sure to do it prior to leaving.
• Never fit multispecs. They have less range, more capacitor usage, require more CPU to fit, and jam everything equally shitty.
• Since the primary target will always be out of range if you are doing your job right, your highs should focus on utility rather than damage. Energy Neutralizer, smartbombs, cynosural field generators, salvagers, and armor/structure reps are acceptable.
• The only primary weapon systems acceptable for an ECM ship are Rapid Light Missile Launchers or Rocket Launchers. They are only there to kill drones and tackle frigates.
• A Sensor Booster is a highly valuable piece of equipment. It should be one of your first choices. Keep one of each Sensor Booster script on you. Depending on the type of engagement you may find that a shorter lock-time may be more useful than additional range. This is common for roving gangs and gatecamps. If you are in a fleet engagement always go for targeting range.
• Meta 4 EWAR modules are, without exception, strictly better than T2. They require less fitting resources and use less cap than T2 while giving the exact same range and jam strengths. This goes for Signal Distortion Amplifiers as well. T2 rigs on the other hand are better than T1. But on your T1 cruiser, I would not recommend them because the benefits do not justify the cost.

• If you start taking damage in a large battle, just warp out. You will be much more helpful warping back in and harassing the enemy, rather than getting insta-melted. This is especially true if you are mounting two or more signal distortion amplifiers rather than any semblance of a tank. Like a sniper, getting targeted = run away.
• As usual for fleet battles, always stay aligned to warp out. ECM ships are frequently declared primary, Blackbirds and Scorpions tend to have very short lifespans as a result. Prior to the ECM nerf in Kali, Scorpions were declared primary so often that they were often not flown or flown only as ultra-tanked bait as a result.
• Unless you are in a humongous fleet battle, if you get a successful jam type it out in gang chat. That way other EW ships can concentrate on different ships. You are effective to ~80km with racials, so you do not need to orbit or remain stationary.
• In fleet battles, most people opt to fit ECM against Amarr and Caldari ships (which is kind of silly because Caldari have higher sensor strength and aren't as common as Megas or Maelstrom/Tempests, though Amarr is always good. If you're jamming Ravens you're god damn moron).

• An easy way to make a quick identification of the race of a ship is to check the background color of the ship icon that you have locked. In all but 1 or 2 cases, the background color will match the ECM jammer color required.
• If you run a rack of racials, always have them in the same order. I personally (Kenton Maa) use CAGM and mentally pronounce it ('cahg-im') so as to have a quick reminder of which module to activate. Another popular way to mount Racial ECM is to simply arrange it in alphabetical order, Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar.
• Smartbombs are omnidirectional damage dealing modules that do not require a lock to function. Therefore a smartbombing ship cares not one bit about ECM. Among other things, this means that camping a station undock within smartbombing range (5km for named smartbombs, up to 10km with officer smartbombs) is a poor idea if you are in a fragile ECM ship.
• Some players carry FoF Missiles as well, which fire randomly upon ships and drones that are attacking them without needing a lock. Although this is inefficient because FoF missiles do less damage and tend to waste shots by spreading them out and attacking drones, they may nonetheless allow a ship using Cruise Missiles to kill or deter an unwary pilot. So do not be surprised when a jammed ship nonetheless continues to shoot missiles.
• Multispectral ECMs are often mocked, and rightly so. Unless you plan on only jamming low sensor strength ships, like frigates, you are better off using racial ecm. Even with decent skills, you are still gimping your setup if you are using Multispectrals. Some people insist that Amarr ships are the easiest to jam, and therefore one should use Multispectrals rather than ECM - White Noise. These people are wrong on two counts: Minmatar ships generally have the lower signal strengths, and Multispectrals simply cannot be relied upon to effectively jam anything other than frigates.
• If a jam succeeds, wait until the jam ends then try again. If it fails, wait 5 seconds and activate another ECM module. This pausing maximizes jamming activations over the fight by helping cap regenerate faster. If the heat is really on though, do not wait. You can tell the enemy is jammed because a timer bar appears beneath the shield/armor/hull bars in the targeting icon. Once the jam runs out an enemy has to re-target people, which can take a few seconds. Much more if he's sensor dampened. But you can bet he'll be gunning for you! EW is generally the primary target in a fight.
• ECM Bursts are useless on any ship except a Scorpion. You will likely be breaking your own fleets' locks. Don't use them unless you are in a pipe-bomb suicide Scorpion.
• The usefulness of Target Spectrum Breakers is highly debated. They grow more effective depending on how many people have a lock on you. Thus, they will also break the locks of logistics trying to rep you. Furthermore, they do not count drones in the equation. They are utterly useless vs drones. On a Marauder where you are depending entirely on local tank while in Bastion mode, they can be effective.

Here is a sensor strength ship table to get a sense of what it takes take to jam a specific type of ship:

Super-Carriers and Titans are immune to EWAR. Therefore they are not listed.

Tracking Disruption is the method by which one reduces the tracking and/or optimal+falloff of another ship's turret systems. It is completely ineffective vs drones or missiles. Therefore it is less popular then other forms of EWAR.

Tracking Disruptors can and should be scripted to focus on one or the other aspect. Against large turrets reducing tracking speed is often the most effective method since they have long range. Against small or medium turrets, reducing range is often the more beneficial choice.

Like ECM, the tracking disruption ship is fragile but has exceptionally long locking range. Follow the same tips as above.

• Range is the TD ship's main tank. A single plate or LSE and a T2 Damage Control is all you should be fitting in terms of a tank.
• Always take one of each script for each of your disruptors. Do not be afraid to ask your FC what kind of scripts he wants for any particular fleet. Just make sure to do it prior to leaving.
• Always use scripts. The effects of a scripted disruptor is much greater and much more effective than an unscripted one.
• Since the primary target will always be out of weapon if you are doing your job right, your highs should focus on utility rather than damage. Energy Neutralizer, smartbombs, cynosural field generators, salvagers, and armor/structure reps are acceptable.
• The only primary weapon systems acceptable for a TD ship are Rapid Light Missile Launchers, Rocket Launchers, or other small turrets. They are only there to kill drones and tackle frigates.
• A Sensor Booster is a highly valuable piece of equipment. It should be one of your first choices. Keep one of each Sensor Booster script on you. Depending on the type of engagement you may find that a shorter lock-time may be more useful than additional range. This is common for roving gangs and gatecamps. If you are in a fleet engagement always go for targeting range.
• Meta 4 EWAR modules are, without exception, strictly better than T2. They require less fitting resources and use less cap than T2 while giving the exact same range and jam strengths. T2 rigs on the other hand are better than T1. But on your T1 cruiser, I would not recommend them because the benefits do not justify the cost.

• If you start taking damage in a large battle, just warp out. You will be much more helpful warping back in and harassing the enemy, rather than getting insta-melted. Like a sniper, getting targeted = run away.
• As usual for fleet battles, always stay aligned to warp out. EWAR ships are frequently declared primary. Arbitrators have a piss-poor slot layout and locking range for their intended purpose. A Crucifier has much longer locking, much longer optimal, and is much faster.

Remote Sensor Dampening is a form of EWAR that focuses on reducing the locking range and/or increasing the locking time of a targeted ship.

The modules themselves are called Remote Sensor Dampeners (will be abbreviated RSD from now on), and like their direct opposite, Sensor Boosters, are scriptable for either locking range or scan resolution.