Blackbird
Fittings need to be updated to reflect extra low slot.
RELATED UNI-WIKI REFERENCES
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The Blackbird is a small high-tech cruiser newly employed by the Caldari Navy. Commonly seen in fleet battles or acting as wingman, it is not intended for head-on slugfests, but rather delicate tactical situations. SHIP BONUSES
Caldari Cruiser Skill Bonus:
Ship Attributes
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4 (1/3) 
7 
3
700 MW 
500 tf
192 m/sec
315 m³
Summary
The Blackbird is the Caldari EWAR cruiser, and is bonused for ECM. A large number of Blackbirds is almost the signature of university fleets. The blackbird has hull bonuses to jammer range as well as strength, allowing it to fight from much further out than a griffin, which is great for an EWAR ship. A blackbird has the mid slots to support a rainbow fit of 4 racial jammers with 2 mids and 3 lows to spare, allowing the flexibility of a propulsion module and a shield or armor tank module.
Skills
There are a few skills which will improve your abilities as an ECM pilot:
Caldari Cruiser - Skills for the specific types of ship you are flying will give you the greatest improvement in ECM effectiveness. Training this skill to V is expensive but useful, especially as it also unlocks several T2 ship options as well.
Long Distance Jamming - Increases the optimal range of your ECM modules by 10% per level. Requires Electronics 4. Another great skill to work towards if you enjoy EWAR. Since the tank of your ship is mainly in its range from the fight training this to at least IV is high on your priority list.
Electronic Warfare - Required to use ECM mods, reduces their cap usage by 5% per level. You are more then likely to warp away from the battle before your cap runs out. This skill is a prerequisite for several other useful skills, and training it to IV is recommended for Signal Dispersion (and as a bonus will also unlock Electronic Warfare drones).
Signal Dispersion - Increases your jam strength by 5% per level. This skill requires Electronics 5 and Electronic Warfare 4. Caldari Cruiser gives a bigger benefit, but this is still very useful.
Frequency Modulation - Increases the falloff distance of your ECM mods. You will usually aim to jam at your optimal, so train this skill after Long Distance Jamming.
Electronic Superiority Rigging - This will allow you to use the ECM rigs. Level I is required to fit the rigs at all, and higher levels will improve your tank slightly, especially if you combine ECM rigs with a shield tank.
Source: ECM Guide
Fitting
- Don't know how to program in the EFT like window so just copying the fit from EFT.
[Blackbird, Armor ECM Six] Damage Control II 'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I 1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
3x'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I 3xEnfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I
3x Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Antimatter Charge S
3x Medium Particle Dispersion Projector I
An example of 19k EHP armor BB fit with more jammers than any shield BB could have. Depending on fits and skills, one can downgrade to meta 0 items, although much of the force multiplication is lost with meta 0 jammers and low jamming skills. This one can lock out to 101 km and jam at around 91km optimal. The specific jammers are for gallente and minmatar ships. Prioritizing jamming 2 strategically important ships, over spreading jams. Which, with the new sensor strength skills and what not, a new BB pilot isn't going to be able to do anyways by spreading jams.
Tactics
- Work in Progress*
The fit supports the pilot and allows the pilot to utilize certain piloting techniques and abilities. So a specialized or ultra specialized fit could only be good for a certain kind of high ace pilot or only in a certain situation.
For ECM, there are various considerations which some prioritize over others but generally fits seek to accomplish as many of them as they can so that the pilot can make use of such benefits.
1. Prepare for battle in the form of bookmarks. This has the least to do with the fit, but the most to do with the pilot's abilities. Having tactical on grid and off grid bookmarks to use to maneuver around the battle, instead of using your MWD all the time (which you won't even need except in null sec bubbles trying to escape, not fight), you just imagine the battlespace in your mind and choose the appropriate bookmark to get the job done. Drop a BM as you warp off a gate/celestial or as you land on grid to one. Then warp back to it and name it "nearest object distance". If it is towards the sun, away from, westward from sun or eastward from sun, up or down, you can put that in too if you use more than 1 tactical near an object.
2. Range control is one of the most important aspects, as BB boats utilize a ranged bonus and become similar to sniper damage dealers in the sense that they don't have enough tank and can't do much brawling without dying. Since most battlecruiser short weapons have max range of 20-25 km, simply being outside that range envelope gives the ECM blackbird superiority. Without tacticals, you will find it difficult to impossible to control range at all, and it doesn't matter if you try to use a MWD either. Tacklers are faster and won't run out of cap using them for most tackler builds. Because people can warp to fleet mates, having enemies close to you is a sign somebody is going to come and kill you soon. Pay attention to the range of ships and their negative radial velocity on the overview.
3. Being pre aligned. Since the Caldari cruiser isn't very nimble, it is vital to be aligned to a tactical bookmark or celestial before you start engaging in jamming or dps. Thus a BB pilot should pre align before he activates offensive modules. This allows withdrawal from the battlefield or a bounce literally at the speed of the pilot's own reflexes. The moment you know you are in danger and want to get out, you will get out. Rather than having to wait 6+ seconds to align out, which is plenty of time for frigates and destroyers to lock you. It's better to bounce to a tactical at 1000-5000km, since it takes a long time to go 14 Aus and back again. Battle will probably be over by the time you get back.
3. Tank is something many consider less important but for newer pilots, they will need to prioritize it a bit higher. The more battle experience a new pilot gets, the more effective they become at the job, but that doesn't work out too well when you die in the first salvo before you can even align. When roaming around certain low sec regions, the pirates there like to use oracles, tornados, nagas, and taloses, so having a tank that can survive 1 or 2 alpha strikes from a tornado is the gold standard for roaming around. Otherwise, you will never get the time to show any of your piloting techniques, when your ship's fit doesn't allow it. This is especially to be aware of if you are using the 1 slot shield fit here. Personally, if one wishes to shield tank, that's just wasting a slot as it doesn't do anything for tank or the jamming power of the cruiser. Remove the MWD. Remove the LSE. Replace with 1600mm plate and damage control II. I only use shield tanks with at least 3 slots and 1 resist rig. That'll actually give you time to cycle your jammers again.
4. Having smaller guns or launchers to deal with drone aggro or ecm drones. A lot of ships may not have the range to hit your cruiser if it is at more than 20-50km from them, but their drones are a different matter.
Normally, blackbirds using 6 full mid slots for jammers, a 1600mm plate, and ionic projection rigs will be looking to stay at the furthest engagement envelope feasible. Align time from plates isn't an issue since pre align works around it. Sometimes you get unlucky or you have bad reflexes and make the right decision too late, so it became the wrong decision.
Blackbirds that expect to be undocking from a station, like PTS, and fighting on grid all the time without range control, might want to fit a shield tank + small blasters to deal with drones. Armor works as well if you have the skills. Having enough EHP 20-30k will allow you to easily jam smaller ships and warp off or dock back up if something is trying to alpha snipe you from the undock. More tank is desired if your reflexes, skills, and abilities are still low. Those with more skills multiply their jamming strength with more jammers, and have a naturally higher EHP and can fit more tank to begin with. Plus their reflexes mean they can get more jams off, get more of them on the right ships, carry the right jammers for the right ships, align out faster, pre align out faster, and generally speaking are worth 3-5+ new blackbird pilots. Plus they have thermodynamics skill trained so they can get 20% jam strength on top of their superior jam strength based skills. A more experienced pilot might be able to jam out 3-6 ships and maintain it through the battle. A less experienced pilot might wish to focus on jamming only 1 to 2 ships.
Blackbirds can be used to solo and bait as well, by fitting a 3 slot shield tank. If you can't fit a 3 slot shield tank or think more jammers will compensate for low survivability or low skills, remove the MWD or fit an armor plate instead. In high sec, MWD isn't that useful for a BB. In low sec, having around 15k+ EHP to survive small gang tornado alpha will be more important.
When doing creative fits instead of copying someone else's, jamming % is important, range is important (without rigs, you can't lock out as far), and dps is last. I believe the 1600mm plate is hard to fit, so it discards the weapons entirely. Fitting weapons is more like a solo or bait brawler blackbird.
Notes
You can write additional notes for Blackbird here.
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