Blackbird
RELATED UNI-WIKI REFERENCES
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The Blackbird is a small high-tech cruiser 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
Traits:
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
These are the 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. 15% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per level. +12.5% bonus to ECM Target Jammer optimal range and falloff per level. Requires spaceship command III and Caldari Destroyer III.
Long Range Targeting - 5% Bonus to targeting range per skill level. Requires Electronics Level 2.
Frequency Modulation - Increases the falloff distance (this will be explained later) of your ECM modules by 10% per level. Requires Electronics Level 3 and Electronics Warfare Level 2.
Long Distance Jamming - Increases the optimal range of your ECM modules by 10% per level. Requires Electronics Level 4 and Electronics Warfare Level 3.
Electronic Superiority Rigging - This will allow you to use the ECM rigs. (See section on ECM modules). Requires Jury rigging Level 3 and Mechanics Level 3.
Signal Dispersion - Increases your jam strength by 5% per level. This skill requires Electronics 5 and Electronic Warfare Level 4. If you have decided that you really enjoy being an EWAR pilot this is a great skill to work towards, but it certainly isn't required to have fun flying ECM in fleets.
Source: ECM Guide
Fitting
Armour
Light Missile Launcher I
Light Missile Launcher I
Light Missile Launcher I
10MN Afterburner I
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I
Damage Control II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Medium Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Medium Particle Dispersion Projector I
Medium Particle Dispersion Projector I
Hobgoblin II x2
Scourge Light Missile x1
- Have two of each other ECM jammers in cargo to be able to refit on the run.
- The armor tank is 30% more HP than the shield, but aligns like a brick.
- The afterburner can be upgraded to a microwarpdrive by removing all of the weapons and using a 1% powergrid implant (which costs around 1m ISK)
Shield
Heavy Missile Launcher I
Heavy Missile Launcher I
Heavy Missile Launcher I
ECM - Spatial Destabilizer I
ECM - Phase Inverter I
ECM - Ion Field Projector I
ECM - White Noise Generator I
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large Shield Extender I
Damage Control I
Signal Distortion Amplifier I
Signal Distortion Amplifier I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Hobgoblin I x2
Scourge Heavy Missile x1
- This fit is more manoeuvrable than the armor fit but has a lower HP.
- Rigs have been selected for low cost, but can be missed if desired.
- Upgrade to meta 4 (NOT T2) jammers if you can afford them
Tactics
For a general guide and introduction refer to EWar_101_Guide and ECM_Guide
The following refers specifically to flying a Blackbird.
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 find of much use brawling on gates often compared to another jammer), 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. This is also a lot safer than warping to optimals on people where you don't know what is going on.
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 a degree of safety. Without tacticals, you will find it difficult to impossible to control range against frigates, 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 difference between a pilot in a noob ship with the fleet gaining no ecm experience and an ecm boat roaming with the fleet gaining valuable experience. Without a buffer to increase your time on grid before in pod, you will never get the time to show any of your piloting techniques, when your ship's fit doesn't properly support your current abilities. This is especially to be aware of if you are using the 1 slot shield fit here. A 1 slot shield tank isn't much of a shield buffer and it takes away jamming power of the cruiser. Options to consider: remove the MWD. Remove the LSE. Replace with 1600mm plate, damage control II, and EANM. Shield tanks with at least 3 slots and 1 resist rig should be a little bit better, at the cost of mids. With the additional slot on the BB, armor tank has become more feasible.
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.
5. Jam strength and number of jammers. The most reliant on the fit and the SP of the pilot. If your skills are low, use range and a buffer tank to stay alive until you can figure out how to stay alive with just range and jams power. If you try to use Meta 0 jammers and then put all kinds of jam plus rigs and lows in, sacrificing tank, and even removing a mid jammer for a shield buffer that isn't much of a buffer, you won't last long enough to jam anything more than once. A celestis can get those 20 seconds with just a few sensor damps, resolution scripted, per ship.
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 won't be 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 tackler build with some tank. In high sec, MWD is often used to kite or keep up with a kiting fleet. Try to sit at tacticals 170km away from your tacklers so you can pre align and warp to them to get jams on the target rather than trying to keep up with the tacklers via MWD. In low sec, having around 15k+ EHP to survive small gang tornado alpha will be more very useful.
When doing creative fits instead of copying someone else's, jamming % is important, optimal range on the jammers should match the locking range of your BB more or less, and dps is last. Blasters are nice since they do a lot of damage against drones that orbit close and have naturally high tracking to compensate for lower skills of new pilots. But a pilot can use their own preferred weapon system if they can fit it.
Notes
You can write additional notes for Blackbird here.
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