ECM is awesome.

I took Fibs, Sakura and Kimire out on a roam today through lowsec. I jumped into my Falcon and put on the mantel of Fleet Commander for this roam.

Isoma Constellation

 

4 jumps into lowsec and we end up at Sujaremto. D-Scan shows a hurricane nearby, I dispatch my minions to test the belts. I check out the guys in local while I wait for replies.

Sakura calls out on comms that he has visuals on the hurricane and it is engaging. The order is given to warp to Sakura at 0 and assist. The name the pilot is called out and I flag that corp as hostile, local immediately shows 2 hostile from that corp in the system. I arrive on the field at distance and see Kimire and Sakura chasing the Hurricane, fibs is dropping out of warp and engaging.

I de-cloak and shut the hurricane's Targeting abilities down, we now have an toothless Hurricane to poke. The hurricane is fast, my guys aren’t able to stop the ship properly. Spamming D-Scan now is showing new contacts warping in, I give the order to withdraw. We pass through Tama without a problem, ignoring the belts as I figure that system to be just too busy to take out time with.

In Kedama, we find another Hurricane. Same situation as above, except this guy was a lot faster than us, and he was able to easily kite the battle cruisers in my gang. He wasn’t able to do much with the perm-a-jam I got going on, so he continued to moan on local about how gay falcons are. I tell my fleet to move on, since they cant catch him.

The next several jumps where quiet, kimire noticed that we were being followed though, pointing to one of the guys in local and it did seem like we where being followed, it would explain the rapier we occasionally see on D-Scan too. I tell the fleet to burn towards the gate and fly blind for the next few jumps.

We land in Pavanakka, with no sign of being followed. There is 1 other person I local, maybe we will get lucky. I send the fleet to scout the belts, 5 minutes in our stalker appears on local, and a Rapier briefly flashes on D-Scan. We wait to see what they are going to do, and I see the rapier leaving through the other gate. “Maybe he wasn't following us” I thought.

A few minutes later the rapier pilot rejoins local in a Dominix. We are all up for this fight. Sakura finds him first and calls out, I tell everyone to get to Sakura at optimal and fire, I leave warp and immediately start cycling the ECM mods on the dominix, eyeing local like a hawk expecting 80 new locals to join. I can jam him, but not 100% of the time – he has been fitted with ECCM mods.

We are getting through the tank of the dominic gradually, but not quick enough, they have deployed heavy drones which is causing havoc to Kimire. Kimire's Thorax is lost in the fight, unable to warp out during one of the cycles I couldn’t jam him. We try without her for a few minutes longer, but we cant break his tank - I'm sure we lost near 50% of our damage with her death, Thorax cruisers are monsters.

We disengage, I need to stay on the field a bit longer to jam the Dominix until what’s left of my fleet gets out and bail myself to a safe spot. We congratulate each other over local and move on our separate ways. GJ Xenomorphea.

We called it a night with that last battle, satisfied that with a few more weeks of practice we can get decent kills.

So bringing this post in full circle, ECM is awesome, as it nullifies the enemy, and when things go pear shaped it can let fleet members get out safely.

Lin