The Benefits of ECM

Sajuukthanatoskhar
July 10, 2022

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Contents
1 Introduction 3

2 Conclusion 3

3 The model of Fleet Combat 3

3.1 Alpha Doctrines break the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2 EWAR as a fleet ’force multiplier’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

4 Definitions 5
4.1 Jamming Success Probability Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

5 Theory of ship value 6

5.1 Example: The Kitsune, the Ishtar, Typhoon . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2 Mathematics of the Kitsune’s value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.3 Yeah, but is it worth it? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

6 Process and Mathematics 10

6.1 Maths: Is it worth fielding the ECM ship? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

7 Thanks for reading! 12

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1 Introduction
Hi I am Sajuuk. Here is my treatise on EWAR, in particular, Electronic Counter
Measures in EVE Online.
I have tasked myself with having to justify the use of ECM against the hordes
of enemies that plague us on a daily basis as a means of salt deliverance but
also to make fights easier to win.
The problem with ECM is mathematics, and partially how it is presented in
the game.
As someone with a PhD in Control Theory and Biokinematics and having
done an Electronic Engineering degree, maths has always been present in my life,
but maybe not for everyone else. However, the maths involved here is nothing
more advanced than first year university mathematics relating to probability.
There are no Kalman filters, no ODEs, just simple probability, in particular
Binomial Distributions.

2 Conclusion
The most important part of this little treatise on an underrated part of EVE
presents the following:
Is it worth removing a DPS or Logistics Ship from a fleet and replace it with
a dedicated low EHP, nil DPS (on face value) ECM?
For each ECM ship taking the place of DPS, it must exceed the RPS or DPS
lost of that one ship or the fleet lesser for it.
Therefore the following must be true:

(DP S)jammed |(RP S)jammed ≥ (DP Slost |RP Slost ) (1)

Where (DP S)jammed |(RP S)jammed is defined as

(DP S)jammed |(RP S)jammed = Pr(Jamsuccess ).N oJam M odules .(DP S|RP S)T argetted Ship )
(2)
If the above is true, then that ECM ship is equivalent to or worth more in
DPS/RPS than the ship it is replacing.
This can be simplified to

RDP SLOST < µ.RP DSjammed (3)

3 The model of Fleet Combat

EVE Online is a complex and shitty game.
However, it can and has been simplified to an N+1 model or as what I would
like to call it, the RPS/DPS Model, where RPS is your Reps Per Second and
your DPS is Damage Per Second.

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 Figure 1: The RPS/DPS Fleet combat Model

The model dictates that one fleet’s DPS must exceed the other fleet’s RPS
in order to destroy a ship and the other fleet’s DPS must be less than the RPS
of the other fleet in order to sustain damage and not lose whatever ship is being
hit.

3.1 Alpha Doctrines break the model

The Model is not robust and succumbs to the concept of Volley fire, where the
actual gun cycle time is extremely relevant vs DPS so much so that some fleet
Doctrines are extremely reminiscent of Napoleonic Era line/light infantry.
In short, when there is a lot of volley on the field, logistics pilots will have a
high change of not being able to save the ship being fired upon.
A reaction to this breaking of the model are the use of capital ships, which
have very high raw HP counts, the use of very high resistance ships or fast ships
with very low signatures, which effects the damage model of turrets as well their
to hit chances.

3.2 EWAR as a fleet ’force multiplier’

EWAR, in particular ECM, will reduce the DPS/RPS of the enemy to the benefit
of the friendly force.
This doesn’t change the model, but in some occasions ECM will jam one or
more ships, negating the damage or repairs as described in previous sections. At
high skill levels, this can be mean that a Kitsune can jam 1700 DP SN ominative
from a certain fitted nightmare with level 5 or 314 raw HP/s from jamming a
certain fitted Oneiros.

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4 Definitions
To begin, here are some definitions

ˆ A fleet is composed of Logistics Ships

ˆ A fleet is also composed of DPS ships

ˆ A fleet can be composed of other utility ships

ˆ RDPS is simply (DPS or RPS)

DPS = Damage Per Second
RPS = Reps per Second
ˆ A DPS Ship will do DPS and should be referred to as nominative DPS
(as seen on a fleet simulator ingame or on Pyfa). Raw DPS is the amoutn
of actual HP is removed per second.
V olleyDamage
DP S = cycletime
DP Sraw = DP Snominative ∗ (1 − ResistancesT argettedShip ),
The DPS is split between one or all of the different damage types
ˆ A Logistics Ship/RPS Ship does RPS, and this refers specifically to Raw
HP repped per second, not the modified number when accounting for
resistances. Raw RPS is referred to here mostly.
ˆ EWAR ECM P r(Jamsuccess ) = Jamstr
Sensorstr

ˆ A successful jam is a nullification of that jammed ship

ˆ In a fleet, there are y amount of ECM Ships

ˆ ECM ships have x no of jams

ˆ Jams will either fail or succeed

ˆ Taking RPS away is one less RPS Ship

ˆ Taking DPS away is one less DPS Ship

4.1 Jamming Success Probability Model

Jamming due to the nature of the fail/success deems it fits as a binomial distri-
bution.
Where:
n = number of tests = number of ecm modules
ρ = success probability = p(jam)
q =1−ρ
µ = nρ = binomial mean or Expected Value

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5 Theory of ship value
Before I go into examples, I will dive into the concept of ship value. DPS and
RPS can be equated together without factoring in volley damage.
If a ship is jammed, that means that RPS/DPS is removed, as defined before
in 4. However this DPS or RPS is only relevant if that was going to be used
against the jammer’s fleet.
With that being said, the idea that ECM can be converted to DPS/RPS is
valid and works mathematically. It just needs to be thought of prior to battle
as the maths involved is unwieldy at best. It is discussed in Section 6.1.

5.1 Example: The Kitsune, the Ishtar, Typhoon

The Elminster Kitsune has the following things

ˆ 3x ECM Jammers

ˆ Each ECM Jammer has a sensor jam strength, falloff and optimal range

A level 5 Char in Kitsune with links has a jam strength of 14.2, overheated
15.7.
The TEST Ishtar (July 1st 2022) fit has two modes of damage application;
ˆ 5x Praetors at 501 DPS

ˆ 5x Bouncers at 360 DPS

These are repaired by our Guardian Doctrines, doing 213 raw HP/s, therefore
they are worth 1.22 Typhoons.
And this is fighting a TRUE Typhoon and his buddy Oneiros logistics pilot.

Ship DPS/RPS Receives RAW Receives Raw

DPS DPS
TRUE Typhoon Does 581 EDPS Receives 135 Receives 219.6
or 174 DPS raw DPS (Praetor) DPS (Bouncer)
vs Thermal
TRUE Oneiros Does 256
Raw HP/s or
746(412 ERPS
on Explosive)
ERPS per
Oneiros

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 Ship Sensor Strength Chance to be
jammed (1 jam-
mer)
14.2
TRUE Typhoon 22.8 22.8 = 62.2%
14.2
TRUE Oneiros 34 34 = 41%

So from the two tables, we can see the following

ˆ An Ishtar doing Bouncer damage is equal to 0.857x Oneiros

ˆ An Ishtar doing Praetor damage is equal to 0.52x Oneiros

This means, that the Kitsune must be able to remove 0.857x Oneiros RPS
over a certain period of time. An FYI, i haven’t included links for any ship but
the kitsunes.

5.2 Mathematics of the Kitsune’s value

Using binomial distribution theorem, we know that

1. ρ = success chance = 0.41/0.62.2 for Oneiros/Typhoon

2. n = number of jammers

Therefore, it can be said that:

n.ρ = µ = ExpectedV alue
µ = 3 × 0.41
µ = 1.23

RDP SJammed = 1.23 ∗ 256 Raw HP/s

(4)
RDP SJammed = 314.88 HP/s”
In our example, on average, we will jam 1.43x Ishtars (Bouncer) or 2.3259x
(EM) of effective RPS. Assuming everything is perfect, this means the kitsune
pilot. Just remember this is an average in a binomial distribution and sometimes
the kitsune may jam more or it might not jam anything at any particular point
in time, but it will converge to this number. Player skills for Ishtar DPS, the
changes in signature, range of its targets also change these values. Same for the
Oneiros pilot, although reps only change in falloff.
It should be said that this is for 3 separately targeted Oneiroses to be jammed
at any one time. The probability for jamming can be 3 jammers applied to the
same target or applied to 3 Oneiroses concurrently. It should be applied to 3
seperate ships, with no ECM overlap, as 3 successful jams on one ship is not
equal to 3 ships of DPS.
Let’s say we want to know the percentage of jamming 1 or more Oneiroses
(1 or more successful jams in a 20 sec period)

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 Figure 2: Binomial Distribution of Kitsune vs Oneiros

This means that the probability of a successful jam or more on an Oneiros,

which would remove 1.16 (or 1.896 if using Praetors) Ishtar’s worth of DPS
(applied perfectly at lvl 5), would, would occur 79.4% of the time (P (X ≥ 1)).

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 Figure 3: Binomial Distribution of Kitsune vs Typhoon

The probability of at least one successful jam is now 94% against a Typhoon
with 3 jammers!

5.3 Yeah, but is it worth it?

To make it worth the reduction in DPS, the Kitsune has to be equal to the ship
DPS/RPS lost, as stated before.
In the case of jamming an Oneiros, only one has to be jammed at any time, any
more are a bonus. For the Typhoon however, because the Guardian is worth 1.22
Typhoons, the number jammed is rounded up and thus the minimum Typhoons
jammed at any one time is now 2 to replace 1 TEST Guardian pilot. It is still
1.22x over time but because you have 3 jammers with 20 sec cycles, it is easy
to just round up in this case without going to really nitty gritty maths.

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6 Process and Mathematics
Let’s say you want to know the math, first you need to recall the process that
was just discussed.
1. Get Jam success vs Target Ship, Sensor Str of Targetting Ship, Jam Str,
number of jams
2. Get RDPS of Ship being lost to an EWAR ship (RDP Slost )
3. Get RDPS of Ship to be jammed (RDP SJammed )
4. Calculate if that probability is acceptable by getting the sum of DPS
jammed. Is it greater than or equal to the RDPS of the ship being replaced
by the ECM ship?

(a) If yes, then the ECM ship should be fielded

(b) If no, then that player should stay in that ship

6.1 Maths: Is it worth fielding the ECM ship?

Using the binomial distribution again, we need to answer the final question - is
it worth fielding the ECM ship?
The notion that that the ship RDPS lost must be less than the RDPS
jammed by the now existing ECM Ship. The logical inequality is defined below:

n
X
RDP SLost < RDP S.x.P r(X = x) (5)
x=0
where, x is nosuccessf ul jams and n is total number of jams. Pr(X = x) is
defined as :
n!
Pr(X = x) = .ρx .(1 − ρ)n−x (6)
x!(n − x)!
where ρ is the probability of landing a jam on the target ship.
Jam Strength
ρ= (7)
Sensor Strength of Ship
This can be simplified down to using the Expected Value, RDPS and number
of jams. This is reflected in equation 1 or in equation 5.

(DP S)jammed |(RP S)jammed = ρx(DP S|RP S)T argetted Ship ) (8)
If equation 5 is true, then the ECM ship should be fielded. To simplify it
down even more, then we can just use equation 1 or its simplified one using the
terms described here as

RDP SLOST < µ.RP DSjammed (9)

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 This is only true if the ECM Ship is jamming 3 targets and no other ECM
ship is also not successfully jamming that target.

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7 Thanks for reading!
Thanks for reading. This was awful to write. I hope it was awful to read too.
Thanks to Fuffius Cantor for being my rubber duck regarding the maths.
Ich danke dir sehr für deine Hilfe und wir hatten eine gute Zeit zusammen beim
Biergarten :). Bis wieder Treffen.
Thanks to Chi Aki for making sure I don’t lose people and put the most
important statement effectively first. Thanks mate!
Thanks, finally, to you dear reader, who most likely has to put up with my
arcane levels of autism regarding EWAR. No fight can be solved with 100% use
of EWAR alone, but they can be changed when some EWAR brought into the
fold.
Finally, thanks to CCP (who will probably get their hands on this maybe) for
making a pretty ok game. But can you please give us the ability to set hotkeys
for all possible individual tags? not just 9 out of the 36 (1,2,3,A,B,C,X,Y,Z)?
R-Clicking through fleet menus to them is not nice. Thanks!

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