Getting Fit: The Falcon

[NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: There has been some mis-understandings about this post and now that some time has passed I feel it is time to make it clear.  The Falcon fit used in this example was NOT mine, nor would it ever be mine.  It is this person's fit.  A pilot that was showing up in local during our move into Syndicate.  This post was my way of making fun of his fit without calling him out by name. He continues flying his Falcon and I continue trying to kill it.]


Getting Fit is an on-going series that examines the arcane art of ship fitting in Eve from the perspective of someone that doesn't troll the forums, doesn't post his own fits, doesn't follow the science and math, but simply flies ships into combat every single day.  If you're looking for the details and analysis regarding ship fitting, then you've come to the wrong place.  This series is about what works and what doesn't work.  In my opinion.

There are a lot of ships in Eve.  Some small, some big, some expensive and some just downright silly - but few ships in this game are as hated as the Falcon.  (A hatred I happen to share when the bad guys have one!)  Like the Curse, the Falcon is a force multiplier to any gang small or large.  With its ECM Jamming abilities and cloak, it can sneak up and keep the bad guys from even firing their weapons, all from a pretty comfortable distance.  No wonder people hate them.  For myself, I've had mixed results with the Falcon and tend to prefer its cousin the Rook for personal reasons.  This tended to be simply because of the nature of past combat and nothing to do with the ship itself.  But lately I've started flying the Falcon again and have some different thoughts on fits.

When it comes to specialized ships I tend to fly them specialized.  I strongly believe in flying ships to their strengths, so I tend to avoid any strange non-bonus fits.  In part this is because I can fly a lot of ships, but I've also learned the hard way that flying ships against their inherent bonuses is pretty fail.  (With some exceptions)  So the Falcon is a cloaky ECM boat and that's the way it should be fit.  I know other people fit them in other ways, but honestly if you want to do that there are better ships for it.

With that in mind there tend to be two schools of thought.  One is that you shouldn't even worry about putting guns on a Falcon, it is a gang support ship and guns just take away from that role.  The other school says you should put some guns up there mostly to deal with enemy drones.  For a long time I fell into the latter camp, mostly because flying any ship into combat without guns just seemed wrong.  But as I've grown I've realized that line of thinking isn't necessarily correct, lots of ships go into combat with little or no offensive weapons.  Or maybe just one "Kill Mail Whoring" gun on top.

So my new evolved Falcon fit looks like this:  (Based on feedback in comments, I have changed the fit again)
HIGH
> Covert Ops Cloak II
> Small Nos II - Replaced with small smart bomb
> Probe Launcher (optional)
> Salvager (optional)

MID
> 2x LSE II
> Warp Scram II
> 4x Racial Jammers, 1 of each. (You'll find the meta level ones better than the T2 versions)
> MWD (I use the Y-T8, love this mwd and use it alot)

LOW
> DC II
> EANM II
> 1600mm RRTP 
> 2x Signal Distortion Amps

RIGS
2x Medium Particle Dispersion Augmentors


DRONES
> 2x Hornet EC-300

Ok, so the first time out was fail.  Like I said, I've struggled with this ship since the day I first started flying it.  I admit, I was influenced by someone that has been killing my Corp m8s lately, I went looking for their fit on the killboard which was pretty much the one I originally posted.  Shame on me.


This is much better and not all that different from the fits I already had honestly, other then the lack of guns and the addition of the smart bomb.  Other than that, this looks just like my other Falcon fits.

What are your thoughts?