Lai Dai Introduces the Kitsune

Airkio - Two months ago Lai Dai introduced the Kitsune Electronic Attack Ship and it is being well received among Caldari pod pilots for use in limited situations.

In his introduction to the new class, Arvalen Reurmanen, Chief Researcher for Lai Dai, stated that, “Electronic attack ships are mobile, resilient electronic warfare platforms. Although well suited to a variety of situations, they really come into their own in skirmish and fleet encounters, particularly against larger ships. For anyone wanting to decentralize their fleet’s electronic countermeasure capabilities and make them immeasurably harder to counter, few things will serve better than a squadron or two of these little vessels.”

Alakoni Ishanoya, CEO of Lai Dai, emphasized that like all Lai Dai ships the Kitsune is versatile. “While it can be deployed in larger fleet encounters,” he said, “it is also useful in smaller operations consisting of three or four ships.”

Early sales indicate that pod pilots are receiving the vessel well. Market analyst in the Lonetrek region alone note that over 290 vessels have already been made and sold there. The ship’s prices range from 12-17 million ISK. Similar figures are being seen in The Citadel and The Forge.

Individual pod pilots are praising the ship, but they are also warning that the ship has limited uses and that it is fragile. Phoenicia, with Cult of War, noted that "the Kitsune is a nice little EW platform in a rather fragile package. It's a powerful asset in small (4-8 pilots) squad-based combat, but anything larger than that and it quickly become obvious how fragile it really is."

Rexthor Hammerfists with Mercenary Coalition points out that he has never flown one, but has "had people fly it against me and jam my carrier and fellow carriers with it." He added that "it is a useful ship, small enough to stay under the radar until pilots get annoyed by it. They are hard to track if used right and are fast to warp out and back in."

Serin Shadowstalker says, "I love mine. I've been using it in small and fast hit and run gangs. The faster lock time, speed and extra jamming strength is a really nice combination. When using a Blackbird for the same gangs I would often spend to much time getting to a safe range, but the Kitsune is great in these gangs because it is fast enough to move to a safe range while still doing an excellent job jamming."

From these comments it is clear that Lai Dai has put out a very nice small gang platform that has advantages over the Blackbird. On the other hand, as a frigate it is fragile, but with its speed it can compensate to a point for this weakness.