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For many years, it was assumed that Jupiter prevented the Earth from beingsubject to a punishing impact regime that would greatly hinder the developmentof life. Here, we present the 4th in a series of studies investigating thishypothesis. Previously, we examined the effect of Jupiter's mass on the impactrate experienced by Earth. Here, we extend that approach to consider theinfluence of Jupiter's orbital eccentricity and inclination on the impact rate.  We first consider scenarios in which Jupiter's orbital eccentricity wassomewhat higher and somewhat lower than that in our Solar System. We find thatJupiter's orbital eccentricity plays a moderate role in determining the impactflux at Earth, with more eccentric orbits resulting in a higher impact rate ofasteroids than for more circular orbits. This is particularly pronounced athigh "Jupiter" masses. For short-period comets, the same effect is clearlyapparent, albeit to a lesser degree. The flux of short-period comets impactingthe Earth is slightly higher for more eccentric Jovian orbits.  We also consider scenarios in which Jupiter's orbital inclination was greaterthan that in our Solar System. Increasing Jupiter's orbital inclination greatlyincreased the flux of asteroidal impactors. However, at the highest testedinclination, the disruption to the Asteroid belt was so great that the beltwould be entirely depleted after an astronomically short period of time. Insuch a system, the impact flux from asteroid bodies would therefore be verylow, after an initial period of intense bombardment. By contrast, the influenceof Jovian inclination on impacts from short-period comets was very small. Aslight reduction in the impact flux was noted for the moderate and highinclination scenarios considered in this work - the results for inclinations offive and twenty-five degrees were essentially identical.

Jupiter - Friend or Foe? IV: The influence of orbital eccentricity and inclination