With the new changes coming up and the possibility of organizing mining ops for the moon mining I do believe the Bowhead could be repurposed to be a platform to support these operations.
The Bowhead as it is now I have not really seen it about, it is mostly just like the Primae, while the Primae wasn’t built to be a purpose ship it was changed to have some use, the Bowhead is a ship that was built to move large ships without repackaging them, I would say it has mostly failed in that role, oh I’m sure some use it but what about a variant to serve in compressing ores, clone bay, and a smaller industrial core, and keep a large enough bay to support mining ships.
Now for those worried about the Orca’s role being made obsolete I do believe that is not the case and is mostly unfounded, the Orca will be the Porpose to Bowhead.
Really haven’t seen it about, I move around a lot, it’s not unusual for me to do about 70 jumps or more in a session, I’ve hung around in Jita, just haven’t seen it about, everything else I see often, but Bowhead, nope.
Ehhmmmm, whats wrong with the orca?
Why would you need something in between orca and rorqual? And why would you wanna repurpose a shipping ship, into a mining ship? The bowhead has a role to play in this game already and are mostly used outside of highsec, fyi.
But… We dont need more ships like the rorqual, theres one of them and thats more then enough!
Nothing wrong with the Orca, my only purpose, give the Bowhead a purpose, Rorqual’s are not allowed in high sec, you know too bad they didn’t increase the PI hold of the Primae, Alpha clones could pick up PI stuff for us around the verse.
You want to add a clone bay and reprocessing to a ship in order for it to help with mining ops literally right outside a structure that can fit those? And you’re doing this to make a ship less useless?
Also the ship is used all the time by incursion runners and that’s exactly who it was intended for
Bowhead is actually bigger than a Rorqual 17,500,000 M3 compared to 14,500,000 M3 but most of that is empty space because of it’s intended purpose - moving fitted ships, particularly battleships for highsec incursion runners. It’s a narrow niche but there are times when the ability to carry 3 or 4 fitted battleships comes in handy and no other ship can do it.
As others have pointed out, a mini Rorqual already exists - it’s called Orca.
Thank you, many times it just feels like post stuff in forums is like begging to be trolled, you are one of the few who, with your explanation has put this to rest for me, thanks.
I really hate the Bowhead. It’s very wasted in it’s use. But where it is used it is perfectly acceptable. I wouldn’t even be mad if they made the BowHead an ORE freighter. As in, the stuff you mine Just imagine the enormous ore bay it could have lol.
But honestly I think if they gave the ability to do courier contracts with the BowHead’s ship maint. bay then I think it would be used more. There’s just no reason for the Bowhead to be a boosting ship. Orca’s are plenty powerful in Highsec and Rorquals are the premiere booster.
All XL ships (except freighters) are banned from highsec, The Bowhead is an XL freighter and therefore allowed in highsec. Changing its role wouldn’t make it a mini Rorqual that is allowed in highsec, it would make it no longer a freighter, still XL, and therefore also banned from highsec.
So, to keep it in highsec you’d have to shrink it to be a L ship that has mining support and a large carrying capacity. Now that’s what we really need! A L ship that can provide mining support, hauling, and act like a mini Rorqual in highsec. Maybe we could call it “Killer Whale”?
I’m not sure where you’re flying around in space that you think the Bowhead isn’t used but it actually sees quite a bit of use.
Almost all of that is in High Sec, but the same could be said for every other Freighter class ship aside from Jump Freighters, and I don’t think anyone would say the Charon isn’t used or has failed in its role.
If you’re anywhere near High Sec and you’re not seeing Bowheads around I recommend checking your overview filters, or possibly checking your Overview in the first place…
Also mission hubs or the latest Incursion spawn.
It gets way more use supporting PvE than it does moving PvP ships in my experience.
