The Bowhead sits in a strange place in EVE. It was the first new ship released in the new accelerated development cycles. As such, it showcased how CCP was much more open to making changes on the fly to balance features as they were coming out. Specifically, the stats to the Bowhead were changed several times in the course of the comments thread attached to the dev blog.
The Bowhead was announced as a niche ship to fill the role of a carrier for high-sec space by being able to haul multiple fitted battleships. Where a freighter can vastly outstrip the raw capacity of the tug, the Bowhead is capable of moving much more value in the ships it is hauling. Currently listing for about 2.25 billion on the Jita market, the Bowhead hull will set a player back not quite twice what a regular freighter will.
Until recently, freighters had no fitting options - and even now, they are greatly restricted in how they choose between tank and mobility mods. But here lies the problem. Everywhere CCP introduces a choice for players, inevitably, someone is going to choose to do something profoundly silly. Choosing to fit freighters poorly has become so commonplace that CODE players and others have coined the term of fitting a freighter for other than tank as “anti-tanking”.
However, the Bowhead has a full range of fitting options. The more available options however the more chances for people to make poor decisions. As a result of the dev blog adjustments it is relatively easy to get the tug’s EHP up to around the levels of its freighter brothers. Since the Bowhead has no high slots it cannot perform the MWD-Cloak trick. However, by putting that same MWD into a mid a player can gain the benefit of a vastly improved time to warp.
Niarjara is a busy place. As an arterial link between the trade hubs of Jita and Amarr it sees thousands of jumps in traffic every day. All of this trade traffic draws predators like a watering hole in the Serengeti.
Enter DrWh0. This Bowhead is not particularly significant in terms of what was destroyed. A golem was its only really significant cargo along with several other assorted ships that are common to any itinerant mission runner. Nor is the good Dr’s anti-tank particularly unique. Despite the fact that cargo expanders and rigs do not affect the ship maintenance bay players have been slapping them on almost from day one. In this case DrWh0 was making space to carry around a fairly small amount of unrefined ore which is commonly used in the periodic story line missions.
The thing that makes this kill interesting and unique is that the great whale was killed by a single lone hunter. The Captain Ahab to our story is a Miniluv pilot named Globby, creating a glaring question on the kill. How could a single pilot in one catalyst kill a freighter? Even one without a tank? The kill comments show us some of the usual conjecture about war targets and the helpless DrWh0 scooping loot and getting a suspect timer.
For the truth TMC contributor Powers went to Globby and asked after the details.
globby: i aggressed him and had my friend's orca drop 8 catalysts on him and 8 shuttles at a ping
globby: i would shoot him, die, pull, repeat
globby: while GCC
powers_sa: So globby, what exactly were you up to when you saw that guy
powers_sa: and what stuck out that made you want to make him dead
globby: his fit
globby: it was terrible
globby: also he logged off immediately and didn't respond to convos
powers_sa: were you just bumping him?
globby: yeah
In case it wasn't obvious: when Globby is ransoming you, pay him or get dead.
All in all this kill has opened up some significant questions on the mechanics behind the art of suicide ganking. Much like the old boomerang trick, it brings into question the GCC as a time out function. It remains to be seen how or if CCP will respond to this new technique as it is no longer an isolated case. Our whale hunter put down a properly tanked Charon in much the same way on the following day.