Give us back the tractor beam

posted on July 20th, 2013, 12:36 am

Hello all.

I miss regular tractor beam on ships. To rescue stranded ships.

And for more fun i propose few changes. (for my idea i need to separate all ships to 3 classes : small - brel, rien,probe,bug etc. medium- akira, adaptor, lehval, b8,vorcha etc. big-sovreign,deridex,negvar,sfere or"cube",v13 etc.)

1. big ship towing big ship ,speed goes to 50% (cant be for cube)
2. big ship towing medium ship, speed goes to 75% (cant be for cube)
3. big ship towing small ship , speed remain 100% (cant be for cube)

4. medium ship towing big ship , speed goes to 25% (cant be for cube)
5. medium ship towing medium ship, speed goes to half
6. medium ship towing small ship, speed goes to 75%

7. small ship towing big , cant be done
8. small ship towing medium ship , speed goes to 25%
9. small ship towing small ship, speed goes to 50-75%

10. any ship towing scout, speed 100%
11. cube can tow anything , speed 100%

12. bouth ship must be decloaked.

Percentage corespond with individual ship speed would be nice.


This will allow you to send rescue ship other than stupid constructor (weak, defenceless), this is much more real than curent tractor beam status.

No change to battle tranctor beam.
Enemy ships with non functional engines can be towed too, but they still can fire to towing ship or any else.

Forgive me my separation of ships to big, medium, small , its just for ilustration.

posted on July 20th, 2013, 1:43 am

If I remember correctly they are divided like that anyway. You know, some things effect different ship sizes different ways.

I like this idea. =)

Trivia:
I now have as many posts as you do, shadow. And I did it in two days.

[Shadow24]

posted on July 20th, 2013, 2:30 am

Last edited by Shadow24 on July 20th, 2013, 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

posted on July 20th, 2013, 3:02 am

Trivia:
I now have as many posts as you do, shadow. And I did it in two days.

I have two eyes, but only one mouth, so i read more than wrote...

posted on July 20th, 2013, 3:29 am

I really like the idea of all ships having a tractor beam, it would make the game more like the movies.

The one thing that needs to be taken into account however is that the tractor beam at this point is a 'special ability' for the constructors - in other words, tractor beams make constructors 'special' in that they can save engineless ships. The FO subsystem engine disabling is a large hazard for that reason. However, constructors would become totally useless in battle if the tractor beam becomes universal.

posted on July 20th, 2013, 4:06 am

constructor constructs so he never become useless....

in my experience i towed ship with it only in close proximity of a)base with yard, b)expo with yard

i never send it to save single ship acros half of map, because

a)he should build something in that time
b)its too expensive to loose,
c)its extremly fragile,

and i very likely loose bouth stranded ship and heroic but stupid constructor...

for chance to get the disabled ship killed by oponent i sugest speed limit, and ship send in to rescue is also in danger.

you can send small fleet and hope enemy doesnt ambush them...

or you send all your fleet and you leave home or expo undefended...

also you need to think what to send... closesed ship, or ship which get home faster...

i think it enritches game ... and i hope that developer team would like this idea...

posted on July 20th, 2013, 5:48 am

Every race should have atleast one combat ship(per yard?) that is equipped with a tractor beam. No sense in waiting minutes for a construction ship to reach the stranded ship only to have it become mobile again as soon as the constructor reaches it. You need options. Options. Options.

posted on July 20th, 2013, 4:08 pm

i think ships with very low system value could be without tractor beam , like centaur...

but i definetly miss it on ships like sovereign , galaxy, deridex, and so on...

posted on July 21st, 2013, 1:33 am

Trivia:
I now have as many posts as you do, shadow. And I did it in two days.

I have two eyes, but only one mouth, so i read more than wrote...

Because you type with ten fingers... Make a lot of sense...