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Tractor Beams and Engines
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)


Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I would think that an empty cargo hold would be the default, and that the presence of any cargo would decrease the ship's Move and, by extension, its ability to resist the tractor beam. Since my Cargo Increment rule already includes a system for reducing a ship's speed when it's loaded with cargo, this would also apply to the 1E Move Code.

I had remembered the part about over filling beyond the cargo capacity, but had forgotten about the increments on the way to being full.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like Whill, i am surprised i didn't see this thread earlier.. I agree with C, in that a ship's engine rating (the faster the speed it can produce) should have a factor in whether a ship can resist being stopped by a tractor beam...
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tractor beams have been on my mind recently on account of my work on the Starfighter Combat project.

In particular, tractor beams under the WEG rules are very much an all-or-nothing prospect, with a ship either breaking the tractor beam and being free to maneuver, or locked up and having to fight to try and break the lock. I've come up with some house rules to modify tractor beams, both in this topic and in the Advanced Starfighter Combat thread, but I can't help but think there's a gap where a tractor beam might be able to achieve a "low power" lock that just slows a target down without fully overpowering it.

For example, could a small craft with a tractor beam projector lock-on to the hull of a larger ship and allow itself to be pulled along? It seems reasonable to me, but for it to work under the RAW, the ship doing the tractoring would have to have a monster beam projector capable of beating the full Hull dice of the targeted ship. Theoretically, the tractoring ship could use precision fire rules to lock on to a portion of the target's hull (I could even see larger ships being equipped with tractor anchors to facilitate this for friendly craft), but the RAW doesn't technically allow it.

I don't have any solutions ATM, but I figured I'd at least throw it out and get people talking.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://rancorpit.com/jotw/damage/vehicles_spaceships.html

As I recall, I implemented some of your tractor ideas into my tweaked tractor beam rules (above), but I'm ok with tractors locked on (with a chance of breaking free) or not. I'm ok with there not being gradients of 'locked on' but as always I'm interested in seeing what you come up with.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 10:40 pm    Post subject: speed code and damaged drives Reply with quote

CRMcNeill, I ran into a snag with speed code in the tractor rules. Speed code directly correlates to Space, which correlates to atmosphere Move. In the movement rules, ships/vehicles move a multiple of the Space/Move depending on the speed. Damage to the main drive is measured in a loss of speed levels (erroneously referred to in R&E as moves), a reduction in max speed.

Space and Move stats are not directly reduced by damage, but when a ship is resisting a tractor beam or performing another action with speed code, max engine power should be reduced by damage. I made a spreadsheet with space units for each Space and speed level, and it wasn't hard to make reduced speed code values for each speed code and damage level.

The problem I ran into was that the math doesn't work out the same for space and atmosphere moves so I get different reduced die codes, or different move for the same die codes. I know there aren't a lot of uses for speed codes for atmospheric vehicles or atmospheric spaceship flying, but it seems like there should be the possibility. As pointed out here, the correlation between space and atmosphere speeds must have been a fudge and not really resulting from any science.

So speed codes for undamaged atmosphere vehicles, no problem. Bring damage into it, and the relationship between space and atmosphere gets hairy. Have you considered damage in relation to speed codes? Maybe it is moot because a cloud car's body strength of 3D doesn't stand a chance for a cloud car trying to escape a tractor beam?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My first thought would be to reduce the Speed Code by 1D for each level of damage (1E Starship Combat took a somewhat similar route). Once the Speed Code hits 0D, there's nothing to add to the Hull to resist the tractor beam.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
My first thought would be to reduce the Speed Code by 1D for each level of damage (1E Starship Combat took a somewhat similar route). Once the Speed Code hits 0D, there's nothing to add to the Hull to resist the tractor beam.

That is certainly simpler. 1e starship damage was drastically different than 2e, but there was one damage result (heavily damaged) that reduced speed code by 1D (among other effects), but that damage could only possibly occur once because another heavy damage on top of that resulted in severe damage. There is no easy way to correlate speed code with "lost moves" since an A-Wing loses a lot more than an escape pod in the exponential engine damage system of 2e. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep it simple and go with your suggestion.
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