HUGE ships only.

Bollocks to that both the avenger and the defender could mount tractor beams.

It would be cool to see FFG release an Avenger expansion with a small/large ship systems upgrade tractor beam AND a huge ship tractor beam upgrade with an Imperial huge ship release.

I like the idea of a small/large ship tractor beam reducing a targets defense dice and the huge ships completely immobalizing the target.

I think tractor beams would be tough to simplify/abstract in a fluffy and sensical way. Imagine, your ship is in front, left right or back., does it work against huge, or large? Does limiting speed feel ok in those situations? The idea of limiting maneuvering in a game about maneuvering is awfully powerful and probably close to an NPE, even ion movement restriction can be pretty negative. I'm sure FFG could put something good and balanced together, but if we haven't seen one yet, it's probably for good reason.

Maybe we'll one with the imperial huge ship we all hope for!

Well the cloaking mechanics is another example of an abstract tool as you simply can't make a model invisible to everyone but yourself. It will definitely be something that will have to be tested rewritten and tested again. The developers said they went through dozens of cloaking mechanics before they settled on the 2 barrel roll 2 straight mechanic.

HUGE ships only.

Of course the Star Destroyer will get their tractor beam first. However the Star Destroyer / Death Star tractor beam will be completely different to the Tie Defender/Tie Avenger tractor beam. As for the Star Destroyer I'm thinking of something that captures (Removes) Huge Ships like CR-90s or even Large ships like the falcon (but not small ships) giving it a lot of power . The Avenger/Defender tractor beam would be just to mess with your opponents ships adding in a little bit of the control element to the game.

One thing that everyone is forgetting about. Is that the ship doing the tractor beaming cannot do an special maneuvers either. I would recommend that if you use it to subtract 1 from the agility of the target that the attacker also subtracts 1 from his agility. Since the attacker would have to fly straight and casual with a Tractor beam turned on the target while his team zooms in for the kill

Something like this:

Cannon: (Not a system upgrade - Since Tie Defender has them, but has no system upgrade)

Points: 3

Tractor Beam Projector (Targets Small ships Only)

Range 1-2

Attack 3:

Attack 1 ship within range 1-2. If the target it hit, it suffers no damage, and both the target and attacker must subtract 1 from their agility for the rest of the turn. The target gains a Tractor token (use an Ion Token). If the attacker is destroyed, or does a Boost, Barrel roll or Evade action. Both target ship and Attacking ship regain agility and target removes it's Ion token Immediately.

Basically, It's like a mini Ion Cannon with Agility Drain instead of Damage.

Has anyone mentioned that in order for a Tractor Beam to actually have a positive effect on a ship, the Mass/Inertia of the tractor equipped ship needs/should be much larger than the tractored ship? For instance, a Tie sized/massed ship trying to Tractor the Falcon is laughable. Not only are the engines more than powerful enough to pull away from that ship, the Tie sized ship would just be pulled along in the Falcon's wake.

In order for a Tractor to be feasible conceptually it only makes sense on a Huge ship, and in particular an Imperial Huge ship.

Jacob

Has anyone mentioned that in order for a Tractor Beam to actually have a positive effect on a ship, the Mass/Inertia of the tractor equipped ship needs/should be much larger than the tractored ship? For instance, a Tie sized/massed ship trying to Tractor the Falcon is laughable. Not only are the engines more than powerful enough to pull away from that ship, the Tie sized ship would just be pulled along in the Falcon's wake.

In order for a Tractor to be feasible conceptually it only makes sense on a Huge ship, and in particular an Imperial Huge ship.

Jacob

We how do the Defenders and Avengers have them and how do they work in the story. Also that is why I said targets small ships only. It must be a new type of tractor or one that can only cause a small disruption. Hence my version, no pulling just holding keep it straight for others to target.

And yet tie fighter had them on starfighters and they worked on anything under capital ship size.

Tractor token:

For every tractor token on a ship, reduce its agility by 1 (minimum of zero). At the end of the round, in the clean up phase, remove all tractor tokens. For each token removed after the first, deal 1 damage.

There might be multiple ways to assign tokens (tractor bombs!), but much like with Ion Tokens, the effect should be roughly the same regardless of the source.

And if 4 ships are tractor beaming a tie fighter, they literally RIP IT APART. So that's fun.

Being "towed" via tractor beam by your larger target would make it pretty easy to tail them and adjust for targeting with your weapons. I would think anyway.

Has anyone mentioned that in order for a Tractor Beam to actually have a positive effect on a ship, the Mass/Inertia of the tractor equipped ship needs/should be much larger than the tractored ship? For instance, a Tie sized/massed ship trying to Tractor the Falcon is laughable. Not only are the engines more than powerful enough to pull away from that ship, the Tie sized ship would just be pulled along in the Falcon's wake.

In order for a Tractor to be feasible conceptually it only makes sense on a Huge ship, and in particular an Imperial Huge ship.

Jacob

We how do the Defenders and Avengers have them and how do they work in the story. Also that is why I said targets small ships only. It must be a new type of tractor or one that can only cause a small disruption. Hence my version, no pulling just holding keep it straight for others to target.

It might work with your suggestion, but from a larger concept I don't think it makes sense. From an Original Trilogy perspective, it's only Star Destroyers and the Death Star that feature the Tractor Beam, and it's not used to keep things straight. It's used to pull a ship into a docking bay.

And yet tie fighter had them on starfighters and they worked on anything under capital ship size.

The game's feature was certainly a way it was projected, but it doesn't bear reality in the real world. It's actually a feature of the game I (and others I knew) liked the least. As much as we suspend the reality of physics for the space 'flight' of this galaxy far, far away, there's nothing that merges the Falcon's inability to break the tractor beam of the Death Star with the way the Tractor in Tie Fighter works. Nothing in even imaginary physics would allow this to work.

Being "towed" via tractor beam by your larger target would make it pretty easy to tail them and adjust for targeting with your weapons. I would think anyway.

This is a viable idea, however I think it breaks the game, because it removes the one aspect of this game that is truly skillful - following your target using carefully planned maneuvers. If this gets introduced, what point is there to planning a dial anymore. We'll just run tractor ships and get close to our opponent and follow them around. It's a silly mechanic if you play it out.

Jacob

Being "towed" via tractor beam by your larger target would make it pretty easy to tail them and adjust for targeting with your weapons. I would think anyway.

jkokura - This is a viable idea, however I think it breaks the game, because it removes the one aspect of this game that is truly skillful - following your target using carefully planned maneuvers. If this gets introduced, what point is there to planning a dial anymore. We'll just run tractor ships and get close to our opponent and follow them around. It's a silly mechanic if you play it out.

Jacob

Shado - Granted. But I think there are ways they could work the mechanics out so its not to powerful or over used. Like making it a systems upgrade and expensive with a limited one time use do to power consumption. It doesn't have to be a game changer, just another viable option for use adding depth and variety to the game.

TIE Defenders and every bounty hunter ship has a tractor beam, and in game, they all have cannon slots, so It would probably have to be a cannon, and be allowed on small and large ships. It could also be a Modification that trades a secondary weapon slot for a tractor beam slot, but that a bit complicated. Huge ships should have a different and more powerful type available.

I think you should need at least 2 small ships to tractor 1 large ship.

This may be a bit complicated, but it sort of simulates how Tractor Beams worked in TIE Fighter:

Tractor Beam, 3 points.

At the beginning of the Combat Phase, select one enemy ship in your firing arc. You may reduce your agility value to a minimum of 0. For every point you reduce your agility value, you may reduce the agility value of the targeted ship.

This may be a bit complicated, but it sort of simulates how Tractor Beams worked in TIE Fighter:

Tractor Beam, 3 points.

At the beginning of the Combat Phase, select one enemy ship in your firing arc. You may reduce your agility value to a minimum of 0. For every point you reduce your agility value, you may reduce the agility value of the targeted ship.

Interesting but the problem here is that it makes it much more powerful on high agility ships. A Defender reduced to 1 Agi could reduce a Firespray to 0 Agi; a YT-1300 at 0 Agi could reduce a TIE Fighter to 2 Agi. Then you've got to consider how Stealth Device plays into it. It doesn't seem right to me.

Action: defender may not make hard turns, banks straights and k turns only.

Five points.

I was thinking along similar lines, but was leaning towards action: turn attacking ship to face defender.

This would represent something of the physics/inertia/techs stuff.

But then it occurred to me, we already have an effect which represents messing around with movement.

Tractor Beam: target receives two ion tokens.

I don't see why there needs to be overthought and over complicated effect.

You could do something a bit funkier with the huge ships (Large Tractor beam...)

I was trying to recreate the tie fighter version it limited your movement without taking away all choice.

This may be a bit complicated, but it sort of simulates how Tractor Beams worked in TIE Fighter:

Tractor Beam, 3 points.

At the beginning of the Combat Phase, select one enemy ship in your firing arc. You may reduce your agility value to a minimum of 0. For every point you reduce your agility value, you may reduce the agility value of the targeted ship.

Interesting but the problem here is that it makes it much more powerful on high agility ships. A Defender reduced to 1 Agi could reduce a Firespray to 0 Agi; a YT-1300 at 0 Agi could reduce a TIE Fighter to 2 Agi. Then you've got to consider how Stealth Device plays into it. It doesn't seem right to me.

That's… that's kinda the point. Name one high agility ship that can easily make the calculated risk to forfeit that agility. For the sake of argument, let's make Tractor Beam a Modification and put one on an Advanced. That's now a 5 HP ship with 1 agility for a combat round. That's considerably less durable than a b-wing. Defender's would be even worse.

On the other side, make it a System Upgrade and give it to a b-wing. Sure, it can only reduce the opponent by 1 (or two if you gave it a stealth device for some reason), but it also has 3 native attack dice. Same could be said for the Shuttle. It seems broken at first I know, being able to try to focus down a Firespray easily like that, but remember you're trading off your own survivability. It's still going to take a lot more effort to focus down a meaty ship if the ship with the tractor beam is also being focused down.

i have often thought that instead of targeting ships, a beam could instead target obsacles. perhaps allowing you to move them up to a certain distance (range band 1?) in a certain, or any, direction. it would add a really interesting new dynamic to the game.