Reading the Firespary stats i have wondered about he usefulness of the light tractor beam in combat. How does the tractor beam works exactly?

So i'm the gunner in a Firespray with my friend as the pilot, after the enemy pilot uses his action i successfully hit him with the tractor beam and now the enemy ship (let's say a light freigher) is dead in space.

1) i assume the enemy pilot has to wait for his next initiative spot to do the piloting check to shake off the tractor beam, so if my pilot has his initiative turn now, he can fire on the helpless freighter. is that correct, or can the enemy pilot immediately do the skill check to get free?

2) what happens if you shoot on an immobile target? i have looked in the Edge CRB and haven't found an answer. Do i get a boost dice to hit ? more than 1? do i get a reduction in the combat check difficulty?

The closest thing seems to be the "prone" situation in land combat but that gives 1 boost to melee attacks and 1 setbacks to ranged, so it's not exactly comparable to a space fight.

How would you rule this situation?

At the very least, if the ship caught in the tractor beam was already able to choose the defense zone when attacked, that trapped ship would no longer be able to until escaped. Any piloting maneuvers and most pilot-only actions such as evasive maneuvers, fly/drive, punch it! and and others would be out of the question.

Yeah, I would say any defensive bonuses that came from fancy piloting would go away if you are immobile. This goes for evasive maneuvers, as well as talents like Tricky Target and Intuitive Evasion.

Let's not forget it resets the ships speed to 0, which means it's going to take some time or system strain to be able to gain the advantage after it frees itself.

I bet you could do some damage if you dragged someone into an asteroid field.

Let's not forget it resets the ships speed to 0, which means it's going to take some time or system strain to be able to gain the advantage after it frees itself.

Interesting. I had always assumed that it meant that the target could not move relative to the firing ship. If it really does drop the ship to Speed 0 then it may work a little more oddly than I imagined.

In general, the best use I've seen for the light tractor beam on the Firespray is found in replacing it with a better weapon (a heavy laser cannon or concussion missile launcher being the ones I've seen) without it costing a hard point.

Let's not forget it resets the ships speed to 0, which means it's going to take some time or system strain to be able to gain the advantage after it frees itself.

Interesting. I had always assumed that it meant that the target could not move relative to the firing ship. If it really does drop the ship to Speed 0 then it may work a little more oddly than I imagined.

I don't recall if it's ever mentioned in the book, but it makes sense. Even if the the tractor beam is pulling the target into a bay, the ship's initial speed should be 0. Although I guess in a technical sense, the ship does have a speed, but mechanically it makes sense to drop the speed to 0.

That could make encounters very interesting, even if you don't intend to do anything with the tractored ship, just constantly resetting their speed could make for a fun or frustrating encounter.

More than likely frustrating since the constant reset will keep you from ever going anywhere.

True. I wouldn't want to implement that strategy unless the PCs had a special goal for the encounter that would actually make things more interesting if they had to deal with troll tractor beams

In general, the best use I've seen for the light tractor beam on the Firespray is found in replacing it with a better weapon (a heavy laser cannon or concussion missile launcher being the ones I've seen) without it costing a hard point.

After seeing the suggestions for using the tractor beam in combat, i agree on replacing the light tractor beam being the best course of action.

I might be running an adventure in the future where the players run into squibs, who are known for being masters of using the Tractor beam.

I felt the tractor was more of a utility device to "Grab stuff" But i in the TIE Fighter pc game it was a way to make ships easy to hit by preventing them the ability to maneuver.