I was reading the tractor beam thread and thought that having a new beam slot would be awesome.

Ideas include:

• Tractor beam - limits movement to 1-3 speed.
• Active denial system - places stress. (based on microwave technology)
• Target assist - helps other ships hit somehow. (based on laser targeting)
• ECM beam - removes target locks and beam locks.

I would suggest that beams require you to burn a target lock and hit in the front arc, but once they hit you can use the beam on the ship as long as it stays within a certain distance.

This would make a fun support style weapon that is very unique due to the ongoing effects. It could include a new kind of token similar to the target lock: a beam lock.

Beam attacks would work like this:

1. If this attack hits, place one red beam lock token near the enemy ship to indicate that it is beam locked.
2. Place the blue beam lock token that matches the red token’s letter near the active ship to indicate that it is locking.
3. Apply the effects of the beam weapon attack.
4. Then cancel all dice results.

Beam locks would work like this:

• During the Combat phase, instead of performing any attacks, you may apply the effects of one of your beam attacks on one ship with which you have a beam lock as if it succesfully hit.
• Ships with blue beam lock tokens can only choose white maneuvers during the planning phase.
• If a ship with a beam token is further than range 2 of a ship with the matching beam token at the end of the activation phase, remove both tokens.
• You may discard a blue beam token at the begining of the combat phase. If you do, also discard the matching red token.
• You may only have one blue beam lock token at a time. If an effect would cause you to have a second lock, discard the first one.

Beam upgrades would work like this:

Attack Dice: 3 (or two, if three is too powerful)

Range: 1-2

Beam Attack: The defender [effects].

It is a little complex, but I think it would add a neat aspect.

Here is my thought for the tractor beam:

The defender may only choose maneuver speeds between 1-3 during the next planning phase.

I think the beam attack should be an action rather than an attack during the combat phase. Maybe roll an attack dice and on a hit or crit the beam hits the target and the effects take affect. Otherwise the whole Beam/TL thing would be hard to track.

For tractor beams 1-3 speed maneuvers are still a lot of maneuvers on most ships. I would restrict it to 1-2 speed or not allow red maneuvers. Maybe even decrease the targets agility by 1 to a minimum of 0.

For the target assist you can allow friendly ships to re-roll 1 dice if the target a ship that's being

The way I'd do a beam weapon is that when you draw a line to an enemy ship you keep going and everything in the R1-3 band that line intersects gets hit by the effect.

I think the beam attack should be an action rather than an attack during the combat phase. Maybe roll an attack dice and on a hit or crit the beam hits the target and the effects take affect. Otherwise the whole Beam/TL thing would be hard to track.

For tractor beams 1-3 speed maneuvers are still a lot of maneuvers on most ships. I would restrict it to 1-2 speed or not allow red maneuvers. Maybe even decrease the targets agility by 1 to a minimum of 0.

For the target assist you can allow friendly ships to re-roll 1 dice if the target a ship that's being

You are right, 1-2 speed is probably better for a tractor beam. I like the target assist suggestion too.

The thing I was trying to do with the attack/lock was to make it so that you had to get the lock from your front arc initially, but then let it follow around the ship unless it runs away. Also I think it needs to stop you from being able to attack, or it will be way to overpowered.

THIS

I say forget the Tractor Beam. Being Ioned of the board is bad enough now you want an attack from behind I win weapon? If you have a Tractor Beam you MUST have a way for the Defender to break loose.

Tractor Beam:

Attack: 3

Range: 1-2

Cost: ????

Slot: Cannon and/or Turret

Text:

Attack: [Target Lock] If this attack hits assign the defender 1 Tractored Token and 1 Damage.

Cancel all other Dice Results.

Tractored Tokens:

During the Activation Phase all white maneuvers are treated as Red, then remove the Tokens. (1 Small Based, 2 Large Based)

Well going back to Tie Fighter the computer game there were 2 beams:

1. Beam that makes a ship move only forward (Tractor Beam). The only real way to escape it was to move faster than the ship with the beam weapon in order to get out of its range. In summary, against dozens of mindless computers generated pilots you were able to pin down a ship here and there to destroy it more easily. In FFG's X-Wing, we have outmaneuver and Wedge that lower a ships agility and we have ion weapons that slow you down and make you go forward. A tractor beam would have to be something in between the already established game mechanics. Super uninspired example would be a beam that makes you go only forward but at any speed you choose (would never be implemented).
2. The second beam was the jammer one and the rebels already have something very similar to it: spend a target lock to make the opponent re-roll his/her attack dies.

I think that beam tech is overdue for the Empire. It will make the Tie Defender and the Tie Advanced a bit more interesting to play with. Regardless of how it is implemented, I hope that it doesn't have too many tokens to track. I think that having a second set of beam target locks would be overwhelming.

I was reading the tractor beam thread and thought that having a new beam slot would be awesome.

Ideas include:

• Tractor beam - limits movement to 1-3 speed.
• Active denial system - places stress. (based on microwave technology)
• Target assist - helps other ships hit somehow. (based on laser targeting)
• ECM beam - removes target locks and beam locks.

Besides the tractor beam, are any of the other beams based off of the Star Wars lore? These sound more lime modern military prototypes to me.

Why not make tractor beam reduce agility dice? Granted, out maneuver does that already but 1 less green die and being forced into white 1-2 speed maneuvers seems more logical to me

Well going back to Tie Fighter the computer game there were 2 beams:

1. Beam that makes a ship move only forward (Tractor Beam). The only real way to escape it was to move faster than the ship with the beam weapon in order to get out of its range. In summary, against dozens of mindless computers generated pilots you were able to pin down a ship here and there to destroy it more easily. In FFG's X-Wing, we have outmaneuver and Wedge that lower a ships agility and we have ion weapons that slow you down and make you go forward. A tractor beam would have to be something in between the already established game mechanics. Super uninspired example would be a beam that makes you go only forward but at any speed you choose (would never be implemented).
2. The second beam was the jammer one and the rebels already have something very similar to it: spend a target lock to make the opponent re-roll his/her attack dies.

I think that beam tech is overdue for the Empire. It will make the Tie Defender and the Tie Advanced a bit more interesting to play with. Regardless of how it is implemented, I hope that it doesn't have too many tokens to track. I think that having a second set of beam target locks would be overwhelming.

The Jammer beam could instead strip a token.

I was reading the tractor beam thread and thought that having a new beam slot would be awesome.

Ideas include:

• Tractor beam - limits movement to 1-3 speed.
• Active denial system - places stress. (based on microwave technology)
• Target assist - helps other ships hit somehow. (based on laser targeting)
• ECM beam - removes target locks and beam locks.

Besides the tractor beam, are any of the other beams based off of the Star Wars lore? These sound more lime modern military prototypes to me.

The Jammer was another beam in Tie Fighter. There were also mag-pulse torpedoes, which was a physical electromagnetic pulse generator, which we could use as the basis for an ECM beam.

Microwave weapons weren't a well known thing when most of the influential star wars games/books were coming out. however there are a large variety of stun weapons that could provide a similar function. Just set your beam to stun

I hope that FFG does introduce beam weapons. This tread is a good illustration of how difficult it is to get a concept and streamline it into a balanced and easy to implement game mechanic!

We know beam weapons should be a slot, and only few, select ships should have that slot vs using the already existing sensor slot.

We know that there should be at least two different beam weapons.

We know that one should be a tractor beam that lowers an opponent agility or decreases the their maneuvering options.

We know that one beam should be an ecm which makes it very difficult for one ship to hit the ship with the active beam.

...and thats just about it...

anyone have any ideas for a way to implement this into the game? would the beam always be active or would it require energy/stress/action/target lock/new mechanic to operate? Could FFG use the timer mechanic from D&D Dragons?

Example: in the combat phase right before rolling attack dice, put 3 hour glass timers on your tractor beam, if the ship you are firing at is on a small base, that ship rolls 1 less defense die. At the end of the turn, remove 1 hour glass counter from the beam upgrade card. (This way the beam can be used only once every 3 turns, but does not require an action or a target lock to activate)