The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

Ion cannons already make you lose control of your ship

and cost 100 points

Well, it should read actually read "and then cancel all results." The intention is that instead of doing damage you freeze the target in place - like an Ion cannon.

Alternatively, a weapon that reduces agility would be appropriate as well - like "If this attack hits, targets agility is reduced by 1 until end of turn."

I don't think tractor beams, boarding parties, or other protracted engagement pieces have a place in this game. I think its important to remember that one full game of x-wing probably lasts about 30 seconds in "real" time. Maybe even less.

If you wanted to incorporate things like boarding actions, you would literally have a game where you disable the target, then defend it for 80 turns or so while the boarding action completes. Its not a 30 second thing in my mind.

I think the same thing about the tractor beams. They really are out of scope for a game this scale. There is no way that you could apply a tractor beam in this game environment that affects movements or actions without it being so broken that it would destroy the game.

Take some of the examples: either an ion like effect, or a direct movement manipulation effect, like an all stop or changing the dial, could you imagine playing a game where you have a few of those ships and like one or two basic z95's or ties, or god forbid they're cheap enough to put something in that can beat you down, like whisper or corran, talk about no fun, broken, degenerative games. R2 and C3P0 already get close to being broken, imagine a game where not even they were enough to save you....

IRT OP

Really, i don't know why i would worry about it. So what if the fluff means those two mandibles are supposed to be tractor beams, or it has two cannon upgrades, its all good. It gives you options, and besides, Fluff, while fun and engaging, isn't and doesn't make good rules.

Make the ship work in the game, worry about the fluff secondly. You will get a better balanced game in the long run for it, and the game will remain healthier for longer because of it.

Tractor beams are a well established part of starwars they really should have a place in the game.

How about cloaking devices? they get mentioned in Empire, but we never see them in action...

Im pretty sure that its marek stele that uses tractor beams in an avenger so that its easier to blast a ship with missiles.

To rehash an OLD topic...

I see two different kinds of Tractor Beams in the SW universe:

Type 1- used on capital ships (and maybe a few other "Large" ships in XWM terms). They probably draw a large amount of energy but in turn, allow you to control (or at least affect) another ship (ex. Millennium Falcon being 'tractored' by the Death Star or Tantive IV being hauled in my Vader's Star Destroyer). Perhaps the amount of energy spent would determine how large a ship you could grab and how much you could move it?

Type 2- used on small craft. These are really more of a weapon or adjunct to a ship's Fire Control System. It works by reducing a target ships agility, thus making it easier to hit. They are neither long-ranged, nor powerful (there is no way a snubfighter has enough energy to actually "move" a ship in the same way as a capital ship Tractor Beam). My solution is to limit it to Range 1 and reduce a target's Agility by 1 (minimum of 0). Target must be in primary weapon arc. This could be a Modification - but that would allow fitting to any ship... so that is a No Go. Maybe a System or Title card (Limited to specific ships)? Maybe it requires a Target Lock

Whatever the solution, it has to be kept as simple as possible; I have seen some proposals that do not keep the K-I-S-S Principle in mind.

Tractor beams are a well established part of starwars they really should have a place in the game.

How about cloaking devices? they get mentioned in Empire, but we never see them in action...

Because ships under the size of a frigate lack the power to use cloaking devices and those over the size of a small cruiser are too big and cant generate enough power.

The phantom is an exception because it uses a crystal so rare they blew up a planet to get the few remaining crystals needed to make a thousand fighters.

it kriffing well should have

Hey! Language!

I think Tractor beams could have a use in Armada but in the X-Wing scale I think it would cause more problems then it would any kinda benifit

Okay, since we haven't talked about this enough.

So how many laser cannons does the X-wing have? How many dice does it roll? Are the two numbers equal?

Rhetorical questions, if you can't answer them I don't want to waste my time explaining them to you.

But everything is on a representational scale. Keep in mind this is a game about starfighter combat based off of a flight path simulating real-time dogfights (which exists in 3d space) on a turn based 2d plane. Some things have got to give, your pet peeve is one of them.

I think a great mechanic for a Tractor Beam Cannon would be:

Range 1-3 Attack 3

If target is hit, do not place a maneuver dial on the target next turn - instead, the target performs a []0 maneuver

Tractor beams are a well established part of starwars they really should have a place in the game.

How about cloaking devices? they get mentioned in Empire, but we never see them in action...

Wouldn't be a very good cloaking device otherwise...

Okay, since we haven't talked about this enough.

So how many laser cannons does the X-wing have? How many dice does it roll? Are the two numbers equal?

Rhetorical questions, if you can't answer them I don't want to waste my time explaining them to you.

But everything is on a representational scale. Keep in mind this is a game about starfighter combat based off of a flight path simulating real-time dogfights (which exists in 3d space) on a turn based 2d plane. Some things have got to give, your pet peeve is one of them.

Translating a ship statistic into a game statistic is not the same as omitting a ship feature entirely.

Didn't Fel use his tractor beam to steer his missiles or something like that??

In the Defender? Probably. There's also Corran's use of it to slingshot around a space station in Isard's Revenge.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the less-forgivable choices.

Spoilers bro, I'm only halfway through the bacta war

Didn't Fel use his tractor beam to steer his missiles or something like that??

In the Defender? Probably. There's also Corran's use of it to slingshot around a space station in Isard's Revenge.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the less-forgivable choices.

Spoilers bro, I'm only halfway through the bacta war

Well, at least you're not at the end of Wedge's Gamble.

15 years is FAR more than an adequate statute of limitations on spoilers, though?

The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

Ion cannons already make you lose control of your ship

and cost 100 points

Well, it should read actually read "and then cancel all results." The intention is that instead of doing damage you freeze the target in place - like an Ion cannon.

Alternatively, a weapon that reduces agility would be appropriate as well - like "If this attack hits, targets agility is reduced by 1 until end of turn."

I'm being an advocate devil here as I use ions extensively, but I know it's not fun for my opponents.

15 years is FAR more than an adequate statute of limitations on spoilers, though?

Well, you might want to be safe. There are a bunch of us who never read the EU, but with playing X-wing we have actually started to. So, there are a lot of late comers here.

I've got an idea. If you've noticed, most tractor beams are comparable by the size of the ship. I doubt a Defender or the Aggressor could stop an A-wing in full flight with just their tractor beam... But a Star Destroyer could. So, how about this:

"Spend TL to decrease opponents ship speed by one space as well as prevent red maneuvers when dial is revealed." Needs better wording, but here's the idea.

Defender is chasing an X-wing. The defender spends his TL and activates the TB as an action. When the X-wing reveals his dial, his speed will be decreased. Say. 3-Forward would now be a 2-Forward. A 2-Bank would be a 1-Bank, etc. Also, a 4-KTurn would end up being a 3-Forward.

If the opponent has already moved, as long as they are in range have them role one attack dice. This would simulate the opponent breaking out of the TB.

I have proposed a tractor beam mechanic before, and I think that this makes it something that would add to the game without duplicating the effect of ionizing a ship.

In the Star Wars movies (I haven't played the games enough recently to remember how the beam weapons worked) being Ioned caused a ship to casually drift. It was inactivated and the pilot had no control. Tractor beams, however, were able to be avoided by a good pilot with some interesting maneuvers. I tried to keep this mechanic below.

Tractor Beam (Cannon, Large Ship Only)

Range 1-3

3 Attack

ATTACK: Attack one ship

If this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers one damage and receives one tractor beam token and the attacking ship receives one tractor beam lock token. Then cancel all dice results.

Tractor Beam Token

Planning Phase: The owner may only assign a green maneuver to this ship

Activation Phase: (Wording issues abound here but trying to convey my point) The owner moves this ship according to its maneuver dial. After executing this maneuver, if the owner is no longer in the primary firing arc of the enemy ship with the tractor beam lock token, remove all Tractor Beam tokens. The ship may preform actions as normal, but cannot perform the cloak action.

Combat Phase: The ship may attack as normal.

Here's why I like it. It seems to make smaller, more maneuverable ships (like the A-Wing and Interceptor) harder to trap in tractor beams which seem to fit with the intent of the weapon in the movie. It doesn't trap a ship to making only one maneuver, and it rewards good planning and piloting for the attacking ship.

Also adds some upgrade cards, such as maneuvers that would allow whites and reds to be treated as green, etc.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the more-forgivable choices.

The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

This this this.

It's uncharted design space because it's actually very hard to implement something that feels like a Tractor Beam ought to feel without completely wrecking your opponent's fun. Or, to put it another way, most of this game is about maneuvering your ships. (Yes, even ships with turrets, and I'm not interested in litigating that discussion here.) A tractor beam, conceptually, limits your opponent's maneuvering.

So a tractor beam is something that means my opponent doesn't get to play most of the game for some length of time. We already have game elements that work like this in the Ion Cannon and Ion Cannon Turret, and they inflict a pretty steep cost: they cost your attack but cap the damage you can do, and they're fairly expensive. Even so, I've played both with and against ion lists that create extremely frustrating situations because if the list is being run properly, the opponent doesn't get to make any decisions.

So a tractor beam in X-wing has to cover the "control my opponent's movement" space without (a) stepping on the ion cannon or (b) being even worse to play against than an ion cannon. I don't mean that no one should try any of the solutions listed in the thread; what I am saying is that I've playtested a lot of different ideas for tractor beams in support of a homebrew campaign as well as some other experiments, and literally everything I've tried so far has either ruined the game or strayed so far from the "tractor beam" concept that it's not interesting.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the more-forgivable choices.

The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

This this this.

It's uncharted design space because it's actually very hard to implement something that feels like a Tractor Beam ought to feel without completely wrecking your opponent's fun. Or, to put it another way, most of this game is about maneuvering your ships. (Yes, even ships with turrets, and I'm not interested in litigating that discussion here.) A tractor beam, conceptually, limits your opponent's maneuvering.

So a tractor beam is something that means my opponent doesn't get to play most of the game for some length of time. We already have game elements that work like this in the Ion Cannon and Ion Cannon Turret, and they inflict a pretty steep cost: they cost your attack but cap the damage you can do, and they're fairly expensive. Even so, I've played both with and against ion lists that create extremely frustrating situations because if the list is being run properly, the opponent doesn't get to make any decisions.

So a tractor beam in X-wing has to cover the "control my opponent's movement" space without (a) stepping on the ion cannon or (b) being even worse to play against than an ion cannon. I don't mean that no one should try any of the solutions listed in the thread; what I am saying is that I've playtested a lot of different ideas for tractor beams in support of a homebrew campaign as well as some other experiments, and literally everything I've tried so far has either ruined the game or strayed so far from the "tractor beam" concept that it's not interesting.

This.

There really is no need for a tractor beam in X-Wing. Yeah, some old video games have it in them, but so what? What works in single-player video games doesn't necessarily translate into two-player miniature/board games.

Why go all complicated, or worse, bring in toxic mechanics?

Make it a cannon that doesn't have an attack, but instead makes your other attacks slightly harder to avoid.

Tractor Beam:

Cannon slot, 2 points.

When you make an attack against an enemy ship at Range 1-2, you may spend a Focus token to reduce the target's Agility by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

You could also remove the Focus requirement and bump the cost up to 3.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the more-forgivable choices.

The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

This this this.

It's uncharted design space because it's actually very hard to implement something that feels like a Tractor Beam ought to feel without completely wrecking your opponent's fun. Or, to put it another way, most of this game is about maneuvering your ships. (Yes, even ships with turrets, and I'm not interested in litigating that discussion here.) A tractor beam, conceptually, limits your opponent's maneuvering.

So a tractor beam is something that means my opponent doesn't get to play most of the game for some length of time. We already have game elements that work like this in the Ion Cannon and Ion Cannon Turret, and they inflict a pretty steep cost: they cost your attack but cap the damage you can do, and they're fairly expensive. Even so, I've played both with and against ion lists that create extremely frustrating situations because if the list is being run properly, the opponent doesn't get to make any decisions.

So a tractor beam in X-wing has to cover the "control my opponent's movement" space without (a) stepping on the ion cannon or (b) being even worse to play against than an ion cannon. I don't mean that no one should try any of the solutions listed in the thread; what I am saying is that I've playtested a lot of different ideas for tractor beams in support of a homebrew campaign as well as some other experiments, and literally everything I've tried so far has either ruined the game or strayed so far from the "tractor beam" concept that it's not interesting.

I agree with above but I am also just gonna come out and say it so if it hurts your feelers to bad

If a Tractor Beam system was implimented in X-Wing the game would be done. DONE! Because all it takes is one guy to min max his squad to get like 4 or 5 Tractor beams so he would totaly control the game. Witch is not only anti-fun but it would turn off a lot of players. So sure get your tractor beam abuse the crap out of it and when there is only like 4 or 5 of you in the world still playing X-Wing Tractor Beam you can crown your self head cheesy butt.

Okay, since we haven't talked about this enough.

So how many laser cannons does the X-wing have? How many dice does it roll? Are the two numbers equal?

Rhetorical questions, if you can't answer them I don't want to waste my time explaining them to you.

But everything is on a representational scale. Keep in mind this is a game about starfighter combat based off of a flight path simulating real-time dogfights (which exists in 3d space) on a turn based 2d plane. Some things have got to give, your pet peeve is one of them.

Translating a ship statistic into a game statistic is not the same as omitting a ship feature entirely.

Considering that the ship has been omitted until the launch of Wave 6. I don't call it a failure.

Being able to directly affect enemy maneuvers is basically uncharted design space, there's SO many interesting things they could do with it that I have to consider the lack of a tractor beam on the Aggressor to be a direct failure rather than any of the more-forgivable choices.

The big issue is that loosing control of your ship is anti-fun

This this this.

It's uncharted design space because it's actually very hard to implement something that feels like a Tractor Beam ought to feel without completely wrecking your opponent's fun. Or, to put it another way, most of this game is about maneuvering your ships. (Yes, even ships with turrets, and I'm not interested in litigating that discussion here.) A tractor beam, conceptually, limits your opponent's maneuvering.

So a tractor beam is something that means my opponent doesn't get to play most of the game for some length of time. We already have game elements that work like this in the Ion Cannon and Ion Cannon Turret, and they inflict a pretty steep cost: they cost your attack but cap the damage you can do, and they're fairly expensive. Even so, I've played both with and against ion lists that create extremely frustrating situations because if the list is being run properly, the opponent doesn't get to make any decisions.

So a tractor beam in X-wing has to cover the "control my opponent's movement" space without (a) stepping on the ion cannon or (b) being even worse to play against than an ion cannon. I don't mean that no one should try any of the solutions listed in the thread; what I am saying is that I've playtested a lot of different ideas for tractor beams in support of a homebrew campaign as well as some other experiments, and literally everything I've tried so far has either ruined the game or strayed so far from the "tractor beam" concept that it's not interesting.

I agree with above but I am also just gonna come out and say it so if it hurts your feelers to bad

If a Tractor Beam system was implimented in X-Wing the game would be done. DONE! Because all it takes is one guy to min max his squad to get like 4 or 5 Tractor beams so he would totaly control the game. Witch is not only anti-fun but it would turn off a lot of players. So sure get your tractor beam abuse the crap out of it and when there is only like 4 or 5 of you in the world still playing X-Wing Tractor Beam you can crown your self head cheesy butt.

Phantom notwithstanding (sort of!), I actually do trust FFG to be good at balancing things, if Tractor Beams are ever implemented I doubt they'd be as broken as people presume.