We have had some fun discussing the Tractor beam and it not moving People off the board. Now how about in the future having one that can push small ships out of play for more points and possibly even damage to one's self to pull it off. I can see this as an improvement to the game. Where I play whenever we have tournaments, 2 or 3 people bring 4 B-wing's and skirt the edge of the map. Turning only to focus fire on any one getting to close. It is bloody boring. ( I know there are ways around it.) My point that even if there was a one shot weapon that had the threat of pushing them off it would make for a more interesting game. I interested in everyone's opinion.

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

We have had some fun discussing the Tractor beam and it not moving People off the board. Now how about in the future having one that can push small ships out of play for more points and possibly even damage to one's self to pull it off. I can see this as an improvement to the game. Where I play whenever we have tournaments, 2 or 3 people bring 4 B-wing's and skirt the edge of the map. Turning only to focus fire on any one getting to close. It is bloody boring. ( I know there are ways around it.) My point that even if there was a one shot weapon that had the threat of pushing them off it would make for a more interesting game. I interested in everyone's opinion.

Four B-wings sticking to the edge of the board are very easy to flank and destroy, or block and destroy, or both. Tractor beams that can roll things out of the play area aren't needed to change up your local metagame--just experiment with new approaches.

And in general, you don't want a Tractor Beam that can push people off the board. No matter how much fun you think it is in theory, a weapon that effectively says "If you hit, the defender is destroyed" is not a good thing for the game.

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

Sorry for being a bit off the topic, but that's not entirely true. You can bring someone closer to you with a boost/barrelroll and push them off the board at the same time

This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam.

It's already impossible to do that.

Where I play whenever we have tournaments, 2 or 3 people bring 4 B-wing's and skirt the edge of the map.

That's great!

SOmebody uses a squad that's not a PS8+ acefest!

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

Space is not a 2 dimensional table... House rules are pretty dumb, generally these things are play tested a lot with the current ships that are available and dont need "extra" rules thrown in.

With space being a vacuum and having minimal resistance, why can't a weapon that we have 0 ideas about concerning the physics, move a small ship sideways?

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

Space is not a 2 dimensional table... House rules are pretty dumb, generally these things are play tested a lot with the current ships that are available and dont need "extra" rules thrown in.

With space being a vacuum and having minimal resistance, why can't a weapon that we have 0 ideas about concerning the physics, move a small ship sideways?

He's trying to promote the fluff of how it works supposedly in the universe: To pull things closer. Or create some sort of slow motion tug on something towards the originator of beam. Instead of pushing it around whatever way you want.

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

Space is not a 2 dimensional table... House rules are pretty dumb, generally these things are play tested a lot with the current ships that are available and dont need "extra" rules thrown in.

With space being a vacuum and having minimal resistance, why can't a weapon that we have 0 ideas about concerning the physics, move a small ship sideways?

What you do in your house is none of my concern, I like my idea of the rules, don't forget that your ships fly like they are in atmosphere and make pew pew pew noises in space. I love to see how you play the game in 3D and silence explosions... must be fun.

All I was saying is that I would try to use the tractor beam as it would behave.... to pull objects closer. Everyone else can play it any way they like.

This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam.

It's already impossible to do that.

It's sort of possible. Once in a while a ship will be so close to the edge that it has to pull a turn to get back in the game. In some cases a hit from a Tractor Beam can roll or boost them so close that they'll be outside the mat no matter what they do next turn.

This is going to be my Wave 8 challenge, and I'll award myself a little medal once I do it.

As it is, people will already have to be extra careful angling their ships. Just making that turn can turn out to just flying yourself off the edge.

So in a lot of cases the field got that much smaller while asteroids got a lot bigger.

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

Space is not a 2 dimensional table... House rules are pretty dumb, generally these things are play tested a lot with the current ships that are available and dont need "extra" rules thrown in.

With space being a vacuum and having minimal resistance, why can't a weapon that we have 0 ideas about concerning the physics, move a small ship sideways?

What you do in your house is none of my concern, I like my idea of the rules, don't forget that your ships fly like they are in atmosphere and make pew pew pew noises in space. I love to see how you play the game in 3D and silence explosions... must be fun.

All I was saying is that I would try to use the tractor beam as it would behave.... to pull objects closer. Everyone else can play it any way they like.

How do you know that a tractor beam and a reflector beam are not the same thing, just reversed polarity on the thingwazza switch? Under the real rules you still cant push a small ship backwards, maybe the engines have something to say about that.

In sci-fi in general, tractor beams are just a generic term for a non-descript energy beam that moves stuff. It doesn't necessarily mean something is pulling rather than pushing. If anything, pushing is easier to explain (repulsor beams exist already, albeit only at a scale where they're moving sub atomics).

The thing about making it so the weapon can push people off the board edge is that it's massively overpowered immediately. Thinking specifically about that B-wing example, there are no weapons in the game that can one-shot a B-wing without being insanely lucky (AHM into a crit train would do it, but that's about it). If you have a three-dice cannon that can push someone off the board edge they're parallel to (first of all, they're not the brightest for being that close knowing you have it), it becomes a one-hit-kill on an eight hit point ship. AHM's could one-hit-kill a B-wing, but it relies on a massive amount of RNG luck with the damage deck, and even then it'll only happen once. A cannon makes it repeatable; ever more so if you're spamming them.

One of the things I like about the Tractor Beam is the cost. One point for something that doesn't do damage, but has massive utility is great.

I'm seriously considering four FCS B-wings with Tractor Beams. I love B-wings but they fall apart to TLT Y-wings so often I've simply stopped taking them. Now I can pull them into R1 from R2, push them from R3 to R4, or pop them on an asteroid, to save being shot at (and in the first and last case, primary fire at them with zero agility). Sure, I can't push them off the board, but when I've removed the green dice of one of the tankiest small ships in the game, and pulled them into R1, why would I need to?

Similarly it gives the Scyk some interesting utility, and gives Imperial lists some really interesting choices in terms of building around a lower pilot skill to make use of that diminished agility.

There's no way it'd cost just a single point if you could push people right off the edge, and costing more would make it considerably less attractive as an option, for something that's actually very situational.

When I eventually get a tractor beam I will house rule that you can only move the target closer to you, ie: Pulling you in. This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam. Now give me a Repulsor Beam and that is a different story!

I also hope they have a Huge ship version that can spend 1 energy to "tractor" a small ship and maybe 2 energy to "tractor" a large ship.

What if it was a Tractor Repulser beam? how about calling it a Redactor beam, that also will help seperate from its Star Trek cousin which has the same name.

Just switch it from Suck to Blow.

Seriously, though, I don't think TB will be so crazy as some people think. I don't really see more than one in a list being that effective. Maybe two, but one should be fine. I don't see why some people think having every ship with one is effective.

The 4x B-wing with TB list I mentioned is more because if I put it on two, I have two largely useless points left over anyway. Paying two extra points for the sake of optimum opportunity to fire, rather than anything.

I'm still upset over the cost of the Scyk. 17 points for a tractor beam PS 2 Scyk is still just too much. Going to try flying a Cartel with Tractor and a Ruthless Freelancer with Title and Tractor together along with two PS 1 Starvipers (with AT). Sounds like fun and should test the effectiveness of cannon.

Want to speed up moving a target off the board? Start thinking of combos that involve one tractor beam and one ion cannon. A small ship facing towards the edge at range 2 suddenly feels that edge getting a lot closer if you hit it with both, especially if it does not have a hard turn 1 on its dial.

This kind of makes it impossible to push anything off the board with a tractor beam.

It's already impossible to do that.

It's sort of possible. Once in a while a ship will be so close to the edge that it has to pull a turn to get back in the game. In some cases a hit from a Tractor Beam can roll or boost them so close that they'll be outside the mat no matter what they do next turn.

This is going to be my Wave 8 challenge, and I'll award myself a little medal once I do it.

I was hoping there would be some maneuverability component to tractor beams on small ships. Like being able to use ships or asteroids as anchors to swing around them. Still could show up on a particular pilot or a different type of beam, but would be a cool thing to add in my opinion.