1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:I've already explained myself on that one, so unless you are referring to something that I didn't actually cover, I would just refer you to those posts.
I'm using size as a stand-in for power generation because the larger the ship, the more power is required, and the more power can be produced. That also goes into what I was saying earlier about shielding. Plus if I simply removed that without putting something in to replace it it would unbalance the system.
I'm not sure what your point is regarding the distribution of classes of Tractor Beams, but the reason for more math is that it should be harder for a starfighter to escape the pull of an ISD's tractor beam than for an MC80 Liberty to do so, so having a blanket difficulty makes no sense to me. Here is one way to think about it: a shield generator must cover the entire span of a ship. Sort of like blowing up a balloon, as it expands, it gets thinner, and as it shrinks it gets thicker. if a tractor beam is projecting a field around the target ship, it must operate on a similar principle, thus making the field weaker around a large ship than around a small ship.
No, it isn't, no it shouldn't. The only thing that should be harder is for a ship to escape from a stronger Tractor Beam . And that is already determined by the Tractor Rating of said beam. The size of the ship using said beam is completely irrelevant. A large capital scale bulk Freighter is likely to have only light or medium Tractor bean generators, regardless of the ship's size. That means, that it's likely not going to be capturing ships of any size any time soon. By the same token, even a relatively small picket ship , such as a Customs cruiser, is more likely to have Heavy tractor beam generators because its very purpose is to capture smugglers and pirates, even if those ships are larger than the picket ship. Ergo, a picket ship will have Heavy tractor Beams. The size of the picket ship is irrelevant. As long as it can mount the heavy tractor beams, it's going to be capable of capturing ships, even ships bigger than itself. It's what such a ship is designed for. As such, the only thing that is important to the game is the Tractor Rating of the tractor beam generators. The ship's size does not matter at all.