Forget direction. The real problem with Tractors in X-wing is how they compare to ion in timing and effect. Let's review.

Ion, takes a turn to work. Tractors happen immediately. Loss of control, versus impacted control, and agility.

But on screen when we see tractors work they have a laggy effect, like in ep4 on the falcon. They also don't move objects that fast anyway. Heck, when any ship in Star Wars is first tractored, there's usually a moment of still confusion while they try to figure out why their ship is slowing down before it's then maneuvered around. Again, slowly even then. But when a Star destroyer gets hit by ion torps in Rogue one, that whole thing goes offline right away. Any other time we see something get hit by ion it takes effect almost immediately and causes total shutdown. But some how FFG had it setup in reverse, where Ion doesn't do anything until the next round, but tractors take effect immediately. Freaking weird timing that.

Then when it comes to agility how in the galactic heck does a ship that's Ionized and going through a massive systems failure so bad that it drifts along at a crawl for a turn have any agility at all? But for whatever reason your tractors battering me across the board, I still have full engines and controls mind you even though their responding sluggish, hecken I'm actually moving very erratically under a tractor, my agility goes down? Wait...wat? wai? What's going on there? If I'm Ionized, I should be rolling NO AGILITY dice by the logic of Tractors, I'm temporarily adrift afterall. But by ion logic, tractors should not even effect agility. So which of the two is 'right'? It's all very backwards to me.

Ion I wager was designed early enough that the original experience and concept crew from the base design was still in control,(might have even been a integral part of the base design really), and why it's relatively tame. Tractor was designed obviously later enough that someone who probably had more play time with the game than design time on it had been given the wheel, and brought their 'Spike' attitude to the table and ran wild. A very common problem in the design world really from what I've gathered from designer journals. I've always wanted a peak under the hood on how Tractors got through tests. I just can't fathom what they were thinking there. Oh well. Guess we'll just have to wait for 2.5 😆 🙄 😒

Personally, I think tractor tokens do too much. Most tokens can be spent for a single effect. Focus results to hits / evades, Evade tokens for an evade result, Ion token(s) to force a 1 straight.

Pilot and upgrade abilities alter this of course, but usually the standard is one single effect.

Tractor Beam tokens do two thing; force a reposition AND reduce agility. Which means when you add in pilot abilities and upgrade abilities, yeah, it does start to feel wonky.

Using a Tractor token to apply a single effect - i.e. reposition target OR reduce it's agility (or reposition self, **cough**Nantex**cough**) would seem to be .ore in line with the rest of the game.

I mean, it's not a HUGELY prevailent mechanic, even with Nantex and Quadjumper, but the more effects you apply via a single source, the more ripe for abuse it becomes.

52 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

But for whatever reason your tractors battering me across the board, I still have full engines and controls mind you even though their responding sluggish, hecken I'm actually moving very erratically under a tractor, my agility goes down?

😆 🙄 😒

To Devil's Advocate this particular point, Jamming Beam weapons made their debut in the X-Wing PC game series, in TIE Fighter. Their entire application in the game was to reduce the maneuverability of fast, agile ships like A-Wings, making their movements easier to track and to hit them.

When it comes to the Tractor Beam as a weapon, as far as that goes, the reduction. In agility is pretty thematic.

6 hours ago, gadwag said:

Last night I was playing against 3 quadjumpers and latts razzi

Please tell me your opponent had Ketsu crew on Latts. It would be so sad to miss that opportunity.

5 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

If nothing else, you can note that the range of the tractor on the falcon by the Death Star was wildly further than any turbo laser or other beam weapon shots we’ve seen.

You do realize what kind of "Beam Weapon" you're talking about, right?

Because... It's got some range to it...

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

You do realize what kind of "Beam Weapon" you're talking about, right?

Because... It's got some range to it...

Yes, obviously the Death Star’s superlaser can be fairly compared to every beam weapon in the Star Wars universe. That seems apples to apples.

Edit: I was so hasty I forgot to mention how it was great when Obi-Wan snuck into the main superlaser control room to disable the tractor beams, which were totally and obviously surface based weaponry. One of my favorite scenes in all of Star Wars.

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

To Devil's Advocate this particular point, Jamming Beam weapons made their debut in the X-Wing PC game series, in TIE Fighter. Their entire application in the game was to reduce the maneuverability of fast, agile ships like A-Wings, making their movements easier to track and to hit them.

When it comes to the Tractor Beam as a weapon, as far as that goes, the reduction. In agility is pretty thematic.

If it hampered my dial maneuvering on the next turn, I'd totally agree with you. And it's a mechanical angle I think that would be good to have in X-wing to counter things just like A-wings and Interceptors and what not like you say. But that's not what these things do.

It would be a good version though to have them be able to say going into your next maneuver that they are going to spend their tractor token to 'Force' you towards our away an angle or speed. Like of there were four cardinal commands they could give like...

1/2.) You must go one speed faster /slower

3/4.) you must go one bearing more to the left/right

That way tractors can kinda pull you back in a bit by saying oh wow, I really don't want you turning right, hey one bearing left. Blocking it your right turn, keeping you at right banks. But that also means that if you set a blue straight, you actually get 'tractored' into a blue bank. Giving some really interesting play/counterplay interaction. That would be kinda neat

I like it better I think than my original idea which was whatever maneuver they set next is performed at 1 speed slower. Which led to funny things like speed one moves are actually stops and rotates.

14 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Yes, obviously the Death Star’s superlaser can be fairly compared to every beam weapon in the Star Wars universe. That seems apples to apples.

I was only meaning to imply that the Death Star might have had some pretty powerful tractor beams on board. It shouldn't be taken as a typical example of anything.

56 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I was only meaning to imply that the Death Star might have had some pretty powerful tractor beams on board. It shouldn't be taken as a typical example of anything.

I'm sure it did have unusually powerful tractor beams, courtesy of the fact that the reactor was strong enough to generate a super laser to blow up a planet.

I mean, let's face it - tractor beams in Star Wars operate by rule of cool. They'll be as strong or weak as the story needs them to be. But we've never seen them mounted on a turret that I'm aware of, and it's pretty clear to me that they're not beam weapons. If others disagree, that's fine, it's all made up anyway

It's funny though that in both major Death Star battles the stations did not use their tractor arrays. Actually in every battle that they could have mattered in the were bizarrely eschewed. The fighter squads were not tractored coming off of Yavin IV. The Rebel fleet was not tractored to a halt over Endor to keep them in front of the Destroyer fleet and prevent the Ackbar Slash. It's really very obvious that when combat was engaged these things fell off the list of options.

If we were to at least come up with a basic set of consistent rules for when they were deployed, what conditions were necessary for them to work, you can come up with a few consistent things.

Like the ship getting tractored usually had to be a mix or any of the following: Unaware, Unable to resist (no engines, Tantive IV), Willing to be tractored, or Not in combat Configuration.

The tractor user usually* seems to always follow the following rules: Has to be bigger than the target* (often by magnitudes), Has a moment to prepare the system (often by surprise) when used aggressively, Requires it to dedicate considerable vessel resources (crew and energy) to it's use.

*Clearly the guad-jumper breaks these rules. I theorize that it's tractor system was not really a push-pull type, but more an 'anchor' type. So it basically was a specific distance attachable engine cluster. And it's combat application was more to ferry off ships disabled by earlier action, it's laser system only intended to protect it while it carried out the rear guard action buying it valuable time to accomplish the tow procedure.

... My name is Dante, and I over think every thing...*all*HI DANTE

22 hours ago, executor said:

Really? Are you really going to lecture me on the physics of science fiction?

Take a step back from the fantasy for a minute and understand what you're arguing here.

Last time i checked we don't have tractor beam technology. So unless you have somehow invented it. I don't think you can argue the physics of a sci-fi technology

I think we should debate space wizards with laser swords next

haha you werent saying that to start, but okay. I'll let it slide.

i agree 2d ww2 dogfighting in space doesnt have to be realistic

20 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I've always wanted a peak under the hood on how Tractors got through tests. I just can't fathom what they were thinking there.

I'd be interested in more of that story as well. I'd be curious if what we ended up with is stronger or weaker than the first tested idea. I'm not a big fan of the tractor mechanics. Between the tractor beams and TIE Defenders it is surprising I did not stop playing this game as soon as I started.

On 11/7/2019 at 9:50 AM, Frimmel said:

Yes, you can argue the physics. Just because something in science fiction doesn't exist doesn't mean that the something doesn't need rules and logic with some grounding in the rules and logic of the real world your audience lives in.

Take a step back and understand what you're arguing here. If there aren't any rules for the tech and it can just do whatever the plot needs then the writers are free to cheat and get their characters out of things with rabbits pulled from hats and not the character's cleverness. They then undermine their own story because the difficulties to be overcome don't matter.

And in Star Wars The Force is more or less "magic" in a D&D sort of world. And it needs rules too.

https://hollylisle.com/fantasy-is-not-for-sissies-real-rules-for-real-worlds/

Have you seen Star Wars? They ignore physics entirely. Like how the star ships fly in space as though they are in atmosphere.

44 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

I'd be interested in more of that story as well. I'd be curious if what we ended up with is stronger or weaker than the first tested idea. I'm not a big fan of the tractor mechanics. Between the tractor beams and TIE Defenders it is surprising I did not stop playing this game as soon as I started.

Right? I remember leading up to it, and I mean like years before it was even announced as an official rule, there were tons of fan versions and home brew stuff. I suppose much of that would have filtered into FFG ears. Maybe, maybe even at some level was a foundation test bed? There was quite a bit of discussion back in those days for and against it and how could they do it if they did and whatnot. It's not like there was shortage of material to borrow from.

I was of the opinion back in that time that they should have it reserved as a mechanic for the epic ships, give them something that makes them 'big and scary' as it were. But, well, here we are. By gosh it's intriguing though what we got and how it got through. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the design studio back in those days. 🤔 🧐

17 minutes ago, faceyfood said:

Have you seen Star Wars? They ignore physics entirely. Like how the star ships fly in space as though they are in atmosphere.

They do not ignore physics entirely. Why do you think Star Wars needs hyperspace? Does hyperspace travel come from understanding physics or from ignoring it entirely?

And with the dog-fighting and ships flying what's the ask there when they ask us to accept that dog-fighting in space works like dog-fighting in a planet's atmosphere? And how does that serve the story? It grounds the fantastic in something we in the audience understand and can relate too.

The problem isn't when something like Star Wars ignores the rules of the real world. It is when it ignores the rules of its own world. They don't get to say in one movie the tractor beam works one way and in another movie say it works a different way. TFA and TLJ are dreadful movies largely from the idea you espouse here that there aren't any rules that need followed because ships in space wouldn't fly like they fly in atmosphere and they have space wizards and laser swords.

A fantasy world can have any rules it likes such as wearing a ring can turn you invisible at the slow cost of your soul. The fantasy world doesn't get to throw it out as soon as the creators don't get to do something cool because of the rule.

In your understanding why can you not track ships through hyperspace in Star Wars before TLJ? What is the point from a story-telling standpoint of that convention? Not from an in universe sort of thing. From an outside structuring a fantasy universe to tell stories in reason.

21 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

Right? I remember leading up to it, and I mean like years before it was even announced as an official rule, there were tons of fan versions and home brew stuff. I suppose much of that would have filtered into FFG ears. Maybe, maybe even at some level was a foundation test bed? There was quite a bit of discussion back in those days for and against it and how could they do it if they did and whatnot. It's not like there was shortage of material to borrow from.

I was of the opinion back in that time that they should have it reserved as a mechanic for the epic ships, give them something that makes them 'big and scary' as it were. But, well, here we are. By gosh it's intriguing though what we got and how it got through. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the design studio back in those days. 🤔 🧐

You can see a lot of that sort of thing in the currently ongoing "Force powers you'd like thread." A sort of it is on the screen it should be jammed into the game somehow attitude. It is how we got Force in the game in 2nd Edition in the first place.

19 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

If it hampered my dial maneuvering on the next turn, I'd totally agree with you. And it's a mechanical angle I think that would be good to have in X-wing to counter things just like A-wings and Interceptors and what not like you say. But that's not what these things do...

...I hear what you're saying, but when based on the Tractor Beam weapon from the X-Wing games (and that's really what we should be comparing the effect to, not Death Star or Star Destroyer tractor beams, which are designed to immobilise and capture ships), I don't think dial hampering is the way to go.

In the games they made the target easier to hit, sure. A reduction in the affected ship's Agility does that quite effectively, without causing too much loss of player agency.

Dial hampering can seriously affect player agency - which is one of the reasons Tractor effects can feel somewhat wonky in the first place, especially when combined with Agility (rather than instead of).

10 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

...I hear what you're saying, but when based on the Tractor Beam weapon from the X-Wing games (and that's really what we should be comparing the effect to, not Death Star or Star Destroyer tractor beams, which are designed to immobilise and capture ships), I don't think dial hampering is the way to go.

In the games they made the target easier to hit, sure. A reduction in the affected ship's Agility does that quite effectively, without causing too much loss of player agency.

Dial hampering can seriously affect player agency - which is one of the reasons Tractor effects can feel somewhat wonky in the first place, especially when combined with Agility (rather than instead of).

I myself never got to play those, so it's kinda neat to hear what they did. I got loads of flight time in Shadows of the Empire, and all the Battlefront games, though. Not a one of which even had tractors. (There might have been some in a cutscenes or two, honestly I don't remember.) So just to borrow your logic for a bit, by it's reasoning of, and clearly I'm paraphrasing here "it worked this way there, so it should work this way here" Then tractor shouldn't exist at all, since there are far more games, and more importantly screen material, that never had it at all. Realistically, going with a straight one to one comparison should not be the modus operandi. With of course the exception of canonical, on screen, material. I would view this as a way to always defer to the greatest common denominator, what we're pretty sure every fan has had as experience of, that being the movies. So in all practicality, if we were going to base tractors off anything, it really should be the ones we see in the movies, followed by the shows, followed by books/games/comics, on down till all the source material is 'covered'. But we're dangerously close to a rabbit/black hole with this part. Best turn back. Sorry, tangent.

The player agency thing is an interesting point though isn't it? Because one of the number one complaints I hear and read about tractors is that it is far worse than a loss of agency, it's a transfer of control entirely, like you also rightly have noticed. And yeah it sucks SOOOOO bad.

Like, the thing you say we should be wary of here, and I agree, had already been thoroughly breached and then some hasn't it by the current version? And I agree, it's a terrible thing to have that agency taken away from you. Because as it is, the tractor controlling player, the opponent, is now making some pretty major decisions and physically changing the position of your ships. And as anyone who's played games knows, it's never good when your opponent can make choices for you. (Looking at you, Magic 'Mindslaver')

As it is currently, you could have expertly cleared through a tight maneuver next to a debris. Then get tractored and eat the Debris right away, and then again the following turn, and now how much agency have you lost? You have two turns at least you'll need to clear stress, your losing at least one action, your maneuvers for those two turns are now down to what, like 4 to 6 blue choices depending on the ship you have? In the process they have changed your Arc, your range, and your targeting priority is now likely shot, no pun intended, but that's a good one. 😆

The other weird one that gets roped into this discussion is Ion right? And it causes a fairly important loss of agency. It even turns off a fair number of abilities that require Dials to boot. But the funny thing is it never gets anywhere near the feed-back-flak that tractors do. Sure it gets some, but most are content with it. Even more now that you can only focus (honestly I thought that was a bit Overkill too I guess, but it's also fair and theme-y still so I'll buy it).

Ok so I'm getting really wordy again, here's the thing I want to say, and I'm hoping you agree Gecko, that if all I had to deal with was a slight limit on my next one dial, instead of having to deal with figuring out multiple turns of new flight path, would be a huge improvement in how much agency I retain.

Alternatively we could still fantasize about other options. Like, maybe we interpret it as when you get tractored, it just causes a strain. It gives a temporary agility drop, or affects your upcoming maneuver one time. Puts it more on par with Jam. Covers all the bases. At some level I'm willing to accept a little loss IF it's thematically appropriate and within a respectable boundary. Like, I accept getting Ionized is going to cause some control loss. I'd expect tractors to as well.

On 11/8/2019 at 3:37 AM, ClassicalMoser said:

Please tell me your opponent had Ketsu crew on Latts. It would be so sad to miss that opportunity.

No, he had jabba the Hutt for the quadjumpers to use with contraband cybernetics (and yes, he knew pattern analyser would have been a simpler solution)

8 hours ago, gadwag said:

No, he had jabba the Hutt for the quadjumpers to use with contraband cybernetics (and yes, he knew pattern analyser would have been a simpler solution)

Why not both? 2 actions per turn 4 turns in a row, while moving backwards? Sounds pretty cool to me. Not good, but cool!

Still, with so much tractor and so much arc coverage, lack of Ketsu is so sad...