I need tractor beam rules for the Corellian Customs Corvette. This type of ship would definitely have one for maneuvering smaller ships into the docking arms. I would say that only one ship may be targeted by the TB each round.

I've had a few ideas, but I'm not completely sold on any of them. I think that a ship that can make a (white/green) 4-forward maneuver should be able to break through the TB with the aid of dice.

Ex: Luke is targeted by the TB. He rolls two evade dice and rolls an evade icon. He is free from the TB but must move 4 forward the next movement phase.

Example 2: Wedge is targeted by the TB. He tries to break free of the TB and rolls two evade dice. He gets blank results and is caught in the TB. He may try to break free from the TB during the next movement phase.

When a ship is caught in aTB, how should it be penalized? I was thinking. The player who controls the TB may move the affected ship "1" in any direction, this includes forward, backward and sideways. Maybe he could use straight or bank 1 movement templates.

Ships caught by the TB do not get a regular movement. They may take actions and fire.

When it comes to rolling dice against the the TB I guess an evade action could be used, as well as focus.

Thoughts?

How about using it as a normal weapon, the attacker rolls X red dice and the defender rolls green dice as normal (no bonus/penalty for range). For each scored hit the target recieves a TB token.

In the following movement phase the caught ship sets its dial as normal (no K-turns or red maneuvers) but the other player can discard anumber of the TB tokens to reduce the speed of the maneuver with one per discarded token.

If another ship is targeted by the TB all tokens on the previous target are removed.

The TB (Tractor Beam) could "Lock On" to a ship in a similar way as a TL. Maybe the strength of the TB depends on the range? Maybe it is like an Ion Cannon in that it rolls dice to "hit" the target. Small and elusive targets will be harder to get hit but once they are hit they could find it difficult to break off. Maybe the TB gives "stress" tokens and the target ship loses their actions to stop ships "barrel rolling" away. If the targeted ship is able to move beyond effective range (range 1-2?) then they can break free.

I like Veldrin's idea of TB tokens and their reduction in speed. The TB tokens could even be just stress tokens so a tractored vessel is restricted in what it can do.

Edit: OK maybe the TB tokens should not be stress tokens only because certain pilots can ignore stress.

Ship with Tractor Beam gets to perform a free barrel roll action on defending ship, moving it towards attacker, defending ship receives ion token? Maybe require target lock action for initial attack, and subsequent TL actions+successful attacks to maintain?

My take on the Tractor Beam:

Two types:

1. Capital Ship heavy weapon- the kind used by the Death Star to drag in the Millenium Falcon. I am not covering that here as I will leave that to those who are working on capital ship rules. Sorry.

2. Smaller, less powerful Tractor Beams fitted to fighters to increase their effectiveness/lethality by reducing a target's ability to dodge/evade fire. These weapons, to fit into a starfighter, must be relatively small, light weight and underpowered (compared to capital ship weapons) and will not work on large or capital ship targets (then again, how evasive are these targets anyways?). They work by reducing a target's ability to dodge fire, making them a more predictable and thus easier target. My goal was to create a unique weapon that was simple and worked well within the existing rules without being overpowered or requiring complex rules. Therefore...

Tractor Beams (fighter): "W hen targeting small ships at range 1, reduce target’s Evade by 1 (to a minimum of 0)”

Therefore...Thus, a small, evasive target (like a starfighter) becomes a somewhat easier target, making the attacker's weapons that much more effective. Range is only "1", so not overpowered. I would consider this to be in effect for any target in arc (not a separate attack, like Ion Turret or HLC). Costwise, I'd point it out similar to an Ion Turret. This could be considered a choice for a "Cannon" slot or built into a ship's design (like I did with my stats for the TIE Defender).

Chris

I like the ideas of a regular attack format. I also like the TB token idea. I like that the target gets stress. I like that the targeted ship must be Target locked and gets an ion token. Q: could the ship move 1 backwards and barrel roll if it is facing away from the capital ship?

Chris: Both TB ideas are good as they do depend on the size of the ship using the TB. Is the small scale fighter version an action to use? Should it also be like Homing missiles and also "ignore evade tokens"?

Viceroy: The TB rules will need to be tested of course but look promising. How many rounds of a game do we want a "tractor beam tug o' war" going on for? I think requiring the ship to use a TL action just to maintain it could be good and maybe they have to roll for this from turn to turn so could lose it with poor die rolls. As soon as you start moving ships then large ones like the Falcon will start moving "more" than little ones due to their base size. So another factor is the size of the ship. Like ion tokens a large ship may need more TB tokens to force it to move due to their size.

I agree - lore says that the smaller ships were more difficult to lock on to. It would be more "accurate" for bigger ships to move more because they would be easier to catch with the beam. I thought about giving the smaller ships an extra evade die because the customs corvette was designed to catch freighters. This corvette is armed with turbolasers. I would also give small ships an extra green die against them. This would be more consistent with the Empire's focus on large ships rather than fighters.

"They're so small they're evading our turbolasers."

"We'll have to destroy them ship-to-ship. Get the crews to their fighters."

Oops, I mis-spoke,

the TB should be considered a "System"upgrade (or integral part of ship design) not as a "Cannon) as that would imply that it is a weapon in its own right.

DB,

no, the TB would not require any "Actions" such as Target Lock or Focus (though a TL as a prerequisite is not a bad idea) as I would consider it to be linked to and supporting the fire control system of the ship. There would be no need for special cards or tokens, no "tractor auctions" (to steal a term from another scifi game), no special rules at all... at least none that are not already replicated by certain pilot's unique abilities (ex. Wedge). As I said, capital ship TBs would be a completely different animal and would require very different rules.

When considering rules for capital ships/weapons, we have to ask, what effect/attributes does this ship/weapon have. What effects do we see (in SW canon) of TBs? How have they been used on film or in stories? What are their battlefield effects and in what situations were TBs used? How do we reproduce those effects in the game while keeping it simple and applying a maximum of mechanics already used in the game? Is there anything even similar in the game already?

Chris Maes

The ion effect is obviously the closest mechanic. You attack with the ion cannon, you achieve a hit, you assign an ion token, you resolve the ion affected move. You remove the ion token.

So the TB could basically be the same mechanic but with differences. The TB attack does not cause damage, the TB token is assigned. What happens next is the part that could be resolved several ways:

A) The TB could reduce the target's movement options or speed in their next move.

B) The TB could force the defender to be moved by the attacker in their next move or to be moved immediately after the attack. This could be a move 1 straight or move 1 bank for example as long as it is towards the attacking ship.

Like an ion attack there may only need to have one TB token assigned regardless of how many hits were achieved. Large ships like the Falcon might need 2 TB tokens. Once the TB effect has happened then the token should be removed. I like the idea of a ship that has been hit by a TB has their Agility reduced by 1 (other people on " A few maneuvers " have also suggested this and have some good ideas for TBs as well).

Some ideas for making TBs different:

If a TL was required or used for a TB then maybe this TL could only be attempted if the target was in the fire arc of the TB. This could reflect the difficulty of tracking a target with a TB whereas a traditional TL is more to do with acquiring a sensor lock. If the target moves out of this arc or range then the TB TL could be lost.

Maybe a ship can choose to "fight" the TB by rolling their evade dice but if they attempt this then they gain a stress token (if the TB scores no hits then this has no affect). Alternately they could choose to not fight it (voluntarily not roll any evade dice) and be pulled by the TB. This would allow for scenarios where friendly ships could be pulled by a TB just by having a TB token assigned to it. The target is co-operating with the TB ship (ie: TBs are used in docking operations after all) so they should be automatically successful.