Tractor Beam III useless

[Ed Kolis]

This might have been noticed ages ago, but it could easily be fixed in a mod and/or patch - the Tractor Beam III is useless, since it pulls ships in by 4 squares, but its range is 4, so it can't GRAB ships from far enough away to move them 4 squares, making it no better than the Tractor Beam II, which is cheaper! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[geoschmo]

So technically it's not useless, just a little inneficent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Will]

I don't know if the game still does this, but I believe any excess "damage" from the tractor beam not used in pulling in the opposing ship is applied to the opposing ship. So, if you use a T-Beam III at point blank range, four damage would be applied to the ship fired upon.

Now that I think about it, could be an... interesting weapon, if it still "works". I really only noticed it when I put a bunch of T-Beam, weapon, Repulsor weapon combos on a starbase, and made all of them Massive mounts (the overkill didn't occur to me, I just wanted range). It might be able to be modded to a weapon a la Graviton Hellbore, only... different http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[Taera]

all damage from T and R weapons applies as effect + normal damage. So if you make a tractor do 500 damage it might well kill a ship. Same with Warp guns.

[Pax]

I've always thought Tractor beams shoudl have a longer range -- say, damage^2 ... so a TR3 which does 4, should reach out to range 16. The idea is to get things closer, right? So, why would you use such a weapon, if you're already darned close to begin with ... ?

Repulsor beams, OTOH, should have range inversely related to how hard they can push, IMO. The further out a single Repulsor can kick you, the less it should affect you with each "kick".

[Andrés]

That's one of the things I made in the Star Wars mod. Shor range beam weapons combined with long range tractor beams.

[LGM]

Massive mount Repulser beams are real nice an a Baseship with Null Space weapons. Maul the ship and then fling the shell 20 squares away for later cleanup.

Nice on Massive Starbase mounts too.
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As for range 4, effect 4 tractor beams, it would be nice if they would make you Ram if that is your orders. This would give Ramming ships a nice boast to their strike range. It appears that tractor beams bring the ship adjacent, so your next movement (possibly next turn) would execute the RAM>

[Taera]

or use MM SD, MM SD, MM ID, MM RB for better range and cost, plus fired every turn.

[Ed Kolis]

Why would you want to put repulsors on a starbase? That just keeps the enemies out of range so they just surive and blockade you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[Loser]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Why would you want to put repulsors on a starbase? That just keeps the enemies out of range so they just surive and blockade you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">When any fleet that takes on a Starbase is going to come with "Don't Get Hurt" support ships that will blockade your immobile planet anyway it would be easily worth it to throw ships that are potentially still dangerous away from your precious planet.

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Why would you want to put repulsors on a starbase? That just keeps the enemies out of range so they just surive and blockade you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Each repulsor effectively removes one ship per turn from combat.

That makes it much more likely for your base to survive, and the scattered ships are easier to clean up with your mobile forces.

[Will]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Why would you want to put repulsors on a starbase? That just keeps the enemies out of range so they just surive and blockade you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And who says the starbase has to be over a planet?