In addition to disrupting blink efficiency, tractor beams could also disrupt jumps. Either by inhibiting the jump option entirely, or by making it slower or more fuel-expensive to charge a jump. The easiest to implement would be full inhibition I guess.
Walt Tobi-wan_Kenobi Also, the longer the target is in the beam, the stronger it gets - basically the power of the beam must ramp up until it achieves full strength. Catching the fastest kite might require multiple beams on target.
This is an interesting idea. I'll think about it. Might be difficult to visually convey to the player.
After thinking about it some more, maybe it would be better and simpler if instead of the beam strength increasing based on time-on-target, there could be an activation delay for the beam. The tractor beam emitter requires 1-3 seconds to lock on or charge up before it activates. This would allow a ship to strafe through the beam cone without being immediately grabbed, and it would still reward strafing or blinking out of the cone.
This whole line of thinking is geared toward a situation that I think should be avoided: that a tractored ship gets out of a tractor beam only to be immediately grabbed again by the tractor ship rotating to get back on target. There needs to be a grace period for the target to maneuver.
Another thought I had is that the 'under consideration' cloaking device could be a good counter to tractor beams (as well as to missiles or any guided weapon). By activating cloaking, you would break any targeting locks.
