Tobi-wan_Kenobi One of the things we discussed in a previous tractor beam thread is that it could be an option for a targeted ship to escape the TB by side-strafing out of the beam arc. This wouldn't be possible with 360 rotation.
I'm undecided on whether the arc (if the tractor beam is indeed roof-mounted) should be 360
degrees or more like 90 degrees. Side-strafing in a 1-vs-1 battle is almost impossible in Cosmoteer, though I suppose could be a useful way to break free if you have multiple ships. I'm personally more swayed by having orientation matter when placing a tractor beam and them feeling a little nicer from a lore perspective.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi If TB is a part that can be placed on the interior like that, then I think every big ship would have them.
I don't think this is true, depending on balance. Imagine if the cost of a tractor beam, its power, and its crew is 100K. I think that most ships would not have them. With an internal tractor beam it's easier to justify something that big, expensive, and powerful. With an external tractor beam, something that size is too unwieldy and probably too vulnerable to be worth building on combat vessels.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Moreover, if TBs are a large, expensive part, they will be less of an option for smaller resource-collection vessels when that aspect of the game is introduced, or tugboat vessels.
I general I don't think it makes much sense for very small vessels to have tractor beams. And a 4x4 tractor beam isn't that large, certainly not too large to fit on a tugboat-sized ship that already needs to be large enough to fit a bunch of thrusters and engine rooms.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Additionally, having these TBs on the interior will make it difficult for a targeted ship to break the lock by destroying the parts or by draining them with electrobolts or EMP missiles.
This is certainly true, but I'm not convinced it's actually a bad thing. It probably shouldn't be too easy to break from a tractor beam, otherwise tractor beams are kind of useless.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Curious to see how this plays. Wonder if we could target a huge ship or asteroid with TBs and slingshot past them and away.
Maybe in a pinch you could do something like that, but I think in general tractor beams won't be powerful enough to make effective slingshots.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi What is your reasoning behind this? Having it stronger at greater range in pull mode seems strange to me. Is it to keep TBs less useful for kiters?
Imagine an elastic rope, the farther you stretch it, the stronger it becomes until it finally snaps. I thin it'll just feel good.
And more importantly, it makes tractor beams & thrusters less binary. Having more thrusters reduces the effectiveness of enemy tractor beams, allowing you to "stretch" it farther and drain its power faster.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Will TBs continue to drain a base amount of power once they achieve their desired target range but still have a lock? Just like active boosters have a base drain rate even when not thrusting.
At this point I'm leaning towards only having a pull mode. Maybe you can set a desired target range after which the tractor beams stops pulling, not sure yet.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Will TBs drain so much power that they will be likely to shut down after extended use? Will a single reactor be enough to keep one on permanently?
Depends on how far it's being stretched.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi If shields block TB influence, then TBs would have to drain shields at a considerable rate to ever be able to influence a target that the weapons aren't in range of.
I don't think tractor beams will have that kind of long range, at least for initial lock on.
This does raise the question, though, if a tractor beam locks on to an enemy ship which then raises its shields, what happens to the tractor beam? Does it stay locked on to the ship, or does it start hitting the shields? (Probably the latter.)
Tobi-wan_Kenobi I previously suggested a charge-up time for TBs so that a ship could strafe through a TB arc and not get immediately locked, but I think the charge-up time would have to be excessively long for a targeted ship to have any chance of dodging the lock from an opponent-relative stationary position. Even the most maneuverable ships in Cosmoteer would have trouble out-thrusting the rotation of the TB ship sufficiently to dodge the lock unless they were at extreme close range.
Here's an idea: What if tractor beams had a couple-second charge-up time, during which their turret can't rotate, making it easier for the opponent to escape or at least alter where the beam "grabs" them. (Maybe tractor beams can't rotate at all while turned on.)
Tobi-wan_Kenobi With respect, why are you against micro-intensive tactics? If a player can pull off something that takes skill and be rewarded for it, I think that's great. That's what makes combat games fun imo: rewarding skill. I think depth of skill ranges should be encouraged for wider audience attraction. Skill ceilings turn away players who want something difficult to master.
Some skills are more fun to exercise than others. While obviously what is "fun" is a matter of personal taste, I personally don't think that kind of constant micromanagement of tractor beams sounds fun for me, and I suspect for most other players as well, so I don't want to create situations where people feel like that have to do that kind of micromanagement to be competitive, because that would make the game less fun for them.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi I really hope push mode is kept. We need to think beyond combat conditions and wonder how TBs might be used in resource collection and non-combat mass manipulation. Maybe sometimes I want to be able to push an asteroid out of the way to get through to another one.
I'm having trouble thinking of non-combat use cases for a push mode. Pretty much anything you can push with a tractor beam you could also just ram into and push with your ship.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi If a TB is protected by 3-layer shields and multiple layers of armor, that just isn't likely to be broken any time soon. I think making TBs able to be that protected actually removes the targeting decision entirely. It will be an obvious choice to target enemy weapons first to solve the problem. After all, it's not the TB that's the threat - it's the weapons the TB is assisting.
First of all, 3 layers of shields and armor adds a ton to the cost of the tractor beam, I'm not sure that will actually be a common strategy.
Second, having a tractor beam that you should obviously not target because it's so well protected still has more targeting decisions than one you obviously should target. Take these two cases:
10 external weapons with 1 external tractor beam. Obviously you target the tractor beam, there's one clear best choice, that's not interesting.
10 external weapons with 1 internal tractor beam. Targeting the tractor beam may not be a viable option, but you still have 10 other options you have to choose between, there's still an interesting choice there.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi I don't think it's impossible to balance around an internal TB, but it does seem less interesting for gameplay. And not just from a combat perspective, but also from a design perspective. It will be way easier to place a TB if it can be internalized.
This is fair, it will definitely be easier to place if it can be internalized. (Though as Dalas points out, placement still matters due to newton's 3rd law.)
On the flip side, Cosmoteer really needs more internal parts, the game just has so many external parts right now.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Again, if they can be internalized I think almost every large ship would carry TBs. That detracts from ship variety.
Again, if a tractor beam is small/cheap enough to be an external part, I'm worried that almost every ship will have them. If the tractor beam is internal, that allows me to make it a lot bigger & more expensive, meaning fewer ships will have them.
Mc2 Well, lets just make Dev version with TB for us to test it.
Becasue theory is nice feature, but in reality everything might work directly other way.
Yeah I think I'll probably put out a "preview/test" build with temporary "programmer art" so that people can test the mechanics, maybe even try modding their own versions of the tractor beam. We can see whether an internal tractor beam is really as game-breaking as some people fear it will be.
GodoftheGrove The picture of the Enterprise using a tractor beam shows it grabbing the entire thing within LOS. So, how do you calculate the effectiveness of the shields? Using it's weakest point within LOS? Using average shield protection among LOS?
If shields can block tractor beams, then the tractor beam will probably need to be a straight line that gets blocked by the shield.
