Ship Systems - Tractor Beam

[alexanderson1993]

For more information about the ship systems discussions, see #224

The tractor beam is space magic that uses a beam graviton particles or something - likely the same thing that powers the internal gravity generators - to hold an object at a certain distance from the ship. It has to include both the ability to attract and repel, since inertia is a thing and if you only pull the object towards your ship, it will eventually run into it. Tractor beams have a limited distance and are affected by mass - a 150 metric ton shuttlecraft will hardly move a 700,000 metric ton starship. Perhaps more space magic can make it possible to lower the inertia of the target to make it easier to pull, at the expense of a higher power draw.

Tractor beams serve both strategic and tactical advantage. They are most commonly used to pull disabled ships to safety, but with an extra repulsion feature they could be used to hurl objects like a tether ball (though with the immensity of space, this is hardly likely to be accurate).

Thorium Classic

In Thorium Classic, the Flight Director chooses when targets are available by toggling a checkbox. Optionally, the FD can assign a label to the target. One target is available at a time, but a ship could have multiple tractor beams which can all be active at the same time.

When the tractor beam is activated, a dial appears showing the current stress level - that is, the amount of force that is counteracting the tractor beam. The Flight Director arbitrarily chooses how much stress the tractor beam is currently experiencing, and will often increase it to increase the drama. A separate dial allows the crew to increase the tractor beam strength, however this only works up to however much power the tractor beam has. More power must be assigned to the tractor beam to allow for greater strength.

Thorium Nova

In Thorium Nova, targets will automatically be available based on their position relative to the crew's ship. Tractor beams will have a limited range and limited angle making it so it can only be attached to objects more or less behind the crew's ship. As the crew ship rotates in space, the attached object moves in lock-step to stay directly behind the ship, although perhaps higher mass objects move slower, so the crew has to be careful to not whip their ship around too quickly.

Targets will appear on a targeting grid, where the crew member can choose which target to attach the tractor beam to. Once attached, the crew will be able to adjust the ratio of attraction and repulsion. This serves several purposes:

• Determining the distance of the target to the crew's ship
• Maintaining that distance as the crew's ship moves through space.
• Limiting the amount of power needed for the tractor beam.

For example, the crew might turn the tractor beam's repulsor and attractor to full output, which would consume a lot of power, but hold the object quite firmly. Using less power would make it easier for a larger mass object or a ship firing engines to escape. This would be affected by mass. Tractor beaming objects with a higher mass than the crew's ship would require additional power.

The tractor beam's effectiveness gradually decreases with distance, so it's ideal to adjust the repulsor and attractor such that the target is pulled closer to the crew's ship to maximize the tractor beam's effectiveness, and thus, decrease power use).

If the crew wanted to slingshot an object, they could rapidly decrease the attractor and increase the repulsor, pushing the object away. Naturally, increasing the attractor without maintaining the repulsor pulls the object towards the ship, which is useful for pulling smaller objects and shuttlecraft into a shuttlebay. It is not advised to pull larger objects towards the ship.

Interaction with the Flight Director

Flight Directors have little interaction with the tractor beam, since it's mostly automated. They can see when the tractor beam is activated and can interact with it by manually changing the power levels on the crew's ship, changing the mass of the target ship, or otherwise messing around with physical properties.