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Replying to Anti-fighter tractor beam possible?


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a.fake.name

Posted 24 July 2014 - 07:46 PM

Tractor beam as a Tie Avenger/Defender ability, now that's something what I'd like.

It'd be an intresting ability, to be sure, but it'd need to have a longer cooldown, to avoid being too over powered.
We've seen with ions and the poor way they're implemented ingame (albiet, PR takes the engine limitations and mitigates them fairly well), ions cause ships to be easy targets.
Send a wave of Y-Wings with ion turrets (or any ion equipped snubcraft) followed by conc missile equiped craft, and the enemy fighters will start dying fast.

Tractor beams for snubcraft would be quite similar.
I'm not against it, just saying it'd need balance.

As for capitols doing that........ just no.

And Skie as for compliments staying behind, that's just poor balance.

If anything, compliment capitols for stations should be the ones with more dated fighters.

Where does it make more sense to bulk your semi dated ships, on your frontline capitols (IE: ships you manually build) or in garrison protecting a world, be it launching from a station or a capitol defending the world.

Or thought of in real world terms: Capitols with compliments are like aircraft carriers.

IRL, carriers tend to get modern craft (IE: current models), with their attached squadrons rotating out every so often, with upgrade cycles marked by squadrons with new aircraft (or a new upgrade) being brought in.

Admitedly, currently the more advanced craft (the bug prone F-22 and joint strike fighter) are not being put on carriers regurally, but then in star wars those are the rare elite fighter craft which tend to be deployed separately, so the analogy still works.

 

Honestly, what we really need is to have an option to refit older capitol ships with newer compliments as well as weapons.

It's the same way some heros work, you build them, then they have several upgrades avalible later
IE: Luke goes from on his own, to Rogue Squadron, to commanding a mon cal cruiser.

So, a MC-40a could (when the per-requesitites are met) recieve a reletively cheap compliment upgrade (once the nessacary upgrades to the ships in the compliment are researched), followed by refit to MC-40b specs, so on so forth, applied to all capitols.
Indeed, independent snubcraft squadrons could also be upgraded in this manner.

This way, you could build your fleet (once again, for the example, MC-40a's) to a decent number, then you could rotate them to a upgrade world (perhaps add an upgrade station, using the space factory model I've only seen in skirmish) and have the snubcraft upgrade to a newer model for a lower cost.

The cost would be lower, and it'd balance well, for several reasons.
-The spaceframe allready exists, and is proven spaceworthy. All that needs be done is a change components by the units ground crew.
-The player (or AI) allready paid the cash for the unit, it's silly to have to go to the trouble (and indeed, it's a pain in the ass with the engine) to scrap item after item (dealing with random lag), when you could just upgrade said item into the newer one.

This would also reduce the varriety of units on maps (IE: You'd have more MC-40e's at endgame, rather than a mix of MC-40 models).

And while, yes, it would create a bit more work to add the upgrade method, once it is made it would make all such refits much easier.

Also, hero capitols and snubcraft are in desperate need of this as well, as many are utterly pointless because they're so damned slow once the newer stuff rolls around.


megabalta

Posted 24 July 2014 - 07:23 PM

Tractor beam as a Tie Avenger/Defender ability, now that's something what I'd like.


skie9173

Posted 24 July 2014 - 06:57 PM

Also consider, Luke and the few others that have been mentioned being able to escape tractor beams are some of the most elite pilots of their era.

Luke had to fire his protons then juke and duck around to lose the tractor lock on his X-wing and make it grab the torpedoes instead. I doubt few other pilots could have done it so well

skie9173

Posted 24 July 2014 - 06:55 PM

That's was the point of the idea was. In a battle between independent, upgraded fighter squadrons and a Capital with compliment, the capital's compliment would gain a more even playing ground, even though they should be lower tech level.

IMO complements should always be behind what you can build independently (unless that thread about tech level tying to complement upgrades plays out, that'd be epic).

This way it encourages more capital vs capital while not completely hamstringing fighters. It just Might make launching fighter waves less viable when combined with other nerfs previously mentioned

a.fake.name

Posted 24 July 2014 - 04:59 PM

Don't forget that in the Thrawn trilogy, Luke fired proton torpedos into the tractor beam, and they rode it back into the ship.

You want to debuff enemy fighters ?
Target them with your fighters.


johnchm.10

Posted 23 July 2014 - 07:29 PM

that last bit is a bit off. Chimaera snagged Luke's X-wing the first time they met. in Krytos Trap, Erisi claimed being caught in a beam from Lusankya. Its also mentioned that Tycho got caught in a beam flying a TIE that had been hit by an Ion Cannon. in one of the Black Fleet books, a Recon-X got caught in a beam from a corvette.

I guess X-wings are vulnerable to Tractor Beams. if only Lemesilk had thought of that...


megabalta

Posted 23 July 2014 - 05:53 PM

I think it could be done via ability, but there are only 2 active ability slots, and they are already in use in case of most ships.

Plus imo snubcraft are too fast to be catched with a small stationary tractor beam.


skie9173

Posted 23 July 2014 - 05:20 PM

Can a ship/station project a passive area debuff? Say to speed and/or maneuverability?

Here's what I am thinking, change how tractor beams can be used somewhat. Either let tractor beam equipped ships/stations give a debuff aura to enemy fighters around then that slows them down and reduces their maneuverability.

We know from A New Hope, and Thawn Trilogy that capitals can target individual transports/fighters with tractor beams, so it isn't a canon issue.

This would also give large lumbering Capitals a better fighting chance against snubcraft, since they maybe would be able to hit their small assailants easier, and their compliment has an advantage.

Things like percent debuff, to what attributes (speed, maneuverability, ect), and range can be figured out if this idea is even possible.

An alternative might be a targetable AoE ability mutually exclusive with the use of traditional tractor beam now in game, ie a ship has both both can only activate one at a time if possible

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