Repulsor\Tractor bays

Ol'Weedy

Banded Mongoose
In High Guard, repulsor bays, used as tractor beams, can move an object they are locked onto, at 1G/rnd.
Question is, what if the ship using is maneuvering at 9G. Does it break the lock, or is the object effectively moving with the targeting ship, but still able to be manipulated at 1G more?

And yes, I did think of this after seeing that Picard episode were they threw an asteroid at the enemy ship.
 
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I would think it's a question of mass, specifically of the tractoring platform, versus the target's.

In theory, if the volume of the target is within the bay's performance parameters, you should be able to move at the given (at)traction, plus the tractor's platform movement.
 
Okay, rules as written time. Once a target ship has been hit by tractors (assuming it was hit by enough tractors to actually hold it, based on the size of the bay(s) and the displacement of the target ship), the target "cannot expend Thrust but may be moved by the tractor beam operator as if they had Thrust 1." If you're using vector movement, I doubt the intention was to "magically" match the target's vector to the tractoring ship, so I would rule that (as long as the target was within tractor beam range), the gunner was in control of how the target accelerates (up to a limit of 1G). Which does imply that with a high vector difference between the ships involved, the two are likely to move out of range (Short) of each other before vectors can be matched enough to keep them within range, thus breaking the tractor lock. (This illustrates the major problem in high-relative-velocity combat - you only get a small number of shots before you sweep back out of range, so if you want to keep after the other ship, you either have to match vectors or carry out a series of attack runs, between which the opposition may well have the chance to run, whether in real space or by jumping. This makes piracy even more difficult, among other things.)

Also as a side note, tractor beams cannot lock onto a target which displaces more than their own ship. (Which I don't personally agree with; this would make ideal equipment for the spacecraft equivalent of tugboats.)
 
Acceleration is dependent on volume, and anything being tractored is going to count towards that, including when the tractor beam has locked on to the target.
 
Okay, rules as written time. Once a target ship has been hit by tractors (assuming it was hit by enough tractors to actually hold it, based on the size of the bay(s) and the displacement of the target ship), the target "cannot expend Thrust but may be moved by the tractor beam operator as if they had Thrust 1." If you're using vector movement, I doubt the intention was to "magically" match the target's vector to the tractoring ship, so I would rule that (as long as the target was within tractor beam range), the gunner was in control of how the target accelerates (up to a limit of 1G). Which does imply that with a high vector difference between the ships involved, the two are likely to move out of range (Short) of each other before vectors can be matched enough to keep them within range, thus breaking the tractor lock. (This illustrates the major problem in high-relative-velocity combat - you only get a small number of shots before you sweep back out of range, so if you want to keep after the other ship, you either have to match vectors or carry out a series of attack runs, between which the opposition may well have the chance to run, whether in real space or by jumping. This makes piracy even more difficult, among other things.)

Also as a side note, tractor beams cannot lock onto a target which displaces more than their own ship. (Which I don't personally agree with; this would make ideal equipment for the spacecraft equivalent of tugboats.)
I'm with you on the inability to lock onto larger objects rule. Fine with not being able to move them much, but the lock doesn't logically seem to make sense.
Adding them to vector movement opens a whole new can of worms (one that might be fun to sift through!). I have visions of using a tractor beam to aid in rapid course changes, used as a gravitic tether. Or using them to tug the tail of a ship with forward facing weapons. Or giving a destroyer just enough of a tug to get in the way of that missile barrage...

Ok, now I think about it, I can kind of see why they added the rule about use against larger objects.
Still going to scrap it for my campaign though ;-)
 
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