Tractor Beams in Combat

Since nobody answered me in my last post when I brought up the subject, I searched the ESO and found 4 Tractor Beam Maneuvers. While I have no problem with Tractor Disruption, Tractor Dodge and only a minor question about Tractor Hold (does taking a -3 to Prot. provide a -30 to tactical maneuvers vs Klingon Ships?!?); Tractor Lock confuses me. Here is how it is written up:

TRACTOR LOCK (COMMAND)
The ship or base tries to hold its primary target in place, to
prevent it from escaping.
PREREQUISITES: Lock On (T), target at Point Blank (1) range, towable
with the available tractor beams
DURATION: Until broken
TN: Target’s protection + 10
EFFECT: If the maneuver is a success, the acting ship or base
becomes completely immobile and therefore gains automatically the
effects of Full Stop (H). However, it cannot attack the ship it holds in
its tractor beam because of its closeness. The locked ship cannot go
to warp.
The targeted ship suffers a penalty equal to the acting ship’s size
to all helm maneuvers. Tractor lock lasts until broken by the acting
ship, or if the targeted ship manages to escape the lock, either by
overloading the generators – inflict one damage point to the operations
system then roll a successful System Operations (Operations) test, TN
25, that can be lowered to 15 through the sacrifice of the navigational
deflector; this can be only attempted once – or through talented
piloting – pull off a Superior Success or better during an Opposed Test
pitting the acting ship attempting a Helm maneuver, and a reliability
test for the opponent’s operations system. See “Escaping”, p.44 for
more details.


Why does the acting ship come under the effects of a Full Stop? Shouldn't it be the target ship that comes under those effects? And if the ships are too close together for the acting ship to fire on the target ship, how can the target ship escape by damaging the acting ship's Ops system? And how come the Borg Cutting Beam requires a tractor beam lock to be used?

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Originally Posted by Street

And how come the Borg Cutting Beam requires a tractor beam lock to be used?

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'Cause that's basically what the cutting beam does. It grabs you, slices bits off, and assimilates it.

But the cutting beam is officially listed as a beam weapon, and according to the rules, the acting ship can't fire weapons. That was my reason for bringing up the cutting beam.

Is this an ESO question? 'Cause I don't know the ESO very well. In that case, I'd say just change it for the Borg Cutting Beam ('cause, in that case, it's kinda both).

True the question may be about something from the ESO SB, but it's also meant as a general question about using tractor beams in combat. I want peoples opinions on whether the rules make sense and if not how they should be fixed. I think they're flawed and in need of reworking, but I just may have stumbled on an editing mistake which needs clearing up. I don't know, that's why I quoted the ESO text.

Tractor beams could require different things. The Borg tractor beam, for instance, works well past point blank range, as does the Fesarius (greater) and the Doomsday Machine.

Even the Enterprise's tractor beams is shown working at medium ranges ("Mudd's Women"), though doing so is a strain on the engines.

How about a small house rule like:
Tractor beams may be effective out to a number of range increments equal to 1/4 Size (rounded down), minimum 1, without penalty, or out to 1/2 Size (rounded down), minimum 2, while taking 1 damage/range increment to the Propulsion or Operations system.

You're starting to kludge, and you don't want to do that, else you'll wind up like SFB. Start simple, and ask the questions that need asked.

Q) What does a tractor beam do?
It uses an energy field to 'grapple' another ship.

Okay, now we've got something, a contested roll between the ship's TB rating, and the target's engine rating.

Q) How does range modify the tractor beam's effectiveness? How about the size of the target. (Remember, the size of the source ship doesn't matter, since it's the FIELD that's doing the grappling.)

Q) What are the effects of resisting a tractor beam, or having yours resisted? (IE, tied contest rolls, or losing a contested roll)

Doesn't anybody know the answer to my original questions? CODA doesn't give tractor beams ratings so where would this opposed roll come from?

Can't anybody help me with this question? I really need some input considering how often my players use the tractor and target key systems tactic.

The problem is that Tractor beams aren't really well rated in power - something which likely should be updated.

I'm not sure what to offer you aside from an engine check to 'break free' on the part of the victim.

[QUOTE=Street]Since nobody answered me in my last post when I brought up the subject, I searched the ESO and found 4 Tractor Beam Maneuvers. While I have no problem with Tractor Disruption, Tractor Dodge and only a minor question about Tractor Hold (does taking a -3 to Prot. provide a -30 to tactical maneuvers vs Klingon Ships?!?); Tractor Lock confuses me. Here is how it is written up:

TRACTOR LOCK (COMMAND)
The ship or base tries to hold its primary target in place, to
prevent it from escaping.
PREREQUISITES: Lock On (T), target at Point Blank (1) range, towable
with the available tractor beams
DURATION: Until broken
TN: Target’s protection + 10
EFFECT: If the maneuver is a success, the acting ship or base
becomes completely immobile and therefore gains automatically the
effects of Full Stop (H). However, it cannot attack the ship it holds in
its tractor beam because of its closeness. The locked ship cannot go
to warp.
The targeted ship suffers a penalty equal to the acting ship’s size
to all helm maneuvers. Tractor lock lasts until broken by the acting
ship, or if the targeted ship manages to escape the lock, either by
overloading the generators – inflict one damage point to the operations
system then roll a successful System Operations (Operations) test, TN
25, that can be lowered to 15 through the sacrifice of the navigational
deflector; this can be only attempted once – or through talented
piloting – pull off a Superior Success or better during an Opposed Test
pitting the acting ship attempting a Helm maneuver, and a reliability
test for the opponent’s operations system. See “Escaping”, p.44 for
more details.

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Why does the acting ship come under the effects of a Full Stop? Shouldn't it be the target ship that comes under those effects?

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Make both ships come under the effect.

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And if the ships are too close together for the acting ship to fire on the target ship, how can the target ship escape by damaging the acting ship's Ops system?

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Make it so that if you are the tractored target, you can only escape via 1) the tractoring ship letting you go or 2) the aforementioned superior piloting.

Okay, applying the effects of a full stop to both ships sounds alright, but what about once the acting ship starts moving again? Should I then apply the Match speed maneuver?

And I've got to allow the ships to shoot at each other, cause just saying "no you can't, you're too close" makes no sense especially considering how close I've seen ships get to each other before opening up with phasers (remember Khan's surprise attack on the Enterprise). And it makes the Borg cutting beam work within the rules rather than being some kind of special exception.

Maybe I'll try to work out some sort of rating system for tractor beams in CODA based off the ICON system and suggestions from you folks.

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Originally Posted by Street

Okay, applying the effects of a full stop to both ships sounds alright, but what about once the acting ship starts moving again? Should I then apply the Match speed maneuver?

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Yeah, that would make the most sense. If we're going to apply the Full Stop maneuver to both ships, are you going to apply the match speed maneuver to both ships? Or just the acting ship? If just to the acting ship, that would seem to make sense, given it's the ship that initiated the tractor lock in the first place ... thus justifying the combat bonus provided by the match speed maneuver.

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And I've got to allow the ships to shoot at each other, cause just saying "no you can't, you're too close" makes no sense especially considering how close I've seen ships get to each other before opening up with phasers (remember Khan's surprise attack on the Enterprise). And it makes the Borg cutting beam work within the rules rather than being some kind of special exception.

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Perhaps the reason the Tractor Beam Lock maneuver's description states one cannot attack the targeted ship because of its closeness is due to the author thinking of those situations where in Point Blank range firing photon torpedoes would cause backsplash damage to one's own ship. Going off this you can then just interpret that little line in the Tractor Beam Lock maneuver as really saying:

You can't fire missile weapons (photon torpedoes) without damaging your own ship.

Otherwise you'd be free to fire any beam weapons at a Tractor Locked target, as well as missile weapons like Romulan-style plasma torpedoes (no backsplash at Point Blank range).