[TC] Tractor Beam question...

[SkullCowboy]

Ok, consigning myself to the guffaws and deserved mutterings concerning newbs, Here is my problem.

I am doing the Aldrin mission where I have to tow the mining ship. Having searched everywhere I have
lots of good advice on how, where, boarding or not, etc., etc. All this is great, but for one thing.

Er, um, how do I fire the damn tractor beam? Can't have problems towing if I can't even get the silly
thing to fire and lock on.

I am in a Mercury Tanker. Tractor beam IS installed. I pull to under 2k of the mining ship. But from
the cockpit the tractor is not shown and clicking the fire button does naught. I get this. The Merc only
has a rear turret. Soooooo hop in the back, THERE is the tractor beam. Target the mining ship, click fire.

Nada. Zilch. No red, yellow green beam, nothing. Left click gives me the popup menu, looked everywhere for
a Fire Tractor Beam command or Tow command or something. And I have Fight MkI and MkII (didn't know but
figured I'd try it).

What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance and let the snickering begin.

[Azincourt]

I had the same prob once and found it doesn't work on frieghters - even though it's on the weapons list! I switched it to a M6 and that did ther trick
Hope that helps.

[SkullCowboy]

Thanks a bunch!!! I'll give that a go.

[Thunders]

The cause of this problem is simple: tractor beams need a lot of energy to be fired. They may not drain it after the first shot, but the first shot requires a lot of laser energy (7000 if I'm not mistaken), something a ship like a TS cannot provide.

[SkullCowboy]

The cause of this problem is simple: tractor beams need a lot of energy to be fired. They may not drain it after the first shot, but the first shot requires a lot of laser energy (7000 if I'm not mistaken), something a ship like a TS cannot provide.

Sounds plausible in a sciencey sort of way. Kind of inconsistent with the Repair Laser, though, which only operates from a suit and is listed at 8000 and has a much higher consumption rate.

C'est la vie! And thanks again.

[Gold Dragon]

Full Reason:

Due to (game) size limitations, the Repair Laser, Tractor Beam, and Mobile Drilling System use the same slot. This means that anything that can use one, can mount the others. But mountable doesn't mean usable. For Instance: the Space Suit (comes standard with the Repair Laser) can mount the TB, but doesn't have the generator power to fire it.

This was confirmed by a dev some time ago.

[Triaxx2]

Precisely. Which is sad, because TS's being small ships would make great tow ships, but simply can't fire it.

A lot of people use M6's because they're roughly the same size, but have much more energy.

And don't worry about the fact that the beam is usually mounted in the front. It will still work if you turn the ship to face another direction.

[Carlo the Curious]

Precisely. Which is sad, because TS's being small ships would make great tow ships, but simply can't fire it.

iirc, there is one TS which has a big enough reserve to fire a TB. Caiman Miner, maybe?

EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm not sure it can actually fit one though...

[Catra]

Precisely. Which is sad, because TS's being small ships would make great tow ships, but simply can't fire it.

iirc, there is one TS which has a big enough reserve to fire a TB. Caiman Miner, maybe?

EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm not sure it can actually fit one though...

caiman miner is the only one of that ship line that can fit the TB and yes, it has -barely- enough energy for one shot(2000 to fire vs 2200 energy reserve). so if you miss...well....youll be sitting in SETA for abit(22 energy regen)

[SkullCowboy]

So my initial mental malfunction was taken care of (thanks again, Azincourt!) as I used the Vidar
I had lying around, mission complete.

But the rest of the discussion has my stat curiosity going. Comes from my old tabletop gaming days
where you cross referenced terrain and weather modifiers with attack/defense/morale/fatigue values
against a die roll to see if the arm unit over runs the inf.

Thunder brought up the weapon generator on the Merc not being strong enough to initially power the TB up.
Makes sense. But going off of the X3TC Stats Compendium under Energy for the TB it lists Max MJ as 7000
with consumption at 0.002. That Max number isn't the initial charge to power the beam? Catra mentions 2000
for the first shot. Is that number available somewhere or did it come from poking around the code?

[Carlo the Curious]

iirc, it's shown in the ingame encyclopaedia.