Tractor beams can't work in Elite because there's no antigravity or artificial gravity. Magnetic beams won't work on non-ferromagnetic ore rocks or objects. Hence grappling hooks!
How to use? Like ECM. Charge it up with the amount of force you want to impart on the object. Shoot too hard and you blow up the container or ore rock, but do shoot hard if you're trying to grapple a ship. Shoot too hard into a ship and you embed the hook and you can't retrieve or disengage it. Shields block mass drivers so they should block the hook. Has just 1 ammo, but is not used unless you break the cable.
Mounted on standard weapon slots, comes in classes 1 (small) to 3 (large). Class 4 wouldn't make any sense as it would destroy anything it hits
. Bigger classes means you can impart more force on the cable before it breaks. Turreted and gimballed versions most useful for containers and rocks.
In combat:
Having a grappling hook attached to a fleeing ship adds your ship's mass to the target ship, so that can overload their FSD and prevent a jump. If they do manage to jump then the force causes damage to your ship. The cable also imparts forces on the attached ships, so good luck trying to fly FA-off while pulling a bigger ship. That said, you could grapple an asteroid or capital ship to perform a power turn, so this is a situational and skillshot weapon, and how it works exactly on each ship depends on which hardpoint you mount it on. If you grapple a proximity mine, well... Would blow up your cable at least.
How far do you want the ship or cargo or rock to be held? Make this settable in the right UI panel like turrets. Point-blank range to put into your hold, or other ranges for combat purposes.
Miners would equip dual turreted hooks set to reel back to point blank to retrieve rocks the fastest. Most other ships would do just fine with one or none. I'd imagine pirates / salvage ops and the like might consider doing the same to retrieve the containers before they self destruct.
What do you guys think?
How to use? Like ECM. Charge it up with the amount of force you want to impart on the object. Shoot too hard and you blow up the container or ore rock, but do shoot hard if you're trying to grapple a ship. Shoot too hard into a ship and you embed the hook and you can't retrieve or disengage it. Shields block mass drivers so they should block the hook. Has just 1 ammo, but is not used unless you break the cable.
Mounted on standard weapon slots, comes in classes 1 (small) to 3 (large). Class 4 wouldn't make any sense as it would destroy anything it hits
. Bigger classes means you can impart more force on the cable before it breaks. Turreted and gimballed versions most useful for containers and rocks.In combat:
Having a grappling hook attached to a fleeing ship adds your ship's mass to the target ship, so that can overload their FSD and prevent a jump. If they do manage to jump then the force causes damage to your ship. The cable also imparts forces on the attached ships, so good luck trying to fly FA-off while pulling a bigger ship. That said, you could grapple an asteroid or capital ship to perform a power turn, so this is a situational and skillshot weapon, and how it works exactly on each ship depends on which hardpoint you mount it on. If you grapple a proximity mine, well...
Would blow up your cable at least.How far do you want the ship or cargo or rock to be held? Make this settable in the right UI panel like turrets. Point-blank range to put into your hold, or other ranges for combat purposes.
Miners would equip dual turreted hooks set to reel back to point blank to retrieve rocks the fastest. Most other ships would do just fine with one or none. I'd imagine pirates / salvage ops and the like might consider doing the same to retrieve the containers before they self destruct.
What do you guys think?
