Federation Commander

xalansa · Ensign Joined: 25 Apr 2018 Posts: 9 Location: Surrey

Hi - i wonder if you guys can help, I'm a new player to the FC system and I have a tractoring question

when a ship is tractoring another ship, and is the "controlling" ship (it has spend more energy on it's base move), then when it moves, the ship being tractored "moves with it"

what does this mean exactly. For example

if I have a ship facing A and is tractoring another ship, if my ship moves forward then the tractored ship moves forward too. That seems clear enough

if the tractored ship is at shield five of my tractoring ship, and this turns right and moves forward one. The tractored ship ends up behind the tractoring ship at the number 4 shield... facing in the same direction as the tractoring ship (direction b) ?

if rather than turn right it turns left, where does does the tractored ship go ?

I'm sure it's obvious but I'm not clear on this yet

mjwest · Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 4:12 pm Post subject:

I will post a more detailed follow up later. But, the base idea is that the tractored ship always stays in the same map direction to the controlling ship. So, as the controlling ship turns, it will have a new shield facing the tractored ship, but the tractored ship is always in the same map direction from the controlling ship.
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xalansa · Ensign Joined: 25 Apr 2018 Posts: 9 Location: Surrey

thank you mj. if you could give me some examples, i'd be very grateful

mjwest · Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 8:12 pm Post subject:

Yeah, sorry about that. Bad week. But, I am at my computer now, so let's go for it.

Setup:
Large Scale hex map panel.
Fed DW facing A in hex 45.
Klingon F5W facing D in hex 55.
Fed DW has the F5W tractored and is controlling movement.

Let's look at this from the point of view of the Fed DW. The F5W is facing the DW's #2 shield, and the F5W is in direction B from the DW. (And the DW is in direction E from the F5W.) For as long as the tractor is maintained, the F5W and the DW will maintain this map direction relationship with each other. The shield facing will change as the DW turns, but the map direction never will.

So, the DW moves forward one hex to hex 44. The F5W is then moved to hex 54. All of the direction and shield facing stays the same as the initial setup, just one hex removed.

Now the DW turns right and moves to hex 54. This forces the F5W into hex 63. At this point the F5W is facing the DW's #1 shield (instead of its #2 shield), but the F5W remains in map direction B from the DW.

Let's say the turn ends, and the DW manages to maintain the link. But, now the F5W is controlling the movement. They still start in hex 54 (for the DW) and 63 (for the F5W).

The F5W now moves straight ahead in to hex 64. The DW is dragged into hex 55. The F5W is facing the DW's #1 shield and is in map direction B from the DW. The DW is facing the F5W's #2 shield and is in map direction E from the F5W. (Just like they were before the move.)

The F5W decides it wants to sideslip into hex 55. The DW is dragged into hex 45. The shield facings and map directions remain unchanged.

Now the F5W decides to turn into hex 65. The DW is dragged into hex 56. The F5W is facing the DW's #1 shield and is in map direction B from the DW. The DW is facing the F5W's #3 shield and is in map direction E from the F5W.

We'll stop here. But, as I hope can be seen, the ship controlling the movement can change what shield is facing the tractored ship, but the map direction they are from each other will never change for the duration of the tractor link.

Does that help?
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xalansa · Ensign Joined: 25 Apr 2018 Posts: 9 Location: Surrey

That was excellent. i got that completely Smile

thank you so much for clearing that up for me.

it seems that tractors are pretty much unique to this game and a fairly big deal - not a concept to be ignored!

Mike · Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 12:21 pm Post subject:

Mike, that was a very good explanation!

Tractors will make a player think twice about running up on an opponent who has plenty of power and who paid more for his baseline speed.
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cnuzzi · Lieutenant Commander Joined: 10 Jun 2017 Posts: 209

mjwest · Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 11:03 pm Post subject:

Yes, that is exactly the case. No matter which ship is actually generating the tractor, the ship spending more power on movement controls the movement of both ships. So, in the example above, it is implied that the DW failed to generate more power on movement (maybe the captain bet that a baseline speed of 8 was enough and the F5W did 16) than the F5W and so the F5W now controls the movement.
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