Being tractored off a planet

danibq2021 · Post by **danibq2021** » Sat Jul 03, 2021 9:42 pm

Situation - a Free Trader is stranded on a planet with disabled engines (specified by the scenario).

A friendly cruiser wants to rescue the FT by tractoring her off the planetary surface and towing her to safety.

Question - does the FT have to wait for the end of the turn to lift off in the Undocking Phase (1E3b) as specified under 2D5b, or is she lifted away as soon as the tractoring cruiser moves in the impulse sequence?

Asking for an approaching wave of hostile fighters

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Sun Jul 04, 2021 12:00 am

I'll have to check on this one. My guess is it any directly covered. If it isn't, I'll have to kick it up to Steve. But I'll have to check and that won't be able to happen until later.

danibq2021 · Post by **danibq2021** » Sun Jul 04, 2021 12:31 am

Thanks Mike

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:04 pm

After looking through the rules, it would seem there isn't anything to enable or disable this function. The one big exception is (5D6d), which prevents a tractored ship from being rammed into a planet.

So, yes, a landed ship may be tractored, and thus removed from a planet. However, the tractoring ship will have to use extremely careful movement, or the tractor will break. I would say that the tractored ship must be moved into the open space hex next to its landing hex, or it remains unmoved on the surface and the tractor broken.

Doing this to a hostile ship will be extremely difficult, as it has no energy spent on movement, so will have lots of negative tractor at the ready.

I will check with Steve when I can later this week. I can't before then.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Mon Jul 05, 2021 6:11 pm

Yeah, fine, but you cannot remove a ground base or an infantry battalion by tractor beam.

danibq2021 · Post by **danibq2021** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 7:00 am

So, given that this is a rescue mission and the Free Trader is willing to be tractored, would it be reasonable to say that in the first impulse after the tractor is attached, the cruiser must move no more than one hex (using decelerations, assuming that she has a Base Speed of more than

to lift the FT off the planet?

After that - once the FT is clear of the planet's atmosphere - the two tractored ships can move as per the existing rules?

danibq2021 · Post by **danibq2021** » Tue Jul 06, 2021 7:01 am

* Base Speed 8. The emoji was unintended

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Wed Jul 07, 2021 1:19 am

What I'm saying is that if the landed ship is on facing A of a planet in hex 0505, then the first move by the tractoring ship must result in the landed ship moving to hex 0504. If the landed ship is moved into any other hex, then it counts as "moving a tractored ship into a planet" rule, resulting in the tractor being broken and the landed ship unmoved. Speed doesn't really matter for this. (We're just ignoring that in hopes we don't need a new rule.)

And, while not applicable to your case, do keep in mind the other limitations given on the rules about bases and other objects.