Tractor, Repulsor, Wormhole Beam damage values

[Tnarg]

I'm curious to know what excactly these lower damage values represent.

Repuslor Beam I 2 2 2
Tractor Beam I 2 2 2
Wormhole Beam I 5 5 5

Do they atually do damage or does this represent the size of ship they are able to move or the space that the target is moved?

Thanks.

[PvK]

For tractor/repulsor weapons, the damage is the distance moved in tactical combat squares. Ship able to be moved is determined by the sizes of the firer and target.

Warp weapons don't care what size the target is - they work if they hit.

PvK

[Krsqk]

IIRC, they actually do count as damage, or at least they did Last I checked (early non-Gold).

[Fyron]

Yeah, they do. And so does the damage number for Plague Bombs. The numbers are just so small that it rarely makes much difference.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by PvK:
For tractor/repulsor weapons, the damage is the distance moved in tactical combat squares. Ship able to be moved is determined by the sizes of the firer and target.

Warp weapons don't care what size the target is - they work if they hit.

PvK

PvK, could you explain this more fully?

Like what determines whether a ship can be moved? And is it all or nothing thing. Or can a ship sometimes be moved half of the distance.

[Fyron]

You can only move a target ship that is smaller than the attacker ship with tractor and repulsor beams. Worm hole beams do not care, and work on all ships.

[PvK]

Yep.

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
You can only move a target ship that is smaller than the attacker ship with tractor and repulsor beams. Worm hole beams do not care, and work on all ships.

So that's why I couldn't move enemy planets with my Repulsor Beam

I did a test, to see if the damage Repulsor/Tractor/Wormhole weapons did, affected how much they moved the targeted ship. Turns out:
1)A repulsor beam with damage 10, will move a ship 10 spaces away - as well as do 10 points of damage.
2)A tractor beam with damage 4, will bring a ship up to 4 spaces closer to it...the best it can do is bring the enemy ship right next to yours. It dishes out 4 damage, as well. (This is what gets me - why do Tractor beams have such a small range, when the best thing they can do is move the enemy ship right next to yours? Tractor beams should have at least twice the range of Repulsor beams, IMHO...)
3)No matter how much damage it does, a Wormhole Beam will always move a ship to a random place on the battlefield - The damage it does, is just plain ordinary damage.

Doing that test, I got an idea - if Repulsor/Tractor/Wormhole weapons all do less than 30 damage, would they not work on a Ship with Emissive Armor III, which blocks all damage less than 30?
So, I tested it out in the Simulator. The results:
No matter how much/little damage a Repulsor/Tractor/Wormhole weapon does, it'll still move the targeted ship...but since the damage is less than 30, the ship will receive no damage

Having done these tests, I got an idea: under the Options menu in the combat screen, there ought to be a 'Fire on Own Ships' Option, that only works for the very nbext shot the ship fires. Here are some examples where that could come in handy:

1) Is one of your ships crippled, near enemies, yet you don't want it to be destroyed/captured by enemies? You could get another of your ships to tow it to safety with a Tractor Beam - or for a faster & riskier rescue, fire a Wormhole Beam at it
2) Want to give one of your ships a speed boost? Get another ship to fire a Large-Mount Repulsor Beam at it, and you'll save the targeted ship a turn or two of movement.
3) Your biggest ship has been crippled in the middle of enemy fire, without Self-Destruct. Either you don't want your enemies to finish it off and gain experience, or you don't want them to capture it. Either way, if worst comes to worst, you'd be able to fire on your own ship and destroy it.

Finally, I got one Last idea :
You're in combat. Two spaces away from your Repulsor Beam III armed Cruiser is a Frigate, and two spaces behind the Frigate is a Battleship (doesn't matter if the Battleship is owned by you, an ally, or enemy) - so, there's a straight line of your Cruiser, Enemy Frigate, and someone's Battleship. The Repulsor Beam III is fired at the Frigate, and it hits.
In this situation, shouldn't the Frigate "crash" (or ram) into the Battleship? If that were true, a whole nother element to combat would be added - and Repulsor Beams would become much more useful weapons

This has been a presentation of 'Dingocat85s train of thought'

[PvK]

Dingocat85 - neat ideas. A few responses:

* When thinking about modding tractor/repulsor weapons, consider the effects of mounting them on bases, particularly starbases, which multiply the damage and add to the range.

* Neat ideas for tactics firing on own ships. If it were allowed, it could add some interesting/fun options for tactical mode battles. The AI would of course need a lot of work to be able to do anything appropriate along those lines, though.

* As for using such weapons to cause enemy ships to crash into each other... yes, it'd be powerful and amusing, though game balance and realism might argue against it in most cases. Note that you can have ships in the same combat square in SE4 due to some effects like tractor or ramming - it doesn't necessarily mean they collide to be in the same square - those are enormous squares, even if the game doesn't allow it ordinarily.

PvK