Tractor Beams
Fuel Consumption, planets income, greetings, and more
- Tractor beam fuel usage has been increased dramatically and hold duration has been reduced in most cases. This change is designed to make tractor beams about as powerful as they were before the earlier change to how their delays work. Specifically, assuming efficient use of abilities on both sides, it should turn out roughly like this:
- Gunboat getting into orbit past a frigate: Success
- Gunboat getting into orbit past a cruiser: Failure
- Corvette getting into orbit past a cruiser: Success
- Corvette getting into orbit past a full battlegroup: Tossup
- Frigate landing past a single cruiser: Success
- Frigate getting into orbit past a full battlegroup: Success
Fuel use per tractor is determined by the size of the target ship, 200 for a fighter, 300 for a transport, etc.
Tractor hold duration is a comparison between the class of the tractoring ship and the target. If the target is one class smaller, it will hold for 8 seconds. Two classes smaller, 12. And so on, up to a max of 20 seconds. Maneuver rating is not currently a factor.
- Tractor beam range has been changed from "within 300 on every axis" (effectively 300-519 distance depending on how diagonal the target is) to just plain "within 300 units per installed tractor beam."
- Players from any clan can now see non-hidden government clan income using PLANETS INCOME.
- Characters being given empowerments will now always see the empowerer's name as viewed by the target, accounting for greet/dub/disguise, not their underlying character name.
- When greeting someone who already knows you, you will now see the usual "You nod and introduce yourself to ..." message even if they already knew you, so you don't learn whether it's a person who already knew you.
