Tractor Beams..

Soul_Rider

<div class="IPBDescription">What do they look like?</div>Google is a waste of a few terrabytes of space if you ask me...

I tried searching google for a picture of a tractor? (the piece of equipment that a tractor beam emits from) and all i got was lovely pictures of tractor beams, but none of the device they originate from.

Can someone please draw me a concept of what the tractor? could look like. Please not this will be made in Hammer, so anything too curved and arty is out of the question, but please can someone concept this for me?

Thanks..

Kouji_San

<img src="http://www.nearingzero.net/extrat/screenres/extrat008.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

However, joking aside...


I think a tractor beam would be something with perhaps 3 pointy things, which create a triangly light halo (yknow like a spotlight would create) and a energy beam going into something which is located in the center of these 3 pointy thing? Like for example an ION Cannon from homeworld, but then the beams emit not from the center, but from the 3 pointy things...

<a href="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/tractor.GIF" target="_blank">tractor</a>

Please Xcuse my Ms paint skills <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

Soul_Rider

Very nice Kouji San, I also managed to find the same picture of a tractor beam.. I found it lollable.

Lt_Patch

I suppose, technically, a tractor beam shouldn't look like anything, because it would be a localised affection of gravity, or energy displacement, so the pictures of the beams would be misleading. But hey, a tractor beam in Freelancer is said to work on a similar principle as a shield does, so when we find out what a shield would look like in space, then we know what a tractor beam would look like.

As for the unit itself, it could feasibly look like anything. Same as things that do the same action, but look totally different, like a .38 revolver, and a .38 semi. They both fire a .38 round, but look very much different, with only a few parts in common.

It's called <b>imagination</b>, and it's good to excerise your own every now and again <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

Kouji_San

Hmm you're right about the not being bale to see the beam, I think. Well we could think about it like a gravity well projected at a certain distance from your own ship to suck the other ship into it. With anti-gravity well shielding you could create a dampening field between your ship and the gravity well created by the tractor beam.

All it would do visually, when looking at the gravity well. You would see the bending of light comming trough it. Kind of like what a blackhole does, only on an extremely small scale compared to those monsters <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

Perhaps the visual part of the tractor beam, would be the 3 beams from my proposed pointy things. Concentrating on one points to creat the gravity well, instead of the lightspot halo...

Soul_Rider are you also going to create the visual effect of the beams though? If not, this or what Lt_Patch said could used for nice backstory about the tech...

Soul_Rider

The plan is that the tractor beam tech is a basic and common part of the NS universe. Tractor beams are used within docking bays to control the landing of ships etc as they come into the docking bay, to avoid crashing into walls or anything.