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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
Posts: 2248
Location: San Antonio
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 Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:27 am Post subject: Tractor Beams: How Do they Work? |
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So, an odd line of thoughts had me thinking about Tractor Beams. First, the quasi-official definition:
| Quote: | | A tractor beam was a projected force field that manipulated gravitational forces to push or pull objects. Such devices were employed on some vessels, creating an energy field that allowed them to lock onto and move other vessels or objects. |
But, anyway, I was thinking about tractor beams. Do they work down a gravity well? Do they have sufficient range that one could, say, lift something off a planet with them? Or lower something TO a planet with them? Could a freighter in orbit offload cargo and lower it to a designated location? Or pluck a cargo off the planet (or perhaps a floating platform) as move it to their cargo bay?
How small can they be made? Would single-shot repulsors be a viable personal weapon? Or a larger weapon, field-sized?
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Ray
Commodore
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
Posts: 1743
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, North America, Western Hemisphere, Earth, Sol, Western Arm, Milky Way
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| Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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Depends on the design, really. Star Wars is filled with a variety of technologies at varying levels of sophistication and ability.
The short answer is: "This is a Space Opera. The ability of the tractor beam has to be consistent, but more importantly it has to be what fits with the story." So, if it is able to work at only 1 Space Unit or less earlier, that's all it can work from in the future, without modification or replacement.
I'd suggest checking out Star Wars: Rebels, as there is a lot of clamping, moving, hauling and so on of cargo to get ideas of the low-end, civilian designs. The longer ranged, heavier systems are military in nature, like the Death Star grabbing the Falcon, but the Star Destroyers being unable to do so on the way to, and inside of the asteroid field in Empire. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16283
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 5:54 pm Post subject: Re: Tractor Beams: How Do they Work? |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | Do they work down a gravity well? Do they have sufficient range that one could, say, lift something off a planet with them? Or lower something TO a planet with them? Could a freighter in orbit offload cargo and lower it to a designated location? Or pluck a cargo off the planet (or perhaps a floating platform) as move it to their cargo bay? |
Per the RAW, Capital-Scale Tractor Beam Projectors have a maximum range of 30 SUs, which translates into 60 kilometers from Orbit and 3 kilometers in atmosphere. So, strictly speaking, what you suggest is possible, although I'd probably count being on the ground as partial Cover (increasing the Difficulty of targeting the tractor beam, due to the chance of locking onto the ground as well as the object).
Of course, the new films indicate that ships of great size can enter atmosphere and get quite close to the ground, so a large freighter could easily drop down to within a few hundred meters of the surface and use a dedicated loading tractor systen to load and offload cargo, as opposed to a physical crane or conveyor.
| Quote: | | How small can they be made? Would single-shot repulsors be a viable personal weapon? Or a larger weapon, field-sized? |
How small do you want them to be made? I don't see a problem with it. In the miniseries adaptation of Shatner's TekWar, the hero was equipped with a gravity (or at least kinetic) based weapon because the terms of his parole specified no lethal weaponry.
Of course, at max power, it could knock someone through a brick wall, so...
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