Grapple Beam (for Space station towing and more)

[Poodleinacan]

Why have a docking bay for all your stuff, when there could a grapple beam to tow your other ships... Or space station.

http://youtu.be/XkJDpPkgnEk?t=3m9s

(game: Colony Wars Red Sun) (by the way, it's not my video)



The way the grapple beam would work is that you must install a Grapple Beam computer on your chosen ship, and also install a grappling target/connector on your designated target you want to tow. The Beam would stay active (after shooting it) until you activate it again (would deactivate it) or change weapon. The Grapple Beam's beam would grapple from the Grapple Beam weapon cube (only one is needed) 360 degree... Meaning that once it's conected, you don't have to be facing the conector.



So, what do you all think about this?

 

[A Box o Crayons]

Haha when I saw \"Grapple beam\" I thought of that scene from Firefly when their entering the sector of space controleld by those freaky people and theres a ship that spins aroudn another one and like.. rips a part off of it or somthing.. but ya I think some kind of \"grapple beam\" or \"tractor beam\" would be nice.

 

[lupoCani]

Nice Idea, but I think space station moving should be done with jumpdrives

 

[Poodleinacan]

But for that, the Space station would need to move... And not \"teleport\" (a Space station is\'t a mothership or something... It\'s not made to move itself around.)

 

[MrRaemet]

...So its effectively the equivelent to my tractor beam idea which was posted not too long ago

 

[Poodleinacan]

I didn\'t see your topic... But my idea isn\'t a tractor beam, for say. It doesn\'t attract stuff... It\'s merely a laser rope to tow stuff.

 

[MrRaemet]

...whats the difference? It has ultimately the same application as a tractor beam

 

[lupoCani]

Well, I suppose you could say a tractor beam an be adjusted both before and after activation, but they\'re still essentaily the same thing. As for why I prefer jump drives for stations, it\'s exactly for the same resson, they\'re not made to move. As I said in the other tractor beam thread, a charge-up equalling the distance times a balancing constant divided by the max speed in m/s, huge power requiremments, and possibly some form of vulnerable reciever structure requirement should remove the mothership aspect, and be easier to implement both code and gamplay-vise.

 

[MrRaemet]

Why not have something thats equivalent to a dumb fire missle, that is just a grappling hook made from super strong alloys. It would probably be alot easier coding wise to implement in that way.