Grapple beams break during towing?

[ShadowDragon8685]

So, this is really annoying. I've found that when trying to tow a ship (for example, a captured prize vessel,) the ship in question will fall behind my ship, and the grapple beam will break. I think it happens when trying to tow a larger ship with a smaller one, but not always.

What's causing this? And more importantly, how do I fix it? I had to tow a destroyer across two sectors on regular speed to get it into harbor and claim it.

[Karlito]

Hey ShadowDragon,
grappling is based on physics, it depends on your's and the target ship's size and it works like a rubber band - if you drastically increase speed the grapple with break, but if you gradually increase speed by playing with the Energy Transfer panel you should be able to ease the target ship into a higher speed :)

[Zenoslaf]

Few rules of boarding:

1. Don't capture near stations cause allies will destroy your target.
2. Don't capture too far away so you don't have to tow across half of the galaxy.
3. Use Transporter capacity enhancement and officer for trooper strenght to maximize effectiveness.
4. Damage the ship's hull before boarding.
5. Don't expect to tow full speed. No tow truck can do that, they are always slow.

By the way, in Beta you couldn't tow in PTE. I liked that. We toned it down and enabled PTE towing on community request but as a gamer I still don't think that was right. Since it's easy money, and since it's basically a towing job, I don't think people should be able to tow in PTE. No pain, no gain. ;)

[Raincloud Man]

Capturing near stations is basically a cheap way of getting +50 trooper capacity though. Just send them all over, then instantly dock with the station, get 50 more, and send those over to cap it.
I've gotten freight liners worth millions this way.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Originally posted by Karlito:

Hey ShadowDragon,
grappling is based on physics, it depends on your's and the target ship's size and it works like a rubber band - if you drastically increase speed the grapple with break, but if you gradually increase speed by playing with the Energy Transfer panel you should be able to ease the target ship into a higher speed :)

It really ought to be an exposed stat, then, and based off the strength of the grapple beam, not the relative size comparison. The size of the ship doing the tow really shouldn't matter at all, just the strength of the grapple beam and the size of the tug's engines.

I'd much rather have a grapple beam which can take a lot more strain than one with a longer reach, let alone a higher HP total or resistance to hacking.

I didn't realize that the energy transfer panel affected PTE, though. When it say "Transferring all power to engines," I thought it meant it, especially since it breaks PTE if you throttle down.

Originally posted by zzokalj - SPG2 Vice Admiral:

Few rules of boarding:

1. Don't capture near stations cause allies will destroy your target.
2. Don't capture too far away so you don't have to tow across half of the galaxy.
3. Use Transporter capacity enhancement and officer for trooper strenght to maximize effectiveness.
4. Damage the ship's hull before boarding.
5. Don't expect to tow full speed. No tow truck can do that, they are always slow.

1 and 2 are contradictory, since there's basically nowhere to do any capturing that isn't either near friendly stations or absolute pirate-infested wilderness. Sometimes (particularlly Sigil,) you find pirate-infested wilderness which is literally within docking range of friendly stations.

By the way, in Beta you couldn't tow in PTE. I liked that. We toned it down and enabled PTE towing on community request but as a gamer I still don't think that was right. Since it's easy money, and since it's basically a towing job, I don't think people should be able to tow in PTE. No pain, no gain. ;)

That's absolutely terrible game design.
Never use frustration as a game mechanic. "The player can do this, we're just going to make it tedious as hell" is not good gameplay.

I think either the towing beam should be 100% guaranteed under PTE but not be startable during it, or the towing beam strength should be an exposed variable, so if you get it high enough, you can warp up to a ship which is fighting under combat maneouvers, tow it at PTE, and drag it out into the middle of nowhere for a quick kosh on the head and a tug back to a friendlier port.

[Geek]

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

It really ought to be an exposed stat, then, and based off the strength of the grapple beam, not the relative size comparison. The size of the ship doing the tow really shouldn't matter at all, just the strength of the grapple beam and the size of the tug's engines.

Ship size and engine strength are pretty much the same thing.
Do not confuse top speed with engine strength. Mass (for the sake of simplicity, assume size and mass to be proportional) affects the result of the engine output.

[Zenoslaf]

As a dev, I understand that tha

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

1 and 2 are contradictory, since there's basically nowhere to do any capturing that isn't either near friendly stations or absolute pirate-infested wilderness. Sometimes (particularlly Sigil,) you find pirate-infested wilderness which is literally within docking range of friendly stations.


That's absolutely terrible game design.
Never use frustration as a game mechanic. "The player can do this, we're just going to make it tedious as hell" is not good gameplay.

I think either the towing beam should be 100% guaranteed under PTE but not be startable during it,

1. It's not contradictory, you can capture anywhere. Most of capturing I have done, I did near the stations, some closer, some further. I've been all over Gemini and captured all over Gemini. But never in froint of the stations to avoid my allies killing my target. Also, after some time, I've become fast enough to capture before they even manage to destroy my target. And if there are two enemies being attacked near station, I always go for less damaged one.

2. Never use frustration as a game mechanic? I agree, but I also say "Don't dumb the games down to a level where they become boring after 5 minutes" I don't think that there was anything frustrating in the fact that when you tow the ship to station you have to go slower. You would do that with a real tow truck too. You wouldn't pick up a broken car and then go full speed on highway with it attached because something bad would happen.

SPG 2 is very easy game on Easy and Normal difficulties. Elite Dangerous is something i really respect in that regard. It's not easy. It's hardcore. More hadrcore than we ever were or will be. In Elite you can get interdicted and killed. Just like that. And that's it. You lost everythihng. All money, your ship, all weapons you had. And you're back with nothing. I don't find that frustrating, I just think it's hardcore as space sims should be. But the thing with hardcore games like that is that the feeling of accomplishment is incredible. It's hard, it's tense, one little mistake can cost you everything, but when you succeed, you feel like a king!

And if you start bounty hunting in SPG2 on Easy, you don't feel that. You just go from one marked target on the map to other, grind all bounties and leave the game. On Normal difficulty you have to read news on stations, try to find last known location of your bounty target, explore the area, search for clues. And when you finally find your target you feel like a boss even before you kill him.

This is an interesting article on those fake feelings of acomplishment some games have (and we try not to be that kind of game):
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/creating-the-illusion-of-accomplishment/

[76561198156207256]

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

It really ought to be an exposed stat, then, and based off the strength of the grapple beam, not the relative size comparison. The size of the ship doing the tow really shouldn't matter at all, just the strength of the grapple beam and the size of the tug's engines.

I'd much rather have a grapple beam which can take a lot more strain than one with a longer reach, let alone a higher HP total or resistance to hacking.

I didn't realize that the energy transfer panel affected PTE, though. When it say "Transferring all power to engines," I thought it meant it, especially since it breaks PTE if you throttle down

I didn't work on it but I think the logic behind it was the bigger the ship the bigger the grappler power(gunship can't possibly mount carrier size grappler). And in Spg2 there aren't any system equip-ables so their stats are directly connected to ship size therefore grappler is too.

Improved grappler reach actually improves your maximum possible travel speed :)

Agreed, but voice acting is set in stone as it was localized. I think it should say "Transfering power to engines" without ALL, because it works that way(you can't fire weapons).

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

1 and 2 are contradictory, since there's basically nowhere to do any capturing that isn't either near friendly stations or absolute pirate-infested wilderness. Sometimes (particularlly Sigil,) you find pirate-infested wilderness which is literally within docking range of friendly stations.

Actually, there were some changes that should prevent allies from firing on your dedicated transport target. There are few minor exceptions I think but generally it should work.

And what zzokalj wanted to say is that you should search for the sweetspot, not too far and not too close. If you ask me it isn't that much contradictory.

Originally posted by ShadowDragon8685:

That's absolutely terrible game design.
Never use frustration as a game mechanic. "The player can do this, we're just going to make it tedious as hell" is not good gameplay.

I think either the towing beam should be 100% guaranteed under PTE but not be startable during it, or the towing beam strength should be an exposed variable, so if you get it high enough, you can warp up to a ship which is fighting under combat maneouvers, tow it at PTE, and drag it out into the middle of nowhere for a quick kosh on the head and a tug back to a friendlier port.

Like most features in Spg2 it requires a learning curve. If you break your towing beam 3 times in a row you will(should) understand that something is wrong. If you have sufficient game experience you will know how to slow down and possibly try it, especially if you are looking at your towing target getting further away from you as you start.

I agree it is frustrating if you don't know what you are doing(aka new player or if you never noticed power menu - skipped our "boring text tutorial" :P) but it shouldn't be frustrating for any long term player.



What I think grappler mechanic is missing is some visual dynamic(more than regular text) indicator that your beam is going to break(like becoming red) or if you want it your way with 100% speed it'd be solvable with limiting player ship speed to maximum possible grapple speed but that would raise as many questions as this mechanic does as players wouldn't be able to speed up.

[Zenoslaf]

Originally posted by Maximus:

What I think grappler mechanic is missing is some visual indicator that your beam is going to break(like becoming red)

I agree with this. Green (as most tractor beams are), going to yellow and red before breaking. :)

[tomasoltis]

for higher speed towing you need +50% grapple range upgrade

[probe]

From my experience most ships can tow a same sized ship with an equal power distribution between shields/speed/weapons and PTE at the same time.

I've towed a gunship with a Taurus at 72% energy to speed while PTE'ing.

In general it's a good idea to use the turret cam and watch your captured ship while you try to find a balance between power distribution and PTE'ing. That way you can quickly turn down your speed if it gets to fast for the grappler.

But as I said; Power distribution at 33% to all systems and PTE'ing should work fine while towing same sized vessels.

[Raincloud Man]

Originally posted by probe:

From my experience most ships can tow a same sized ship with an equal power distribution between shields/speed/weapons and PTE at the same time.

I've towed a gunship with a Taurus at 72% energy to speed while PTE'ing.

In general it's a good idea to use the turret cam and watch your captured ship while you try to find a balance between power distribution and PTE'ing. That way you can quickly turn down your speed if it gets to fast for the grappler.

But as I said; Power distribution at 33% to all systems and PTE'ing should work fine while towing same sized vessels.

I generally go 15% engines and feed the extra power to shields and weapons, that way I can drag even bigger ships while turtling in case anyone tries to stop me.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You know, I think it would just be nice if your ship automatically adjusted your PTE speed so as not to break your tow.

I don't mind slowing down when you're towing a destroyer with a frigate, what I mind is that I could not figure out how to get PTE towing to work, so I had to fly 24,000 units of distance at my frigate's normal combat speed. I didn't realize that adjusting energy distribution would change PTE speed.

I mean, as was mentioned in another thread, you're the captain. You shouldn't have to say "set engine output to 23% and engage PTE." You should just say "You see that station? I want to tow this big fish we've reeled in there. Make it so."

[Geek]

Wow. I dont know where you get this idea, but it is certainly up to the ship captain to set the ship speed. As with other decisions.

Besides, playing a game require a bit more then saying "make me win", sorry.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Originally posted by Geek:

Wow. I dont know where you get this idea, but it is certainly up to the ship captain to set the ship speed. As with other decisions.

Besides, playing a game require a bit more then saying "make me win", sorry.

So, when the Enterprise puts a ship under tow to drag it to starbase, it's up to Jean-Luc Picard to personally fiddle with the engine and tractor beam settings to find the highest speed they can tow the ship at without the tractor beam breaking?

No. No, it is not. I see no reason it should be down to me to do so, given that I'm ostensibly the captain, not the engineer, nor the navigator.

[Geek]

I am 100% sure you can find numerous examples when Picard says "Warp speed xxxx" or something like that, yes. As he does for weapons, tools and other features of the ship.

So yes, you have a very wrong ida of being a ship captain... it is not a strategic commander sitting behing his desk.