Modular Ships

[AtomikKrab]

hmmm so you could make engine and fuel modules to increase the range and/or speed of your ships?

[UnLimiTeD]

Another interesting idea.
A tractor beam with a few layers of armor and a few fuel Bunkers, and miniTugs^^
You could also tow your Missile Magazines so they don't blow up inside your ship if hit
Leave them out the combat if necessary.

Btw, if you tow a ship, the speed/thermal of both gets sorta equalized on enemy sensors, you can make huge ships appear a lot faster by just towing them a little.
My Tug even showed to have shields on the enemies sensors    (personal test)

[Steve Walmsley]

I've fixed the bug allowing chains of tractored units. You can no longer tractor another ship if a tractor beam is already attached to that ship.

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

Aww; I saw it more as a feature.

[The Shadow]

Aww; I saw it more as a feature.

Ditto.

[Journier]

as much as I liked the idea... The use of tractoring in game seems so annoying. especially if you had a bunch of ships you wanted to build via tractored components.

[Elouda (OP)]

I actually expected that to be the route taken to fix this, as it seemed like the way it was intended to work. Nevertheless, a 'chain-tractor' as a tech or module later on might be interesting.

In light of this and some more playing around with this idea, I've moved away from the concept of pure tugs and pure modules, to simply using this idea to provide 'enhancement packages' that I can add to otherwise normal ships to provide more flexibility. In my current game these are 2000-3000ton lightly armoured modules that I may attached to my normal ships as needed to provide either tanker/supply/rearming support, increase firepower, enhanced sensors, or other roles as needed. They can still act as satellites and orbital bases when needed, but this way my fleet is not dependant on them.

[The Shadow]

Very cool!  I'm definitely going to be looking into this for my own games.

EDIT:  Though, as I think about it some more...  A tractor beam is the same size as two engines.  If your modules are only 2000-3000 tons, wouldn't two engines provide at least as much speed as being towed by something else?  Plus they'd be capable of independent movement.

EDIT:  Oh - do tractor beams work in nebulas?  I've never tried it.

[Caesar]

This is a great idea! I am going to make salvage modules to send to those wrecks that have been floating around in space all those years, attached to freighters.

[sloanjh]

This is a great idea! I am going to make salvage modules to send to those wrecks that have been floating around in space all those years, attached to freighters.

Just checking - did you read the part where Steve said the base premise of this thread is a bug that he's fixed?  You can only have 2 ships in a tow - the tug and the towed ship.

John

[Caesar]

I don't care about that. I'd just like to split the cargo ships from the salvage modules. Saves me building time.

One on one could still be attached, right?

[welchbloke]

I don't care about that. I'd just like to split the cargo ships from the salvage modules. Saves me building time.

One on one could still be attached, right?

Correct.  But I think the tractor has to be on the tug not the module.  I am thinking of using this to rapidly add new capability to my orbital weapons platforms if I can't spare the yardspace and/or time to refit them.

[Elouda (OP)]

I don't care about that. I'd just like to split the cargo ships from the salvage modules. Saves me building time.

One on one could still be attached, right?

Correct.  But I think the tractor has to be on the tug not the module.  I am thinking of using this to rapidly add new capability to my orbital weapons platforms if I can't spare the yardspace and/or time to refit them.

I dont think it matters what the tractor is on, the only change was that there can only be one link between any two entities. Hard to tell since its bugged so that it does not work at all in the last version.