More new player questions

[jseah (OP)]

I have discovered that tractor beams can chain. . .
A, B and C all have tractor beams.   

A1 tractors B1, B1 tractors B2, B2 tractors B3 <. . . >, B* tractors C, C tractors nothing

So.   Given this, is a modular fleet possible?  XD
How about a battlefleet with no section > 20ktons, but all of which have tractor beams and are purpose built?
Chain your engine section to your jumpdrive section to your point defense section to your missile platform to your laser weapons to your. . .  XD

My feasibility analysis:

Disadvantages:
Enemy targeting gets to hit a section they like.  Essentially they get to focus on one part of your armour at a time, unlike in one big ship.   
Warp point assaults are hell.   You can only send as many sections together as your jump drive is rated for.   
You lose some engine efficiency.   Number of modules = number of 500tons wasted on tractor beam mass.   

Advantages:
Maintenance is easier.   Number of maintenance facilities you need drops drastically.   
Shipbuilding can occur on smaller shipyards using slipways in parallel.  A 5 slipway 20kton yard can churn out an effective 100kton ship.   
Shipbuilding requires less shipyards.   You can retool each module invidually as tech increases, without retooling the whole shipyard for a new ship class.   
Your jumpdrive module is commercial. . .  And can remain small.   
Option of using commercial engines for military ships. .  and having them remain commercial.   
 - And if you do this, you can use a commercial jumpdrive (!!)
When your engines blow up from a hit, damage is contained to the engine module.   If you have more than one engine module, the ship just slows down. . .

Anything I missed?
Is it worth it to try?

[sloanjh]

I have discovered that tractor beams can chain. . .
A, B and C all have tractor beams.   

A1 tractors B1, B1 tractors B2, B2 tractors B3 <. . . >, B* tractors C, C tractors nothing

Which version are you playing with?  My recollection is that someone stumbled over this a year or so ago, and Steve removed it as an exploit - probably in late 4.x.  IIRC, the intent is that only 2 ships are allowed in a tractor chain, i.e. A tractors B, B tracktors nothing.

John

[Elouda]

John beat me to it;

I tried this a year ago, the results are in this thread - http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2459.0.html

Essentially, groups of the tractored ships with more than one component ignored the added weight after the second (and thus did not loose speed), and as a result Steve changed the code to prevent this.

[jseah (OP)]

I just installed last week.   v5. 20  I think it's 5. 20 at least.   
For reference, ship design looks like this.   

King George class Cruiser    19,900 tons     2107 Crew     5194. 6 BP      TCS 398  TH 1275  EM 1800
6407 km/s     Armour 4-65     Shields 60-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 32     PPV 195
Annual Failure Rate: 143%    IFR: 2%    Maint Capacity 3589 MSP    Max Repair 377 MSP    Est Time: 3. 15 Years

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E8. 4 (17)    Power 150    Fuel Use 84%    Signature 75    Armour 0    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 26. 9 billion km   (48 days at full power)
Delta R300/15 Shields (24)   Total Fuel Cost  360 Litres per day

Quad 20cm C5 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (5x4)    Range 256,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 40-20     RM 4    ROF 10        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Fire Control S08 128-8000 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (20)     Total Power Output 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Let me confirm that tractor beam chain again. . .  . . .

Confirmed.   I've chained my tug boats together in orbit.   
Pic here:
hxxp: i253. photobucket. com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup. jpg

The Agincourt class is a tugboat that is nothing but engines and a tractor beam.   From the F6 screen, I selected Agincourt 002, tractor linked it to Agincourt 003.   Selected Agincourt 003, tractor linked it to Agincourt 004 and so on.   

Then I open the F12 taskgroups screen and refresh the TG they were in by selecting it in the dropdown box again and I get this.   

SM mode testing coming up.   

[Elouda]

I just installed last week.   v5. 20  I think it's 5. 20 at least.   
For reference, ship design looks like this.   
Let me confirm that tractor beam chain again. . .  . . .

Confirmed.   I've chained my tug boats together in orbit.   
Pic here:
hxxp: i253. photobucket. com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup. jpg

The Agincourt class is a tugboat that is nothing but engines and a tractor beam.   From the F6 screen, I selected Agincourt 002, tractor linked it to Agincourt 003.   Selected Agincourt 003, tractor linked it to Agincourt 004 and so on.   

Then I open the F12 taskgroups screen and refresh the TG they were in by selecting it in the dropdown box again and I get this.   

SM mode testing coming up.   

Interesting.

Did the speed drop after you chained more than one module?

[jseah (OP)]

Relink:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup.jpg

SM mode testing to create a fleet of tankers with tractor beams. It works.
Pics here:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest2taskgroup.jpg

I have discovered that you can drag to set the length of columns.  Interesting.  Each ship is apparently linked to two others.  
Moving the fleet... works.  I've moved them from my homeworld to my naval shipyards.  

Interesting to see that the effect Elouda mentioned is around.  The speed of that fleet is 9191, which is the standard max speed of my tug boats.  

Fuel test... Only my tug boats consume fuel.  Which is a massive fuel hog of course.  

EDIT: The ResolutionTnk class is a tanker class, fuel... and nothing else.  The ResolutionMnt class is a maintenance base, 2x maintenance module and nothing else. 

[jseah (OP)]

Interesting.

Did the speed drop after you chained more than one module?

It didn't, see my tanker test. 

The tug boat test isn't conclusive since all the tugboats in the chain are identical so you wouldn't expect the speed to drop. 

[jseah (OP)]

Database backed up.. risky experiments time.  
I've tried to build a circle of tractor beams. Unfortunately, ResolutionMnt 004 cannot tractor Agincourt 002. For that matter, the other tractor beamed ships don't even show up in the dropdown list of tractor targets (but my shipyards do)

I removed Agincourt 003 and 004 and 005 from the task group, breaking their links.
Weird behaviour ensued.   Task group speed is now 0 ( I've never seen a 0 speed anything)
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest3taskgroup-1.jpg

F6 window: Selecting Agincourt 002, I cannot find ResolutionTnk 004 in the tractor beam target list.  I can find ResolutionMnt 004 though...  But Resolution Mnt 004 has 003 tractoring it.  

I think I can figure out the rule(s) here.  
1. A ship can only have 1 tractor beam target.  
2. A ship that is tractor beaming something cannot be the target of a tractor beam.  
3. A ship can be tractorbeamed first, and THEN tractorbeam other things.

Aw, no tractorbeam loops.  XD

Also, can we please not take that out?  ^^  I want to make a modular fleet now.  
Why not just consider total engine power of all tractor linked ships and their total mass then get the speed from there?

EDIT: lolz, I could quite easily make capital ships go zoom as fast as fighters go... zoom...
Hey... Can fighters mount a tractor beam?  *evil grin*

FACs certainly can.  I now have a two stage tractorbeam FAC that can make any number of tankers go at 10 kkm/s  =P