Re: [VANILLA-LIST:2883] some mods to make netrek more accurate

[Tom Holub <doosh@best.com>]

On Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 03:16:02PM -0500, Mark Mielke wrote:
> 
> Other changes include that a tractor beam will vary it's strength and
> cost if the ship is close enough that we would otherwise get a
> wobbling effect (quite quite close). If the target of the tractor beam
> should not wobble over 0, it should approach 0 and at 0 not have any
> effect on the position of either ships. Before anybody argues that this
> would affect INL games or something horribly, realize that the strength
> will never become more than it currently is... just if the victim is
> 2 away, and you tractor him towards you, there would be no point in him
> moving 40 towards you putting him 38 behind you... rather any real ship
> would just use less power, and therefore less fuel such that that 2
> moves to 0. Once at zero, the tractor beam would not actually be moving
> anything, so it would therefore take up significantly less fuel, and
> approach some base "to have the tractor beam active" cost.

This is not a small a change as you might think.  It is not uncommon to
have two out of fuel ships sitting near each other, with one or both
of them trying to orbit the planet (for example, a carrier and the last
defender after a big fight).  If you could tractor with almost zero
fuel cost it would change this situation considerably.

What advantage to game play is this supposed to give us?
 -Tom