The 1000m/s was an intentional change since I made the earlier post.

1,000m/s is so static. Why not base velocity on a pretty curve? The closer the object is to the tractor, the faster the tractor's velocity. Or maybe it should be the inverse?

Also, is there a way to keep them from tractoring off each other...
Cause that's annoying.

Tractor beam units is not tracking when the owner is off grid : working as it should or not ?

If it's volontary inactive if owner is offgrid, then i'm sad

Still, it should be said in the description if that's the case.

Unit was also trying to tractor my cloaked stratios sending a nice beam right at were my ship was, and no it wasn't trying to tractor something behind me it followed me around for a good minute.

Although that gives me a idea. what if we had a deploy-able the that sent a pulse towards cloaked ships every 15 seconds. or maybe a sphere wave that would have a blank spot were a cloaked ship is. that could be handy.

I couldn't find anything to the following question: Will Sleeper or other Rats be shooting that Tractor Unit or will they plain and simple ignore it?

if i have a tractor my self say in a marauder can i pull that thing along behind me like a jetcan?

After spending some time contemplating the 'If a tree falls when there is no-one around, does it make a sound?' koan, we've got to the bottom of the tractor units going idle when you warp off. Our physics engine, Destiny, is optimised such that movememnt ticks for items are only processed when there is an observer (generally a piloted ship). Once a grid is free of observers, we stop updating the positions of the remaining items. As the tractor beam relies on moving cans/wrecks, this optimisation acts to indefinitely pause its operation until a player comes back to 'hear the tree fall'.

(I checked in a fix today, should be on sisi for Monday hopefully)

"How can someone abuse this?" was one of the first things we considered when fixing this, don't worry!

"How can someone abuse this?" was one of the first things we considered when fixing this, don't worry!

Our physics engine, Destiny, is optimised such that movememnt ticks for items are only processed when there is an observer (generally a piloted ship).

I was only worried because having my brooms carry water for me without having to be supervised sounds too good to be true

Guys, what is the point of this unit ? It can be scanned ,it is puling wrecks slowly, and every one can shoot it.
Can any one show me some practical application of that mobile unit ?

As a professional hi sec salvager, I can drop one of these in each pocket, manually tractor, loot & salvage one pocket, then return to the previous two pockets with a head start on the fracturing & looting part of the exercise.

As a rabid mission-runner, I can drop one of these in each pocket as I start clearing the NPCs out. Depending on how shiny my mission-running ship is, I may end up with the entire pocket load of wrecks in a nice ball ready for salvaging by the time the last NPC is dead.

/me decloacks his ninja salvage boat and starts salvaging while writing thank you in local .

See? So many practical applications!

Now I see :) . It is a hi-sec unit . Not to me

So... 1000 m/s? Really? So if i do a mission with 30+ wrecks often a good way out (I use a rattlesnake with sentries) I could with the new toy wait a mere 30-40 mins for this thing to tractor in the wrecks? Nice work. Won't really be very useful. Oh well...

So many folks need to learn how to look for the ways that new tools will work for them, rather than looking at the ways that new tools won't work for them.

If the tractor unit was unprobable and worked after you left grid it would be great. Right now it kinda just sucks in every type of space.

Just one feature missing, that being it automatically ships what it loots and salvages back to your hanger in a station in system. :)

Hauling who wants it no one.

Common if your going to do it do it right. :)

I agree, make it produce isk as well.

Our physics engine, Destiny, is optimised such that movememnt ticks for items are only processed when there is an observer (generally a piloted ship). Once a grid is free of observers, we stop updating the positions of the remaining items.

So-o.. Did you just implemented mobile grid-wide covert detector?

No. The only way for this sort of "detection" to work would be if no one was on grid to see it. But it it could explain why when you warp off grid with your drones out and then warp back in, the rats only then begin shooting your abandoned drones, instead of nuking them while you're gone.

Also, this makes ninja salvaging easier. Can probe out the tractor module once the mission runner has moved on to the next site. The tears in local when they come back to find all their stuff gone will be epic.

The devs said they found the problem and fixed it, but was it ever fixed? Is anyone using these things? Happily?

I was wrong - you can definitely leave the grid, but you have to stay in the system. Fine for running nullsec anoms one after the other in an upgraded system, but not so great for SoE LP missions where the agent sends you do one or two jumps away nearby.

If you do leave the system while your MTU is active, it goes to sleep and won't reactivate until you enter the grid. (Reentering the system does not get the job done.) I guess this is a bug?

where NPC pirates are not interested in shooting it

So do they still get aggroed?

From http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for-rubicon :

Mobile Tractor Units feed off of each other once the second is launched and do not tractor anything else once each has a can. They feed each other if they are within 125kms of each other which was flagged during testing. This means that unless you are:

1) Using a Marauder\Battleship with MJD and jump 130km (100km with MJD and 20km slow boat) you can't use two
2) Travel >130km to launch a 2nd MTU

... I do like the 5 second cycle time though

So just posting this again as this negates the use of more than one MTU (also affects the market as people won't buy more than one or just a few) and just the logic of the MTU to be honest:



Now I was going to say that to avoid this "feeding off each other" you would need to jump >250km but that would basically make it pointless as well...as you need the to not have over-arcing ranges.

The other thing I would like to mention is, aside form the hilarity of watching this little tango of wrecks, is that if you drop one and your buddy in his Noctis drops one 5km's from yours and sits 2.5km from both pulling in wrecks with Tractor Beams the MTU's will auto loot for him as well as it's within their loot range. Tractor and Salvage, rinse and repeat. This is the only advantage I see to have two MTU's on the field at the same time.

The solutions would be, IMO, to:

1) Mark wrecks that are tractored by an MTU as being "MTU'd" and flag them not to be MTU'd or as being looted by an MTU.
2) MTU's tractor the FURTHEST wreck\can. This removes the "MTU's feeding each other" loop. Also means that a Noctis pilot could employ them to reach those at 125kms while working through the closer ones with local TB's (While I appreciate that 96km TB II reach and a MWD will get you there dropping an MTU out saves a little effort while you concentrate on salvaging and locking and tractoring).

Just some thoughts but currently only using one seems to be the most efficient and then scooping to Cargo once the Noctis is in-situ and be on your merry way.

I think this was intended..
However, if you fly a marauder, you can drop 2-3 of them and position yourself in the middle... Then you can salvage as the tractors pull them in.

Just a quick post to acknowledge the feedback regarding the closest/furthest tractor beam behavior. I can't commit that anything will change, but it is being looked at.

The solutions would be, IMO, to:

1) Mark wrecks that are tractored by an MTU as being "MTU'd" and flag them not to be MTU'd or as being looted by an MTU.
2) MTU's tractor the FURTHEST wreck\can. This removes the "MTU's feeding each other" loop. Also means that a Noctis pilot could employ them to reach those at 125kms while working through the closer ones with local TB's (While I appreciate that 96km TB II reach and a MWD will get you there dropping an MTU out saves a little effort while you concentrate on salvaging and locking and tractoring).

Just some thoughts but currently only using one seems to be the most efficient and then scooping to Cargo once the Noctis is in-situ and be on your merry way.

Other options include:

1. Higher meta versions built using Small Tractor Beam II (and thus getting that devices' higher tractor speed)
2. Higher meta versions built using multiple tractor beams (and thus getting more wreck-kilometres-per-second)
3. Higher meta versions with shorter cycle times (5s down to 4s or 3s, for example)

If the closest/furthest logic is fixed in my favour (i.e.: furthest wrecks first), this device as-is will perform admirably for my purposes. I have no need for multiple MTUs: I use the MTU for collecting wrecks out of range of my Noctis, and for the ever-so-valuable auto-loot function.

IMHO, the advantages that a Noctis or Marauder should always have over the MTU are wreck-kilometres-per-second and salvaging.