Tractor Beam Emitter (PL 7)

A tractor beam emitter projects a short-range gravitational “tether” that latches onto or immobilizes a single target, usually a ship or unattended object. The target must be in the same square or in an adjacent square.

Using a tractor beam against a starship or an unattended object is an attack action. Against another ship, this action provokes an attack of opportunity if the ship being grabbed has a point-defense system.

To grab a target with its tractor beam, a starship must succeed at a ranged attack roll. If the attack succeeds, the smaller ship is immediately pulled into the larger ship’s space (if it isn’t in occupying the same space already); if both ships are the same size, the target is pulled into the tractoring ship’s space. In any case, being pulled into another ship’s space by a tractor beam does not count against a ship’s movement. If the tractoring ship is one or more size categories larger than the target, the target is effectively immobilized, and tractoring ship drags the target with it when it moves. If the tractoring ship is the same size category as the target or smaller, both the tractoring ship and the target are effectively immobilized. See the Starship Condition Summary for the effects of being immobilized.

As an attack action, a tractored starship can free itself from the tractoring ship by succeeding at an opposed Pilot check. Each ship adds a special grapple bonus on its check based on its size: Huge +8, Gargantuan +12, Colossal +16. A ship may only attempt to free itself from a tractor beam (or any other grappling device) once per round. A ship held by multiple tractor beams may attempt a single grapple check to escape all of the beams, but must beat the grapple check results of all opponents.

A starship using a tractor beam to grab another ship can terminate the beam (thereby releasing its hold on the other ship) as a free action. Only Gargantuan and Colossal ships can be equipped with a tractor beam emitter.

Purchase DC: 15 + one-half the base purchase DC of the starship.

Restriction: Licensed (+1).