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Then what happens when you shoot a tractor beam at players?

TL;DRTractor beaming players is disabled for 3.12, as touching a tethered box breaks the tether; long term they want it for injured or dead players and as a weapon, with balancing and counters.

Richard TyrerCore Gameplay Director

So for 3.12, we disabled it. So obviously, you saw there's a few, not bugs, there were a few actions we disabled for 3.12. Green Goblin was one.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

Tell them what Green Goblin is.

Richard TyrerCore Gameplay Director

So you can jump on a box and then tractor beam the box and fly off into the distance. You can also have other people jump on a box and then they fly off. So now basically what we do is we disabled it so that if anybody touches the box, it disables the tether, it breaks the tether. You can do dead bodies. So if you need to get somebody, eventually, when they're hurt, or if they're a dead-or-alive bounty and you need to show their body or whatever, you should be able to lift them up into your ship. But fundamentally, long term, we do want the ability to offer the tractor beam [on players]. So if somebody's injured or somebody's hurt, you can do it. Or if you're using it as a weaponized version of the tractor beam. But you will have ways to prevent it. It's never going to just be everyone trolling each other and tractor beaming all over the place. It will go through some design balancing to make sure it's right for Star Citizen and that it fits the mold. But yes, the actor actually is a rigid body, so it worked out of the gate. It was something we disabled. Like I said in my previous answer, there's a lot of ways tractor beam is going to be utilized, and I'm a thousand percent certain that the community will find a lot of interesting and amusing ways to use it. And we will find those and have to make a call on whether they fit the gameplay. But yes, the fundamental is for 3.12, nothing happens. And if somebody jumps on a box when you're tractor beaming it, it will disable it.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

Well, if your fix is working. At one point, you could shoot the box, you could lift the person, and then you disabled it if it was touched on the feet, but then people were bunny hopping on top of the box.

Richard TyrerCore Gameplay Director

Yeah, the bunny hopping was a good one. So we had basically a delay before the tether breaks. So people were jumping up before the delay was resetting. So then we added, now it's like a cumulative value. But then we just went with a more elegant solution. So essentially, as soon as it touches you, it disables it. But yeah, there's going to be lots of different uses for the tractor beam going forward. With the actors, we want to create a physics sandbox in Star Citizen. That's what it's always supposed to be, this universe simulation that has a physicalized nature in the game, that everything is built on the physical world. So the weight of your armor dictates how fast you can run and how far you can run. What you're carrying with you dictates it. All of those things should be tying into how heavy your ship is and how it moves in atmospheric flight. All of these things are tying towards the same vision that we're aiming towards. And the tractor beam is no different. It's underpinned by physics. So if you have a ship-size tractor beam on a MOLE or something that's going and collecting huge boxes and allows you to manipulate those, that ties into the Star Citizen universe that we're trying to create. So yeah, long and short of it though, actors is a no for 3.12 right now.

Star Citizen Live›All About Alpha 3.12·
Published on this date.11 Dec 2020