[TomShak]

Also note that Ion Cannons are not the only method of capturing a ship. They're merely one way.  Note that in the opening scene of Star Wars, even though the ISD is equipped with Ion Cannons, it doesn't use them against the corvette, preferring turbolasers.  The neccesity of Ion Cannons is simply an idea purveyed by the X-Wing games, where there are no alternate ways of disabling a ship. 

True, I imagine shooting the engines etc. would work well against capital ships like a corvette, after all they're pretty big targets. Although I'm guessing this wouldn't be quite such a viable tactic against smaller and faster craft, hitting the engines on an escaping shuttle would be hard work

[TopAce]

We don't have a TIE Defender, the mesh in the testing package is just a placeholder

Don't tell me you want to remove yet another already completed ship just because it doesn't have the number of polies that you want or you say it's too powerful. It is possible to find a place to it in a campaign, at most there will be fewer other TIEs around for mission balance. Or, missions where you fly in an elite Imperial squadron.

Where the hell did you hear that?  The TIE Bomber has no Ion Cannons.

Well, for some reason I remembered reading that on Wookiee. Perhaps it used to be there, but got removed. In Rebellion, T/Bs did have ion cannons, so that could also be a reason of my remembering this.

And stop capitalizing ion cannon already. Neither ion, nor cannon are proper names, neither is the compound "ion cannon."

True, I imagine shooting the engines etc. would work well against capital ships like a corvette, after all they're pretty big targets.

It will be possible, yes, unless the subsystem damage factor of primaries will be severaly reduced from standard FS values.

I'm guessing this wouldn't be quite such a viable tactic against smaller and faster craft, hitting the engines on an escaping shuttle would be hard work

We'll see that as soon as we get the Lambda done. It's possible that you will be able to destroy its engines with primaries (Imperial ships with no ions) before destroying the ship.

[brandx0]

When we restarted this project, it was agreed upon that we're not using any of the old stuff.  So yes, we're not using that model.

And the TIE Bomber still does not have Ion Cannons.

And I'll capitalize what I'd like to, grammar policing gets old real fast, thanks, have a good one.

[TomShak]

We'll see that as soon as we get the Lambda done. It's possible that you will be able to destroy its engines with primaries (Imperial ships with no ions) before destroying the ship.

True, are there any (semi-)canon statements on targeting subsystems of smaller craft to disable them?

[Akalabeth Angel]

We'll see that as soon as we get the Lambda done. It's possible that you will be able to destroy its engines with primaries (Imperial ships with no ions) before destroying the ship.

True, are there any (semi-)canon statements on targeting subsystems of smaller craft to disable them?

Uh, C3PO "They've shut down the reactor. We're done for"

[TomShak]

Uh, C3PO "They've shut down the reactor. We're done for"

Wasn't that the corvette though?

[Akalabeth Angel]

Uh, C3PO "They've shut down the reactor. We're done for"

Wasn't that the corvette though?

       Meh, compared to an ISD it's a smaller craft. It can fit in the darn launch bay after all.
       One could argue though, that in the movies no one ever tries to capture any fighters. So why would they need to be capturable in the game? Heck the ISD never fires any ion cannons either.

        And why would the Imperials need to capture a rebel fighter anyway? or any small craft? How much intel is the average pilot going to know? We know that engines can be shot, because Luke loses one or more of his in the Trench run. We know that shields can be disabled because Queen Amidala's transport takes a hit against the Trade Blockade in the EP1.

         But fully disabled? There's never been the plot in the movies at least, to make that happen. Don't know about any of the books.

[Snail]

But it's not a fighter or bomber.

[Akalabeth Angel]

But it's not a fighter or bomber.

     Like I said, Luke's fighter took engine damage in the trench run when Vader sent a blast up his tailpipe.

[TomShak]

And why would the Imperials need to capture a rebel fighter anyway? or any small craft?

Well I was more thinking about something the size of a Lambda shuttle, which is only very slightly larger than a fighter and still pretty maneuverable.

[LordMelvin]

As I recall, in the X-Wing books, a couple of fighter pilots were captured by enemy capital ships (Lusankya? Iron Fist? One of the SSDs, anyway... ), and the enemy ships didn't even need to bother with ions, just a tractor beam lock.

Any plans to implement tractor beams?

[TopAce]

That is difficult with the FS engine.

If I were to do that, I would create a new hidden subsystem that "drags" its target toward the subsystem, then with the "distance < x" SEXP, I would order the targeted ship to enter the hangar. That ideally means that the tractor beam subsystem is somewhere near the hangar.  But I'm not a coder, so I don't know how hard it would be to implement.

[Nohg]

Is the FS engine capable of making the player ship fly on its own, as in take the hands of the player off the controls? That might be a solution.

[TopAce]

It's possible, but telling the AI where to go is the problem.

[LordMelvin]

Is the FS engine capable of making the player ship fly on its own [...] That might be a solution.

Of course then you can't target and destroy the beam emitters before it finishes pulling you in, or manouver laterally to interpose another vessel into the beam, both techniques which (assuming that they could be implemented in the engine) (sorry to take any code guys for granted, I don't know how hard that'd be...) have been used by skilled pilots (read: Han & co.) to somewhat balance the overwhelming game disrupting effect that a "pull-you-in-beam" has.

Edit for clarity

[maje]

         But fully disabled? There's never been the plot in the movies at least, to make that happen. Don't know about any of the books.

The Avenger was disabled by Echo Base's planet defender ion cannon.  It may have been a temporary measure until either the systems were replaced or repaired (or possibly rebooted).

The Ion Cannon serves as a means to short out an enemy craft's electrical systems without doing any actual hull damage.  Now as far as WHY you never see the actual space craft use ion cannons (especially the Y-wing and B-wing, if any), I don't know.

[Nohg]

Aren't the Ion Cannon equipped fighters mentioned more heavily in the EU content? I also don't remember much Y-Wing and B-Wing combat from the films, but its been awhile.

As I recall, in the X-Wing books, a couple of fighter pilots were captured by enemy capital ships (Lusankya? Iron Fist? One of the SSDs, anyway... ), and the enemy ships didn't even need to bother with ions, just a tractor beam lock.

Any plans to implement tractor beams?

I think it was during the Lusankya's escape from Coruscant. But IIRC Erisi wanted to be taken over to the ship, as she was the spy. Not necessarily a killing point for the tractor debate, but outside of that and the Tantive's capture in Episode IV, tractos don't show up much in my memory.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Aren't the Ion Cannon equipped fighters mentioned more heavily in the EU content? I also don't remember much Y-Wing and B-Wing combat from the films, but its been awhile.

    The B-wings don't see any combat in the films whatsoever. "All craft pull up!" is the last you ever see of the B-wing at the battle of endor. Meanwhile the Y-Wings in both films just tend to get blown apart. I recall one spiraling into a Star Destroyer in BoE right before one of the cuts to the surface of Endor.

[LordMelvin]

...
I think it was during the Lusankya's escape from Coruscant. But IIRC Erisi wanted to be taken over to the ship, as she was the spy. Not necessarily a killing point for the tractor debate, but outside of that and the Tantive's capture in Episode IV, tractos don't show up much in my memory.

Just re-read X-Wing Rogue Squadron, there's a moment when Corran gets tractored by an unidentified ship - turns out to be Mirax, but he doesn't know that, and there's a beat where he panics pretty good because he doesn't think he can get away.

Add'nly there's a memorable character moment somewhere in the Thrawn trilogy where {low-ranking bridge officer on the Chimaera} fails to maintain a tractor lock through debris from several detonated missiles - for the life of me I can't see that working in the game, missile debris just wouldn't be big enough to physically block the beam, and the targeting systems aren't going to get hung up on intervening debris without significant reprogramming - and it'd probably be pretty dang clunky script, too - but the way I recall the scene breaking down, the target ship - which I think was the Falcon - would definitely have been captured if it hadn't used said tactics - which seems to at least imply that a capship's beam is more than powerful enough to overwhelm any fighters' drive system handily.

So - the way I see it working is a specialised turret subsystem, in immediate proximity to the hanger, that has a low tracking rate, but that moves the ship towards the beam emitter and damps the lateral velocity of the ship, relative to the turretted vessel. Any experienced code/fred people got input?

[TomShak]

The canon evidence on how ships are captured seems unclear. However, from a gameplay perspective I think ion cannons are much more interesting and fun than just using a capital ship tractor beam. Having the player chase down ships and disable them, then having to guard transports carrying boarding parties, it makes for some really fun missions. A definite alternative to the default "kill everyone" style objectives.

You can make some canonical arguments that ion cannons were the main method of capturing ships:

The first is that ships such as the Y-Wing and B-Wing definitely carried ion cannons, and from the Battle of Hoth it can be seen that the primary effect of an ion cannon is to disable a ships subsystems. So it seems likely that the reason Y-Wings and B-Wings carried ion cannons was to disable enemy ships. Additionally it suggests that ion cannons are the best option for disabling a ship, because if you could do it easily by targeting subsystems with laser cannons then the Y-Wing and B-Wing wouldn't need to equip ion cannons.

Secondly although capturing ships with tractor beams is mentioned in canon perhaps this only possible in quite limited circumstances. The tractor beam might have quite a limited range, or maybe it can only reliably stop targets if the target is in a certain position.

Thirdly the fact that ion cannons don't appear to be used extensively in the Battle of Yavin or the Battle of Hoth could easily be explained by the fact that capturing things in those battles wouldn't have been a high priority. They were full out assaults aimed at total destruction of the enemy, laser canons would have been a better choice for this kind of engagement.

So all in all I like ion cannons. They make some really interesting missions possible The canon material seems to be ambiguous on the subject, so personally I think it makes sense to chose an interpretation that makes a good game