Synica Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Let's assume for a moment, there's a battle between two ships, Imperial and Republic. Both are the same general class of ship with pretty much the same overall specifications and also the exact same strength of tractor beam. Let's assume a freighter or other small vessel was attempting to flee from one to the other, and the ship it escaped from tractored it. What would happen if the other capital ship also grabbed it in it's tractor beam and pulled back? Would the freighter in the middle be pulled apart? Would it simply go no where? What would happen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firetiger Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 (edited) In the novels they've done some crazy stunts to escape from tractor beams and on some of those occasions the ships are pushed to the limit. Still that depends on the placement of the ship in relation to the area of effect of the tractor beams. If the cones of the beams overlapped with opposing vectors of identical force they would most likely cancel each other. Like a Venn diagram where the left and the right side pull towards their respected directions, but the middle section would stay neutral. Now if the beam didn't overlapped, but instead just barely touch upon the sides of the vessel it would likely create a rather destructive situation. Yet you have to keep in mind that the beam in its cone shape pulls in one direction, so most pilots try to escape by going over the edge of beams radius. To compensate for that, tractor beam stations are controllable by beam engineers or operators who maintain the target in range. So to split a craft apart both beams would have to be handle in congruent trajectories. Which is highly unlikely, especially by enemy forces. Or so I think Edited January 5, 2012 by firetiger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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