Tractor beams, a multipurpose ship-mounted tool

[greenjoe]

So there was an idea on the Discord for tractor beams, I thought I'd write up a bit of an idea on the things they could do.

• Collect crates/cargo launched by a mass driver from another ship. This launched cargo would show on the overmap, allowing it to be intercepted (AKA, stolen) by another vessel with a tractor beam.
• Drag in small asteroids to be mined. These would of course have far less to harvest from compared to the large asteroids shuttles can fly to, but would be safer.
• Drag in parts of wrecks to be salvaged. This would be similar to asteroids, but it would pull in a random wrecked shuttle/chunk of ship map wreck, which could then be salvaged from.
• Slow down other ships. This could be used to stop ships that are adrift. It could easily be overpowered by a ship that is still being controlled, but for one that is not piloted and is flying out of control, could be brought to a halt that way. It could also be used to bring ships with their thrusters destroyed to a halt for a boarding party to attack.

I imagine the tractor beam on the Horizon would be controlled by Operations, bringing any pulled in asteroids/salvage/cargo onto a special pad. This could then be mined/salvaged/the cargo brought off the pad, before the rest is jettisoned, and removed from the game (with things in place similar to the cargo shuttle to stop living mobs getting deleted)
The way it could work could be that there are the small asteroids/wrecks on the overmap, which are targeted by the tractor beam console, similar to ship weapons, and pulled in. 

[CourierBravo]

(commenting 8 months later because it got brought up again)
I'd appreciate this just for the ability to slow down ships that are adrift, and bring them to a stop. This is a really nice idea, but my main concern is where are we gonna fit it? Deck 1 is cramped as is. Maybe under the wing, next to the warehouse?

However, it would be a pretty massive encroachment on a vital maints area. So maybe not this spot. Deck 2 could offer a spot, though it would be fairly cramped. Here, next to the Grauwolf.

Edited June 9, 2024 by Bejewledpot