well yes you must be within range to damage trade lanes... im in my anubis and I disable a tradelane... fight of the pirates... the police.. the civilians and destroy the cargo frieghters with my guns... then i hit tractor.. get all the junk i don't want and end up gettin a tractor failure so i can't get the stuf tht i do want!
Phoenix out
PS: is combat damage a factor in tractor failures???


From this celestial bough all but one did fall into the pitiless fires of reach.
A soldier’s ignominy to have dreamt while his brothers bled. But oh, for the rest of us his shame was our salvation.

Combat damage? Nono wrong idea, "Tractor Failures" only occur when your ship can't hold any more of the type of things floating around you.

- If your shield battery phalanx is all full, then you won't be able to tractor in any more shield batteries.
- If your cargo hold is full, then you won't be able to tractor in any more commodities.

Then, and only then you hear that "tractor failure" sound. Your tractor emitter cannot take any damage, it will always work perfectly. The only thing that you can _always_ tractor, is equipment (dropped guns, shields etc.) because equipment does _not_ take cargo space, but is stored "elsewhere" in the ship. You can lug around a stash of 300 wepaons if you want and still tractor in more.

Note:
if you have your cargo hold full of junk and some valuable thing is floating before you in space, open you inventory (F7), switch to 'cargo' and you'll have the option to jettison selected cargo items by clicking on the "trashbin" icon in that window.
That way you can free space for the "good" stuff. (look for the "tractor only selected item" key in the options, you'll need it if you don't want to re-suck in all the junk you just threw out )

WARNING: your shields are down for a certain timespan while jettisoning stuff, so don't try this with a squad of pirates in front of you.

D_R



+++ " Infinity? Nah, been there. " +++ =)

Edited by - Digital_Ronin on 20-03-2003 21:37:14

Speaking of tractoring in stuff, in SP is it possible for NPCs to steal stuff that is floating around in space?

Also, if I leave a bunch of stuff floating around (say, because my cargo hold is full), but I leave a waypoint marker at that spot, then fly to a base and return, will the stuff still be there?

Wap

First answer: no, NPC will never tractor things, at least I never saw a single one do it in the 100-odd missions that I did.
(Only one exception, I think: if some pirate threatens you to drop your cargo and you actually do it, then he'll most probably grab it. Never watched them do it though.)

Second answer: nope, the universe is "rebuilt" each time you leave a base, and all but the static stuff (bases, tradelanes, planets) will be gone.

Pretty much for the same reason you can load the same savegame twice - and in one time you will see a huge war going on outside the station after undocking, while the other time all will be clear and empty.
"Enemies close outside" seems to be one of certain random factors during the universe-rebuilding process that takes place during each undocking.

D_R


+++ " Infinity? Nah, been there. " +++ =)

Edited by - Digital_Ronin on 20-03-2003 22:30:05

Easy Rhino said "MINOR MINING SPOILER: In dublin, it looks like the center of one gold field is bright. But in the Von Rohr belt in Omega-whatever (radioactive diamond field) the brighter color is the outside ring."


Just want to tell you that the ring is in the Omega 11 system

Darker rings mean HAZARDS. Minefields, gas pockets. radiation.

More rocks generate if you open fire. More you shoot, more rocks appear. Stand still in dublin and light up the sky. You will be hitting stuff you don't even see.

Moving slowly is better than standing still.

Just an FYI, in Tau 37, near the Tau 23 jump hole you can mine niobium. It is a 100% drop rate. It does not show on the map as an area you can mine in, so ignore that.

Ne frustra vixisse videar

Is mining worth it-time:profit compared to trading? Both are legal but you gotta travel a ways to sell for a good price anyways, so instead do it 2 or 3 times. Ive personally always thought trading was easier and just a big pain to fill my humpback. And even better-break out my Titan and just do some go ol' illegal pirating

Its only illegal if you get caught

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I rewrote the oriiginal mining co mod to suit me gold / diamonds .more silver/in new york colo tau bretonia and other places icreased amounts to mine but has kool colors for you to see
have to copy paste over orginal in the last folder in flmm mods folder
its that easy
save to desktop then copy paste
MORE FREE ThaN U CAN HAUL
i dont take credit for the first one out but i have nice one now kool colors

i have compressed it so i can send to you email
email me if you want it
[email protected]

))))KING((((

Its kinda difficult to tell if the NPCs tractor stuff, since their tractor beams dont have an animation, but i think they do cos i have left stuff lying about while getting shot at and it 'disapeared'. They definately arent very good at using shield batteries and nanobots, though.