Tractor beam/Legends

A tractor beam (also sometimes called a grappling ray) was a type of controlled force field that could be used to manipulate objects caught within its range and field-of-view. Tractor beam projectors were commonplace on capital ships, container ships, docking bays, and on spaceports.

The most common use for a tractor beam was to help guide spacecraft into a safe landing at spaceports and docking bays, as well as for aid with loading and unloading of cargo.

Warships, such as Star Destroyers, boasted powerful military-grade tractor beam projectors that could capture ships; disabled or not, and drag them into a hangar or hold them in position for boarding.

A tractor beam drew upon the momentum of the target as well as the ship from which it emanated. Ships with high momentum, typically meaning high mass, could affect smaller vessels with little strain on their own propulsion. Capital ships could tractor small freighters, for example, but if a freighter attempted to tractor a capital ship, it would actually affect the freighter's trajectory. For two ships of roughly equal size, the attraction was equal, but could be affected by the speed of the ships, which is where momentum played a role. For example, in orbit around Selonia, Han Solo found himself in a crippled Selonian cone ship with no propulsion, orbit decaying, rapidly descending into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, Leia Organa Solo and Mara Jade in the Jade's Fire looked on helplessly, unable to affect the cone ship's trajectory with a tractor beam because the ships were of roughly equal size and the cone ship was already accelerating toward the planet, thus it had the greater momentum. A tractor beam would only have pulled both vessels to their doom.

Smaller craft with powerful enough engines could out-maneuver tractor beams if the ship's pilot was more cunning than the tractor beam operator and the targeting computer. The tractor beams aboard the Death Star I took energy from the main reactor, giving them a constant flow of power and making it impossible for a vessel caught in it to escape. However, if one of the tractor beam's seven links to the reactor was severed, the projectors would be inactive and vessels would be allowed to escape, as Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered.

In 9 ABY Luke Skywalker was almost captured twice by the tractor beams of Grand Admiral Thrawn's flag ship the Chimaera. In the first instance Luke fired a proton torpedo at the very instant he reversed his sublight engines in an unorthodox manner which caused the tractor targeting computer to lock on to the torpedo, destroying the tractor beam projector. In the second instance Luke used a large freighter as a disguise with his X-wing hidden inside. After the freighter was locked by the tractor beam he destroyed the outer hull of the ship and escaped in the shielded X-wing while the operator uselessly tried to regain a confirmed lock through the debris of metal. These instances however, are rare in relation to the amount of times tractor beams have reliably captured small vessels.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 16: Nights of Anger, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Cloak of Deception
 * Rogue Planet
 * Outbound Flight
 * The Paradise Snare
 * Star Wars: Empire at War
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
 * Marvel Star Wars 1
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Children of the Jedi
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 * Specter of the Past
 * Young Jedi Knights: Crisis at Crystal Reef
 * Edge of Victory I: Conquest
 * Recovery
 * Force Heretic II: Refugee
 * The Final Prophecy
 * The Unifying Force
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back