i see in the future: A capital ship amassing a bunch of asteroids in a sphere, and then parking itself and a station right into the center. accomplished via tractor beam. cap. ships, moving roids and stations should hint at the time line

I doubt that the devs would want 'roids movable on a permanent basis. There are too many balance issues involved.

However, capital ships, tractor beams, and so forth are all things which could be implemented sometime in the future.

yeah, I thought about the movable roids thing getting kind of harry at times...but a tractor beam on just ships seems to be of little value. maybe limiting the size of the roids which are movable, huge ones being permanent, and smaller ones being able to be moved. at the same time, they could phase out after a certain amount of time once they've been moved. i'll keep thinking on it, any other suggestions involving the usefulness of a tractor beam, and/or moveable roids/stations are welcome (to me, who knows if anyone important is paying attention)

test1: Star Trek is the most tractor beam happy space cosmology I'm aware of. In simulations of Star Trek combat, tractor beams serve the following purposes:

1) Force fighters/shuttles/drones to come to a stop so that they can be ganked by capital ship weaponry.
2) Prevent opposing ships from warping away.
3) Prevent opposing ships from successfully cloaking.
4) Quickly and safely 'pick up' shuttles so that they can be brought aboard.
5) Keep an opposing vessel from getting away from your heavier short range weaponry.

Also retreiving cargo from a long distance, or handling of toxic or voitile chemiclas in space.

sounds good celebrim, what your basically saying is Tractor beam can have lot's of use, but not in the current game-play? if so, I agree.. Bring on the cap. ships! ;)

moving roids would be cool but i don't see any real reason to justify the level of work it would take, at least while things like capitle ships are still on the to do list.

Also i think that tractorbeems are only usefull for capitle ships (at leas in any tacticle sence)