Okay, I think this one is for real ; ) -- If I tow someone into a sector with a planet, and they try to land before I release the tractor beam, it says the tractor beam is released and displays everything as if they had landed on the planet, but they're not on the planet -- they're still in the sector. The second time they try to land, it works normally. If I release the tractor beam first, before the land, it works normally. I can see the value in having it not work the first time, since you would have to break away from the tractor beam, but I don't think it should actually display the planet and everything as if you had really landed. Transwarp tow is a major part of one of the colonization strategies I use, so my corpie and I will hit this pretty frequently in a night - it is definitely repeatable.

Can you drop products/figs off or pick products/figs up? can you visit the Citadel, launch a photon, take/leave credits? Do the towed player appear in the Sector to other players? If so, that might offer some really neat tricks... Either way yea, should be fixed, it is a breach.

No, you can't drop product, pick up figs, enter the citadel, etc.; you are still in the sector even though it displays the planet when you "land." We discovered this because my partner was about to (S) take/leave collies, and instead she got the (s)can (holo or density) menu. To the towing player, it says the person you were towing is no longer locked in tow, and then it says they landed on planet xyz, but if you re-display the sector they are still in the sector.

Porting from within a tractor beam does the same exact thing. When you're the towed player, it says you are released from the tractor beam before docking, it deducts a turn from you as if you had ported, and it displays the port (percentages & amounts, etc) report, but instead of asking you if you want to buy fuel ore or whatever, the next line is the typical sector prompt (time left, current sector) and you're just in the sector, ready to issue the next command. To the towing player, it says the person is no longer locked in tow, then it says they dock at the port, then they instantly lift off the port and are in the sector with you, not locked in tow. It appears there's a general issue with the behavior of the towed player breaking themself away from the tractor beam.

On the other hand, when you're the towing player you can port and trade without losing the tractor beam lock - you do your business (buying fuel ore) and you still have your partner in tow. That can be handy, and I could see it being "realistic" so I'd like to keep that behaviour. Maybe for a player in tow, maneuvering options should be restricted to "break the tractor beam" -- or every maneuvering option be "mapped" to the "break the tractor beam" option until after you do so.

Right, the first land breaks the tow but doesn't land so you're still in sector. But you get some messages as if you had landed. Those messages should be dropped, or the tow break shouldn't interrupt the landing... either one. I've never had that happen w/ landing tho personally, so I'll take your word.

With porting, uhm... I've actually had counter results. I tow ppl to dock all the time and they are able to port on the first attempt. It says the tow lock is broken and that they've docked, and when I scan the sector they are docked. I've never been able to keep the tow lock if I dock. This makes me wonder if it's specific to a particular server, have you tested it on other servers? What version and settings are you on?

Either way, you could fix it by breaking the tow lock in your tow macro. Granted that's a work-around, but it would solve the complications. I do that in a few scripts, "m 1234 * y y * w * * " and the like.

That's definitely interesting -- I tested and re-re-re-tested and the behavior is consistent - if you're in tow and you port, it looks like you port but you don't - just like with landing. I have not tried it on other systems to see if it is particular to mine... Now for reference when I'm talking about porting, I'm talking about regular ports as opposed to StarDock, although I'd assume it would be the same. In the test case though, we're both Reds so there'd never be a time we'd tow straight into StarDock. Here's a thought: Are you running in Gold mode? It's usually a safe assumption, except in my case : ) ... My setup is TWGS v1.03 (i.e. TW2002 3.13) running in MBBS mode, without Gold, so maybe that's the difference somehow? Are there any other particular settings you're interested in?

Obviously there are effective workarounds for both issues related to towing - usually we consider it to be the responsibility of the person doing the towing to release the tractor beam and give back the fighters upon arrival, and if that happens it doesn't come up. But, nonetheless, either it should simply say you broke free of the tractor beam and not display the port / planet you tried to go to, or it should break the tow and actually land / port you. My vote is for the first option, so that the behaviour of the towed ship is slightly different than if it wasn't in tow -- that could be the critical difference that reminded you "oh, wait - I need those fighters back before I go in there" or something similar.

Why not just have the person being towed pick up the figs after you have lock and before you tow them? Been a long time since I had to tow anyone, but believe that is the way it worked.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

That works too, but the particular scenario we're doing sometimes involves repeated on-off-on tractor beaming so it's frequent enough to be annoying if you actually pick them up. Instead of depositing them in the sector, the towing player takes them (T>F) temporarily, then gives them back when the operation is done. When we play red we like to play all-red as opposed to mixed corp, because there are some simplicities in the business model. One tradeoff is in colonizing, so you have to find a sector close to fedspace where you can leave a fighter as a transwarp beacon, then twarp tow a big collie ship, let them go grab the collies, and then get them back home. It's good for a thrill when others are online I think. Which makes me crazy, I know, but hey, having some diversity in the game as far as playing theory can make things interesting. I actually like all-red with Mules instead of Colts b/c of the low overhead and simplicity. And that begets the need for repeated twarp towing both for money setup and for collies, and for other reasons of turn-efficiency as well.

Not to distract from the original subject, but if you colonize as a red in a game I'm in, I'll know your home sector very quickly and have you in a pod soon after.