Calling All Devs Summary | Tractor Beams

Tractor Beams
They are working on tractor beams, the first tractor beams that make it into game will be weak ones for extracting chips of rock & to aid with mining. These ones will not be able to move other objects, cargo, ships or players around YET.
Longer term they will be looking at proper (more heavy duty) tractor beams too, and will get ships that require them for moving cargo & larger items equipped.
They are looking what happens when multiple players try to move the same box. What happens when a player in EVA is targeted by one.
They are also looking at making sure there is no obvious extreme abuse of the mechanics too.
It’s currently considered a beam weapon, tho it doesn’t deal damage.
You’ll be able to focus on the item you want to interact with, then push or pull it. This can be cargo boxes you want to bring into your cargo bay OR moving cargo bay to cargo bay.
With the Orion mining large bits of rock, you’ll be using the tractor beams as pieces break off to make sure they don’t get away.
Put more power into the tractor beam it’s range & strength might increase BUT you may risk damaging the tractor beam or your ship.
Potentially you’ll be able to exchange a weapon, turret or missile slot for a tractor beam, this would give some ships a more utilitarian function OR to be able to assist in mining/salvage ops.

Component Size
Larger components will tend to do certain functions better.
For example a Large Radar will see further than a smaller one, however it will require more power and give off more signal.
Medium Size Computers as components are actually the largest size they go up to, so in Capital ships you would have multiple medium computer components.
Larger OR Higher Grade items may have more slots so you can effectively do more things with them.

Modules
They are working on getting the currently announced modules out for ships first before making additional ones for existing ships.
The Modular System for swapping existing modules around is not currently scheduled for 2018 tho this may change.

Player Created Space Stations
Player created Space Stations are being considered BUT it’s a far future not on the roadmap for a long time thing. They’d love to have it in game if it’s possible and sensible.
This could be deploying a science station OR building a satellite OR many other things.

Ship Roadmap
A Ship Production Roadmap on the website is currently a low priority for them as they have ship shape! However I’ll put one up on my website, it won’t be pretty BUT it will track ships and concepts.