Should black widows have tractor beams?

[Ranakastrasz]

Replace the tractors with a new tractor beam variant: stasis beam.  Same thing, but the target ship is paralyzed.  I'm pretty sure that would be a touch OP, but it would be interesting at least.

Sweep golem through planet, sweep golem through massive turret ball/minefield. Yeah sounds pretty broken. Of course, I think the botnet golem is pretty broken as well and it still works. So maybe that would be a viable solution. I mean there's not much difference between killing massive swathes of fleet ships in one barrage, like several golems can do, and paralyzing a ton of them to destroy them later. It also fits the spider theme pretty well.

Spider catch stuff in their sticky web, not shoot paralizing shots
Iirc they lose their tractor ability when powered down, use that to your advantage

Spiders catch stuff in their sticky web. not use tractorbeams and guns to grab and beat the crap out of enemy mobility. I think a riot starship is better.

[Zeba]

We could make them less fragile.  We could also make the tractor beams apply engine damage and/or paralysis damage, though the OP'd ness could get significant there.  Not as OP as making it do reclamation damage, though

What about instead of the shots applying engine damage it rots armour?

Tractors would be the web and the rot would be the poison. 

[realcoolguy]

What if the BlackWidow in high powered mode would drop 'webbing' ships, reasonably tough ships with a bunch of tractors (fairly long range).  It would be a little like the Hive Golem, except for the Widow would be a little more combat ready in terms of number of targets it could hit.  I really wouldn't mind seeing implosion being the weapon style of the black widow - greatly weakening it's prey as it struggles to free itself form webs.  In fact scratch the high power/low power thing, just have it generate the webbing ships, and unload them when you need to build a web.  It would be great, but hopefully not step on the Hive golem too much, but I believe the non-moving webbing would function differently.  The webbing ships would take the aggro and diffuse the problem of the BlackWidow towing ships that are normally short range but have high damage.

[keith.lamothe]

I don't think it would make sense for it to drop off mobile tractor ships, but if it periodically dropped off a new kind of tractor turret (that has self-attrition) that could work in theory.  Not sure I like the idea of adding a whole new unit to address a few concerns with another unit, though.

[Ranakastrasz]

I think the full issue is that the widow lacks a clearly defined role.

[keith.lamothe]

I think it has a fine role; it's a good tackler but not nearly the tank that an armored golem is.

[realcoolguy]

I was thinking a new kind of stationary tractor with self-attrition would fit perfect.  I would also think either implosion or engine damage would fit the BlackWidow well also.   I don't mind the unit as it is, but making it feel something like a spider that can catch and greatly weaken a bunch of units would be perfect.  Having something that I can use to stop up 1 wormhole would be perfect.  Ideally give these new tractors built in tachyon beams and you'll have something very useful, and would make it feel a lot different.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, and if we replace the widow's graphic with one of a kitchen sink we should be all set

Will keep thinking about it, at least.

[realcoolguy]

Have you SEEN the botnet Golem?   

Even if the only change was to put in tractors that could be unloaded it would fix the aggro problem caused when the Widow latches on to powerful short range units because of how the tractor and targeting works the widow gets hit a lot with things that should be out of it's range.  Of course you couldn't come in and plow the road by moving the enemy around.  There are several ships for that too now.

[keith.lamothe]

Have you SEEN the botnet Golem?   

Yes, I saw a lot of them in the early days of the FS exo attack implementation.  There's a reason that Botnet Golems are no longer eligible for being picked as part of an exo attack

[zebramatt]

I actually think making the Black Widow slightly more fragile, slightly faster and taking up this idea of allowing it to lay mini-tractor turrets is an absolutely marvelous idea.

And I actually quite like this golem in its current form!

[keith.lamothe]

And I actually quite like this golem in its current form!

Yea, I think if we do make a tractor-layer and make that the Black Widow (it is thematically more like a spider that way) I'd like to actually make that a new unit and rename the current Black Widow to something else more in line with my preferred use of the unit.  To wit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbSpAsJSZPc (particularly the bit at around 0:46).

[BobTheJanitor]

I think the widow always tends to fall apart in comparison to the other golems. When you look at the botnet, armored, or cursed golem and their ability to cut a swathe through reams of AI ships, it just doesn't stand up. Sure, it can grab a whole lot of ships (and then die to concentrated fire from them). But in the same time that it does that, those other golems could have killed all those same ships. (Again, caveat, I haven't actually played with a widow yet, I'm going off hearsay. My RNG likes to give me tons of botnet golems and little else)

[realcoolguy]

As for the rename of the current incarnation - Sweeper Golem?  Push or Pull Golem?  Pied Piper Golem?  Terry Tate Golem?  Crasher Golem?  Darn the RNG gave me this golem Golem? (Terry Tate sounds like a good unlock code for the cheat anyway).

[Ranakastrasz]

I think the widow always tends to fall apart in comparison to the other golems. When you look at the botnet, armored, or cursed golem and their ability to cut a swathe through reams of AI ships, it just doesn't stand up. Sure, it can grab a whole lot of ships (and then die to concentrated fire from them). But in the same time that it does that, those other golems could have killed all those same ships. (Again, caveat, I haven't actually played with a widow yet, I'm going off hearsay. My RNG likes to give me tons of botnet golems and little else)

This is why, when you add a new unit, you want to decide on it's role, decide on how it will function, then balance it.
This is why the siege starships has been revamped so many times. It really does not seem to have a role decided, or if it did, It became invalid over time, and had to be replaced with some other role, without thinking it out. Long range artillery worked until radar dampening was added, as well as until it was decided that destroying fortifications from across the planet was not wanted. Annihilating ship engines worked as well, but the Riot is more effective IIRC. I personally do not think the siege starship(That is what I call it, regardless of the new name(s)) fits in the game at this time, and aside from not knowing how the game would handle old saves with siege starships, I personally think it should be removed. (or re-imagined with it's own role)

Flagships work as fleet boosters.
Raid starships work extremely well at bypassing defenses and taking out targets of opportunity.
Bomber starships are good for heavily damaging large ships,
Riot starships are good for wreaking the engines of all enemy ships, as well as having a few other uses, such as tanking, or tractoring ships. (sounds an awful lot like a black widow golem to me, but also is much cheaper, is replaceable, and therefore is not quite as much of an issue when it vanishes in a puff of smoke, I think it may be more efficient too, when the widow ought to be, being a golem)

I really think many of the units need to be reexamined and determined what their role overlaps with, and redisigne one of them (if they are at different types, meaning fleet ship vs starship vs golem vs spire vs warhead vs turret etc)