The Mobile Tractor Units have been by far the most popular Mobile Structures since we released them in Rubicon 1.0, and we’ve been extremely happy with the reception they have received from players and the very creative ways we are seeing them used.
In Rubicon 1.3 we are going to be adding two new variants of the MTUs that will be produced from BPCs available in the rare Ghost Sites (just like the blueprints for the rare variants of the Mobile Depots). These will be slightly upgraded versions of the base MTU with their own specializations.
I also want to quickly address some of the most common feedback we have been receiving about the MTUs so far:
Many players have been asking why the MTUs pull the closest wreck, as this behavior essentially prevents effectively using two complementary MTUs side by side. I can see why this would frustrate some players who are trying to maximize the effectiveness of their MTU setup.
We intend the MTUs to be a valuable option for many types of players, but we wanted to make sure that they do not completely overshadow other tractor beam platforms, most notably the Noctis. This is why they are limited to one beam at a time and why their tractor velocity is set lower than that of a Noctis. However if we made it easy to use multiple MTUs in parallel their effectiveness would scale far too well when used in groups, removing any role for other tractor beam solutions. This is why we have no plans to adjust the collection algorithm of the MTUs.
We have also seen many requests for the ability to share the access rights to a MTU between fleet or corp members.
Exploring this kind of functionality is something we would like to do in the future (possibly with existing modules and possibly with new ones) but properly connecting corp and fleet functionality to the code base behind Mobile Structures requires some behind the scenes work that is not yet completed.
As for the details of the MTU variants, we are adding two new structures: The slightly more common ‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit and the very rare ‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit.
‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit – specialized in durability
+200% higher sensor strength than the base MTU (affects difficulty of probing)
+25% higher tractor beam velocity than the base MTU
+50% Armor and Shield HP, +33% Hull HP compared to the base MTU
‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit – specialized in range
+500% higher sensor strength than the base MTU (affects difficulty of probing)
+50% higher tractor beam velocity than the base MTU
+40% higher max tractor beam range than the base MTU
