Tow

A ship with 2 engines or more can tow another ship, including enemy ships. Towing occurs in order of ship ID#. Towing always occurs in pairs, with one ship towing and the other towed.

If a ship is successfully towed by another ship, the towed ship will have its speed reduced to warp 0. This is true even if the towing ship does not move and holds position. The towed ship will not be able to move or tow other ships that turn (unless it breaks tow--see below).

Tow Conflicts

When two or more ships are towing the same ship, the ship with the lower ID# will tow first. Lower ID# ships will also win a tow conflict when two ships are trying to tow each other (though the higher ID# ship can still break tow). Low ID# ships are valuable to have because of this advantage in towing.

Breaking Tow

To avoid being towed by an enemy ship, you can try breaking tow. To break tow, four conditions have to be met (the "4 fingers"):

• Your ship must have 25 kt of fuel or more.
• The ship must have 2 engines or more.
• The ship must set a "long waypoint", which is greater than the square of your warp speed (e.g. for warp 9 = 81.1 ly).
• You must have a warp speed at least equal to the ship trying to tow you.

The type of engine never matters for breaking tow.

A "long waypoint" only needs to be 0.1 ly farther than your "maximum" distance at that warp speed. E.g. since you can travel 49 ly at warp 7, 49.1 ly counts as long. This is true even though you can actually travel up to 49.5 ly in a single turn.

Breaking Tow and Gravitonic Engines

Gravitonic ship breaking tow
When a gravitonic ship is breaking tow, normal rules apply; a long waypoint is anything greater than the square of the warp speed. I.e. at warp 9, a waypoint of 81.1 ly will break tow (even though you can travel further, 162 ly).

Breaking away from gravitonic ship
It is not possible for a normal ship to break tow from a ship with gravitonic engines at warp 7 or higher. For ships with gravitonic engines, maximum speed is measured by how many lightyears they can travel in a single turn. So for example, at warp 7, a gravitonic ship will travel 98 lightyears, so this is faster than a normal ship at warp 9 (max 81 ly). The speed of the escaping ship must be greater than the gravitonic could travel in 1 turn.

Examples of Tow Conflict

• If 2 ships tow each other, normally the one with lower ID# will win. But if the higher ID# ship sets a long waypoint to break the tow, it will avoid being towed itself, but also still tow the lower ID# ship. The lower ID# ship will be towed unless it sets a long waypoint and breaks tow as well.

Notes on towing

Fuel

• You do not need to have any fuel at the beginning of the turn to break tow. It's OK if you receive a 25 kt foreign fuel transfer or use the beam up fuel mission to break tow.

An attempt to set a tow target doesn't require fuel. This means:

• A foreign ship could transfer fuel to your ship so it can successfully tow, despite starting the turn without fuel.
• An alchemy ship (such as the Aries) could start the turn with no fuel, set tow target, perform alchemy, and then tow a ship successfully.

Note that setting a tow target, which happens early in the turn, is confusingly named "Lock Towbeam" in the Host order documentation. But the actual "locking" of the tow beam (i.e. a successful tow, setting the target's speed to warp 0, and requiring the target to break tow to escape) does not occur until the "Towing Ships Move" phase of the Host order. This early tow target selection allows you to tow a ship before it cloaks (since cloaking comes after tow target selection in the host order). A ship that cloaks on the same turn as it is towed will still be towed, while remaining cloaked.

Command Ships

Command ships move before the "Towing Ships Move" phase of the Host order, and can avoid being towed by simply moving away.

External Links

Planets Magazine Tow

PlanetsPedia Tow

Donovans Tow

See Also

Ship Movement
Ship Intercept