Tow

A ship with 2 engines or more can tow another ship, including enemy ships. Towing occurs in order of ship ID#.

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

An attempt to establish a Tow Lock doesn't require fuel. This means:

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

Command Ships

Command ships move earlier in Host order, and can avoid being towed by moving away.

External Links

Planets Magazine Tow

PlanetsPedia Tow

Donovans Tow

See Also

Ship Movement
Ship Intercept