At the moment the Shrike is not particularly well liked by the NSV 13 player base, i believe the addition of another new weapon to the shrike could help improve the popularity of the shrike.
i am proposing the addition of a tractor beam to the shrike that could have both offensive and defensive capability’s. the tractor beam could be used to slow and perhaps move enemy ships to assist in the defence of the ship.
The tractor beam could also be used in an offensive manner to fling asteroids and perhaps smaller ships like the marine ships at other enemy ships causing large amounts of damage but using large amounts of energy. though it would likely make the weapon too powerful maybe it could be used to redirect NAC shots.
The addition of a weapon like this would also have a secondary effect of making the shrike more like its namesake
The weapon could be balanced via the weapon requreing large amounts of energy to charge up then and dispersing that energy when firing, just like the phaser banks on the wisp, this would prevent the weapon from being to powerful.
The method i would propose for the over map function of the weapon would be like the gravity gun in half life 2 first click on the asteroid/ship and then click in the direction to propel the object.
i am aware of the fact this would likely take quite a bit of work and i cannot code or sprite so somebody would have to dedicate time to this which could be better spent on coding other things for the game. and of course mechanics could be changed as seen fit, this is just an idea.
yours sincerely,
John Gregson.