Nothing to do with  a tractor but a remake of the classic 8 bit game thrust with Knobs on 😎 😎 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=599594375

get on Steam and greenlight this.

 

To answer a recurring question about SSTB; no, this is not a straight up remake of Thrust C64, but it is definitely a spiritual successor to Thrust.

 

Good old fashioned gravity based 2D game play, with a smattering of RPG elements to keep it interesting and repayable! Space Ships & Tractor Beams is Inspired by games I used to play as a kid in the 80’s like Lunar Lander, Thrust and Jet Pack.

NOTE: This game has been in development since November 18th, 2015 and is not finished.

What is Space Ships & Tractor Beams all about?

Fly your spaceship from system to system, taking jobs to earn cash which will allow you to buy new ships, upgrades and items. Become the greatest space pilot of all time and amass the largest fleet of ships in the galaxy!

The main jobs you can do in the game are cargo hauling, resource scanning, construction, racing and combat. Some jobs will be based on ship class/model, so not all jobs are available at the start.

Cargo Hauling: Use your tractor beam in cargo hauling jobs to carry resources to the refinery in one piece, avoiding natural hazards and delivering the cargo on time.

Resource Scanning: These jobs require steady control as you scan along the terrain, keeping the scanner within the optimal distance no matter what hazards try to hamper your progress.

Construction: Set up new bases and place equipment in hard to reach places, with accuracy and speed of placement being key to a good return for your hard work.

Racing: Compete in race events held across the galaxy. Race through checkpoints that are placed across a site, avoiding hazards and flying as fast as you can.

Combat: Sometimes you just want to blow something up and combat is where it’s at. Fly head to head with other pilots in a dogfight to ultimate destruction or lay waste to abandoned mining sites, military installations or rival sites.

You start the game with a small hauler class ship and a fist full of cash. There are 3 classes of ship available to purchase and fly; small, medium and large. Small haulers are the most popular entry point for pilots and whilst are quite versatile, cannot take on the scale of job that a medium or large class ship can.

As you gain reputation and wealth, more systems, jobs, ships and equipment will be available to you. You can purchase hauler or fighter model ships; with haulers coming equipped with an upgradable tractor beam and fighters coming with a small plasma shot cannon as standard. Different ships will have different stats and item slots and as a general rule, the bigger the ship, the more stuff you can cram into it. You can outfit your ships with items and upgrade built in systems bought in shops located in each system, though stock will vary from shop to shop.

Travel across the galaxy by hitching a lift on a transport ship, though this will cost a pretty penny. Other space pilots with more reputation and cash than you are already roaming the galaxy. Can you fight your way to the top and become the top dog? Or will you fizzle out like a wet firework?

Gear up pilot; you got stuff to do....

Features

• -Physics based game play
• -A galaxy to explore
• -Lots of jobs to do
• -Lots of ships to fly
• -Lots of items to use
• -RPG elements/progression
• -Easy to pick up, hard to master game play
• -Explosions....

How much longer will Space Ships & Tractor Beams be in development?

Progress on the game has been good as this game was originally designed a few years ago. SSTB also had a lot of prototype game play elements tested a few years ago, so the initial set up of the game was quite straight forward and a known quantity. Some RPG elements are new to the design and will need some work, but most of the game play mechanics tie in nicely to updated systems.

For this game I am using Unity 5.2 and will update as new version are available. The main reason I decided to use Unity instead of our own game engine was purely down to speed of development. Our game engine is great for projects similar to things we have done before, but to add in all the components for SSTB would have increased the development time. There is also the stability issue of using our own engine, as it hasn’t been tested on new hardware for a while. The upside of this is that development should be very quick.

So if everything goes well and I don’t get too many bugs/issues, I would be looking at finishing the game somewhere around June/July this year. I want to get the game into beta before it goes into Early Access (still not 100% if I will or not), so I can release regular updates and fine tune the game with community feedback. There are issues that may pop up that will add some time to the development, but I will try my best to keep things on schedule.