Tractor Beam Range

[Simon_Jester]

Do we have good figures for the maximum effective range of Star Wars tractor beams?

The obvious example that comes to mind is when the Death Star captures the Millenium Falcon in A New Hope; when the tractor nails them the Death Star appears to subtend about five degree or so on screen (at a guess)... range of a few thousand kilometers?

[General Brock]

The Wookiepedia has a tractor beam entry.

The Phylon Transport Q7 tractor beam projector was a variant of tractor beam heavily favored by the Galactic Empire, which placed 10 Q7 projectors on each of its mighty Imperial Star Destroyers in rotating towers. The towers possessed considerable strength, range, and precision, and were capable of capturing most ships, including CR90 corvettes, with an effective range of up to 220 kilometers. This projector, like most other tractor beams, required considerable amounts of space, power, and crewmembers to operate effectively. The Empire also installed them on their Executor-class Star Dreadnaughts with the Executor having 40 of them.

If the Death Star had larger ones, I wouldn't be surprised, and the 'Falcon was far enough away that the station appeared to be a moon, and not obviously a space station, when she was caught. (at lest, that is what appears to have happened). That suggests a range of greater than 220 kilometers. I've not actually sat down to figure out what the Death Star would look like from 220 km in space from a habitable planets former orbit or further out, though.

[adam_grif]

If we know the size of the Death Star, and we know how large it was on screen, then we can work our how far away it must have been, and thus get the minimum value for maximum tractor beam range on the DS.

[General Brock]

I'm surprised nobody has tried yet. I guess tractor beams aren't as exciting as turbolasers.