Admiral Burtch
Newly Reinstated Admiral
Tractor Adhesion Pads
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a standardized tractor-field adhesion system for vehicles, droids, powered armor, and footwear, allowing them to maintain traction or adhere to surfaces that conventional magnetic systems cannot interact with, particularly in zero-gravity environments.
- Image Source: ChatGPT (I call her betty)
- Canon Link: All Terrain Tactical Enforcer
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source:
- Manufacturer: Open Market
- Affiliation: Open Market
- Market Status: Open-Market
- Model: Tractor Adhesion Pad
- Modularity: Yes. Tractor pads may be manufactured at different sizes and strengths for integration into boots, powered armor, droids, vehicles, walkers, industrial equipment, and similar systems.
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Applicable housing, electronic components, tractor-field generator components, terrain/contact sensors
- Tractor-Field Adhesion: Generates a localized tractor field between the pad and the surface immediately beneath it, effectively pulling the two together and providing artificial traction or adhesion.
- Non-Magnetic Surface Compatibility: Unlike magnetic boots or magnetic vehicle feet, tractor adhesion pads do not require the contacted surface to be ferromagnetic.
- Zero-Gravity Mobility: Allows appropriately equipped personnel, droids, or vehicles to remain attached to hulls, asteroids, stations, structures, or other solid surfaces while operating in microgravity or zero gravity.
- Terrain Traction: Provides increased purchase on steep, uneven, slippery, or otherwise difficult terrain by supplementing ordinary friction with a localized tractor field.
- Variable Scale: The same underlying technology can be incorporated into equipment ranging from footwear and droid feet to the landing surfaces or footpads of large vehicles.
- Contact-Limited Field: The tractor field is optimized to act only across the very short distance between the pad and the surface beneath it. Tractor adhesion pads are not intended to function as conventional ranged tractor beams.
- Stick To It: Tractor adhesion pads can maintain a grip on most sufficiently solid surfaces regardless of whether the material is magnetic. This makes them particularly useful for extravehicular activity, zero-gravity combat, spacecraft maintenance, asteroid operations, or vehicles expected to traverse unusually steep terrain.
- More Than Magnets: Because adhesion is generated through a tractor field rather than magnetic attraction, the system can function against stone, duracrete, ceramics, composites, hull materials, and numerous other surfaces upon which ordinary magnetic boots would be ineffective.
- Pull the Plug: Tractor adhesion pads are entirely dependent upon electrical power. If their power supply is disabled, disconnected, depleted, or otherwise interrupted, the tractor field immediately collapses and the pads provide no adhesion beyond whatever ordinary mechanical traction their physical surface possesses.
- Nothing to Hold Onto: Tractor adhesion pads require a sufficiently solid and cohesive surface against which to generate useful purchase. Loose or fluid materials such as sand, gravel, mud, water, snow, dust, or similar unstable substances provide little or no useful adhesion, as the tractor field may simply pull the loose material toward the pad rather than securely anchoring the pad itself. The system likewise cannot provide meaningful purchase against gases, liquids, or other materials incapable of supporting the equipped user's or vehicle's weight.
Tractor Adhesion Pads are a modernized and standardized adaptation of an old and comparatively simple application of tractor-field technology. All Terrain Tactical Enforcers employed tractor-field generators within their footpads to improve their purchase upon difficult terrain and assist the massive walkers in traversing extremely steep surfaces. Rather than using a tractor beam to seize and manipulate a distant object, this principle uses an extremely short-range field to pull the equipped pad toward the surface directly beneath it.
The resulting system performs a role similar to magnetic boots or magnetized walker feet, but without requiring the contacted material to possess useful magnetic properties. A tractor pad placed against stone, duracrete, transparisteel, ceramic armor, composite hull plating, or another sufficiently solid surface can generate a localized attractive force and maintain contact with it. This makes the technology especially useful aboard spacecraft and orbital installations, where personnel equipped with tractor pads in their boots can walk across exterior hull surfaces in zero gravity without depending upon those surfaces being magnetic.
The technology can likewise be incorporated into droids, powered armor, maintenance equipment, walkers, landing gear, or other vehicles. Larger implementations naturally require proportionally greater amounts of power to generate sufficient adhesion for the mass being supported.
Despite sharing its underlying principles with tractor beam technology, a Tractor Adhesion Pad is not a substitute for a conventional tractor beam projector. Its emitters are designed for extremely short-range interaction with a surface immediately adjacent to the pad and cannot practically seize, pull, push, or manipulate objects at range.
The system's simplicity also produces its most significant vulnerability. The adhesive force exists only while the tractor-field generators are powered. Cutting electrical power to the pads, disabling their power supply, or otherwise interrupting their operation immediately eliminates the tractor field. In a normal gravity environment this may merely result in loss of enhanced traction; during extravehicular or zero-gravity operations, however, losing power can leave the wearer or vehicle completely unsecured from the surface beneath them.
Out Of Character Info
Intent:
See main body
Technical Information
Affiliation:
Open Market
Modular:
Yes
Material:
See main body
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