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A Mobile Tractor Unit (or MTU) is essentially a massive cargo container with a tractor beam bolted on. Once deployed, it uses a single tractor beam to pull in any wrecks and cargo containers. It has a range of 125 km, with a 1,000 m/sec tractor velocity, and a 27,000 m3 cargohold. Deployment time is only 10 seconds, and the MTU will last 2 days in space before despawning. The MTU is only accessible by its owner. When destroyed it drops partial loot the same way a destroyed ship does.

The MTU may not be deployed within 5 km of another MTU, within 50 km of stargates or stations, or within 40 km of a player owned starbase. It has 50,000 hitpoints. However unlike the Mobile Depot it does not enter reinforced mode and can be immediately destroyed. Like the Mobile Depot, the only consequence for shooting another player's MTU is a Suspect flag; CONCORD will not intervene.

The MTU targets the closest item first, tractors it in, and loots it. Due to the “closest first” behaviour, you can't use more than one MTU per site, as they will interfere with each other and pull nothing in at all - unless you place them so far apart (250 km for the basic unit) that they don't interfere with each other.

The MTU has become extremely popular despite its cost, particularly for looting mission rats. Though not as fast at tractoring and looting as a Noctis, the MTU continues to loot a field even when you're not there, and deposits wrecks in an easy-to-salvage group around itself. This can allow your mission ship to salvage while running the mission, using either a utility high slot, or salvage drones. Some systems have seen an increase in organized griefing centred on Mobile Tractor Units. Similar to ninja salvaging and stealing, a gang will take up residence in a high activity missioning area and scan down MTUs. They'll then aggress the MTU, attempting to bait the missioner into engaging them. As with ninja looters, the options for dealing with them are fairly limited. Engaging the griefer will set your engagement timer and their friends can warp in and finish you off. Not engaging will cost you both your loot and the cost of the MTU. Orbiting the MTU at close range mitigates this heavily. As soon as you see them warp into your pocket you can empty the contents of the MTU into your hold and scoop the unit. They will be left with a mission pocket that you have already looted and are likely to move on.

MTUs do not loot wrecks that are not yours. There are some griefers that prey on this misunderstanding. After arriving in your mission pocket they may drop an MTU of their own hoping you will engage it, presumably because you think that it will collect your loot for them. It is best to ignore these rogue MTUs as they won't affect you. Even if the griefer warps out and leaves it behind they can monitor you in local to see if you've become a suspect, and warp right back in with friends.

The basic MTU is reasonably cheap, costing around 7 million ISK. There are two advanced variations of the MTU, the 'Packrat' Mobile Tractor Unit and the 'Magpie' Mobile Tractor Unit. The Packrat variant has a stronger tank, while the Magpie has longer tractor beam range. Both have increased tractor velocities, but the Magpie has the fastest. Both also have increased sensor strength, making them harder to scan down. Both are considerably more expensive than the basic MTU, with Magpies running at hundreds of millions of ISK. The BPCs for these units can be found from Ghost Sites.