Travel through the warp confuses me a little. I understand you "warp" into it and your ship travels through it to get from system A to system B in a matter of weeks for you. But what confuses me is, are those weeks weeks in the warp or weeks in reality. Do I feel as if Im in the warp for a few days but time in reality was a few weeks to my days? Also. Are there "paths" through the warp from System A to System B. Is it a straight shot or due to warp storms or objects that impede you that you have to take a path around that may zig-zag and circle around to it?

Usualy when they say x time in the warp they mean your ships chrono meter indicates you have been in the warp for x time. But how much time has passed in the real universe, you can't really tell unless your ship drops out of the warp again.

You may find for instance that: while you have spent a few weeks in the warp only a few days have past in the real world.

Or you have been in the warp only a week and years have passed outside.

Or your short trip trough the warp takes years before you drop out again but it has only been a few days in real space.

Due to the warp's time distortion (basically theres no true time and space in the warp) it is even possible to arrive before you have left. Uhu that happend.

There are paths, rapids and calm spots in the warp that are a bit more stable: when you go trough those you have a better chance of ending up where and when you had planned. Going trough a warp storm or a rough patch can leave you stranded, spat out the warp in another part of the galaxy 200 years from when you went in, eaten by daemons as your ships geller field collapes and worse!

The average is a 1:12 ratio. (1 hour ship-time is 12 hours real-time). Although my impression (and I may have missed something) is that the listed transit times were real-time estimations. There are warp routes in any well mapped out area (Calixis Sector, near Footfall in the Expanse) which your Navagator will likely have some maps for. There may be routes in other places (or better routes in those places) that are on secret horded maps. These routes are almost never strait, and may not even directly connect the two closest systems. (Lathes to Scentilla, for example, you have to start by going the complete opposite way, then turn left at another system.)

Should I make all the systems or are there some 40K "true" star system maps I can take. Just to show the areas.

You should make your own map of all the stars in the Koronus Expanse before you start a game. Depending on the theory you decide to espouse, there should be between 30,000 - 120,000 stars and stellar remnants there.

Ok. So I would take a paper. Write Koronus Expanse and draw between 30,000 - 120,000 stars. I give a few names and say imperials live there. The rest are uncharted but are known that they are there. I then let my players explore this small system of solar systems. Should I put Port Wander in there or Footfall? Any places that are Canon?

Last game I ran I used Port Wander, Footfall, and Damaris canon, as well as anything owned by another Dynasty that would fight for its control. Some things I kept the concept for (e.g The Breaking Yards). I did this because I didn't want to create a gazeteer for those characters with Common Knowledge (Koronus Expanse). Most other things I made up from scratch. I don't think I used a single star on the map for anything besides navigational reference points.

Would your Gellar Field or Void Shields provide protection against heat? Say they are moving towards a star. Would the shield negate the heat or would it still cook them. I ask because A system I made has a orbiting station very close to the star and I was going to have it have a shield onboard it that "repelled" or "blocked" the heat. If the PCs took it then it would turn off and they would have to escape the sudden temperature increase or risk death by combustion or heat. But can they even get close to the station? Can they close the metal shutters on the windows and use external cameras to pilot in?

Never looked at it that way. Radiation yes, heat no. And I'd run it like a solar flare encounter.

Back to warp travel. If they were discovering new warp routes how would I handle this? They have a NPC Navigator but they want to discover a lot of worlds and drift about while doing amazing things at the same time. Do I just give them a route or do I need to roll to see if they even get there? How can I handle this?

Hard to say. Without a PC Navigator I probably wouldn't be letting them chart new routes unless they purchased a ship with a very experienced crew....very experienced. Without a PC navigator you won't want to use Navis Primer. Your whole party will just die. Without a PC Navigator your party should probably stick to Winterscale's Realm and the Heathen Stars just for consistency, though many would disagree and handwave away the difficulties of other regions pf the Expanse.

Note that this doesn't preclude them from discovering new worlds. They just have to find ways around having a limited navigator, and I wouldn't make that easy on them or handwave it away. Solving that problem could be very fun itself.

Is there a way to make it easier for them? I can do the rolls for Navigator myself. From what you said it would be hard for them to discover new worlds and explore but I need to find a way for them to do this? Is trying to find paths to a place like shooting in the dark or do you travel that way and then drop-off when you think you are close to it?

I tend to be a little more permissive them Knight, so I'd say it's still possible for them to explore a relatively wild area of the expanse with an NPC Navigator. I'd just say they need a really good NPC navigator. (Hey look, your first adventure! Negotiate with the Navius Nobilite for a highly skilled navigator. Maybe they need you to apply some leverage somewhere for them?) This works particularly well if they get an older, heavily mutated Navigator (I had a navigator in one game who had to be suspended in water and sustained on liquid oxygen.) who's the "never leave my tower' type. I would still handwave a lot of the Navigation tests, however, as they're just not that interesting if they're no PC involved. Run it down to a 1-roll "does something happen" or pre-roll the next dozen trips or so, then go down the list each time they jump. (Adjust encounters to require solutions from the positions you do have on the ship) The Warp can still be difficult and dangerous without requiring a million rolls and Navigate(Warp) checks.

On the previous question, in space Heat is just a form of Radiation . Void shields appear to repel radiation with reasonable efficiency (otherwise they wouldn't stop laser weapons), however there are plenty of examples of solar radiation bursts taking down void shields temporarily. Coming close to a start this would be the biggest danger. Scrutiny & Piloting & Navigate (Stellar) checks to avoid ejecta that could blow out the shield. If the shield is blown, then there's danger of taking damage.

Also, yes you can fly with the shutters down. That's how you fly in the Warp, and you can fly by Auspex. However, the windows are mostly there to keep the crew from going metal-box crazy, so I'd impose a morale penalty/damage if they do it for to long.

I was going to hand-wave most navigation checks besides the ones where they are going somewhere not charted or when I think they need to be reminded the warp is not their friend. I was also thinking they could be sold charts and maps by all kinds of people from nobles to pirates. They just have to find them. Also. How fast are ships in the game (Non-Warp) A example would be like travelling from Earth to Mars. Is it hours, days, minutes? Is it slow like it normally would be or do we have 40K science here?

One thing to remember about Warp Charts is that they are very jealously guarded by the Navigator houses (particularly obscure ones). This is why you'll find ships 'scouting new routes' to places someone else may visit semi-regularly. That's not to say the a planetary Noble, fellow Rogue Trade or Pirate won't have them, but they'll know how valuble they are - and how hard to authenticate they are until you've tried to use it. (Beware forgeries) They're also generally only useful to a Navigator. (there are some lay-man designed short-safe-route maps, but that would only be for a very well mapped areas of a well mapped sector, like the core of the Calixis.

Within a system, there's a level of 40k science, but it's not the same level of stupid-fast that you get in Star Trek or Star Wars. Earth Orbit to "system's edge" is something like a week or two, depending on the size of the system. Most intra-system travel is in the few days to week range, though FFG's published adventures are notorious for throwing those numbers out the window when they feel like it.

Note: this means for "Short & Safe" travel between two close systems, one can easily spend as much transit time in real-space as you do in the Warp. (a week to get to the edge of the system, 2 week warp jump, another week to get to the inhabited planet.

Ok so ita not extremely long but nor is it short. So what are the rules for warping out when in system? Is there a solid fact behind it or is just because?

Mostly 'Just cause' although various reasons are given in fluff. Here's a couple:

1) Safety Margin: This is for arrival. Warp navigation is very imprecise. Trying to come out of the warp to deep in a system runs a very high risk of translating 'inside' the star, or a planet, or directly in the path of a planetoid without comparable relative velocities. You also don't really necessary know which side of the system you're approaching from, and more importantly, you don't know exactly what day it is, so you don't actually know where in it's orbital period the planet you want to get to even is! The end point being, navigators aim for nice wide open spaces. In a system like ours, that'd be at least a midpoint between Mars and Jupiter, if not Neptune-pluto. Of course, if you have no idea where the orbitals for a system even are (new system) you'd want to come out just beyond the Oort cloud to minimize risk of danger.

2) Warp Conditions : The warp is not uniform by any means, nor are warp drives perfect, and the translation between Real Space and Warp Space is the hardest part of it's job. Because of this you want to start somewhere where the warp is reasonably calm, allowing the ship to get across and get its bearings for the voyage. You also want a fairly wide open area of travel incase something goes wrong and your forcibly re-ejected (failed translation). This essentially eliminates populated areas, as the very existence (over time) of such a population creates disturbances in the warp. (remember, warp is churned by emotion)

At least, this is the basic reasoning I use.

Yeah, I'm not permissive. I'm the resident curmudgeon. I tell people how things aren't possible. Mind you, I might let my party do it, but I absolutely will not give them any hints on how to get it done without some proper knowledge skill checks. So, as Quick tells you, maybe the party goes to negotiate with a Navis House and get themselves some creepy fat monster with snotty skin and tentacles. Fine. Now you can navigate to more places safely. But the snot-monster won't show you the warp charts he's making because he's saving them to help make his Navis House rich, not your Dynasty. I put obstacles in the way of anything the PCs don't do on their own.

Let me say this about the Warp navigation. If you want that creepy feeling then make yourself some minor encounter chart. You don't have to get detailed. Just make it so that minor setbacks are common. Don't hit your party with some Swiss Family Robinson episode of Lost in Space. Just make sure they are constantly worried about Warp storms and Etheric Reefs. Knock some hull integrity off their ship and keep them always looking for a place to repair their dents and scratches.

For interplanetary travel there are lots of calculators on the internet. Pay no attention to the max. Gs listed on the ship descriptions. Those things break the rules FFG established for themselves. Figure that most ships have between 1-2 G's of acceleration and that will get you some decent travel times and set a really good atmosphere. Be ready to handwave lots of time away because most of your parties time will be spent travelling between their destination and warp points. At the same time, give them plenty of rolls when they're coming in-system to check stuff out. That's one area where I often skip skill rolls altogether since someone at some point is going to succeed on a skill check. I just assume the best possible result and give that to them (e.g. Your heroes have entered a new system and have a 2 week journey to their target. The best the party has in Scrutiny is 40. At some point the person with 40 is going to roll a 01. That's 3 degrees of success and I give them the info available for that.).

At some point, if your heroes are losing a battle, they are going to want to make an emergency warp transit. There's a reason it's not done, probably many reasons. The books aren't real clear. They just make it take time. Best I can make out, it has to do with non-luminous stellar remnants and other stellar phenomenon that they can run into. Maybe having a star nearby makes it hard to see that stuff in the Warp. I make it painful, really painful. Lost hull integrity, fires breaking out, crew dying. I don't want to ruin my party, but I don't want them to make a habit of it.

Necrons have some wierd tech that can calm warp space (the cadian gate is formed this way because there are necron pylons in the cadian systhem) so if you want a piece of the galaxy where teh warp is nice and quiet you can use this to explain it.

Yeah, then you get to have adventures with the Necrons as your neighbors. I wouldn't call that fun, but it should be interesting.

Yeah, then you get to have adventures with the Necrons as your neighbors. I wouldn't call that fun, but it should be interesting.

I would, but I'm the GM.

Regarding warping in/out of the system, I have it that the gravitational disturbances means it is actually impossible to engage the Warp Drive inside a system's gravitational well. Otherwise the Imperium would have been reduced to a wreck millennia ago, because if you can engage a Warp Drive that easily you just get close to a planet, open/detonate the Warp Drive and unleash horrors everywhere.

I'm in general agreement with Erathia, though I don't think it's impossible in the fluff, and while I allow it in theory, my players having done it once, never tried it again.

I do agree that it opens a can of worms, though, especially in the realm of killships.

I agree to, i think there is this thing called the "mandeville point" wich is like minimum safe distance at wich you can go to warp. It's about at the edge of a systhem if i'm remembering correctly.

How do you "chart a course" in the warp? I've seen this referenced numerous times, and assume that most Navigators have a n assortment of "public" warp charts, plus some that are unique, and only known to their House (a good way to drum up, and keep, business), but the warp is a sea of chaos, constantly eddying, shifting, and changing, with no real "landmarks" other than His light of the Astronomicon. What is a Navigator charting, how, why does it stay useful, and what bonus is it supposed to give to the Navigation (warp) test? How does the GM decide if any particular jump other than "to Port Wander or Footfall" is a charted path you have? If you are playing Lure of the Expanse, I COULD see having a chart to Zayth (assuming anyone goes there, frequently, and if you can offer them stuff, that means few others do, or they would've), but I doubt most ships would have a map to the Processional's benighted entrance, or Vaporius. How do you handle this aspect of ship travel?

For charting a route, I believe an example of that endeavor is in the core RT book. However, it might be in ItS.

In another post where this was discussed, I remember various options and guidelines people came up with.

-to map the route correctly, you must travel it atleast two times, there and back.

-mapping it requires the point of entry and exit triangulations (ussually stellar), along with various POI's (points of interests) in the warp for navigation

-a POI is something that is stable (other than the Astronomican) in the warp, which allows vessels to steer with a known heading. This can be "when entrying in the vincinity of entry point 8403047x6593091y2396003z you must steer toward the center of the Rifts of Heacon at heading xyz until coming POI 2. POI 2 is a warp shoal, black hole, fiery star, and upon contact come to heading xyz until contact with POI 3. POI is a blah."

-due to Navigators perceiving the warp differently, each POI is something linked to the real world. However, this may not always me so, as with other constants like major warp anomalies (Eye of Terror, Rifts of Heacon, etc)

As for how this nets the dynasty or navigator house profit, they lease out copies of the route in which the holder pays a certain percentage of his/her shipment, a set price was already established yearly, warp route information of the holder was exchanged with the owner