how do you guys run these with a PC path? think I read they can send them for free basically but have to test psynescience to receive them? how often do you have messages to send or receive and how do you have them played out? my astropath doesnt send them much but plays his psyker in a very OP way; delude, mind probe, compel everyone we meet, its hard to keep a campaign mysterious when he can know anything and everything that anyone he sees knows. thats kind of another thread, but I'm hoping it can at least be helped out with on the message side of things

In a galaxy with many psykers, used by nearly every race out there, provisions would be made to counter such techniques. People would be planted that really believe what isn't true. Sometimes these would lead to ambushes but most of the time they just muddy the waters of truth. Even trusted people don't know the whole truth and most of them are going to be fed with bad knowledge of the things that aren't important for them to know about anyway.

I use astropathic messages quite a lot, at least of the NPC variety. They are good for plot hooks and red herrings, both.

And sooner or later, especially for those 'paths that just have to use their powers at every turn, they are going to roll something bad, and I absolutely never fudge those dice. If the player needs to roll up a new character then so be it.

In a non-stressful situation with plenty of time, I usually let my Astropath send messages without rolling. Same with ship-to-shore distance messages in equally non-stressful environments. If something particular is going on, then the dice come out as normal.

I don't make a roll to pick it up unless the message is faint or otherwise hard to detect.

How often they send/receive messages is really about how relevant is it to your campaign? You can hand wave and tell your Astropath that he/she/the Choir receives messages, and only X are important. Or that for X amount of time he/she/the Choir received X amount of messages, of which X were relayed, X where intended for someone on the vessel (Example: Admech, Ecc, Nav, etc), and X were more of informative ones or echoes of one’s already received (Example: Footfall is holding a grand feast for RT Ahab and the Pequod's victory over the void beast known as "Moby.")

Of course the important ones you can narrate and embellish as you prefer.

I went from the "remember how many people have to relay this message" route. Astropaths pass messages further and further in but its not like they don't get the message too. Most of the astropaths that my PC's can use ( as they are far out into the expanse) wind up being other rogue trader's astropaths.... Obviously that slows down the players from passing info and the NPC's aren't always great about answering vague questions lol.

That's what cypers are for! Pull out your Enigma Machine and get to work.