Hi everybody, something came to my head recently about this:

i have read that many planets have been discovered just by chance, usually because a ship had a problem in it warp travel and end near a planet no discovered, well my question is, how do they know where are they in real space, if its supposed that they dont know where they are????

Figuring out where you are in real space is relatively easy.

A star's light is unique - the colours are dependent on the chemistry of a specific star. Plus there are other stellar features visible from a long way away - the Screaming Vortex, the Eye Of Terror, assorted pulsars, etc, etc.

If you can find three or more features you can recognise in the sky, you can figure out roughly where you are from trigonometry.

Figuring out the safe warp route to a system is runs a lot harder.

As far as finding it from the warp: I assumed the warp has shadows of real world systems that, when the ship is close enough, can be detected. Further, If the planet harbors life, the Psychic "spark" of life can be detected by Daemons so ostensibly it could be detected by a navigator. Note that this would only apply to detection, not what type or level of development.

Another question, if for some reason they dont have any idea where they are, could they make a warp travel to a place they know?, thinking that the navigator could detect the astronomicon.

The Atronomicon is how the Navigator knows where they are based on the ship's last known point of reference and some other fancy calculus. Since you need a known point of reference, it would be very difficult to determine your location without it. The Ship could attempt a "Blind" translation into realspace but this is highly dangerous and also hazardous to the health of the navigator! (At least according to the novel "Flight of the Eisenstein"). I would assume that if the Navigator becomes truly lost they will look for the nearest shadow that could indicate a system and attempt translation there. This is only marginally better than a Blind translation as the only thing you know is that there is "Something" there! (I imagine more than a few systems have been "found" this way!)

As to just heading for the Astronomicon; that's not as easy as it sounds! Even for an experienced Master Navigator with well charted routes, Transgalactic travel is a hairy proposition and can take over a year to reach holy Terra! Your ship may not have enough fuel or supplies to reach Terra and you do NOT want to be in the warp when you run out of gas!

On a side note;

I had a friend who plays the game come back and ask/say - why in the novel they don't hit warp events nearly as much as FFG conceivably allows the frequency of occurrence to occur - by the default of its rules?

So I house ruled - if this is a known course that your navigator has taken, been taught, or has the starcharts too - then no rolls are neccessariy

Otherwise going to new places on sparse info, shoddy maps, or simple blind - require the raw vanilla rolls / sequence of play

Morbid

I do something similar in RT. If a route is charted previously than I use the original warp navigation chart. W/ a good navigator most warp encounters will be avoided. If not charted, I use the rules from the supplement which are considerably more dangerous! Exploration is not for the faint of heart!

Thank You Radwraith!