HappyDaze said:

Really? Seems pretty pointless.

If the ship's in orbit and can be communicated with by Vox (which may not always be the case - technology isn't necessarily reliable), then the Astropath doesn't really need to be on the surface - he can just relay the Vox-message along to someone further away. The only viable target for a quick rescue is a vessel either in orbit (which an Astropath can reach instantly, but isn't subject to the same kinds of difficulties technological methods might suffer from, such as electromagnetic interference, line of sight requirements, etc; he has his own set of difficulties, though) or one further away in-system, because any further out is too far away from the Astropath to contribute any kind of help. And in those situations, you need to be able to guarantee that there's an Astropath aboard the vessel you're trying to contact, because you can't communicate with them if there's not.

All this leads me to believe that a given Rogue Trader will bring along more than one Astropath, if only so that his ship can be doing something else contributing towards another part of his current Endeavour while he takes one of the Astropaths with him down to the surface. You might need to replace them regularly due to insanity or burnout if they're not as well-suited for the task of voyaging into unexplored regions, but that's not exactly a problem as the Imperium churns out new Astropaths frequently. Anything else, it's like owning a mobile phone and only having the numbers of people in other countries available...

@N0-1_H3r3

Gotta agree there - not being able to call your ship from a certain distance seems pretty stupid from the Rogue trader, especially since the "Low Orbit" range would presumably refer to a geostationary orbit over the Rogue Trader's position, not one where the planet is interposed between them.

PS: I liked your other avatar better - it was more distinctive.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Sure, Navigators do the mapping, but that means nothing when the ship they're riding gets lost to the typical Expanse hazards. Astropaths transmit findings back to the Imperium, or at least to the RT dynasty's base and/or allies. With a full astropathic relay and choir (not standard gear on ships) far more info would get back to base, and the Expanse would be better known territority. Instead, solo astropaths have to be fairly close to another astro to transmit successfully, which means a lot of knowledge has been lost on ships that got wrecked before they got back into comms range.

Cifer said:

I've been much more 40k-focussed of late, with my only WFRP-dabblings being my own campaign. While I'm intrigued by WFRP3, it's not particularly inspired me to focus all that much upon the Warhammer World, while things like the release of Rogue Trader have given me much more of an appetite for 40k. Plus, I feel like I can identify with Tech-Priests at times - secret knowledge forbidden to outsiders (which describes my job scarily well), the study of obscure crafts, regular communion with cogitators...

Argoden said:

Generally speaking, the kinds of hazards in the expanse that would cause a Navigator to get lost will be Warp-based in their own right, and thus more than likely to interfere with Astropathic communication as well (sending messages through Warp Storms isn't any easier than sending ships through). I'm not saying that the presence of Astropaths isn't beneficial when mapping Warp Routes, but rather that it isn't essential in such a situation, nor as useful as it might perhaps initially seem.

In those sorts of situations... hell, in most situations, multiple Astropaths (whether for redundancy or for support - remembering that it's the isolation that often drives Astropaths to madness in the expanse, so bringing a half-dozen common Astropaths to back up your Transcendent helps them deal with being far from civilisation) are better than a single one. Given how common Astropaths are in the grand scheme of things, and the wealth of the average Rogue Trader, I can't see that carrying a handful of supplementary Astropaths is anything but a good idea.

If i remember correct, in the novel star of damocles the Navigator have a retinue of navigators and the same for Astropaths. (can't remember exact numbers)

Actually, having read Star of Damocles recently, one of the main points the Rogue Trader makes about the Astropath and the Navigator is that he only has one of each. He keeps mentioning wanting to replace the astropath, an old man who keeps to himself and is considered useless, but that he hasn't contacted the guild yet. On the other hand, both the Navigator and Astropath use the word "we" when describing texperiences throughout the book, so I assume that both of them have a team of lesser acolytes that serve under them but aren't up to taking their place.