Hey all,

I haven’t finished reading the RT core book yet, and am at work, so forgive me if this has been answered but I’ve got a few questions about travel through the warp.

How far in LY is it across the Calixis sector? Or say, from Scintilla to the Maw?

How is it determined how many jumps into the warp a voyage takes? I was initially under the impression that a navigator could make a jump up to around 1000LY (very difficult, but do-able) but there are examples of drops to realspace multiple times for much shorter journeys.

How exactly is the transition to the warp done? Does the ship simply fade from reality into the warp, or does the warp drive open a huge portal like when transitioning systems in Dawn of War 2? Can this be done in combat, to run, or would this be too risky?

Is there a standard spot in a system or a standard distance away from a star that a ship exits the warp from? For instance, in our solar system, could a frigate burst out of the warp between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits, or would it have to be further out?

Aside from the risks of phasing out of the warp and crashing/phasing into an orbital or another ship, what are the risks of coming out of the warp pretty much right in orbit of a planet? Can it even be done? I’m thinking no sane captain would do this, but what about a demented/chaos tainted navigator or a half-mad freebooter captain?

Anyway, I think that’s enough questions for now. Again, sorry if these have been asked before.

-Thulis

You should really read the warp section starting page 310 as well as the section starting pag 183.

1)As far as making multiple hops there are several things going on.

a)Without a navigator you are limited to 4-5 LY jump. (aka calulated jumps)

b)In general even a navigator is going to use known warp routes as it's safer and often faster. Some direct routes are impossible due to warp storms. So while a ship could travel across Calix to port Wander in a single hop most ships will travel using well known safe routes.

c)The warp storms that block the expansive from Calixs generally has a clear passage known as the maw. However conditions change, and often you may have to exit warp inside the maw and wait out conditions. Certainly it would be insane to travel across Calixs through the maw in one warp jump.

2)Page 312 described a typical warp trip which involves several weeks of travel in system to the jump point. This is where the amount of inter-planetary debris is low enough to safely enter and exit the warp. Exiting, or entering the warp inside the system is very dangerous. Ships consider themselves lucky to be blown off course 1000 thousands of light years, but generally you are just ripped apart.

3)In most fluff the entrance to the warp is pretty violent. In some sources it's opening a portal, and others you are just sort of plucked violently into the warp. Exiting the warp tends to be similarly violent. I'd use what ever imagery you like as a GM, but 40k style warp travel is a horrible journey through hell.

In my games I tend to have what are called jump points. These are places where entering and exiting the warp is easier. Also things exiting the warp tend to gravitate towards these points. Also most warpspace channels (routes) tend to start at these points. (This gives a good reason why pirates and the like can intercept shipping.) Often at larger systems there are space stations established here. This way goods, and passengers can be off loaded, and off loaded without a multi-week trip. Of course you'll get better prices if you don't use a middle man, and a better selection of goods in system.

I'm just at work and bored and was wondering the answers. As long as they're presented in the book, I'll find them

Thanks for the push in the right direction Dalnor! And I really like the idea of jump points. Makes sense to me.

-Thulis

Sorry I use the wrong term. Jump points are in book as the distance from a star you need to be for a safe enterance into the warp. A warp point is my own term for places where entering and exiting the warp is easiest.

I've seen a reference in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade background book of Mandeville Points (regarding a star chart). They aren't described, or labelled, but given the context (the exact quote escapes me ATM, and I'll check for it when I get time to do so; it referred to a pre-imperial star chart, and noted that given the its' evident crudity, and allowing for drift over the elapsed time, the warp currents and Mandeville points were plotted with incredible accuracy), it seems likely that Mandeville Points were the author's name for the intersection of current and gravity well- what you refer to as "Warp Points"

OP- assuming the Calixis is close to the "average" size and shape, it's probably around 60-104 LY across, depending upon your exact axis (according to Battlefleet Gothic, the average Imperial sector is equivalent to a cube, 60 LY to a side, meaning the longest straight-line route would be from one of the rimward-by-trailing corners (either "up" or "down" compared to the galactic ecliptic) to the opposing corner on the spin-by-coreward vertex, and would work out as approximately 104 LY (it'd be 103.9, or slightly less, if you weren't effectively mounting a stern chase on the galaxy)). Of course, no sector is shaped into an exact cube of 60 LY x 60 LY x 60 LY, some are much larger, some are smaller and almost none are actual cubes (or spheres, which would be the most logical and efficient manner of expansion). This is because there are a lot of factors which determine the size and shape a sector- political influence, military capability, prevailing warp conditions and simple astrography.

What you mean to say is that they are the mystical warp version of lagrange points, which are often used in sci-fi as the positions where ships can jump to light-speed/warp/hyperspace/etc.

Actually Lagrange points are the points of gravitational equilibrium between two bodies, such as the Earth and the Moon, I think. I learnt that from Cyberpunk 2020, which had a space station at Lagrange Point 5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

I imagine it is possible to exit the Warp in-system, just unbelievably dangerous.

PGMason said:

I knew that, but they are often used in sci-fi as the only points where jumping to hyperspace/FTL/etc are doable within a system, which was my point. I never said that they didn't exist in the real world.

Perfectly true, you didn't. As it happens, I didn't mean Lagrange points when describing the translation, partly because describing the Lagrangian points in a multiple-body system would be a complete pain in the butt. Hell, it's tricky enough describing them in a 2 body system (there are, I believe 5 of them in such a case) and only exist on the ecliptic. Trying to figure them out for an entire solar system would be bad enough, but throw in something like Pluto, or another eccentrically orbiting body (probably a captured rogue asteroid), and your calculations can be thrown to hell.

That said, the various Lagrange points in a system (particularly L2 and L3 points) would probably be the ideal locations to transit in-system, although there is a real danger of fallout from the reality wakes (as described briefly in Farseer ). My own theories on how warp travel works (as well as those advanced by Kage2020 on the old boards, and by several members on Bolter & Chainsword, most notably Brother Aurelius of the Ordo Literati, before the Big Crash) mean that a translation too deep into a gravity well puts greater stress on a ship, and the ideal translation conditions include a locally flat Lorentzian metric (or as close to that as possible), which is, of course, only possible beyond the gravity well of the local star, or at a Lagrangian point.
I will note that plotting a Lagrange point for an inbound translation is probably impossible (or at the very least, so difficult as to make it almost comletely unfeasible for all but Novators and similarly talented Navigators), but that it should be possible to make a safe transit within the star's gravity well; say around the Kuiper Belt, if not the Oort/Hills Cloud. Definitely within the outer Oort cloud, as that is almost 1 LY from the system primary (in the case of Sol: it'd be further out with a more massive star system).

Using a Lagrange point for an outgoing warp jump? The only real threat is the reality wake and psychic/warp fallout, and it'd almost certainly cut down on a ship's costs (both in terms of maintenance, putting less strain on the ship's hull and components, and in terms of resupply and energy cost, as a ship wouldn't have to boost so far out-system, and so expend as much fuel, supplies, life support and time as it would making it out to the Kuiper Belt).

Obviously, pretty much all of the above bears the disclaimer IMHO, but I think it makes sense, as do the more science-minded of my gaming group. YMMV.