How long does it take for a ship to move from physical space to the warp?

Is it possible to pursue someone through the warp?

(I think you can see where I'm going here... the pursuit rules don't seem to cover it but I would have thought "escape to the warp" would be a good plan when pursued.)

Not sure about how long the transition takes, but don't ships have to be way outside the systems outer bodies when they enter/exit warp to prevent bad things happening ?

The real issue is space debris. It takes a few weeks for a ship to get somewhere safe enough to make the transition to warp-space. The rulebook mentions (somewhere in the fluff) that doing so any earlier risks the ship being torn apart by micrometeors, void shields or not. Presumably the same applies exiting the warp, so most ship battles will take place in no-warp zones.

As for the question at hand, I imagine it takes several hours. Most art/media shows the warp transit as a lightning storm in space, though more purple than in the new Star Trek film. If Imperial technology is anything to go by, making this happen involves a massive ritual in which buttons are pressed in sacred sequence, oils are applied and lenses polished. You're looking at a few hours, during which time stressing the engines would be a Bad Thing.

That said, if they want to try a hurried warp-jump, I'd give the navigator some penalties and maybe customise any warp encounters to suit it.

And for fallowing, yes, you apparently can to a degree. While the juries out whether you can engage someone in the warp or not, there most definitly is a navigator power which allows the navigator to track anouther ship's passage through the warp.

Most of the Fluff indicates that the transition to the warp itself is pretty quick. Of course if you aren't outside the system it's a good way to end up in pieces or halfway across the galaxy 500 years from now..... As far as fighting in the warp. It's very very hard. Your targeting computers won't work, and your gunners will go insane looking into the warp. It's possible that you could have a Navigator aim the weapons manually, but the warp will likely cause the projectiles or beams to go wildly off course. Boarding is an optional in theory, but you better be well protected from the warp. (Wasn't this done in some novel?)

Dalnor Surloc said:

People don't go insane by looking at the warp through wards/a Geller Field. Characters do it all the time in the novels with no ill effects. Hell, in The Inquisition War, they go out into the warp in void-suits with wards on it, and I doubt they would have done so if you went insane just by looking at it, which they were doing a lot as they floated along.

MILLANDSON said:

Background changes, and Black Library authors often make mistakes. Navigators are stated as being unique in their ability to look into the Warp without losing their minds; it seems, then, that if Navigators can look upon the Warp and remain unscathed and that is a particular trait of theirs, then it must be something that others cannot do.

MILLANDSON said:

Indeed, what N0-1 said. Everything I've read recently paints the warp to be dangerous to even look upon, be anywhere near, or even think too deeply about. Don't forget, Inquisition war was written around the time of 1st ed 40k, 2nd ed at the latest. A LOT has changed since those books were written like no more squats (unless you're reading the version with a tech-priest instead of a squat), Ordo Malious' role in the Inquisition (they're more like the IA of the =][= in Inq War), the Emperor's predicament (possibly... he seemed to be more active and cognizant in Inq War then latter material states he is).

I'd say ship combat in the warp is pretty much impossible unless you manage to overlap your gellar fields. They extend a few kilometres away from the ship, but a typical void unit is 10,000km. Unless you're within 1 VU, shells and blasts would be swept away or gathered by demons for some dark purpose.

Given that the currents of the warp are what does most of the travelling (Main engines used to steer) and that it moves at different times in different places, a shell leaving the gellar field is more likely to hit yourself than the intended target. Without a navigator to follow the trail exactly the best you can hope for is to guess their destination and resume the fight there.

As for staring into the warp, it depends on how the Gm rules your Gellar field. If it creates an opaque bubble of reality, then suit-up and go for all the void-walks you want.

The Lord Solar Macarius fights a duel with a Murder class cruiser in the Warp in Execution Hour.

Ranges were lowered by the ambient distortions and they spent time playing cat and mouse by dropping in and out of the warp to try and shake the enemy off.

In the end the Mac gets hit after the Murder jumps them from within a warp turbulence and Captain Semper lures his enemey into close range by dropping his Geller field to below 50% power [so the chaos captain thinks he can board ] before doing a snap turn to hit him with a torpedo salvo at point blank range.

Graver said:

Of course the fluff changes. However, Ciaphas Cain has looked into the warp whilst travelling through it, and is in fact assaulted in one of the observation domes he's looking at the warp in whilst travelling by an assassin. Other instances have been brought up in other books. It's not an old thing, it's been repeatedly used in recent books, and in various pieces of official 40k art in recent years. Plus, remember, as GW have said repeatedly, everything they have written is canon, which would make the Inquisition War just as accurate as any other book, it just happens to be set a dozen or so centuries before most 40k books bar the Horus Heresy ones.

I do, however, believe there is a difference between looking at the warp, and looking into the warp, as a Navigator does. Obviously no one could look into the Warp as a Navigator does and survive, but looking at it through the Geller Field does seem to have a deadening affect on the "crazy" effect. Hell, starships in 40k have big clear plastisteel windows that never seem to be closed off to the crew whilst travelling through the warp.

I can honestly say I've never seen it in one of the recent 40k books that looking into the warp on a starship actually drives you insane. It seems to be a common myth, used to make people fear the warp, rather than reality.

Still, to each their own.

Considering the fact that staring unprotected into the warp is considered to be a -30 Fear test (page 285 RT book) it seems to me that fighting in the warp is not a good thing. Nor for that matter is relaxing in observation domes during transit. The big question is, does the Gellar field protect you from viewing the warp? And if so that what level. Enough to turn the fear rating from -30 to say -0 or even requiring no fear roll at all?

Sister Callidia said:

IMO, the Gellar Field doesn't protect you from viewing the Warp. It protects the ship from physical contact with the Warp, but the field itself is essentially a transparent energy bubble containing a captured pocket of 'reality' that the ship carries with it while travelling. The horrors of the Warp are still there and still visible... just slightly further away.

For this reason, whenever a ship prepares to translate into the Warp, vast metal shutters slam down over every single observation port except one - the dome used by the Navigator.