I was wondering whether anyone knows of a rule update on the Markov drives. I checked the errata but there was nothing there and it REALLY makes NO sense how its currently formulated.

RAW:

Markov 1 Warp Engine
The Markov series of warp engines is designed to propel smaller
courier vessels more quickly through the Immaterium.
Overcharged: Reduce the base travel time for a journey
through the Immaterium by 1d5 weeks. It may be further
modified by the results of the Navigation (Warp) Test.

It clearly states 'BASE' time, so the time in the warp. Now 2 scenarios: a short and a long trip

1. short trip, typically upto 1 week, my players usually make jumps of 1-3 days… applying this rule that would thus be [3 days - 2,5 weeks (average)] so… they ALWAYS end up 12 days before they left?? This alone requires a houserule… you could say minimum 1 day (but thats not to be found)

2. long trip, lets pick 3 trips of 1, 6 and 12 months. They ALL get reduced by 1d5 weeks?!? WHY? Is the markov only effective during the 1st month of travel?? Basically what I would do as player is say: ok I'll make short jumps of 2 weeks max, so to travel 1 year in the warp that would require 26 jumps of 2 weeks reduced by 1d5 weeks per jump so on average it will take roughly 26 days warp time travel ?!? to travel the distance of 1 YEAR.

An obvious houserule would be to use a factor and NOT an absolute value e.g. half the time or a quarter or 3 quarters, whatever tickles your fancy, but I would like to know if FFG themselves already figured out how broken their current implementation is.

Or am I overlooking something major??

Note: I know the math is slightly off, e.g. 26 jumps of 2 weeks - 1d5 weeks with a minimum of 1 day will result in more then 26 days but that's not what this topic is about, so pls no nitpicking on the math (unless I made a major error of course).

Yeah, they're rather odd. I houseruled it that it reduces the sidereal-time. Makes more sense given the engine's role in courier vessels where getting the message through as quick as possible is what matters.

The rules seems indeed pretty broken.

Maybe reduce travel time by 1d5 unit of travel (day, week, month, year) with minimun 1 unit of time.

So a 2 week travel would last at best 1 week, A 7 month travel will have a mimimun time of 2 month, …

With the markov drive, the temperamental warp engine history, and the skittish oddity warp travel time can be reduced up to 3d5 weeks. This creates an issue where the players in your case, day jumps not weeks, would be constantly showing up before they left. Considering the average open warp travel ratio of 1:12 (1 day in warp = 12 days out of warp) it would make more sense to be a 'real' time reduction instead of a 'warp' time reduction (unless you want your players traveling back through time constantly). Even then that doesn't really resolve the issue a week jump = 12 weeks 'real' time which means you could still arrive early.

One could simply say that the markov drive and the temperamental warp engine reduce travel time by 1d5 week to a min. of 1 week (which is exactly what skittish says). This means the drive and the history fail to offer any benefit to a trip lasting a week or less. Combined they could still reduce a 16 week jump to a 1 week jump.

At least that is what I would say. Given the one to twelve ratio that's a combined savings of 3-15 weeks or 36-180 weeks 'real' time. That's a 3.46 year savings on the high-end. Which means if one had all three the optimal jump length would be 9 weeks (9-2.5-2.5-2.5). Reduced to 1 week or 12 weeks 'real' time per jump. The example from the RT CORE says on average one can travel across a sector in 30-60 days which translates to a huge time savings.

Also, there is a limit to how long a ship is going to stay in the warp. Frankly warp travel is dangerous and shorter jumps are generally safer and more common then longer ones. If you have a destination that is on average a year's warp travel away you're going to try to break that up not just enter the warp and exit a year later.

So, yes I agree there needs to be a house rule on this one since an official one hasn't been made to my knowledge. You might also want to ask FFG for their ruling via the ask a question link.

my thoughts…

Showing up before you left is awesome, and should be encouraged to the fullest.

And then, as GM, exploited to the fullest.

Think about it. They receive a distress call, set off, and get there…

And nothing bad has happened yet. Sure that gives them time to prepare… IF there were some details, but they're certainly suspicious for showing up. How bad does it sound when you're consistently exactly right about what's about to happen, eh Tzeench?

Plus, you get to toy with self-fufilling prophecies, the timeline being changed by their showing up [the cultists might not come out of hiding just yet knowing there's suddenly a giant cruiser in the skies], and, absolute best-case scenario: Both Rogue Traders try to go highlander or lootaz on himself and his one ship, and start assaulting themselves through time.

thanks for the swift replies and the interesting ideas. Where can i find this 'ask a question link'??

and yes time travel can be hilarious, but this would end up in constant time travel which I think will mess up too much.

wolph42 said:

At the very bottom of the page, in what might be called a "footer" you'll see something like this:

© 2012 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Fantasy Flight Games and the FFG logo are ™ or ® of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Contact | User Support | Rules Questions | Help | RSS

You'll want to click the one called Rules Questions and then be prepared to wait until February 29 to get your answers…

wow yeah they've hidden that link pretty well! thanks for the pointers, will sent message now.

Ill be back on this next year

edit: here's what I send as question:

The Markov drives in Rogue Trader - Into The Storm make absolutely no sense and I was wondering whether you can give a ruling/errata on these:

RAW:
Markov 1 Warp Engine
The Markov series of warp engines is designed to propel smaller
courier vessels more quickly through the Immaterium.
Overcharged: Reduce the base travel time for a journey
through the Immaterium by 1d5 weeks. It may be further
modified by the results of the Navigation (Warp) Test.

It clearly states 'BASE' time, so the time in the warp. Now 2 scenarios: a short and a long trip

1. short trip, typically upto 1 week, my players usually make jumps of 1-3 days… applying this rule that would thus be [3 days - 2,5 weeks (average)] so… they ALWAYS end up 12 days before they left?? This alone requires a houserule… you could say minimum 1 day (but thats not to be found)

2. long trip, lets pick 3 trips of 1, 6 and 12 months. They ALL get reduced by 1d5 weeks?!? WHY? Is the markov only effective during the 1st month of travel?? Basically what I would do as player is say: ok I'll make short jumps of 2 weeks max, so to travel 1 year in the warp that would require 26 jumps of 2 weeks reduced by 1d5 weeks per jump so on average it will take roughly 26 days warp time travel ?!? to travel the distance of 1 YEAR.

An obvious houserule would be to use a factor and NOT an absolute value e.g. half the time or a quarter or 3 quarters, whatever tickles your fancy. Given the fact that most trips are relatively short and the impact of these drives is clearly intended as 'High' I would suggest the Markov 1 to half the warp time travel and the Markov 2 reduce it to 75% (3/4) of the warp travel time. A possible alternative is that it does NOT influence the warp travel time but the real time that has passed, so the [12 x base (Warp) time] becomes 6x for M1 and 9x for the M2.

wolph42 said:

You mean 2016, right?

It really depends on what game you ask the question for I think and who gets it. I have had questions answered the same day. I have also had questions answered a month later. At which point I had sort of moved on. Of course the deathwatch forum was still arguing about it until I posted the response and they settled down.

Good luck I am curious how it turns out. The RT game I play in one of their ships has skittish and temperamental warp engines for up to a 2d5 week reduction when they are lucky.

I think I saw a snippet somewhere that it reduces travel time to one day at most. Was it an errata? Or just a houserule? Still, that's the way I handle the Markov engine.

Bah, that's the boring way to do it. Time travel shenanigans for everyone!