Spontanious Inhuman Combustion. It is impossable to avoid as it is not a physical or psychic encounter. A Fire always causes Crew and Morale Damage and it seems very harsh as their is no way to prevent it.

My group on a 66 day journey through the Warp encountered 3 of them and if they didn't put out the Fire damages the component. I thought it was a bit harsh they were only travelling between planets.

I know Warp travel supposed to be dangerous but if an NPC ship with an average crew made the trip they would be a gutted wreck. And promethium would never be transported in bulk between stars, too dangerous.

I also have a problem with their is no apparent cause for the Fire. It cannot be caused by Daemons as that is a Psychic Predators.

I know it is my game I can modify it however I want, but I rather hear other peoples opinions and experiences first. So what is your experiences with Spontaneous Inhuman Combustion.

My opinion?

the Koronus expanse is a dangerous place, and weird/strange things happen there that wouldn't necessarily happen in more stable/settled areas of space. ship fires while at warp (along with other, equally harsh things) are just part and parcel of traveling in a wild, mostly untamed and unexplored wilderness. there's a reason why so many ships and crews don't come back from long trips through the Expanse….it's horrifically dangerous to travel the warp even under more controlled circumstances. to do so in the Expanse is an order of magnitutde worse.

I'd chalk it up to the price of running a ship through unstable warp routes. if that makes the players hate/fear warp travel (or just flat out paranoid about the warp in general) then I'd consider that a bonus. I *want* my players to be afraid of the warp. I want them to sweat out a warp translation. I want them to feel that warp travel is mean, unfair and completely arbitrary. if they feel as if they're only barely in control of a warp translation then that's a good thing in my book. if it becomes routine, then i'm not doing my job very well.

I prefer to have a range of encounters at work rather than throw daemons at the ship every time, which is why I quite like results like this. If you really want a cause for the fire and similar problems you can blame it on the crew getting strung out during the journey.

I've started using the warp translation rules from The Navis Primer, but since my group haven't got a PC Navigator I've been a bit lenient on the (many many) Tests. Personally, I'm happy to ignore the rules if it suits me - what matters is that whenever they put to Warp, something strange will always happen

Tullio said:

obviously, what works in one campaign isn't necessarily going to work in EVERY campaign. for my part, I just like to engender the feeling that the warp is a fickle dangerous thing that can easily smash you into atoms even if/when you do everything right. warp translation and travel to other star systems should scare the crap outta them and make them really respect how dangerous space travel is for humanity.

of course, I also stress just how much wealth they can wring out of the Expanse, and how powerful they can grow. with great risk comes great reward.