Space travel in 40k is common.
The Warp is supposed to be extraordinarily dangerous.
Thus, it seems that travel involves lots of lost ships and dead travelers and a lack of commerce (and thus missing tithes).

In 40k RPGs, the PCs bounce from planet to planet. However, I've read 40k space travel descriptions in various editions that seem to point out that space travel is an insanely bad gamble with ships often getting lost, devoured, turned into hulks, or at best, arriving at their destinations (or different ones than planned) years later than planned.

Was that junked in the RPG edition?

So how does space travel work in YOUR campaigns for 40k?

While such accidents happen occasionally in the 40k universe, I believe that keeping that to a minimum is the reason that humans worship the emperor.  He's the warp beacon which allows space travel to happen in relative safety.

After all, in Gaunt's Ghosts they travel to a bunch of planets without incident, and no one is even shocked by it.  Heck - Macharius apparently conquered 1,000 different worlds for The Imperium.  (Actually - I believe his conquest ended when he reached an edge of the emperor's psychic projection, which would have made all warp travel in that direction slower & more dangerous.  He wanted to keep going - but his men refused.)

I think more than ships being lost etc. (which happens only very rarely) it's that they don't always arrive in a timely fashion.

I remember that in the Assassin Codex there was a story about a poison assassin (venomous or some such) who had been deployed to kill a single rebellious governor, only she got caught in a time bubble or some such in the warp, and decades had passed so that the governor had died of old age and been replaced with an entire rebellious senate.  (She then poisoned all of the seats of the senate to kill them all at once.)

I favor it having the potential to be very dangerous, but that those dangers can be minimized by taking precautions. Rushing into warp travel can be disastrous.
There's a chart in the rules for the old Space Fleet game that I've used in 40K-ish games. It compares distance traveled to the variable time passed in the Warp and time passed in realspace. The furthest travel listed is 5000 light years, which has the minimum realspace time of 5 months and the largest being 3 years. This is all assuming normal operation with no malfunctions.

Dangerous enough to stymie commerce and dangerous enough to constantly crop up at the individual level are different things.

For example my brother in-law works in import/export in Korea and if he ships stuff to Europe through the Suez canal he has to paya lot of pirate insurance, enough that he ships bulky and non-perishable stuff all the way around the Cape instead.

So Somalian piracy is enough of a problem to impede commerce but nobody thinks it's weird for people to sail through there with unarmed boats.

So for the warp if something fucked up happens 1% of the time that'd cause a lot of problems for administrators and result in a lot of dead ships over the years but it could not come up once over the course of a whole world hopping campaign.

I'm a massive fan of the 40K warp and think it's one of the best parts of that setting. For practical purposes however, if the PCs cant travel anywhere, it wont be much of a space campaign...?

Quote from: Daztur;933567So for the warp if something fucked up happens 1% of the time that'd cause a lot of problems for administrators and result in a lot of dead ships over the years but it could not come up once over the course of a whole world hopping campaign.

That's an excellent point. 1% failure rate is a nightmare when you are talking about millions of ships making constant trips. According to Google, there are 87,000 flights per day in the US. 1% failure means the US loses 870 planes every day!!

But if you have to roll 02 or higher on D100 to go from A to B, no player is going to sweat it...until the improbable happens.

Quote from: Psikerlord;934003I'm a massive fan of the 40K warp and think it's one of the best parts of that setting. For practical purposes however, if the PCs cant travel anywhere, it wont be much of a space campaign...?

I always took it as being analogous to 'The Age of Sail'... so similar travel times and elements of danger... as well as opportunities for adventure and good fortune. With lots of Kafkaesque bureaucracy tossed in here and there... "I'd rather brave the warpstorm than fill out the vast paperwork required to safely dock at the Segmentum Fortress!"

I haven't played 40K myself, but in The All Guardsmen Party warp travel is safe unless you happen to be stuck on the Occurrence Border, a ship that's described as having more in common with a warp-tainted space hulk than a proper vessel.  On their first ride somebody explosively sabotaged most of the Gellar Field generators* and the party had to make their way through a ship that was slowly falling into the warp to scavenge enough parts to allow the ship to re-enter realspace.

Even after all that was resolved, minor warpy shenanigans still occurred somewhat regularly.  As a side-effect of this, A) the party just isn't phased by minor warp phenomena any more, and B) they prefer to set up their bunks right next to the Gellar Field generator of any ship they travel in.

So, warp travel is mostly fine, unless you're a rather unlucky PC and the GM wants to make things interesting.

*Yes, generators, plural.

From the story:  

QuoteOn the list of incredibly horrible things that can go wrong during warp transit “Gellar Field Failure” is pretty much at the top. The Gellar Field Generator is literally the “anti-getting devoured by daemonic horrors” device; it is rather important that it keeps performing that function at all times while travelling through the warp.

The squad kitted up while Sarge commed Jim and asked nicely if he’d heard about anything about problems with the Gellar Field. We all watched as Sarge’s face started turning white, then red, then purple. We bailed out of the room just ahead of the explosion of rage and even through the sealed hatch we heard Sarge taking out a lot of frustration on poor Jim. The high points included:

>“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHICH ONE?”
>“WHY ARE THERE SIX?”
>“WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD INSTALL A DAMAGED GELLAR FIELD GENERATOR?”
>”WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD INSTALL SIX DAMAGED GELLAR FIELD GENERATORS?”
>”NO, THERE IS NOT A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DAMAGED AND REFURBISHED!”

In the groups I've played in, it's dangerous enough to warrant everyone on board being really nervous.  Chapels are generally full.  People are drunk or medicated.  Folks are holding pict-slates of their loved ones.  

Of course, "Your ship is lost in the warp!" in a game of Dark Heresy is practically a party wipe without actual play, so it wasn't going to happen.  Could be possible in Deathwatch, and a good sidetrack campaign.

Quote from: Spinachcat;933561Space travel in 40k is common.
The Warp is supposed to be extraordinarily dangerous.
Thus, it seems that travel involves lots of lost ships and dead travelers and a lack of commerce (and thus missing tithes).

In 40k RPGs, the PCs bounce from planet to planet. However, I've read 40k space travel descriptions in various editions that seem to point out that space travel is an insanely bad gamble with ships often getting lost, devoured, turned into hulks, or at best, arriving at their destinations (or different ones than planned) years later than planned.

Was that junked in the RPG edition?

So how does space travel work in YOUR campaigns for 40k?

This is the entire point of the Emperor; he maintains the safe paths through the Warp for ships. This is why legions of psychics are sacrificed to keep him "alive" every year, so the beacon of the Astronomicon continues to guide ships through the Warp.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934458This is the entire point of the Emperor; he maintains the safe paths through the Warp for ships.

The Emperor is a big weird lighthouse but can't protect against warpstorms and malign warp entities and equipment failures and navigators going insane and...
I figure Event Horizon is a document of an early attempt at warp travel, before they knew to put protective wards on the ship and whatnot.

I'm out of the loop on how some of the other races, like the Tau, manage interstellar travel.

Good question Simlasa.

How do the Tau and Orks manage interstellar travel?

I don't remember seeing canon fluff or novels discussing either.  In fact, I'm unsure if I've ever read how Tyranid Hive Fleets do it either.

I think the nids go through real space.  The tau have no psychic presence. Presumibly the warp beasts dont bother them.  Orcs wouldnt mind.  Just more spiky boys for crumpin.

The one time i did play rouge trader we saw a ship lost in the warp.  I decided I wantex to go over there.  The long and the short if us is we got another ship.  It was "The good ship imperious" or something.  We alwayz made sure to refer to her as the "good ship" so she didnt forget.

Quote from: Spinachcat;934512Good question Simlasa.

How do the Tau and Orks manage interstellar travel?

I don't remember seeing canon fluff or novels discussing either.  In fact, I'm unsure if I've ever read how Tyranid Hive Fleets do it either.

Tau barely touch the warp, but even then they can get FTL speeds.  Not as fast as other races as they fully submerge into the warp where the tau stay out of it.

Orks love fighting and don't mind the daemons.  Still the orks have the protection of their two gods.  Not to mention orks can make geller fields (if highly dangerous and explosive).

All eldars use the webway which is a series of protective warp tunnels that serves as a highway throughout the galaxy.  Pretty useful and the Emperor tried to create his own since web travel is completely safe unlike warp travel.

The nids mostly travel in the physical galaxy.

I forgot that Orks have their own version of Gellar fields, and if few random demons popped up anyway, that would be in flight entertainment. Has 40k codified if the Ork gods are "Gods"? I haven't read the last 2 Ork codexes, but I don't remember if that was ever answered, or whether the Ork's belief in them functioned like their their other latent psi.

Definitely the Eldar webway has been a feature since forever. Definitely used that in 40k RPGs over the years.

As for the 'Nids, how is their movement explained? AKA, at sublight speeds, it would take centuries or millennium for them to bother anyone. In the fluff, there always seems to be some level of surprise, warnings not heard, etc when the 'Nids show up to party.

I do not know if this is official and I don't have my RT nearby, but I remember there were stolen ships in the control of Genestealer Cults who had human-enough members to act as crew while the holds were filled with breeding tyranids to be dropped off like planetary presents from Satanic Satan.