Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
On the topic of warp-incapable ships, I have this vague image in my brain of smaller imperial ships riding into the warp alongside larger warp-capable ships.

Are warp-capable ships able to bring ships without warp engines along with them? Or does entering the warp require one engine per ship?

One warp engine per ship. Although whether this is a limitation of the laws of physics or just how ships were built is not known. A ship has a warp engine and Gellar field generators sufficient to push the ship into the warp and maintain a bubble of reality around its immediate vicinity. Ships do not seem to have sufficiently powerful generators to encompass a second ship, or at least they are not constructed with such. Even the Ramillies Star Fort has its own generators and warp engine, even though this surely must be rare nearly lost technology, rather than having it be enveloped by many smaller ships' bubbles.

This is one per ship is also why when you have fleet movements things may be slower than having the individual ships travel alone, because they have to re-orient and group up again after each warp exit, and this may take some time if ships exit significantly off course from each other.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
On the topic of warp-incapable ships, I have this vague image in my brain of smaller imperial ships riding into the warp alongside larger warp-capable ships.

Are warp-capable ships able to bring ships without warp engines along with them? Or does entering the warp require one engine per ship?

Obviously ships can travel inside other ships (fighters, Thunderhawks, etc.) so creating a "mother ship" that carries smaller system freighters would make since there's no gravity in space. Basically secure them to the superstructure, lock blast doors, and go.

I'm reminded of the Guild ships in Dune, which obviously inspired 40k.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
On the topic of warp-incapable ships, I have this vague image in my brain of smaller imperial ships riding into the warp alongside larger warp-capable ships.

Are warp-capable ships able to bring ships without warp engines along with them? Or does entering the warp require one engine per ship?

Obviously ships can travel inside other ships (fighters, Thunderhawks, etc.) so creating a "mother ship" that carries smaller system freighters would make since there's no gravity in space. Basically secure them to the superstructure, lock blast doors, and go.

I'm reminded of the Guild ships in Dune, which obviously inspired 40k.

Sole issue I can think of with external mooring is how far the Gellar Field extends.

It’s described as creating a bubble of reality around the ship, which I for one typically imagine as a spherical bubble. But it could just be a form fitting skin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course, that’s assuming there’s only type of Gellar Field generator, which to be honest is an assumption too far for my tastes.

I love how Gork and Mork basically bullied the other warp gods around so that orks can get to where they need to go. And who needs Gellar fields? Daemons are just in-flight entertainment!
But I don't think they've ever explicitly said HOW orks can do warp-travel. I'd assume banging on the engines of their space hulks until something works, that- or a collab between meks/ doks/ and a weird boy to do the same as an Astropath/ Gellar fields.. Or, Orky green Waaagh power that just makes it happen.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
I love how Gork and Mork basically bullied the other warp gods around so that orks can get to where they need to go. And who needs Gellar fields? Daemons are just in-flight entertainment!
But I don't think they've ever explicitly said HOW orks can do warp-travel. I'd assume banging on the engines of their space hulks until something works, that- or a collab between meks/ doks/ and a weird boy to do the same as an Astropath/ Gellar fields.. Or, Orky green Waaagh power that just makes it happen.

I think orks follow the Ming the Merciless quote from the Flash Gordon film: they heedlessly fling themselves out in the void.

I mean, the core concept of orks is that their knowledge is instinctive, not the result of deliberate study. An aspiring warboss gets a notion of going somewhere, and the boyz with the boatz make it 'appen!