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But seriously, that's the idea nomotog. They press through the space in between to slingshot themselves. They don't get into the warp proper like.

nomotog wrote:I always thought it worked by pressing on the warp and then being thrown back out light years from where they start. They never actually enter the warp it's like a cork bouncing on the water

I think its more like a cork being pulled underwater and being shot back up, but y'know, you can aim that shot.

Something like that anyway.


On actually improving it, I don't think they can within the practical scheme of things given the immobile obstacles(ageing and supply problems)

They really need a psychic breakthrough. A subserviant race that has psykers would allow them to use proper warp drives.

I think we've been over this before but being a psyker isn't enough. You need to be a navigator.

Once they have a psyker, or can splice a psyker into tau genes and gain insight to the warp, I reckon though could create a better method, maybe something similar to webway-travel but with their own flavour.

Ovion wrote:Once they have a psyker, or can splice a psyker into tau genes and gain insight to the warp, I reckon though could create a better method, maybe something similar to webway-travel but with their own flavour.

If they ever do that all is lost for the Tau. They will come to the attention of the ruinous powers and have a Horus Heresy/Fall of their own. They need to keep those psykers genes as far away from them as possible.

Either way - I imagine they'll find a way to do it in that interspace, in a webwayesque fashion as opposed to actual warp travel, maybe a second iteration of the webway?

But either way...

On a rethink, maybe a half or third sized primary drive for the initial push, then several cylcling min--drives to hold it under for a prolonged period might be a... better 'improvement' under current tech, resulting in a similar or only marginally larger drive with an significantly extended range.

Sticking with the cork analogy: if you pull it too deep into warpwater it might not come out again.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Sticking with the cork analogy: if you pull it too deep into warpwater it might not come out again.

Yep. There are all kinds of limitations that keep them from just making things bigger. They might push to hard and go into the warp maybe even split it open. They also could just flatten themselves on the wall of the universe.

Warp travel is Hard. Very hard. Most of the species in the universe don't have it. The ones that do have it have to spend massive amounts of effort on it and it still dosen't work well.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I think we've been over this before but being a psyker isn't enough. You need to be a navigator.

Not really.

Any sort of psyker can help with navigation. The Navigator ability just makes it easier. They had warp drives long before Navigators surfaced.

Orks don't use navigators, yet their Wierdboyz have no trouble getting their ships to arrive at their destinations(or at least someplace there is a fight going on)

Plus I don't think tau are in range of the light house anyway.

Grey Templar wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I think we've been over this before but being a psyker isn't enough. You need to be a navigator.

Not really.

Any sort of psyker can help with navigation. The Navigator ability just makes it easier. They had warp drives long before Navigators surfaced.

Orks don't use navigators, yet their Wierdboyz have no trouble getting their ships to arrive at their destinations(or at least someplace there is a fight going on)

Not according to the masses: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/393777.page Feel free to retroactively chime in.

Seems like the thread agrees with what i said. They get to where they want to go just fine without Navigators.

It says they don't get to where they want to go. They just go and fight whatever they stumble upon.

No, they are naturally attracted to areas where there's a good fight going on/to be had. This shows they are able to selectivly go where da fightins good.

No, it's not conscience. Regardless, their psykers have nothing to do with it. Honestly, having psychic powers does not help you at all with warp navigation. If anything it's probably more dangerous for a psyker to look unprotected into the warp than a normal person.

Typhus guided the Death Guard into the clutches of Nurgle through sorcery and psyker...y

He wasn't a navigator.

That's a metaphor.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:No, it's not conscience. Regardless, their psykers have nothing to do with it. Honestly, having psychic powers does not help you at all with warp navigation. If anything it's probably more dangerous for a psyker to look unprotected into the warp than a normal person.

I disagree 100%


yeah, Psykers are tastier for daemons to nom, but they also have some means of protecting themselves.

I also didn't say they would look into the warp directly with their real eyes. No, they would use their powers to feel around the general vicinity of the ship and would read the currents. Kinda like how blind people use their little sticks to feel the world when they are walking.

A psyker would be like a Blind person leading a bunch of people that are not only blind, but also deaf, dumb, and have almost no sense of touch.

A navigator in the same situation would be a seeing person. They can actually see the Warp, and can move/direct better. A blind person can still do it, but they can only feel the warp, not actually see what's happening.

That's an assumption on your part. Psykers cannot navigate simply because they are psykers. The uniqueness of Navigator mutants is a big part of the background. Trust me. I'm having regenerating gene-seed flashbacks.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:That's an assumption on your part. Psykers cannot navigate simply because they are psykers. The uniqueness of Navigator mutants is a big part of the background. Trust me. I'm having regenerating gene-seed flashbacks.

BrainDeleted wrote:Typhus guided the Death Guard into the clutches of Nurgle through sorcery and psyker...y

He wasn't a navigator.

He literally killed all of their navigators in warp then led their ships to Nurgle's domain. He told Mortarion he could navigate and that the actual navigators were still loyal. Mortarion believed him. Obviously, it isn't too far fetched.

It wasn't a metaphor. They literally got led into Nurgle's sphere of power, infected by his diseases, then tortured until they swore to serve him. Typhus didn't spiritually mislead them, he just dicked them over in the warp.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:That's an assumption on your part. Psykers cannot navigate simply because they are psykers. The uniqueness of Navigator mutants is a big part of the background. Trust me. I'm having regenerating gene-seed flashbacks.

You are the one making an assumption. Navigators are Psykers too.

We don't have anything saying that psykers can't can't lead a ship through the warp. We do know that Navgators are special in their ability to do this, but there is nothing saying psykers can't do it in a limited aspect.


Again, I ask you what they did in the time between when Warp Travel was invented and navigators actually appeared?

All the Navigators did was allow longer and safer warp jumps. Warp Travel was quite fine without them.

Grey Templar wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:That's an assumption on your part. Psykers cannot navigate simply because they are psykers. The uniqueness of Navigator mutants is a big part of the background. Trust me. I'm having regenerating gene-seed flashbacks.

You are the one making an assumption. Navigators are Psykers too.

We don't have anything saying that psykers can't can't lead a ship through the warp. We do know that Navgators are special in their ability to do this, but there is nothing saying psykers can't do it in a limited aspect.


Again, I ask you what they did in the time between when Warp Travel was invented and navigators actually appeared?

All the Navigators did was allow longer and safer warp jumps. Warp Travel was quite fine without them.

Find something that says Psykers can help navigate the warp then.

Pre-Navigator Humanity wasn't an empire. They were like independant city-states. They did not need to get to point x before alien y destroyed them. They were just exploring the galaxy and colonizing it. Seeing what was over the next hill if you will. Navigators are what made a galactic empire possible. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/344589.page In fact Navigators may be the most important people in the Imperium. Their unique abilities are the reason the IoM is the biggest empire in the Galaxy.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
For some reason Navigators are all the rage right now and I'm talking about them on three different threads. Here's a link someone else posted: http://secteur-calixis.fr/docs/Seeing_the%20Warp_-_The_Navis_Nobilite.pdf
Note: Blind Jumps.

I think mr Canuck is right. I think people are assuming that a psyker because of his connection to the warp can just close his/her eyes and see the warp. But Im sure that in descriptions of psykers I have only read that they can TAP into and use the warp itself.

However, when navigators are described its said that they LITERALLY not methaporically have a third eye on their forehead. They use it when they go up into their special rooms in starships open the windows and see the warp kind of like a crowsnest on a sailing ship.

But yeah I also dont think that just because psykers can tap into and use the warp doesnt mean they can help guide a ship through it. Besides it WAS the navigators that brought about the real golden age of man by allowing mankind to expand wherever it wanted.

There are also mechanical ways to navigate the Warp - not as good or as adaptive as true Navigators but they are in the fluff.

IMO a powerful Psyker can try and Naviagte a ship but he or she is never going to be as effective as those the Emperor created to do so.....

The Tau may also be kept out of the Warp (for the Greater Good of course) by the Etherials to avoid mutation, madness and Chaos taint which they may well know more about than is let on......

Otherwise I would have thought they could utalise non Tau to help them navigate - assuming they also have Gieger fields.................

What they really want is the old Necron non warp FTL drive which I am unsure from the recent codex still exists or not.

The Necrons still have their awsome ships.

Considering their mastery of time I think the Necron Ships might operate on some sort of time distortion and compressed space method. Their ships operate like the ships in Star Trek's Warp Drive(Space compression), but also distorting time around the ship to allow it to move even more insanely quickly then the "Warp Drive" would.


That said, the Tau wouldn't have a prayer of capturing a Necron ship to attempt to reverse engineer it. And I don't think the Crons are going to be willing to trade one of thier ships for anything the Tau can offer. Their best bet would be to offer the entire Etherial caste to Trazyn in exchange for a necron FTL engine. Even then, he would probably end up with the entire Tau race stuffed and mounted in his museum

Librarians have been used to navigate through the warp (In the salamanders trilogy.) It's also been established a good many times that sorcerors (who differ from psykers in the manner they obtain their power, not in actual abilities) can navigate the warp (The Night Lords novels have examples of that, and the Thousand Sons use navigators.) It can be done, it isn't anywhere good as what a Navigator or daemon can pull off - a specialist always beats the generalist, and Navigators and daemons 'see' better in the warp which allows them to do a better job.

And technically the Kroot have some sort of Warp Drive already, so in theory the tau already have it....

Something I just found out, there is a warp gate in the Jericho Reach. In a hypothetical, the tau could take over the gate and make it deep in imperial space.

what about the Nicassar,............it's a race of psyker beings alied with the Greater Good,........... I may be mistaken (don't remember exactly) but thought they provided service in the tau fleet,..........

Nicassar don't have warp drive. They are psykers, but not navigators or telepathic.

Also well we are at it. The eastern fringe is not easy to navigate. It's far away from the light house, it's stormy, it just plain bonks. There is a reason that it's called the fringe.