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.

how do they do it?

They don't use the warp, I know that much. It's kind of a mystery, actually. The codex just say that they are really fast and the Techpriests don't know how they do it.

Something like Star Wars jumps, just add phase out with that and there you have it.

It seems to be teleportation.

They phase from one place to another.

Probably a bit more to it but that's all the fluff has said AFAIK.

Might explain how they just appeared at Mars one day without being spotted until they tried to land

Inertialess drive.It can cross galaxy in a blink of the eye.Considering that Imperial Warp drives can cross 10,00 ly in 10-40 days(even faster as per Adeptus Titanicus,thousands of light years in hours(but that's when daemons aren't present)) Necron FTL could be considered.red extremely fast.

Well, the C'tan seem to break the laws of physics whenever they want too, so I assume its something like that.

I believe that they themselves do not move, becuase technically nothing can move faster than light. They probably just move the universe around them, since that is far more realistic for something belonging to the "gods" of real-space. They are masters of Gravity, matter and anything in "real" space; knowing this how is it too far fetched that they might use some form of super gravity to bring two points in space-time together in an instant without them actually moving?

tarvos wrote:Well, the C'tan seem to break the laws of physics whenever they want too, so I assume its something like that.

I believe that they themselves do not move, becuase technically nothing can move faster than light. They probably just move the universe around them, since that is far more realistic for something belonging to the "gods" of real-space. They are masters of Gravity, matter and anything in "real" space; knowing this how is it too far fetched that they might use some form of super gravity to bring two points in space-time together in an instant without them actually moving?

It could be that because after all as per Necron Codex,the C'tan caused system killing black holes,supernovas and they destroyed planets for SPORT!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed! which supports my hypothesis of a "Because I want too" drive!

tarvos wrote:Indeed! which supports my hypothesis of a "Because I want too" drive!

On the other hand Necron tech rapes physics and it drives people insane who want to study it.

As was mentioned, they use an inertia-less drive of some sort which lets them go at or above the speed of light. Their ships are noted to be slowing down as they approach the battle fields in which they partake.

Does anyone know what "inertia-less" means? It's a word used by GW every single time they have to explain necron space travel.

As I understand it, "inertia-less" means that an object will have no resistance in any change of its speed (no inertia). Which would mean that this object could reach light-speed almost immediatly after starting moving. Is this how necrons travel? But how do they reduce the mass of their ships to zero???

Don't inertial drives manipulate gravity, similar to what Tyranids use?

Ivan - 10,000 ly in 10 - 40 days is not accurate in the slightest. The vast majority of fluff has intra-sector travel taking months at a minimum, with weeks for subsector travel. Longer if warp currents dont favour you**

But then you believe the IoM has FTL, when it doesnt (cheating and crossing into another dimension (the warp) isnt FTL, same as warp drive (ST) isnt FTL)....

There is no stated fact on how there drives operate, only that they travel very fast (nothing canonical on HOW fast, just "very") and it is through real space, not hte warp or other dimension hopping fun. Inertia-less is just a guess.

Interia is a function of mass; if you have a drive which does not increase your inertia, it is negating the mass increase associated with movign faster and faster meaning you can easily reach the speed of light (as it no longer requires infinite energy for a non-zero mass'ed object to reach light speed)- of course our physics states that as soon as you hit c your mass drops to zero and your constituent parts fly apart as photons, but presumably the Necrons have found a way round that

There is no barrier to travelling faster than c in real space*, just that anything with mass cant get to c in the first place

*tachyons presumably do it, given that is how they are postulated

**Soulhunter talks about the huge speed up the night lords manage compared to normal IoM ships, by knowing better routes. So it would be possible to do 10k in 10 - 40 days, but certainly it is not common place to do so. WHich is about as close as you can get to consensus, as the warp could decide to let you travel near as damn it instantly OR spit you out 10k years later.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Ivan - 10,000 ly in 10 - 40 days is not accurate in the slightest. The vast majority of fluff has intra-sector travel taking months at a minimum, with weeks for subsector travel. Longer if warp currents dont favour you**

But then you believe the IoM has FTL, when it doesnt (cheating and crossing into another dimension (the warp) isnt FTL, same as warp drive (ST) isnt FTL)....

There is no stated fact on how there drives operate, only that they travel very fast (nothing canonical on HOW fast, just "very") and it is through real space, not hte warp or other dimension hopping fun. Inertia-less is just a guess.

Interia is a function of mass; if you have a drive which does not increase your inertia, it is negating the mass increase associated with movign faster and faster meaning you can easily reach the speed of light (as it no longer requires infinite energy for a non-zero mass'ed object to reach light speed)- of course our physics states that as soon as you hit c your mass drops to zero and your constituent parts fly apart as photons, but presumably the Necrons have found a way round that

There is no barrier to travelling faster than c in real space*, just that anything with mass cant get to c in the first place

*tachyons presumably do it, given that is how they are postulated

**Soulhunter talks about the huge speed up the night lords manage compared to normal IoM ships, by knowing better routes. So it would be possible to do 10k in 10 - 40 days, but certainly it is not common place to do so. WHich is about as close as you can get to consensus, as the warp could decide to let you travel near as damn it instantly OR spit you out 10k years later.

Oh god,post relevant quotes and post that quote about BL not being canon.A guy like you would be crushed by real 40k experts on SpaceBattles.com.

Folding space...
Traveling without moving...

Exergy wrote:Folding space...
Traveling without moving...

That is warp travel.

Mr Nobody wrote:

Exergy wrote:Folding space...
Traveling without moving...

That is warp travel.

A challenger appears!

Monster Rain wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:

Exergy wrote:Folding space...
Traveling without moving...

That is warp travel.

A challenger appears!

And that would be called a navigator in 40k, I think there was a thread about the similarities of dune and 40k a while ago.

At least from what I've read I can assume they, basically, occur wherever they please.

Much like the Necron Lords using the Veil of Darkness. They literally step into the shadows and then appear in another area. They aren't using the warp at this time, so you can assume that the Lord, much like Necron ships, possess something that allows them to, literally, occur in another area in the blink of an eye. No warp needed. Mass, tachyons, and other scientific terms aside they have Gods leading them.

This does beg the question; Can they use their instant travel to occur in atmosphere?

Ivan - meh, whatever. Trying to argue 40k is frankly ludicrous, as it has the most inconsistent universe of any major SF. You have ships that cannot function (Fusion, whcih a "plasma reactor" is and is stated to be a number of times, cannot provide the quoted weapon outputs) as described, different ideas on travel, and no agreement on even how the basic weapons function (caseless vs cased amunition, although the models support cased and models > fluff, as GW is a mdoel company)

"Real 40k experts" is a misnomer, as it requires levels of doublethink last seen in 1984.

Given there is no agreement on how Necrons travel, precisely, there is nothing stating it cant occur in an atmosphere. Presumably if you can avoid inertia simple atmospheric heating should be easy to avoid / render irrelevant. IF it wasnt then travelling at superluminal speeds through realspace would present problems from striking interstellar H, whcih at those velocities would be akin to driving your car into an explosive brickwall.

Their phase out works when on planet so that leads one to assume such technology can still work in the confines of atmosphere, though if someone were to argue that It only works cause they port to a tombhold they have been shown to reverse phase out in Dead Men Walking. In this instance they were porting immortals and warriors to a battle field to back up flayed ones.

Have anyone considered the use of Phase Space (like, where wraiths tend to lurk half of the time) as a possibility?
Not saying that you're wrong, just considering the possibility.

They use Plot powered ships.

SilverMK2 wrote:They use Plot powered ships.

Indeed.

They have the fabled Deus Ex Machina Engine!

nosferatu1001 wrote:Ivan - meh, whatever. Trying to argue 40k is frankly ludicrous, as it has the most inconsistent universe of any major SF. You have ships that cannot function (Fusion, whcih a "plasma reactor" is and is stated to be a number of times, cannot provide the quoted weapon outputs) as described, different ideas on travel, and no agreement on even how the basic weapons function (caseless vs cased amunition, although the models support cased and models > fluff, as GW is a mdoel company)

"Real 40k experts" is a misnomer, as it requires levels of doublethink last seen in 1984.

Given there is no agreement on how Necrons travel, precisely, there is nothing stating it cant occur in an atmosphere. Presumably if you can avoid inertia simple atmospheric heating should be easy to avoid / render irrelevant. IF it wasnt then travelling at superluminal speeds through realspace would present problems from striking interstellar H, whcih at those velocities would be akin to driving your car into an explosive brickwall.

Guess you never heard of debate forum.In 40k we try to find a middle end.We also had the same debate over the 610 GT torpedo and firepower of 40k on SpaceBattles.com and in the end the anti 40k fanboy was banned by the admin.

Also you haven't provided relevant quotes.Provide them or I consider that you concede.

As stated by Exergy, I'm fairly sure that Necrons bend the Space-Time Continuum so that they cross two points at a stupidly fast speed. Not quite teleportation, but like the ride the fold like a rollercoaster. This technology is also seen in their TARDIS-esque ability to make things bigger on the inside.

...I think

The Necrons have the most unexplained FTL engines. The basically use super-mega-superscience-don't-even-ask engines.

The Inertialess drives mean that they can continuously accelerate without any reaction mass. Also, like Mass Effect, they can reduce the mass of their ships so that they can exceed the speed of light by taking the M out of E=MC2.

The net effect is that a Necron Ship keeps accelerating at some G, yet as they approach the speed of light their mass does not correspondingly increase, so the engine still can accelerate at the same g, where as a reaction mass based system would no longer be efficient enough at near light speeds to exceed the speed of light.

Ivan - lol, your inflated opinion of yourself gets funnier every day. Have another read of Flight of the Eisenstein, the damaged back pack is fusion, and is in many backgrounds also described as plasma. ERgo BFG ships really, really dont work as described.

But you carry on being a fanboy who cant believe that BL writers *really* dont get physics, m'kay? Apparently that explanation is too far beyond the pale to be acceptable...and no, I dnot concede, this just isnt the thread for it.

Back to the on topic people:

Teleport appears to be "short" range only, similar to IoM tech. The few times theyve mentioned space travel it isnt an instantaneous "blip", there is definitely travel time involved. The ship in Nightbringer does seem to exist in phase space, in order to wait out the slumber, but there isnt any indication they travel that way. I always thought wraiths dont exist in a separate space, but out of phase with our own - hence weakly interacting with normal matter, apparently enough to not sink through floors they dont want to sink through at any rate (whcih is what I loved about TNG: not only could they still breathe, but they only walked through walls, not floors...glaring hole there!)

A wizard did it.