Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines. It's supposedly FTL but not as fast as Warp Travel or the webway (but more reliable). There was a story someplace of the Tau capturing and interrogating some humans about their warp drives and they couldn't believe that the humans had no idea how their tech worked. Blew their minds.

 Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines.

 Melissia wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines.

That's... not actually how Tau FTL works.

The Tau Empire uses technology known as "Gravitic Drives", letting their ships "fall" forwards, pulled by the drive's artificial gravity. They combined this along with reverse engineered warp drives to create their FTL technology. As they have no psykers, they cannot actually enter the warp; instead, like I said, they "skip" across the warp using their modified gravitic drives, with gravitic hooks letting bigger ships "carry" smaller ships behind them.

In an ironic twist, this means that unlike the Imperium, the Tau Empire is the one that doesn't actually know how their own drives work, being unable to use it to its full potential.

 Gamgee wrote:
We've been retconned away from skimming the warp. The way our engines is described is similar but doesn't rely on pre-warp skimming anymore. It's in the newer lore pieces. It's bee a long time since I've asked people to source me it so I can't remember the exact book and page ect. They kind of work like star trek warp drives now.

 Melissia wrote:
The Necrons use inertialess drives that allow for infinite acceleration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gamgee wrote:
I think the Tau's FTL problems will be "solved" one way or another in whatever book they get next. If that's what you meant Melissia then we agree. The latest bit of lore is a Tau fleet "vanishing" with the strange warp... phenomenon of the Damocles gulf that is opening up rifts all over Tau space. One of their fleets vanished. The text says they were assumed to be destroyed, but it seems rather portentous to me. Would be hilarious if chaos tau become a thing.

I... doubt that. It's possible, but I think the limitation on using the warp is a thing GW wants to stick to for Tau.

Temennigru wrote:
The tau don't have psychers to go through the warp and don't have the webway. How do they do FTL travel?

 Big Mac wrote:
Tau lack psyker gene, one of which is the navigator trait that allows the imperium to use the warp extensively, where as the tau only skim the surface of it.

 Melissia wrote:
The Necrons use inertialess drives that allow for infinite acceleration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gamgee wrote:
I think the Tau's FTL problems will be "solved" one way or another in whatever book they get next. If that's what you meant Melissia then we agree. The latest bit of lore is a Tau fleet "vanishing" with the strange warp... phenomenon of the Damocles gulf that is opening up rifts all over Tau space. One of their fleets vanished. The text says they were assumed to be destroyed, but it seems rather portentous to me. Would be hilarious if chaos tau become a thing.

I... doubt that. It's possible, but I think the limitation on using the warp is a thing GW wants to stick to for Tau.

 Exergy wrote:

Temennigru wrote:
The tau don't have psychers to go through the warp and don't have the webway. How do they do FTL travel?

The same way the Tyranids and Necrons do. With fuzzy math and poor science fiction writing.


Apparently there is this thing called the warp. Humans travel through it. Orks travel through it. Eldar use to travel through it, then they decided they didnt like it so they created an artificial warp, called the webway, and then they started torturing people.

Necrons dont use the warp. But they somehow travel faster than light. (Poor writing has them stealing the Eldar webway)
Tau dont use the warp. But they somehow travel faster than light
Tyranids dont use the warp. But they somehow travel faster than light.

Mellow wrote:
An inertialess drive that allows for infinite acceleration sounds great. Although it doesn't explain why Necrons would stay in the Milky Way if such a drive existed as the space between Galaxies would become just a thing of no consequence.

They were basically amazing inventors weren't they? No reason why the Tau could not follow such a path of accelerated invention. After all Humanity were supposedly doing the same until the Mechanicum ruined everything.

Mellow wrote:
An inertialess drive that allows for infinite acceleration sounds great. Although it doesn't explain why Necrons would stay in the Milky Way if such a drive existed as the space between Galaxies would become just a thing of no consequence.

They were basically amazing inventors weren't they? No reason why the Tau could not follow such a path of accelerated invention. After all Humanity were supposedly doing the same until the Mechanicum ruined everything.

Mellow wrote:
An inertialess drive that allows for infinite acceleration sounds great. Although it doesn't explain why Necrons would stay in the Milky Way if such a drive existed as the space between Galaxies would become just a thing of no consequence.

 Melissia wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines.

That's... not actually how Tau FTL works.

The Tau Empire uses technology known as "Gravitic Drives", letting their ships "fall" forwards, pulled by the drive's artificial gravity. They combined this along with reverse engineered warp drives to create their FTL technology. As they have no psykers, they cannot actually enter the warp; instead, like I said, they "skip" across the warp using their modified gravitic drives, with gravitic hooks letting bigger ships "carry" smaller ships behind them.

In an ironic twist, this means that unlike the Imperium, the Tau Empire is the one that doesn't actually know how their own drives work, being unable to use it to its full potential.

 Gamgee wrote:
I think the Tau's FTL problems will be "solved" one way or another in whatever book they get next. If that's what you meant Melissia then we agree. The latest bit of lore is a Tau fleet "vanishing" with the strange warp... phenomenon of the Damocles gulf that is opening up rifts all over Tau space. One of their fleets vanished. The text says they were assumed to be destroyed, but it seems rather portentous to me. Would be hilarious if chaos tau become a thing.

 Gamgee wrote:

 Big Mac wrote:
Tau lack psyker gene, one of which is the navigator trait that allows the imperium to use the warp extensively, where as the tau only skim the surface of it.

We do not skim the surface of it anymore. That is retconned. At least until new lore proves otherwise. Honestly the drives work the same, take the same amount of time, and generally are the same thing. For some reason they thought they felt the need to make that clear in the newer descriptions.

GodDamUser wrote:
From Battle Fleet Gothic.

The Tau reverse a Warp drive (probably Imperial) from a wreaked ship that was found on a moon in their home system. As the Tau do not have a psy presence (but are not blanks) they are unable to stay in the warp (strange but this was BFG days) and get ejected at high velocity.

Kinda like putting a ball into water

 Melissia wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines.

That's... not actually how Tau FTL works.

The Tau Empire uses technology known as "Gravitic Drives", letting their ships "fall" forwards, pulled by the drive's artificial gravity. They combined this along with reverse engineered warp drives to create their FTL technology. As they have no psykers, they cannot actually enter the warp; instead, like I said, they "skip" across the warp using their modified gravitic drives, with gravitic hooks letting bigger ships "carry" smaller ships behind them.

In an ironic twist, this means that unlike the Imperium, the Tau Empire is the one that doesn't actually know how their own drives work, being unable to use it to its full potential.

 Melissia wrote:
Also before the War in Heaven they had untold thousands of years to develop their technology to begin with.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

The Tau are well-known for their tendency to take other race's technologies, reverse-engineer them, and apply them to their own tech: They've done so with Ion Cannon tech, their initial warp drives (whether that old fluff is still good is unknown), and a few other things.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

Psykers (Navigators) are not necessary to actually enter the Warp.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

The Tau are well-known for their tendency to take other race's technologies, reverse-engineer them, and apply them to their own tech: They've done so with Ion Cannon tech, their initial warp drives (whether that old fluff is still good is unknown), and a few other things.

This is fair when the tech being analyzed is clearly tech. But the Necrons tech is so, SOOOO, far advanced that it looks like magic to everyone. Living Metal vehicles is not a single tech. Different Cryptechs have different methods for doing the same thing. Wether it's nano machines, actual self repairing materials, chronal manipulation etc etc...

They have a living virtual map of the galaxy that they can manipulate like you swiping on your phone that manipulates real space in real time. They can wink out stars like the Kids in the Hall crushed heads.

Tau may be good at reverse engineering a drive system or a gun. But Necron tech runs off principles so many steps beyond their understanding of reality that I think the Tau would have nowhere to begin.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

The Tau are well-known for their tendency to take other race's technologies, reverse-engineer them, and apply them to their own tech: They've done so with Ion Cannon tech, their initial warp drives (whether that old fluff is still good is unknown), and a few other things.

This is fair when the tech being analyzed is clearly tech. But the Necrons tech is so, SOOOO, far advanced that it looks like magic to everyone. Living Metal vehicles is not a single tech. Different Cryptechs have different methods for doing the same thing. Wether it's nano machines, actual self repairing materials, chronal manipulation etc etc...

They have a living virtual map of the galaxy that they can manipulate like you swiping on your phone that manipulates real space in real time. They can wink out stars like the Kids in the Hall crushed heads.

Tau may be good at reverse engineering a drive system or a gun. But Necron tech runs off principles so many steps beyond their understanding of reality that I think the Tau would have nowhere to begin.

They don't have to be able to completely understand the inner workings of an examined piece of tech to learn a great deal from captured technology.

Yes, I imagine the Tau won't be able to build that living virtual map of the galaxy any time soon. To suggest they literally could learn nothing from examining necron tech, however, sounds inane to me. To say the least, even the smallest increments of success would likely revolutionize the Tau's understanding of the universe, which would be exactly the sort of accelerated I've suggested: Slower than the Necrontyr, but faster than they could do so on their own (which itself is stated to be at a comparatively accelerated level to most).

I am by no means suggesting the Tau will get anywhere CLOSE to Necron levels of tech, even if they had plenty of captured Necron tech, in a short amount of time (or even a thousand years) - I just don't find it plausible that one of the races with the best track record of reverse-engineering and accelerated technological innovation would be entirely incapable of ANY sort of advancement if given access to such advanced tech, because ANY new understanding would snowball into increased chance of understanding other elements - particularly if the Earth Caste, which has done so well even when their life spans were short, start making use of the life-prolonging nanomachines that we now know exist and work.

 Exergy wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

The Tau are well-known for their tendency to take other race's technologies, reverse-engineer them, and apply them to their own tech: They've done so with Ion Cannon tech, their initial warp drives (whether that old fluff is still good is unknown), and a few other things.

This is fair when the tech being analyzed is clearly tech. But the Necrons tech is so, SOOOO, far advanced that it looks like magic to everyone. Living Metal vehicles is not a single tech. Different Cryptechs have different methods for doing the same thing. Wether it's nano machines, actual self repairing materials, chronal manipulation etc etc...

They have a living virtual map of the galaxy that they can manipulate like you swiping on your phone that manipulates real space in real time. They can wink out stars like the Kids in the Hall crushed heads.

Tau may be good at reverse engineering a drive system or a gun. But Necron tech runs off principles so many steps beyond their understanding of reality that I think the Tau would have nowhere to begin.

They don't have to be able to completely understand the inner workings of an examined piece of tech to learn a great deal from captured technology.

Yes, I imagine the Tau won't be able to build that living virtual map of the galaxy any time soon. To suggest they literally could learn nothing from examining necron tech, however, sounds inane to me. To say the least, even the smallest increments of success would likely revolutionize the Tau's understanding of the universe, which would be exactly the sort of accelerated I've suggested: Slower than the Necrontyr, but faster than they could do so on their own (which itself is stated to be at a comparatively accelerated level to most).

I am by no means suggesting the Tau will get anywhere CLOSE to Necron levels of tech, even if they had plenty of captured Necron tech, in a short amount of time (or even a thousand years) - I just don't find it plausible that one of the races with the best track record of reverse-engineering and accelerated technological innovation would be entirely incapable of ANY sort of advancement if given access to such advanced tech, because ANY new understanding would snowball into increased chance of understanding other elements - particularly if the Earth Caste, which has done so well even when their life spans were short, start making use of the life-prolonging nanomachines that we now know exist and work.

Things that are too advanced can actually be counter productive.

Say you were a bunch of 19th century aviation enthusiasts who wanted to learn how to make a flying machine. Then say they found a non functioning F-35.(you dont find functioning Necron tech, if it functioned it would teleport or disintegrate) Would that really help them understand how to build a working aircraft?

They would need to build a compact and powerful engine, but the one in the F-35 is made out of materials they cannot hope to reproduce, burns fuel they cannot hope to synthesize, and uses a compression technique they dont have the foggiest idea of how it works. Jet engines are incredibly dificult to build at first, if you don't control the vibrations just right they tend to explode.
Without said very powerful engine, the F-35 will never be able to get up to speed to fly, it would constantly appear to be broken to 19th century.
The F-35 is impossible to fly without it's computer system functioning to stabilize it, a computer system that a 19th century scientist is going to see a pure witchcraft.
The F-35 has all of this technology built to make it stealthy against RADAR, which the 19th century scientist is not going to understand
The F-35 also has a lot of design decisions made to make it cheaper to build and maintain in the field, rather than to optimize flight performance. Other design desisions were made to aid in the F-35 going supersonic, somethings that are actually pretty counterintiutitve and not helpful.

You would be better off looking at birds than an F-35. Indeed they did look at birds and that eventually did lead them to manned powered flight.

In terms of aircraft, 19th century scientists would obviously be able to understand the 1903 wright flyer. Depending on how damaged it was and their resources they could probably reverse engineer it.
Something from late WWI would probably be the limit of what 19th century folks could understand and possible ever get to make work again.
Things from the 1930s and 40s would potentially lead to some very advanced breakthroughs and rapidly increase the speed and adoption flying tech.
Stuff from the 1950s and 60s would be useful in bringing about some ideas later on, but probably wouldnt lead 19th century folks to fly any sooner than they did.
Anything beyond that isnt going to help.

 Exergy wrote:
They also wouldnt use the Dolem gates to enter the webway if they could just get wherever they like with inertialess propulsion quickly .

Torquar wrote:

They need the Dolmen Gates to fight the Eldar in the webway.

Inertialess Drives are limited by plot only. Trazyn (for example) was able to travel the entire length of the galaxy, Somnalace to Thanatos so he could consult the Orrery, then Thanatos to Cadia in the time it took Abaddon's fleet to get from the Eye to Cadia.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Torquar wrote:

They need the Dolmen Gates to fight the Eldar in the webway.

Inertialess Drives are limited by plot only. Trazyn (for example) was able to travel the entire length of the galaxy, Somnalace to Thanatos so he could consult the Orrery, then Thanatos to Cadia in the time it took Abaddon's fleet to get from the Eye to Cadia.

Do we know he used Inertialess Drives and not Dolmen Gates?

Exergy wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

The Tau are well-known for their tendency to take other race's technologies, reverse-engineer them, and apply them to their own tech: They've done so with Ion Cannon tech, their initial warp drives (whether that old fluff is still good is unknown), and a few other things.

This is fair when the tech being analyzed is clearly tech. But the Necrons tech is so, SOOOO, far advanced that it looks like magic to everyone. Living Metal vehicles is not a single tech. Different Cryptechs have different methods for doing the same thing. Wether it's nano machines, actual self repairing materials, chronal manipulation etc etc...

They have a living virtual map of the galaxy that they can manipulate like you swiping on your phone that manipulates real space in real time. They can wink out stars like the Kids in the Hall crushed heads.

Tau may be good at reverse engineering a drive system or a gun. But Necron tech runs off principles so many steps beyond their understanding of reality that I think the Tau would have nowhere to begin.

They don't have to be able to completely understand the inner workings of an examined piece of tech to learn a great deal from captured technology.

Yes, I imagine the Tau won't be able to build that living virtual map of the galaxy any time soon. To suggest they literally could learn nothing from examining necron tech, however, sounds inane to me. To say the least, even the smallest increments of success would likely revolutionize the Tau's understanding of the universe, which would be exactly the sort of accelerated I've suggested: Slower than the Necrontyr, but faster than they could do so on their own (which itself is stated to be at a comparatively accelerated level to most).

I am by no means suggesting the Tau will get anywhere CLOSE to Necron levels of tech, even if they had plenty of captured Necron tech, in a short amount of time (or even a thousand years) - I just don't find it plausible that one of the races with the best track record of reverse-engineering and accelerated technological innovation would be entirely incapable of ANY sort of advancement if given access to such advanced tech, because ANY new understanding would snowball into increased chance of understanding other elements - particularly if the Earth Caste, which has done so well even when their life spans were short, start making use of the life-prolonging nanomachines that we now know exist and work.

Things that are too advanced can actually be counter productive.

Say you were a bunch of 19th century aviation enthusiasts who wanted to learn how to make a flying machine. Then say they found a non functioning F-35.(you dont find functioning Necron tech, if it functioned it would teleport or disintegrate) Would that really help them understand how to build a working aircraft?

They would need to build a compact and powerful engine, but the one in the F-35 is made out of materials they cannot hope to reproduce, burns fuel they cannot hope to synthesize, and uses a compression technique they dont have the foggiest idea of how it works. Jet engines are incredibly dificult to build at first, if you don't control the vibrations just right they tend to explode.
Without said very powerful engine, the F-35 will never be able to get up to speed to fly, it would constantly appear to be broken to 19th century.
The F-35 is impossible to fly without it's computer system functioning to stabilize it, a computer system that a 19th century scientist is going to see a pure witchcraft.
The F-35 has all of this technology built to make it stealthy against RADAR, which the 19th century scientist is not going to understand
The F-35 also has a lot of design decisions made to make it cheaper to build and maintain in the field, rather than to optimize flight performance. Other design desisions were made to aid in the F-35 going supersonic, somethings that are actually pretty counterintiutitve and not helpful.

You would be better off looking at birds than an F-35. Indeed they did look at birds and that eventually did lead them to manned powered flight.

In terms of aircraft, 19th century scientists would obviously be able to understand the 1903 wright flyer. Depending on how damaged it was and their resources they could probably reverse engineer it.
Something from late WWI would probably be the limit of what 19th century folks could understand and possible ever get to make work again.
Things from the 1930s and 40s would potentially lead to some very advanced breakthroughs and rapidly increase the speed and adoption flying tech.
Stuff from the 1950s and 60s would be useful in bringing about some ideas later on, but probably wouldnt lead 19th century folks to fly any sooner than they did.
Anything beyond that isnt going to help.

Mellow wrote:


You are SO wrong. They would have just looked in the glove box and found the manual.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Torquar wrote:

Source for Trazyn?

That sounds like The Gathering Storm I.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The Tau have traditional high tech engines. It's supposedly FTL but not as fast as Warp Travel or the webway (but more reliable). There was a story someplace of the Tau capturing and interrogating some humans about their warp drives and they couldn't believe that the humans had no idea how their tech worked. Blew their minds.

That seems a little silly. Humans have no idea how just about all of their technology works. Why would Tau be surprised by one more instant of that on top of the thousands of instances they've probably heard by now?

 Exergy wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Torquar wrote:

Source for Trazyn?

That sounds like The Gathering Storm I.

In gathering the storm, Belakor launches an assualt on the Phalanx around terra after Abby starts attaching Cadia. The Phalanx then blind jumps, and then jumps again and reaches cadia before the battle is over.

I think gathering the storm just has no sense of distance or time.

 Exergy wrote:


I think gathering the storm just has no sense of distance or time.

GodDamUser wrote:

 Exergy wrote:


I think gathering the storm just has no sense of distance or time.

The Warp has no sense of distance or time


All fluff problems solved

 Exergy wrote:


In gathering the storm, Belakor launches an assualt on the Phalanx around terra after Abby starts attaching Cadia. The Phalanx then blind jumps, and then jumps again and reaches cadia before the battle is over.

I think gathering the storm just has no sense of distance or time.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Exergy wrote:


In gathering the storm, Belakor launches an assualt on the Phalanx around terra after Abby starts attaching Cadia. The Phalanx then blind jumps, and then jumps again and reaches cadia before the battle is over.

I think gathering the storm just has no sense of distance or time.

In fairness there's nothing wrong with the assault on Cadia taking a considerable length of time.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

Psykers (Navigators) are not necessary to actually enter the Warp.

The 5th Edition Necron Codex said that due to having no Psyker talent Necrons couldn't use Warp travel.

 Melissia wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
We've been retconned away from skimming the warp. The way our engines is described is similar but doesn't rely on pre-warp skimming anymore. It's in the newer lore pieces. It's bee a long time since I've asked people to source me it so I can't remember the exact book and page ect. They kind of work like star trek warp drives now.

... Star Trek warp drives work in functionally the same way as I described, but instead of the Warp they use "subspace", and the use of impulse drives (fusion rockets basically) for sub-FTL movement.