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[nenjin]

science-faction

"FOR SCIENCE!"

Wh40K works just fine with hard numbers, as long as they don't destroy all plausibility.

Plausible by whose standards? We have no frame of reference for the scale of 40k besides our own. Besides, in a universe where you can arrive somewhere before you left due to the Warp, plausibility is the first victim of the genre.

[TempAcc]

If the rate of failure was that high, the great crusade would've been impossible, though. The great crusade and horus heresy both include stories of how the same ships make multiple journeys through the warp. If it was as high as 40%, the chance of making multiple warp jumps successfuly would be very, very small, even on a universe as ridiculous as 40k's.

The instances of ships travelling through the warp and comming out before they actualy entered are usualy accompanied by explanations or indications of how a warp storm was happening or how that specific region of intersection between  the warp and realspace is specialy turbulent, etc.

[nenjin]

40K never lacks for having an excuse. I just wouldn't try to follow the chain of logic too far.

[Knit tie]

Wh40K works just fine with hard numbers, as long as they don't destroy all plausibility.

Plausible by whose standards? We have no frame of reference for the scale of 40k besides our own. Besides, in a universe where you can arrive somewhere before you left due to the Warp, plausibility is the first victim of the genre.

Don't confuse application of phlebotinum with bad worldbuilding. When things that shouldn't work according to basic fifth-grade logic if condition A is met are constantly said to be working tolerably fine and no explanation or excuse is given, then condition A is either not met, or the writer screwed up.

[LordBaal]

Yes, 40K is pretty wild, and it's hard to scale or measure it up. But even in the most gaping maws of violent chaos, certain things must be respected, and logic prevails.

Even a 10 percent of failure would mean that in average a fleet will only survive so many jumps before being wasted to oblivion. Making hastily and bad maths you have that after only 10 jumps a fleet would be down to less than it's 35%. That's it, having a fleet of 100 ships would left you with less than 35 after only 10 jumps.

By the time of the 30th jump you will have less than 5 ships. And remember we are talking about a mere 10%.

If we rise up the number to the insane 40% chance for our 100 ships fleet, then by the time of the 10th jump you would have around 0,6 ships... which unless the ship is on a "dry dock" being constructed, is kinda a bad thing to be in.

Or to put it on another way, travelling with a 40% chance of being devoured by oblivion every single time you do it will land your ass in oblivionland in less than 3 trips for most people AND ships. Which is kinda of the other side of this.

Ships, we have ships plenty, and thank the Emprah for the oncoming Battlefleet Gothic pc game, but enough of that. How many ships do we have that are ancient? Like really fucking ancient? A lot, if not most of them. That would be a really hard thing to accomplish on a world were 4 out of 10 are ships get lost forever in their maiden voyages, and the rest are lost in mere three trips on average. Wouldn't you think?

So, either that number is a lie or the fact that you have even a single ship that is older than dust is a lie, the two of them cannot coexist. I know plenty of lore of ancient ships, don't know any of that high rate of failure to travel, hence I'm sticking with the it's fake or a mistake hypothesis. You people are free to take your pick.

PD: I won't deny there's situations were the chances of making a successful jump may slip into the realms of "no fucking way we're gonna make it" as the plot requires (or even things far worst like arriving before departing), however that would be especial circumstances, not the norm.

[Zrk2]

Battlefleet Gothic PC game? That sounds awesome. Is there an ETA?

[LordBaal]

Battlefleet Gothic PC game? That sounds awesome. Is there an ETA?

It seems next year. Simply google "Battlefleet Gothic PC game" and enjoy

[Rolepgeek]

I think that the number of warp jumps that fail should be assumed to be small enough for warp travel to still be a reliable and economically viable way of interstellar communication, since the Imperium wouldn't be able to physically exist otherwise. Remember, Imperial planets tend to be highly interdependent.

Well, it's the only viable method of interstellar travel available to humanity. It'd be "viable" even at an 80% failure rate, given that the only other option is centuries-long transit times between even close systems.

It's just that most of the Imperium would have fallen if warp transit anywhere took longer than 6 months.

Tau have a perfectly safe alternative.

Also, Baal, averages don't really work like that; with the sheer fucking number of ships, odds are a few will be fantastically lucky.

Still, 5-10% seems more likely, and less 'lost forever in the warp' than 'are tossed to someplace/sometime entirely different than what they had been trying for'. Also it happens to fleets as a whole, not as an attritive process. 40% seems more like 'don't make it exactly when/where they thought they would'.

[nenjin]

Also it happens to fleets as a whole, not as an attritive process.

Because why?

An entire fleet jumping through a Warp Storm, sure, chances of your whole fleet being lost are excellent.

But lots of things happen to individual ships during a jump too. Each exists in its own bubble of reality, it's not like they're all sharing one big Geller Field. Something something not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Geller Field Generators can fail, your Navigator may not have done their calculations right, their Warp Chart might be completely outdated, they Navigator can get distracted/sneeze and you fly off course. A fault in a Geller Field might appear and daemons might invade a ship and kill everyone....There are dozens of reasons why part of a fleet might not make it versus the whole fleet. It's true that the more likely scenario isn't a technological malfunction or error on the part of the Navigator, but a Warp Storm, which would cause you to lose the fleet. That said, for a battle group constantly moving across the stars, there is definitely attrition due to the reasons listed above.

[UXLZ]

For a single ship to make it through 100 jumps, the chance is 6 x 10^-23 (or) 6 x 10^-21%. The Imperium is big, but is nowhere near big enough to have produced enough ships to have a large amount of ships that made it through that many if not more jumps.

[Rolepgeek]

Because that's how it tends to happen in the lore?

I've just noticed that, while individual ships dying might happen on a one or two basis, usually it's fleets as a whole that get lost. I'm talking about the getting lost bit. That's just what I've noticed. Haven't seen much about attrition. Of the personnel, and to a certain extent just because Daemons, sure. But not from getting lost.

Sure it has, UXLZ. It's made a shitton of ships. 10,000 years? Million plus planets? Don't see why not.

Besides, it's not going to be a flat 40% for every jump. That's an average of averages. All depends on circumstances.

[nenjin]

The chance of badness during a Warp jump is directly proportional to the length of the distance traveled. Even though 40k lore says the Warp is independent of physical space, the practical truth of how it plays out supports the above. It's why Warp Jumps are called "jumps." You don't go from Terra to Cadia in one 7 month long Warp Transit. You jump to a system on the edge of Terran space, then make a series of little jumps on your way to Cadia, or where ever you're going. It is far, far, far safer to travel that way instead of playing the odds on a longer trip, which get exponentially worse.

(I've spent a lot of time thinking about Warp Travel as part of a Rogue Trader campaign I'm going to make one day. I've written a formula with about 8 variables you plug in to arrive at a rough estimate of travel time from start to finish of each jump. Trying to put numbers to what is an inherently arbitrary system gets rough.)

[Dutchling]

a lot of people here dont understand statistics

or logistics

but i guess thats 3grimdark5me

[UXLZ]

Ah, so you're saying it's made 653320000000000000000000 ships for every single one that has 100 successful jumps?

So you're telling me every single planet (if there's 10 million) in the Imperium produces 6533200000000 ships per year?

Because two hundred and seven thousand ships produced per second sure is realistic.

Of course, the numbers are fairly arbitrary, but a 40% failure rate on jumps is absurd.

[Rolepgeek]

Like I said, I figure that's more of a 'didn't quite make it to the destination they were looking for'.

Or maybe 'old as shit' means like ten jumps, and they just sit around the rest of the time.