Portals

[Mr. Analog]

I'm sure I can spare a pick or two

I'll drop 'em off at Ye Olde Community Storage

[Thorin]

So...  Would we be moving all future rails into the Nether, then?

I've got the XP farm now, I'm building an enchantment table right next to it as soon as I can, I've got a crap-load of diamonds...  I'll see if I can get you some useful tools

Also, we need to figure out some kind of a naming / directions system for all the portals, otherwise it's too easy to get lost.

Also also, can you turn the portals so they face the same direction in both the Nether and the Overworld?

Also also also, what do you think about putting a solid wall behind one side of the portals so that it's obvious which direction you're supposed to enter / exit them?

[Lazybones]

So...  Would we be moving all future rails into the Nether, then?

Only planning on doing the big stations to start, we have in between stops as well so I didn't plan on removing any track

I've got the XP farm now, I'm building an enchantment table right next to it as soon as I can, I've got a crap-load of diamonds...  I'll see if I can get you some useful tools

Also, we need to figure out some kind of a naming / directions system for all the portals, otherwise it's too easy to get lost.

Also also, can you turn the portals so they face the same direction in both the Nether and the Overworld?

Also also also, what do you think about putting a solid wall behind one side of the portals so that it's obvious which direction you're supposed to enter / exit them?

At first I only plan on moving what I NEED to move to add new portals, even with an enchanted pick 10-14 (depending on who built it) obsidian blocks take a long time to dig up.

If you go check out the sky city portals (ignore the unlabeled on for now) I put a black catch area to turn your around... Remember depending on the direction of travel you come out facing the other way, so turning people around is something I plan on doing.

Pigmen make rail in the nether annoying so I just plan on improving things to start.

Placement is tricky.

If you go exact x/z matching then portals work perfectly however they are not alligned efficently in the nether, the are still much closer..

If you arrange them (in range) but grouped artificially in the nether, you drastically increase the odds of placing new ones in the wrong spot and having odd linking. remember portals search for the BEST MATCH at the time of transport... There is no fixed link.

[Thorin]

I think going exact x/z placement, if they're all at the same y coordinate, will make adding new ones much easier for other players.  I don't mind still having to walk between portals, it's easy enough to mine out new passages in the Nether, and travelling 8x times faster means 5 minutes becomes 34 seconds (really, about a minute because you have to walk to where the portal is).

If both portals are facing east/west, and the Overworld portal has a wall behind the east side and the Nether portal has a wall behind the west side, would that keep people from turning around?  Would one always enter the OVerworld portal from the west (so facing east) and then step out of the Nether portal facing east?

    PW
--> PW
....PW

WP    
WP -->
WP....

W Wall
P Portal
. Ground
-> Direction of travel

I can't check out the sky portals right now, but I will in the next couple of days when I have time.

[Lazybones]

The only issue is you have to have all walls on the south side of the portal or somthing.  Some over world portals make more sense facing different directions depending on land and buildings..

We can make changed to buildings and land to make this work.

[Thorin]

Is that a game rule that the walls all have to be on the south side?  Or do you mean for consistency's sake?  I was just suggesting it so that if you're walking east when you head into a portal, you can continue to head east without turning when you come out the other portal.  Less chance you get turned around.  Then again, good signage can easily offset that turning around.  We should try as much as possible to have straight paths in the Nether that all come back to 0,0, that way you come out of your portal, head to 0,0, then head to the other portal (with close portals having secondary direct connecting paths).

[Lazybones]

Consistency

[Lazybones]

each portal pair would have to be set so the entrance and exit where opposite... guess it isn't that hard.

[Thorin]

I think you're getting what I'm saying now   And yeah, it's a bit of OCD correctness.  I love the idea of perfect portal pairs, though.  None of this hoping you go to the right one, or hoping that someone else didn't mess up your portals by building in your exclusion zone.

Maybe you could just say in the Nether we're always walking from the spawn (0,0) outwards, in the Overworld we're always walking towards the spawn?  You'd have to look at each location and see if it's more east, more south, more west, or more north.

For instance, an Overworld portal at +200, +704 is 200 east of spawn and 700 south, so clearly is more south.  Since in the Overworld we're walking away from spawn, it'll have a wall on the north (so you walk out of it in a southerly direction).  The matching Nether portal at +25, +188 is also clearly more south of spawn, and it has a wall on it's south (so you walk into it in a southerly direction).

I dunno if I'm overthinking this or not.  All I know is I need sugar cane.

[Lazybones]

It doesn't always work out in side buildings where things can be cramped if you have added a portal after..

Also going all south or all north you end up with the Ikea problem of everything being more difficult if you try to go the other way.

[Mr. Analog]

Whaa, has anyone been confused exiting a portal?

The only time I can think of bricking up one side of a portal is because of a hazard.

Lining them all up in the same direction is a bit obsessive sounding to me...

[Thorin]

The IKEA problem?  I haven't been to an IKEA in a long time.  Are you talking about how there only seems to be one good path through IKEA?

Lining them all up in the same direction is a bit obsessive sounding to me...

Well, it was my idea, I freely admit it might be a little OCD-ish.

Leaving both sides open is probably better as it allows more direction of travel, but the pairs should at least face the same way so if you're heading north into a portal, you're heading north coming out of it's partner.

Now if only we could instantly transport, instead of the four second wait.

[Lazybones]

The IKEA problem?  I haven't been to an IKEA in a long time.  Are you talking about how there only seems to be one good path through IKEA?

Yes, Ikea faces all there displays and path through the store facing a common direction... If you walk through the store backwards you feel like everything is a little off that is for sure because you see the back to many displays.

[Thorin]

Hmm, since I haven't been there in, oh, eight years, I didn't remember them doing that.

Anyway, how about just making sure the portal pairs face the same direction?

I also kinda have in the back of my head this idea of two main corridors in the Nether, running north-south through the spawn (x:0,y:-1000 to x:0,y:1000) and east-west through the spawn (x:-1000,y:0 to x:1000,y:0).  We can then dig from portals over to these two main corridors.  If it's standard and always leads back to spawn, it might be easier to navigate.

And yes, I did spend over an hour lost in the Nether the first time I went in.  I didn't know which portals led where.

[Mr. Analog]

I think signage is going to be FAR more useful than portal direction.

Not to mention signs are cheaper to make and take less time

(also don't forget to bring a flint and tinder with you when you go on a portal adventure)