1. The Nether correlates to the surface world with an 8:1 ratio. (1 chunk = a 2x2 area.)
2. Building a portal on the surface will spawn a portal in the Nether (after you use the portal)
3. Building a portal in the Nether will spawn a portal on the surface (after you use the portal)
4. 8 blocks on the surface = 1 block in the Nether. = 8(1)
5. The surface and the Nether share the same cardinal directions.
6. You maintain your direction when you enter the Nether.
7. The correlation spots only change as you move horizontally through either world. you can freely change the elevation of your portals in either world and it will maintain its correlation spot in the other world.
8. The minimal distance between [b]perfectly aligned portals**[/b] is 16 blocks on the surface, 1 block in the Nether, which is 16(1)
[b]**[/b]If portals are not perfectly aligned i recommend [b]at least 80(10)[/b] 80 blocks on the surface, 10 blocks in the Nether as recommended in my example. For the best results I suggest [b]at least 128(16) because there seems to be a 1 portal per Nether chunk (16x16 area) limit, further testing required.
[b]The Problem[/b]
You build a portal on the surface and name it Portal A.
You enter portal A and get a loading screen: “Entering the Nether”
The game looks "down" at the correlated spot in the Nether but it is unsafe for a portal,
[b]The problem is because it does NOT build Portal B![/b]
In this example it cannot build it because a mountain is in the way.
The game finds the nearest safe place to create a portal, which is 10 blocks north, and it is named Portal C.
The Nether loads and you are standing inside of portal C.
You don’t realize the problem yet, to you it appears that everything went smoothly.
You step back into Portal C, you get a loading screening: “Now leaving the Nether”
The game looks "up" at the correlated spot for Portal C which is exactly 80 blocks north of your original portal, it is safe and the closest spot, so it creates a new portal. Portal D.
You load back on the surface in portal D, 80 blocks north of Portal A.
Portal C and D are connected as entrance/exit, but Portal A only acts as an entrance to Portal C.
[b]How to Fix.[/b]
You need to build Portal B!
The first thing you need to do is find out where Portal B needs to be built in the Nether by measuring the distance between Portal D and portal A.
In this example they are 80 blocks apart.
[b]Divide by 8.[/b]
[b]For long distances, 100+ blocks, simply count how long it takes to cross that distance and divide by 8[/b], this is approximately how long it will take to walk to Portal B's spot in the Nether.
Enter Portal D facing in the direction of Portal A.
When you load in the Nether you will be facing the direction in which the obstruction exists.
Remove the obstruction.
[b]- If it is a wall/mountain you will need to dig out a space for a portal.
- if it is a lava lake you will have to build a platform
- If it is lava fall you will have to divert the falls.[/b]
with the obstruction cleared count 10 blocks and build portal B
When you enter portal B the game will look at the surface and find Portal A.
Portal B and portal A will now function as 2 way portals connected to each other.
You can now destroy both Portal C and Portal D if you don’t want them.
This is very helpful, but I've run into a different problem with portals.
I've made a portal A on earth and it links to B in the Nether and it links back to A just fine.
But I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Also, portal B still links to A.
I hope that's understandable. This is really bugging me, as it takes around 2 minutes by boat to get from my house to my sea base.
Like I said, the fix is exactly the same. Work out the distances between your overworld portals, divide by 8, get the same direction in the Nether and manually build a gate where it should be. Your portals will work fine. The game should make a new one, but it doesn't. I can go indepth as to why but you're probably not interested in that. Just do some manual gate building until it gets fixed.
This is very helpful, but I've run into a different problem with portals.
I've made a portal A on earth and it links to B in the Nether and it links back to A just fine.
But I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Also, portal B still links to A.
I hope that's understandable. This is really bugging me, as it takes around 2 minutes by boat to get from my house to my sea base.
I have the same problem, and I guess it happens because portal B should be in the nether instead rather than on earth, so that's why both A and B link to the same one; the game think it's the same portal!
This is very helpful, but I've run into a different problem with portals.
I've made a portal A on earth and it links to B in the Nether and it links back to A just fine.
But I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Also, portal B still links to A.
I hope that's understandable. This is really bugging me, as it takes around 2 minutes by boat to get from my house to my sea base.
It is the same exact problem, but with a functional A and B and an obstruction preventing C.
This is your situation.
Everytime you create a new portal (portal D) it just links back to your Portal B.
Here is how to fix.
Find out where your game wants to make Portal C, in this picture it is marked with an X.
You have no choice but to build Portal C yourself in the Nether.
1. Count the distance between Portal D and Portal A, in this case you said it was 100 blocks away.
2. Divide by 8, 100/8 = 12.5 blocks.
3. Face the direction of Portal D
4. Enter Portal A, walk 12.5 blocks and build Portal C.
I can tell you right now there is an obstruction in the way.
Clear the obstruction, build Portal C.
If there is no obstruction it is probably just bugging out because it is too close in the Nether to auto-spawn a portal, just build Portal C 12-13 blocks away from portal A and it will link up with portal D on the surface.
You can use that effect to essentially glitch mine obsidian. travel through A, back through C, destroy D and take obsidian, go back through A, through C, game will remake D. All portals are still there, and you've gained 10 obsidian.
If you are doing this you might as well just do the portal duplication glitch.
Place a chest outside of your portal.
Place items in the chest.
Enter the portal and once the screen starts to wave open the chest.
Once teleported through your chest will still be open and you can remove items without removing them from the original chest.
By placing chests next to your surface portal and Nether portal you will double your items every time you use the portals and quickly fill the chests with stacks of whatever.
Start with 1 obsidian and within 5 minutes you will have 2 double chests packed with full stacks.
I can tell you right now there is an obstruction in the way.
Actually, there probably isn't. I've run the tests many times on my own game. The search portals do for an existing portal is far to large for the Nether, so it frequently links up to a different portal instead of attempting to make another one.
My question is does notch have a plan to fix this so we dont' have to manually realign portals in the nether, is this the final build ? is it un-fixable or do we not know anything regarding notches intentions now ?
According to the bug-list " - Portals don't send you back to where you built your portal, but to another new portal near to the one you made." has been fixed which clearly it hasn't. Why is this not considered a bug ? Could notch just make the portals have a 1 to 1 relationship so when i make Portal A it fails to make portal B(bcs of obstruction) but instead makes portal C in a safe spot whereby Portal A and portal C are married and monogamous indefinably. unless another portal is made <9 from Portal A or less then <9 from teh putative D. Hmm. now that i ask this question that way i'm beginning to see that this is un-fixable becasue it technically works but damn does it suck.
Portals work, OP is correct. my long post below is an account of how I fixed my own portal system, and here's a diagram of my Nether Portal hallways, top view:
Far Left (West) portal = Spawn Point Portal at surface
Second portal from the left = Base Portal 10 blocks above bedrock
Top Portal = Way Station portal in a cave I'm exploring (I have no idea what the elevation is, too many twists and turns to get there and I don't feel like counting a third time)
Far Right Portal = Sand Pit mine at a beach near the surface
This hallway was built off the edge of a cliff in the Nether over a lava ocean some 30+ blocks below me. The Cliff cuts diagonally from the bottom right side to the top left side, with the lava ocean underneath the rest. The right most portal, my Sand Pit portal, was the first portal I built and spawned about 5-7 squares in from the edge of the cliff. The top most portal, Way Station portal, touches a near shear cliff that goes up another 10-15 blocks... there used to be bloodstone(?) underneath that section of the cliff, but the Ghasts made a big hole there while I've been working on my hallway.
With my summary and explanation above, the rest of this post is a little redundant now, but I didn't feel like editting it...
Thanks for the info, I was getting really annoyed with my portals not working the way I thought they would, but this guide gave me a good starting point to start fixing them.
What I learned the hard way was that portals only take into account horizontal distance and not vertical, so having a portal at the top of your base and one at the bottom (and 2 in the Nether to match) will always have you exit the higher portal. So you can enter the top or bottom portal in the real world and you will come out the top portal in the Nether and likewise you can enter the top or bottomn portal in the Nether and you will come out the top portal in the real world.
If you manually construct all your portals you can place them quite close together (in the Nether) and make them work for different heights of your base. It does however require a good bit of trial and error or some very careful counting (the worst part is if your very first portal you make is offset because of an obstruction in the Nether (like mine was by shear cliff and a nice ocean of lava), then it seems it can throw your second portal off and screw you up (The Nether version of my first portal from my sand pit mine is offset to the West I think from where it should be, because when I placed my Nether version of my spawn point portal it created a portal 40+ blocks west of my spawn point in a cave some 30+ blocks below surface... before all this stuff I did today, I broke the exit portal in the cave and when I manually built my spawn portal in the real-world it connected to the gate I already had in the Nether).
I currently have 4 portals working going in 3 different directions and various heights. One at my spawn point on the surface, the second at the bottom of my base which in the real world is roughly 25-35 blocks North by 10-15 blocks West and 10 blocks above Bedrock. Both portals open facing North-South and in the Nether are offset by 4 blocks North-South and overlap by 2 blocks East-West.
My sand pit mine is 186 blocks North of my spawn in the real world (exactly aligned East-West) and in the Nether is 27 blocks North of my Spawn portal.
And finally my newest portal I placed at a way station in a cave I'm exploring which (using my compass as a guide) I roughly counted to be about 40-60 blocks North of my base portal (40-60+30 ish from my spawn portal) and 100+ blocks West of my base portal (I snaked around several levels and crazy paths, but using my compass and counting out 5,10,15, 20, 30, 40, 50 ish, 60 ish, 55 ish, 40 ish, 70 ish, etc. I was able to rough it out. I walked it twice, once for North-South Distance and the second for East-West). In the Nether I also roughed it out to be 7 blocks North of my spawn portal and 10 blocks West of my Spawn portal. This last portal opens East-West and so is measured from closest corners to the spawn portal.
All portals in the Nether are built in cobblestone hallways all at the same level (It's not fun building down in the Nether on Hard mode with 40+ Ghasts shooting at you every time your feet stick out the bottom of your gravel/cobblestone scaffolding over top a lava ocean.. but I did it and neither two gates I built worked in the end... which is why I came here to figure out wtf I was doing wrong.
now my addendum:
I've build 10+ portals legitly and only 2 ever worked (main base <---> sand pit), which has been rediculously frustrating... so I did use the obsidian dupe glitch to get my Way station portal to work after reading this thread (originally went to my Nether spawn point portal as it wouldn't create a new portal in the Nether) and then once again to confirm/test how close I could build portals in the Nether and have them exit different locations in the real world at different heights (Base portal and Spawn Point portal). Now that I got these working and understand why they weren't before I'll build any new ones legit and mine the obsidian for Nether Portals or harden lava blocks in place for real-world portals. The way station portal built on the Nether side worked the first time after building it from the rough count i did in the real world but I had to place 4 portals in the Nether to find the right spot so my Spawn to Nether Spawn and Base to Nether Base portals were separate in both directions. This took all of 15 minutes to test instead of potentially hours (with no guarantee it was going to work) so I don't feel like using the obsidian dupe to test and understand the concept was necessarily cheating and now that I've done the dirty work based off the OP's explanation I can add what I learned so the rest of you can do it all legit and keep your own hands clean if you like :tongue.gif:
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Join me on Dirkocraft.com
Paininabox's Thread O' Links tips, tricks and a wealth of consolidated info!
I can tell you right now there is an obstruction in the way.
Actually, there probably isn't. I've run the tests many times on my own game. The search portals do for an existing portal is far to large for the Nether, so it frequently links up to a different portal instead of attempting to make another one.
And my next 2 sentences were...
Clear the obstruction, build portal C.
If there is no obstruction it is probably just bugging out because it is too close in the Nether to auto-spawn a portal, just build Portal C 12-13 blocks away from portal A and it will link up with portal D on the surface.
Which is, again, not the case. Listen to what the guy said:
Quote from Kenny1264 »
I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Over 100 blocks Overworld (Let's go 400 for simplicity, 50 blocks Nether) is still plenty of space for the game to generate a portal. The bug currently is that, until a certain distance is passed, the game favors linking to an existing portal over generating a new one. That's why his portal D is going all the way back to B, and that's why we need to manual build. The terrain is a factor, yes, but not the be all end all thing you're describing it as.
Which is, again, not the case. Listen to what the guy said:
Quote from Kenny1264 »
I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Over 100 blocks Overworld (Let's go 400 for simplicity, 50 blocks Nether) is still plenty of space for the game to generate a portal. The bug currently is that, until a certain distance is passed, the game favors linking to an existing portal over generating a new one. That's why his portal D is going all the way back to B, and that's why we need to manual build. The terrain is a factor, yes, but not the be all end all thing you're describing it as.
Yup, that is the bug.
The terrain is not the only factor.
If the portals are too close they will link to nearby portals.
you should go back and read "the basics" in my original post.
In my original post i have written:
8. The minimal distance between perfectly aligned portals** is 16 blocks on the surface, 1 block in the Nether, which is 16(1)
**If portals are not perfectly aligned i recommend at least 80(10) 80 blocks on the surface, 10 blocks in the Nether as recommended in my example. For the best results I suggest at least 128(16) because there seems to be a 1 portal per Nether chunk (16x16 area) limit, further testing required.
And then i wrote
it is probably just bugging out because it is too close in the Nether to auto-spawn a portal
His 2 surface portals are within 100 blocks of each other and his new nether portal will have to be built manually.
Thank you for drawing my attention to the "The Basics" section. Your 2 and 3 are obviously incorrect: Indeed, the fact me and others like Kenny are encountering this problem attests to the fact 2 is incorrect. Also (though I think you already know this) portals are only spawned in the opposite dimension on using a portal, not when lighting them. You should probably update the original post to reflect this.
Also:
Quote from Addicted »
His 2 surface portals are within 100 blocks of each other and his new nether portal will have to be built manually.
I think you meant to say Nether portals here, that makes more sense. And it's true. I'm guessing the search range is currently 128 (closest power of 2 to the testing results), and 128 * 8 = 1024 which is why you have to walk an absurdly large distance to have the game auto-spawn a portal correctly (Going Earth to Nether).
The portal search in the nether needs to be 1/8 the search range on the overworld to account for the compression ratio (eg only searches nearest 16 blocks in the Nether, the way it was originally before the first patch). I have put this up on the bug tracker site, but it sadly seems to be being ignored... =(
1. The Nether correlates to the surface world with an 8:1 ratio. (1 chunk = a 2x2 area.)
2. Building a portal on the surface will spawn a portal in the Nether (after you use the portal)
3. Building a portal in the Nether will spawn a portal on the surface (after you use the portal)
4. 8 blocks on the surface = 1 block in the Nether. = 8(1)
5. The surface and the Nether share the same cardinal directions.
6. You maintain your direction when you enter the Nether.
7. The correlation spots only change as you move horizontally through either world. you can freely change the elevation of your portals in either world and it will maintain its correlation spot in the other world.
8. The minimal distance between [b]perfectly aligned portals**[/b] is 16 blocks on the surface, 1 block in the Nether, which is 16(1)
[b]**[/b]If portals are not perfectly aligned i recommend [b]at least 80(10)[/b] 80 blocks on the surface, 10 blocks in the Nether as recommended in my example. For the best results I suggest [b]at least 128(16) because there seems to be a 1 portal per Nether chunk (16x16 area) limit, further testing required.
[b]The Problem[/b]
You build a portal on the surface and name it Portal A.
You enter portal A and get a loading screen: “Entering the Nether”
The game looks "down" at the correlated spot in the Nether but it is unsafe for a portal,
[b]The problem is because it does NOT build Portal B![/b]
In this example it cannot build it because a mountain is in the way.
The game finds the nearest safe place to create a portal, which is 10 blocks north, and it is named Portal C.
The Nether loads and you are standing inside of portal C.
You don’t realize the problem yet, to you it appears that everything went smoothly.
You step back into Portal C, you get a loading screening: “Now leaving the Nether”
The game looks "up" at the correlated spot for Portal C which is exactly 80 blocks north of your original portal, it is safe and the closest spot, so it creates a new portal. Portal D.
You load back on the surface in portal D, 80 blocks north of Portal A.
Portal C and D are connected as entrance/exit, but Portal A only acts as an entrance to Portal C.
[b]How to Fix.[/b]
You need to build Portal B!
The first thing you need to do is find out where Portal B needs to be built in the Nether by measuring the distance between Portal D and portal A.
In this example they are 80 blocks apart.
[b]Divide by 8.[/b]
[b]For long distances, 100+ blocks, simply count how long it takes to cross that distance and divide by 8[/b], this is approximately how long it will take to walk to Portal B's spot in the Nether.
Enter Portal D facing in the direction of Portal A.
When you load in the Nether you will be facing the direction in which the obstruction exists.
Remove the obstruction.
[b]- If it is a wall/mountain you will need to dig out a space for a portal.
- if it is a lava lake you will have to build a platform
- If it is lava fall you will have to divert the falls.[/b]
with the obstruction cleared count 10 blocks and build portal B
When you enter portal B the game will look at the surface and find Portal A.
Portal B and portal A will now function as 2 way portals connected to each other.
You can now destroy both Portal C and Portal D if you don’t want them.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
Thank you.
I just hope it helps.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
While the explanation is kinda out of date now, the fix still works, and that's what's important I suppose.
Thanks!
I've made a portal A on earth and it links to B in the Nether and it links back to A just fine.
But I traveled at least over 100 blocks over water and made a water base, which i just put portal C in, but it links all the way back to B when there should be room for it to be closer to where portal D should be.
Also, portal B still links to A.
I hope that's understandable. This is really bugging me, as it takes around 2 minutes by boat to get from my house to my sea base.
Like I said, the fix is exactly the same. Work out the distances between your overworld portals, divide by 8, get the same direction in the Nether and manually build a gate where it should be. Your portals will work fine. The game should make a new one, but it doesn't. I can go indepth as to why but you're probably not interested in that. Just do some manual gate building until it gets fixed.
this needs a sticky at least.
thanks!
I have the same problem, and I guess it happens because portal B should be in the nether instead rather than on earth, so that's why both A and B link to the same one; the game think it's the same portal!
I cannot make sense of what you are saying. In his example, Portal B is in the Nether...
It is the same exact problem, but with a functional A and B and an obstruction preventing C.
This is your situation.
Everytime you create a new portal (portal D) it just links back to your Portal B.
Here is how to fix.
Find out where your game wants to make Portal C, in this picture it is marked with an X.
You have no choice but to build Portal C yourself in the Nether.
1. Count the distance between Portal D and Portal A, in this case you said it was 100 blocks away.
2. Divide by 8, 100/8 = 12.5 blocks.
3. Face the direction of Portal D
4. Enter Portal A, walk 12.5 blocks and build Portal C.
I can tell you right now there is an obstruction in the way.
Clear the obstruction, build Portal C.
If there is no obstruction it is probably just bugging out because it is too close in the Nether to auto-spawn a portal, just build Portal C 12-13 blocks away from portal A and it will link up with portal D on the surface.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
If you are doing this you might as well just do the portal duplication glitch.
Place a chest outside of your portal.
Place items in the chest.
Enter the portal and once the screen starts to wave open the chest.
Once teleported through your chest will still be open and you can remove items without removing them from the original chest.
By placing chests next to your surface portal and Nether portal you will double your items every time you use the portals and quickly fill the chests with stacks of whatever.
Start with 1 obsidian and within 5 minutes you will have 2 double chests packed with full stacks.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
Actually, there probably isn't. I've run the tests many times on my own game. The search portals do for an existing portal is far to large for the Nether, so it frequently links up to a different portal instead of attempting to make another one.
According to the bug-list " - Portals don't send you back to where you built your portal, but to another new portal near to the one you made." has been fixed which clearly it hasn't. Why is this not considered a bug ? Could notch just make the portals have a 1 to 1 relationship so when i make Portal A it fails to make portal B(bcs of obstruction) but instead makes portal C in a safe spot whereby Portal A and portal C are married and monogamous indefinably. unless another portal is made <9 from Portal A or less then <9 from teh putative D. Hmm. now that i ask this question that way i'm beginning to see that this is un-fixable becasue it technically works but damn does it suck.
With my summary and explanation above, the rest of this post is a little redundant now, but I didn't feel like editting it...
Thanks for the info, I was getting really annoyed with my portals not working the way I thought they would, but this guide gave me a good starting point to start fixing them.
What I learned the hard way was that portals only take into account horizontal distance and not vertical, so having a portal at the top of your base and one at the bottom (and 2 in the Nether to match) will always have you exit the higher portal. So you can enter the top or bottom portal in the real world and you will come out the top portal in the Nether and likewise you can enter the top or bottomn portal in the Nether and you will come out the top portal in the real world.
If you manually construct all your portals you can place them quite close together (in the Nether) and make them work for different heights of your base. It does however require a good bit of trial and error or some very careful counting (the worst part is if your very first portal you make is offset because of an obstruction in the Nether (like mine was by shear cliff and a nice ocean of lava), then it seems it can throw your second portal off and screw you up (The Nether version of my first portal from my sand pit mine is offset to the West I think from where it should be, because when I placed my Nether version of my spawn point portal it created a portal 40+ blocks west of my spawn point in a cave some 30+ blocks below surface... before all this stuff I did today, I broke the exit portal in the cave and when I manually built my spawn portal in the real-world it connected to the gate I already had in the Nether).
I currently have 4 portals working going in 3 different directions and various heights. One at my spawn point on the surface, the second at the bottom of my base which in the real world is roughly 25-35 blocks North by 10-15 blocks West and 10 blocks above Bedrock. Both portals open facing North-South and in the Nether are offset by 4 blocks North-South and overlap by 2 blocks East-West.
My sand pit mine is 186 blocks North of my spawn in the real world (exactly aligned East-West) and in the Nether is 27 blocks North of my Spawn portal.
And finally my newest portal I placed at a way station in a cave I'm exploring which (using my compass as a guide) I roughly counted to be about 40-60 blocks North of my base portal (40-60+30 ish from my spawn portal) and 100+ blocks West of my base portal (I snaked around several levels and crazy paths, but using my compass and counting out 5,10,15, 20, 30, 40, 50 ish, 60 ish, 55 ish, 40 ish, 70 ish, etc. I was able to rough it out. I walked it twice, once for North-South Distance and the second for East-West). In the Nether I also roughed it out to be 7 blocks North of my spawn portal and 10 blocks West of my Spawn portal. This last portal opens East-West and so is measured from closest corners to the spawn portal.
All portals in the Nether are built in cobblestone hallways all at the same level (It's not fun building down in the Nether on Hard mode with 40+ Ghasts shooting at you every time your feet stick out the bottom of your gravel/cobblestone scaffolding over top a lava ocean.. but I did it and neither two gates I built worked in the end... which is why I came here to figure out wtf I was doing wrong.
now my addendum:
I've build 10+ portals legitly and only 2 ever worked (main base <---> sand pit), which has been rediculously frustrating... so I did use the obsidian dupe glitch to get my Way station portal to work after reading this thread (originally went to my Nether spawn point portal as it wouldn't create a new portal in the Nether) and then once again to confirm/test how close I could build portals in the Nether and have them exit different locations in the real world at different heights (Base portal and Spawn Point portal). Now that I got these working and understand why they weren't before I'll build any new ones legit and mine the obsidian for Nether Portals or harden lava blocks in place for real-world portals. The way station portal built on the Nether side worked the first time after building it from the rough count i did in the real world but I had to place 4 portals in the Nether to find the right spot so my Spawn to Nether Spawn and Base to Nether Base portals were separate in both directions. This took all of 15 minutes to test instead of potentially hours (with no guarantee it was going to work) so I don't feel like using the obsidian dupe to test and understand the concept was necessarily cheating and now that I've done the dirty work based off the OP's explanation I can add what I learned so the rest of you can do it all legit and keep your own hands clean if you like :tongue.gif:
Paininabox's Thread O' Links tips, tricks and a wealth of consolidated info!
And my next 2 sentences were...
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
Over 100 blocks Overworld (Let's go 400 for simplicity, 50 blocks Nether) is still plenty of space for the game to generate a portal. The bug currently is that, until a certain distance is passed, the game favors linking to an existing portal over generating a new one. That's why his portal D is going all the way back to B, and that's why we need to manual build. The terrain is a factor, yes, but not the be all end all thing you're describing it as.
Yup, that is the bug.
The terrain is not the only factor.
If the portals are too close they will link to nearby portals.
you should go back and read "the basics" in my original post.
In my original post i have written:
And then i wrote
His 2 surface portals are within 100 blocks of each other and his new nether portal will have to be built manually.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
Also:
I think you meant to say Nether portals here, that makes more sense. And it's true. I'm guessing the search range is currently 128 (closest power of 2 to the testing results), and 128 * 8 = 1024 which is why you have to walk an absurdly large distance to have the game auto-spawn a portal correctly (Going Earth to Nether).
The portal search in the nether needs to be 1/8 the search range on the overworld to account for the compression ratio (eg only searches nearest 16 blocks in the Nether, the way it was originally before the first patch). I have put this up on the bug tracker site, but it sadly seems to be being ignored... =(