Oh my god I have the same problem, and it's making me ragequit.
I mean really, all what me and Sven tried to do is have the NETHER build us a portal because we made portals on earth, and now the nether goes like "umad?"
Really this bug is getting out of hand
I think the real problem here is that people are using portals for short-distance travel. They're intended for long-distance travel, not travel across the same amount of space that's generated when you first create a world, but across enough space that it takes days to travel.
Yes, obviously, at some point short-distance travel would be "nice", but the portal system has probably only been rigorously tested under long-distance conditions first, as that was the primary goal of them.
QFT. Especially with hoe the Nether is 'built'; as posted previously, it's trying to compensate for all the hellcobble and lava in the way.
If the OP wants his outpost to have its own portal, he'll have to find the area of the Nether that corresponds to the outpost and clear it out. Otherwise the game will keep aiming for the next best thing: the portal that already exists in the Nether.
If the OP wants his outpost to have its own portal, he'll have to find the area of the Nether that corresponds to the outpost and clear it out. Otherwise the game will keep aiming for the next best thing: the portal that already exists in the Nether.
People fail to realize how extensively I tested this... In the original release I created four portals at my four key over world locations. I have seen where they should be placed in the nether. Once the code was changed I attempted to do the same. Now no portals are being created in the nether. The terrain is identical because the seed for the nether was already created. I've created my "first" portal into the nether over a dozen times, reloading and observing the creation of the land and placement of my first gate.
Last night I created a portal way to the west of my other two, deactivated my home and first outpost nether gates and then made the long trek back to the second outpost. It created a nice portal in the open cavern right where I expected it to. After seeing it's placement I loaded a back up, built a hallway and gate-room under ghast fire and crafted myself a nice portal to my second outpost.
It doesn't mater how clear the area is, the portals will NOT create another nether gate unless they are something like 1000 meters(over-world) away from any other gate. I would much rather the portals create an opening for themselves if they cannot find a safe zone. Right now they wont even attempt to make a counterpart.
I will retract my "worst" statement now that I know how to fix this issue but it is still an issue.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Whoa, so to link two areas together reliably you have to build the second portal in the nether first?
Bug? ...or feature?
Well I like the idea of being able to exactly place the portal but if build and activate a portal and then not pass through until both are built you can choose it's placement but if you build one over-world and pass through into the nether it should place a new one in a suitable location, or carve out a location if need be.
The biggest problem is there is no easy way to tell reliably where the nether gate should be placed in order to connect, and the more and more of them you build the more likely there to be an error. So far I've done this by loading a copy of my map, destroying all possible gates for a new one to connect to and then seeing the placement and then loading the real copy of my map and building appropriately.
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Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
1. Portal A in the overworld is at your spawn location. It links up to Portal A in the Nether. life is good.
2. You want another portal 80 blocks away, so you build Portal B 80 blocks North of Portal A.
3. Portal B in the overworld is now 80 blocks north of the spawn, but this is too close and it links to Portal A. Leaving through portal A still takes you back to overworld portal A. Portal B is now a 1 way portal.
OMG WHAT DO?
Easy.
Enter the Nether, Look North to where Portal B should have been created 10 blocks away. Walk 10 blocks and build a portal IN the Nether.
It will now link up with Portal B in the overworld.
You now have portals 80 blocks apart in the Overworld, 10 blocks apart in the Nether.
I've done this nearly a dozen times now with every type of obstacle: lava lake, mountain, lava fall. And with distances ranging from 10 blocks in the Nether to hundreds of blocks in the Nether.
If i opened a portal fixing business i could make a fortune, i can fix any portal in less than an hour guaranteed.
The previous problem with portals was that when the nether portal got moved (as it often did) it wound up being out of range of the overworld portal that spawned it so when you went back through the portal you wound up creating a new overworld portal instead of re-emerging from the original one.
The 'fix' was nothing more than an increase to the range in which portals would link to each other. Just based on anecdotal evidence I'd estimate that if the game finds an existing portal within 128 squares of the expected portal location it just links there. This comes to 1024 blocks apart in the real world which means you would have to travel at least that far to trigger creating a new portal in the Nether. On the nether side of things though you only have to travel 16 squares away to be over 128 away in the overworld.
So if you want to make a pair of portals to someplace closer than 1024 blocks in the overworld, you are going to have to build the nether side portal by hand.
I should note, that those numbers are just educated guesses. I picked them because they seem to be close to what people are reporting and because they are powers of two. If someone would like to do some real testing it would be appreciated. (I can't cause I'm not at home at the moment.)
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Tis far better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit.
I ran into the same problem as the OP, 2 over-world portals link to same portal in the Nether. I understand the reason for it as the game works now. Question is, how might Notch fix this? Can it be fixed? I know some people want to have a menu to choose what portals link to each other. I'm not a fan of this, to me it doesn't fit the concept very well, allowing you to basically just link up portals regardless of their actual position. This would mean you could put 2 Nether-side portals right next to each other, and they could lead to 2 extremely distant points in the over-world. I rather like the idea that you have to move some distance in the Nether to go between your portals, and that their position relative to one another is the same in either realm albeit scaled differently.
So, I have 2 ideas, though one of these has been suggested by some other people as well, if slightly differently. This first idea is to have the portals created in their actual position in the Nether regardless of hazard or placement inside solid blocks. To get this to work I suggest placing all portals which are created in the over-world and which spawn a new portal in the Nether, inside a cobblestone room (about the size of a dungeon should work). Further, I suggest that any portal which would be spawned inside lava (still lava, not flowing) be moved upwards until it sits just above the lava. I think this method solves the issue, you only have multiple portals link to a single Nether-side portal if they would be so close as to be nearly touching each other in the Nether. Sure, you have to deal with the consequences if your portal comes out in a tough place, but that's just part of the challenge of working with the Nether.
Now the 2nd idea is suggested by the inspiration for the Nether, which is the Ways from the Wheel of Time novels. In the books, the portals are connected by walkways or a series of unsupported bridges and staircases, etc... Presumably those walkways were built by whoever made the Ways in the first place (or discovered it or whatever). So I propose something similar in Minecraft. Basically a change in the way the Nether is generated so that there is a section in the middle depth range or maybe nearer to the ceiling that is left clear of obstruction, or is cleared after the level first generates, and in that depth range all newly spawned portals will be created, basically just hovering over empty space, possibly with a few blocks as a floor to stand on when you come through. Then it's the player's job to connect them up with each other, creating bridges and walkways (fun while ghasts pelt you I know). With this concept it would be best if you could not create new portals from the Nether, but only from the over-world.
People fail to realize how extensively I tested this... In the original release I created four portals at my four key over world locations. I have seen where they should be placed in the nether. Once the code was changed I attempted to do the same. Now no portals are being created in the nether. The terrain is identical because the seed for the nether was already created. I've created my "first" portal into the nether over a dozen times, reloading and observing the creation of the land and placement of my first gate.
Last night I created a portal way to the west of my other two, deactivated my home and first outpost nether gates and then made the long trek back to the second outpost. It created a nice portal in the open cavern right where I expected it to. After seeing it's placement I loaded a back up, built a hallway and gate-room under ghast fire and crafted myself a nice portal to my second outpost.
It doesn't mater how clear the area is, the portals will NOT create another nether gate unless they are something like 1000 meters(over-world) away from any other gate. I would much rather the portals create an opening for themselves if they cannot find a safe zone. Right now they wont even attempt to make a counterpart.
THANK YOU. Finally someone who has done their own testing and reached the same conclusions I did. Portals preferentially search for existing portals to link to, and will only attempt to make their own if none are found. I've been so sick of people going "the terrainz is the problem LOL" when that part was (kinda) fixed in the bug patch a while back. The problem is the search range is too wide for Earth-to-Nether, NOT the terrain.
Yes, I think we all agree on the problem by now. The question is what should be the fix? Personally I think the first thing that should be tried is just simply reducing the search radius when traveling from the normal world to the nether while leaving the search radius the way it is when going the other way. I rather suspect Notch just has one function that's doing both checks and it's using the same numbers for both sides which causes this lopsided behavior due to the 1:8 ratio and the fact that nether portals are more likely to be moved for 'safety'.
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Tis far better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Yes, I think we all agree on the problem by now. The question is what should be the fix? Personally I think the first thing that should be tried is just simply reducing the search radius when traveling from the normal world to the nether while leaving the search radius the way it is when going the other way. I rather suspect Notch just has one function that's doing both checks and it's using the same numbers for both sides which causes this lopsided behavior due to the 1:8 ratio and the fact that nether portals are more likely to be moved for 'safety'.
Yes the search radius definably needs to be lowered. I am also partial to the idea of gates creating a safe zone if none is available. Carving out a cavern around the gate site, at least on the nether side.
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Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Mmm, not trying to stir up the pot, but I've created dozens of portals and have no difficulty making them work the way I want. I've experienced everything you've described, and done my own experiments over long distances.
It is obvious portals will be tweaked a little since folks are having so much trouble with them. And one thing that is missing is an orientation/distance counting tool that works in the Nether (counting blocks sucks over long distances).
I've explored up to about a full in-game days' worth of travel in every direction from my spawn point. I found a neat large winter biome I wanted to connect to from my central Nether pad - it's around 1600 blocks away (thank you, Minecraft GPS). Sure enough, no matter how far I went in the real world, my portals would reconnect with the original portal back home (up to 827 blocks away, I gave up after that).
So, I tackled it from the other side. In the real world, I had to travel 1600 blocks East-West, then about 200 North-South. Divided those both by 8, then combined them to my Nether coordinates as reported by Minecraft GPS - that should be the exact Nether block I need to build my gate at. I tunnelled through solid Netherstone and had to create a small room at the end... when I came out in the real world, I was within 20 blocks East-West, but I had gone in the wrong Nether direction North-South, and wound up on the other side of the real world... d-oh!
Back to Nether, going in the opposite direction (ADD both coordinates, laddy, not subtract one and add the other!) Established a little room out of solid Netherstone at the proper location and, boom - a working two-way gate to my winter biome.
I actually enjoyed the GPS process in the Nether. It kinds of makes sense that to create working portals, you have to do a bit of arcane magick reckoning (i.e. counting blocks and aligning directions correctly in Nether). It didn't take me long, and it was fun! I encourage you to try this once, to see for yourself.
I timed myself running/boating back overland from the biome (boats speeded it up, no doubt) - took me a full 9 minutes. After I'd built a set of hell-rails to carry me from the portal back to my Nether pad - 50 seconds to get to and from the biome.
Portals work. Exactly as intended. There would be no practical way for me to travel to/from the winter biome overland. Building a real-world rail to get me there would be impossible. Portals are fun, useful, and cool. But you need to work to use them (but not much work). I think the only thing we need is an in-game simple tool that gives a rough indication of distance in the Nether, rather than using an external program like Minecraft GPS.
People fail to realize how extensively I tested this... In the original release I created four portals at my four key over world locations. I have seen where they should be placed in the nether. Once the code was changed I attempted to do the same. Now no portals are being created in the nether. The terrain is identical because the seed for the nether was already created. I've created my "first" portal into the nether over a dozen times, reloading and observing the creation of the land and placement of my first gate.
Last night I created a portal way to the west of my other two, deactivated my home and first outpost nether gates and then made the long trek back to the second outpost. It created a nice portal in the open cavern right where I expected it to. After seeing it's placement I loaded a back up, built a hallway and gate-room under ghast fire and crafted myself a nice portal to my second outpost.
It doesn't mater how clear the area is, the portals will NOT create another nether gate unless they are something like 1000 meters(over-world) away from any other gate. I would much rather the portals create an opening for themselves if they cannot find a safe zone. Right now they wont even attempt to make a counterpart.
THANK YOU. Finally someone who has done their own testing and reached the same conclusions I did. Portals preferentially search for existing portals to link to, and will only attempt to make their own if none are found. I've been so sick of people going "the terrainz is the problem LOL" when that part was (kinda) fixed in the bug patch a while back. The problem is the search range is too wide for Earth-to-Nether, NOT the terrain.
Tip: You can build portals while you are in the Nether.
If the Terrain is NOT in the way then just build the portal in the nether where it correlates with an overworld portal. It will link up everytime.
For some odd reason players only build portals from the overworld and refuse to build them in the Nether. It works both ways. Actually it is mandatory if you want to fix your 1 way portals.
Building portals in the Nether is an absolutely required step to fixing portals and making them 2 way portals.
For example for those who would rather fix their portals than ***** about them on the forums.
How to fix:
Scenario: Let's start from having a functional 2 way portal and you want to add another 2 way portal 800 blocks North on the overworld / 100 blocks North in the Nether.
The overworld Portal is called A1, the Nether portal that connects to it is called A2. (a functional 2 way portal is actually 2 portals, one above (A1) and one below (A2))
The new overworld portal you built 800 blocks North is B1, and you want it to connect to B2 ( a new portal in the Nether) but it instead brings you to A2. This new portal is "broken" and only functions as an entrance to the Nether, not an exit.
You enter B1, step out at A2. <--- this is your problem.
Are you with me? If you have this problem than you should understand what i just said.
This is the solution, i've done this more than a dozen times with variable distances and directions.
1. Face North and step into A1.
2. You are now in the Nether, you are standing inside of A2 still facing north. Magic.
3. Start walking north, count 100 blocks and stop.
4. You are now standing where Portal B2 should have been created, but it wasn't.
5. Build a portal, This is now Portal B2
6. Light it and then step through it.
7. You are now standing in the frame of B1 on the overworld, 800 blocks to the North of A1.
8. Step through B1 and it brings you back to the Nether, you are now standing in B2 100 blocks north of A2.
B1 is now linked to B2
A1 is still linked to A2
If this is too complicated then you are **** out of luck.
100% of portals can be fixed, it isn't hard once you know why they are broken in the first place.
Somebody defiantly needs to create a "how too" thread now. We all (most of us) now agree that the problem can be fixed on our end, with a bit of math and know how sure, you can fix it. The fact still remains though, we should not have to work around bugs though. The people complaining are the ones who are not going to accept a broken system and roll over. In the mean time they should learn ways around it and those who have the knowledge on how to do so should share that knowledge freely without belittling those who can't figure it out.
This game is so popular because it appeals to everybody of all ages and technical abilities. The features of the game should not be close to people because they don't want to/can't download external apps or count their steps in the nether to place a proper gate.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Somebody defiantly needs to create a "how too" thread now. We all (most of us) now agree that the problem can be fixed on our end, with a bit of math and know how sure, you can fix it. The fact still remains though, we should not have to work around bugs though. The people complaining are the ones who are not going to accept a broken system and roll over. In the mean time they should learn ways around it and those who have the knowledge on how to do so should share that knowledge freely without belittling those who can't figure it out.
This game is so popular because it appeals to everybody of all ages and technical abilities. The features of the game should not be close to people because they don't want to/can't download external apps or count their steps in the nether to place a proper gate.
I have 100% mastered the Nether and portal placement.
I would absolutely bet my life on placing a portal anywhere at anytime on any world and making it work.
The portal problem is absolutely logical and easily fixed every single time.
BUT
There are a few variables that make a comprehensive "how to" guide really problematic without the use of video.
unfortunately I don't make videos...
But, I will work on a written guide but that will take some time.
I've been thinking about the bug issue here...maybe we're over-analyzing it some. We honestly don't know how Notch has programmed the searching algorithm.
What if Portals are 'technically' limited to one per chunk space in the real world and Nether? You can build several of them, but they'd all link to the same portal in the Nether [and vise versa in the real world] because of how compressed the Nether is. I'm just going off of a hunch here, and it depends greatly on how the Nether-to-world Chunk ratio goes (I keep seeing 1:8, 1:16, and I thought a 1:350??), but that might be the case since the Nether moves you faster then the world.
Which then falls back to finding a safe place to deposit the player. What if, when searching, the chunk you want to spawn in is totally filled up with unsafe locations? The sensible thing would be to either:
A) Generate a new chunk and try again [Time consuming]
:cool.gif: Look in a previous chunk and spawn something there.
Option A utilizes more CPU and slows the game.
Option B can move faster, but what if the chunk has a portal already? Then it would grab hold of it and link to that one now too!
Or I could possibly be spouting loads of non-sensible jargon. It's just my thoughts on another possible explanation. I'm sure someone with more experience in these matters will tear my theory apart.
I've been thinking about the bug issue here...maybe we're over-analyzing it some. We honestly don't know how Notch has programmed the searching algorithm.
What if Portals are 'technically' limited to one per chunk space in the real world and Nether? You can build several of them, but they'd all link to the same portal in the Nether [and vise versa in the real world] because of how compressed the Nether is. I'm just going off of a hunch here, and it depends greatly on how the Nether-to-world Chunk ratio goes (I keep seeing 1:8, 1:16, and I thought a 1:350??), but that might be the case since the Nether moves you faster then the world.
Which then falls back to finding a safe place to deposit the player. What if, when searching, the chunk you want to spawn in is totally filled up with unsafe locations? The sensible thing would be to either:
A) Generate a new chunk and try again [Time consuming]
:cool.gif: Look in a previous chunk and spawn something there.
Option A utilizes more CPU and slows the game.
Option B can move faster, but what if the chunk has a portal already? Then it would grab hold of it and link to that one now too!
Or I could possibly be spouting loads of non-sensible jargon. It's just my thoughts on another possible explanation. I'm sure someone with more experience in these matters will tear my theory apart.
It's 1/8. Everybody who manually put's down their nether gates knows this because how else would they count blocks?
People trying to go more then 128 blocks away should be more at least one nether chunk away by then so these gates will should be at least one chunk apart
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
I'm really bummed about portals. And it seems we're being ignored for the time being. The focus has shifted back to SMP and portals have been left to rot in hell for the time being.
Portals as they are now are worthless. The Nether is equally worthless. There are no new materials that have any value whatsoever, and since portals are effectively impossible to use, there is no reason to go there for fast travel either.
The entire Nether concept is a complete waste of time until Notch gets around to "fixing" it enough for it to be playable.
I'm really bummed about portals. And it seems we're being ignored for the time being. The focus has shifted back to SMP and portals have been left to rot in hell for the time being.
Portals as they are now are worthless. The Nether is equally worthless. There are no new materials that have any value whatsoever, and since portals are effectively impossible to use, there is no reason to go there for fast travel either.
The entire Nether concept is a complete waste of time until Notch gets around to "fixing" it enough for it to be playable.
Oh my god I have the same problem, and it's making me ragequit.
I mean really, all what me and Sven tried to do is have the NETHER build us a portal because we made portals on earth, and now the nether goes like "umad?"
Really this bug is getting out of hand
QFT. Especially with hoe the Nether is 'built'; as posted previously, it's trying to compensate for all the hellcobble and lava in the way.
If the OP wants his outpost to have its own portal, he'll have to find the area of the Nether that corresponds to the outpost and clear it out. Otherwise the game will keep aiming for the next best thing: the portal that already exists in the Nether.
People fail to realize how extensively I tested this... In the original release I created four portals at my four key over world locations. I have seen where they should be placed in the nether. Once the code was changed I attempted to do the same. Now no portals are being created in the nether. The terrain is identical because the seed for the nether was already created. I've created my "first" portal into the nether over a dozen times, reloading and observing the creation of the land and placement of my first gate.
Last night I created a portal way to the west of my other two, deactivated my home and first outpost nether gates and then made the long trek back to the second outpost. It created a nice portal in the open cavern right where I expected it to. After seeing it's placement I loaded a back up, built a hallway and gate-room under ghast fire and crafted myself a nice portal to my second outpost.
It doesn't mater how clear the area is, the portals will NOT create another nether gate unless they are something like 1000 meters(over-world) away from any other gate. I would much rather the portals create an opening for themselves if they cannot find a safe zone. Right now they wont even attempt to make a counterpart.
I will retract my "worst" statement now that I know how to fix this issue but it is still an issue.
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Bug? ...or feature?
Well I like the idea of being able to exactly place the portal but if build and activate a portal and then not pass through until both are built you can choose it's placement but if you build one over-world and pass through into the nether it should place a new one in a suitable location, or carve out a location if need be.
The biggest problem is there is no easy way to tell reliably where the nether gate should be placed in order to connect, and the more and more of them you build the more likely there to be an error. So far I've done this by loading a copy of my map, destroying all possible gates for a new one to connect to and then seeing the placement and then loading the real copy of my map and building appropriately.
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
You can build portals IN the Nether.
Example:
Assuming you have at least 1 2-way portal.
1. Portal A in the overworld is at your spawn location. It links up to Portal A in the Nether. life is good.
2. You want another portal 80 blocks away, so you build Portal B 80 blocks North of Portal A.
3. Portal B in the overworld is now 80 blocks north of the spawn, but this is too close and it links to Portal A. Leaving through portal A still takes you back to overworld portal A. Portal B is now a 1 way portal.
OMG WHAT DO?
Easy.
Enter the Nether, Look North to where Portal B should have been created 10 blocks away. Walk 10 blocks and build a portal IN the Nether.
It will now link up with Portal B in the overworld.
You now have portals 80 blocks apart in the Overworld, 10 blocks apart in the Nether.
I've done this nearly a dozen times now with every type of obstacle: lava lake, mountain, lava fall. And with distances ranging from 10 blocks in the Nether to hundreds of blocks in the Nether.
If i opened a portal fixing business i could make a fortune, i can fix any portal in less than an hour guaranteed.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
The 'fix' was nothing more than an increase to the range in which portals would link to each other. Just based on anecdotal evidence I'd estimate that if the game finds an existing portal within 128 squares of the expected portal location it just links there. This comes to 1024 blocks apart in the real world which means you would have to travel at least that far to trigger creating a new portal in the Nether. On the nether side of things though you only have to travel 16 squares away to be over 128 away in the overworld.
So if you want to make a pair of portals to someplace closer than 1024 blocks in the overworld, you are going to have to build the nether side portal by hand.
I should note, that those numbers are just educated guesses. I picked them because they seem to be close to what people are reporting and because they are powers of two. If someone would like to do some real testing it would be appreciated. (I can't cause I'm not at home at the moment.)
So, I have 2 ideas, though one of these has been suggested by some other people as well, if slightly differently. This first idea is to have the portals created in their actual position in the Nether regardless of hazard or placement inside solid blocks. To get this to work I suggest placing all portals which are created in the over-world and which spawn a new portal in the Nether, inside a cobblestone room (about the size of a dungeon should work). Further, I suggest that any portal which would be spawned inside lava (still lava, not flowing) be moved upwards until it sits just above the lava. I think this method solves the issue, you only have multiple portals link to a single Nether-side portal if they would be so close as to be nearly touching each other in the Nether. Sure, you have to deal with the consequences if your portal comes out in a tough place, but that's just part of the challenge of working with the Nether.
Now the 2nd idea is suggested by the inspiration for the Nether, which is the Ways from the Wheel of Time novels. In the books, the portals are connected by walkways or a series of unsupported bridges and staircases, etc... Presumably those walkways were built by whoever made the Ways in the first place (or discovered it or whatever). So I propose something similar in Minecraft. Basically a change in the way the Nether is generated so that there is a section in the middle depth range or maybe nearer to the ceiling that is left clear of obstruction, or is cleared after the level first generates, and in that depth range all newly spawned portals will be created, basically just hovering over empty space, possibly with a few blocks as a floor to stand on when you come through. Then it's the player's job to connect them up with each other, creating bridges and walkways (fun while ghasts pelt you I know). With this concept it would be best if you could not create new portals from the Nether, but only from the over-world.
THANK YOU. Finally someone who has done their own testing and reached the same conclusions I did. Portals preferentially search for existing portals to link to, and will only attempt to make their own if none are found. I've been so sick of people going "the terrainz is the problem LOL" when that part was (kinda) fixed in the bug patch a while back. The problem is the search range is too wide for Earth-to-Nether, NOT the terrain.
Yes the search radius definably needs to be lowered. I am also partial to the idea of gates creating a safe zone if none is available. Carving out a cavern around the gate site, at least on the nether side.
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Mmm, not trying to stir up the pot, but I've created dozens of portals and have no difficulty making them work the way I want. I've experienced everything you've described, and done my own experiments over long distances.
It is obvious portals will be tweaked a little since folks are having so much trouble with them. And one thing that is missing is an orientation/distance counting tool that works in the Nether (counting blocks sucks over long distances).
I've explored up to about a full in-game days' worth of travel in every direction from my spawn point. I found a neat large winter biome I wanted to connect to from my central Nether pad - it's around 1600 blocks away (thank you, Minecraft GPS). Sure enough, no matter how far I went in the real world, my portals would reconnect with the original portal back home (up to 827 blocks away, I gave up after that).
So, I tackled it from the other side. In the real world, I had to travel 1600 blocks East-West, then about 200 North-South. Divided those both by 8, then combined them to my Nether coordinates as reported by Minecraft GPS - that should be the exact Nether block I need to build my gate at. I tunnelled through solid Netherstone and had to create a small room at the end... when I came out in the real world, I was within 20 blocks East-West, but I had gone in the wrong Nether direction North-South, and wound up on the other side of the real world... d-oh!
Back to Nether, going in the opposite direction (ADD both coordinates, laddy, not subtract one and add the other!) Established a little room out of solid Netherstone at the proper location and, boom - a working two-way gate to my winter biome.
I actually enjoyed the GPS process in the Nether. It kinds of makes sense that to create working portals, you have to do a bit of arcane magick reckoning (i.e. counting blocks and aligning directions correctly in Nether). It didn't take me long, and it was fun! I encourage you to try this once, to see for yourself.
I timed myself running/boating back overland from the biome (boats speeded it up, no doubt) - took me a full 9 minutes. After I'd built a set of hell-rails to carry me from the portal back to my Nether pad - 50 seconds to get to and from the biome.
Portals work. Exactly as intended. There would be no practical way for me to travel to/from the winter biome overland. Building a real-world rail to get me there would be impossible. Portals are fun, useful, and cool. But you need to work to use them (but not much work). I think the only thing we need is an in-game simple tool that gives a rough indication of distance in the Nether, rather than using an external program like Minecraft GPS.
Tip: You can build portals while you are in the Nether.
If the Terrain is NOT in the way then just build the portal in the nether where it correlates with an overworld portal. It will link up everytime.
For some odd reason players only build portals from the overworld and refuse to build them in the Nether. It works both ways. Actually it is mandatory if you want to fix your 1 way portals.
Building portals in the Nether is an absolutely required step to fixing portals and making them 2 way portals.
For example for those who would rather fix their portals than ***** about them on the forums.
How to fix:
Scenario: Let's start from having a functional 2 way portal and you want to add another 2 way portal 800 blocks North on the overworld / 100 blocks North in the Nether.
The overworld Portal is called A1, the Nether portal that connects to it is called A2. (a functional 2 way portal is actually 2 portals, one above (A1) and one below (A2))
The new overworld portal you built 800 blocks North is B1, and you want it to connect to B2 ( a new portal in the Nether) but it instead brings you to A2. This new portal is "broken" and only functions as an entrance to the Nether, not an exit.
You enter B1, step out at A2. <--- this is your problem.
Are you with me? If you have this problem than you should understand what i just said.
This is the solution, i've done this more than a dozen times with variable distances and directions.
1. Face North and step into A1.
2. You are now in the Nether, you are standing inside of A2 still facing north. Magic.
3. Start walking north, count 100 blocks and stop.
4. You are now standing where Portal B2 should have been created, but it wasn't.
5. Build a portal, This is now Portal B2
6. Light it and then step through it.
7. You are now standing in the frame of B1 on the overworld, 800 blocks to the North of A1.
8. Step through B1 and it brings you back to the Nether, you are now standing in B2 100 blocks north of A2.
B1 is now linked to B2
A1 is still linked to A2
If this is too complicated then you are **** out of luck.
100% of portals can be fixed, it isn't hard once you know why they are broken in the first place.
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This game is so popular because it appeals to everybody of all ages and technical abilities. The features of the game should not be close to people because they don't want to/can't download external apps or count their steps in the nether to place a proper gate.
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
I have 100% mastered the Nether and portal placement.
I would absolutely bet my life on placing a portal anywhere at anytime on any world and making it work.
The portal problem is absolutely logical and easily fixed every single time.
BUT
There are a few variables that make a comprehensive "how to" guide really problematic without the use of video.
unfortunately I don't make videos...
But, I will work on a written guide but that will take some time.
I'll probably post it on Saturday or Sunday.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30
I can't even get the workarounds to cooperate.
What if Portals are 'technically' limited to one per chunk space in the real world and Nether? You can build several of them, but they'd all link to the same portal in the Nether [and vise versa in the real world] because of how compressed the Nether is. I'm just going off of a hunch here, and it depends greatly on how the Nether-to-world Chunk ratio goes (I keep seeing 1:8, 1:16, and I thought a 1:350??), but that might be the case since the Nether moves you faster then the world.
Which then falls back to finding a safe place to deposit the player. What if, when searching, the chunk you want to spawn in is totally filled up with unsafe locations? The sensible thing would be to either:
A) Generate a new chunk and try again [Time consuming]
:cool.gif: Look in a previous chunk and spawn something there.
Option A utilizes more CPU and slows the game.
Option B can move faster, but what if the chunk has a portal already? Then it would grab hold of it and link to that one now too!
Or I could possibly be spouting loads of non-sensible jargon. It's just my thoughts on another possible explanation. I'm sure someone with more experience in these matters will tear my theory apart.
It's 1/8. Everybody who manually put's down their nether gates knows this because how else would they count blocks?
People trying to go more then 128 blocks away should be more at least one nether chunk away by then so these gates will should be at least one chunk apart
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Portals as they are now are worthless. The Nether is equally worthless. There are no new materials that have any value whatsoever, and since portals are effectively impossible to use, there is no reason to go there for fast travel either.
The entire Nether concept is a complete waste of time until Notch gets around to "fixing" it enough for it to be playable.
Pure unfiltered hyperbole.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=93046&start=30