Good points here and def something my mind never went to, can we at least get it for design then to show off! (They could also put in a way to convert it back)
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Sorry, I meant people need to redesign their portal connections so it is small portals that last longer. If they need to step away and cannot fuel it for a while then either let it close or get a friend to fuel it for them.
It isn’t the requirement of the devs to make minimal touch solutions when the current portal setup and the distance between planets was put in the game for a reason because portals should not be able to remain open for long unless they are managed and worked on.
People gain huge benefit from running a network and keeping a portal open… so that comes at a cost on many levels.
True, but something as simple as a “bag size” on a portal should be a moderately simple fix. Easiest fix would be no bag at all, just a shard counter. I don’t own huge portals, never will. But this would be a major quality of life improvement for those that do.
The shard counter could even say, “WARNING: YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET THESE SHARDS BACK. CONTINUE?”
That’s really not what we want as devs for performance/cost though. Lots of small portals literally costs us more money (bandwith) than fewer longer distance portals
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As long it is just a change in bag size and not touching on portal cost, by making portals cheaper to run, I don’t mind it at all.
Even if compacting oort would go the other way, I.e. You need 8 oort shards plus 8 mat X to generate 1 compact, up to 400 oort shards plus 400 mat X to generate 50 compact.
So you pay for the convenience of having your portals last longer, while one compact = the lasting time of 8 shards.
The next time my friend(s) mock me for using big portals to go where I want instead of a million small portals I am showing them this post! 
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@lucadeltodecso I think it is very important that you please clarify because I think that wrong perceptions can be taken from this… Does a portal that is open but NOT being looked at in at form or fashion or near someone within X number of blocks still pull bandwidth? Or is it the process of when a person gets within viewing range and the portal makes the connection that we have to wait for that then starts the “billing”? Or does literally just opening a portal that might never be used or seen in the middle of nowhere still suck up bandwidth?
Also, in fairness to people that have huge portals that need to be fueled every 3 days, then I would say for those type you should include 2 shard repositories so that at least they can go closer to once a week. Or something at least to help. A bit more timer is ok but not increasing timers for all types.
I still strongly feel that because of the immense money portal networks make with almost no effort that they should be required to work for it. At this point in the game portal networks really have the monopoly of passive income and can play the game to have fun doing other things while they rake in millions, while others must grind huge amounts to earn any money due to the very challenged economy model we have. Obviously getting Oort requires some work or funds but its still pretty easy to rake in the Oort. But, to stay focused on the thread, maybe 1500 shards or something for those larger portals would be nice versus 900.
I disagree
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Fueling smaller portals every couple weeks or so I think is fine, but fueling larger portals every day is not.
Maybe what we need is something more similar to beacon fuel. Specifically we could keep the oort shard cost the same, but instead of having a slot where items get used over time, we could have a “add fuel” button. This way I could put in stacks and stacks of oort until the maximum time is hit (2 weeks or something maybe? Even something like 10 days would be fine IMO) regardless of portal size.
The “problem” with adding a compact fuel source is that, even though it may allow larger portals to run for weeks, it would allow smaller portals to run for months…
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um… where
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I agree that there should be a cap as to how long a portal can be fueled for. but make it consistant across the portals by allowing you to add enough fuel until it reach that point. NO CHANGING OORT COSTS REQUIRED to keep them up, just more slots for bigger portals… think like how a Spark Generator works.
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I like dis too
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Originally I got into this thread cause I liked the idea of having a portal flowing oortstone block but honestly maybe we just need to accept that though itd be nice portal management is a necessity if you want the luxury of portal(s)
yeah just enough to have same time as small portal sounds perfect 3to4 is anoying we have the oort but loose more cause we forgot and need pay reopen cost
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Yes I should have clarified that in the beginning it took a lot of work to get on all planets, figure out what planets connect to what, and set up the whole network.
Now the effort I considered “passive” because basically the work is just getting shards and putting them in portals and really nothing else because you don’t have to fix portals or things like that and income keeps coming in.
Of course on a footfall level this is no different than any build that a person creates except normal builds don’t have the same draw for usage that portal networks do.
Yeah, I’m trying to make recreational builds now. They get a fair bit of footfall, nothing to rave about but it’s nice.
yesterday I spent:
- 15 minutes adjusting a portal for the P.U.R.E network.
- 90 minutes hunting for oortstone
- 5 minutes adjusting a road near a hub
- 5 minutes to fuel a portal
- 90 minutes working on the portal notification bot we have
in-game or not, the activities here are to solve in-game problems. We have half a dozen people in the guild working this hard every day, if not more. “passive effort” is not an accurate description by any stretch.
Sorry to be off topic, but I refuse to be trivialized.
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I was amazed to start seeing the back end of the Portal Seeker portal management. It’s a ton of work and I’m glad there’s numerous people dedicated to it.
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