Devs moving the blinksec goalposts?

So before the Sunday Meltdown last weekend (15/16 Sept) that caused US West servers problems, I had just set up a portal ready to go from Storis II to Arie which, at the time registered as 24 blinksecs and thus could be done. Expensive, yes, but we could do it.

The day we were going to open that portal was the 16th, when connections outright failed and a bug was introduced that prevented the range being displayed and thus, prevented a portal lock. I reported that here at the time, before many others noticed: Unable to Open Portal - Blinksecs null?

Today to my dismay I found that the blinksecs value has FINALLY returned… only for the planets to have been moved 4 blinksecs further apart, preventing the portal from being opened at all (max portal range is 25, portal now needs 28 blinksecs).

I’m annoyed at this for a few reasons, primarily that the game has been bugged for a week preventing this from happening and now it’s fixed the goalpost has been moved, with seemingly no announcement on this?

Is this a side effect of new planets being introduced? Was it deliberate? What if I had setup the portal and let it lapse? Suddenly I’d be unable to reopen it!

Only just found this out so a little irked. I’ll be calm by tomorrow but come ON guys.

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The other issue with this system is it causes players to need to flood planets for no reason at portal hubs. I think they need to cut blinksecs in half.

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That’s another discussion for another day. I’d settle for consistency for the moment if I’m honest.

I didn’t even know there was a limit to portal distance

There is. It’s skill limited and they could easily add another level to the range skill to bump this.

Unfortunately it may lead to more valid portal sizes having to be added, which isn’t as easy.