Portal may be a good “entertaining tool” in some ways, and it can obviously be used to make things like maze or trap.
Although it can apply now, the cost of upkeep them is too high for anyone to afford.
Although cost 1 OortStone / hour now for 1 hops portal but if you want upkeep more?
So I suggest add “Local Planet Warp / Portal”
Open Warp / Portal still need 50 Oort Stone, but upkeep it just cost 1 Oort Stone per 24 hour per block size.
(2X3 size cost 6 OortStone per 24 hour)
That would contradict the idea of warp vs. portal balance that devs are trying to entertain.
Portals are supposed to be less common that they are now (more of a guild/community thing) and warps used more often than currently. The game hasn’t got there yet, but I can’t see cheap kind of portals to be a thing.
Who knows though? I can be wrong.
I feel as though portals should not be rare right now, because it’s the only time efficient way of traveling. When mounts, and/or vehicles are added they child be rare again.
Warp and Portal Conduit are fine. Once Portals actually become rare and a lot more expensive to maintain, things will get a lot more interesting. We don’t need something in between. Vehicles are already in the pipeline for travel and one would think you can move them through very large Warp and Portal Conduit builds.
Stargates or Worm Holes anyone? 
I don’t think we need cheaper portals, same world travel should happen through warps or by running there. A player with max agility, can move very fast across the world.
And travel between worlds can still be done through warps only, portals are just a convenience!
I have a couple of places on the same planet and would love a cheap portal system to be able to easily travel between them. Roads are unnecessary in this game outside community builds and there aren’t enough skill points to keep spreading them ever more thinly.
I think the devs have mentioned before that they weren’t going to make portals too rare becoz it will take away the fun of the game. But, they want to make portals a community support effort rather than an individual support effort.
Along these same lines, my home on Therka is half a planet away from Therka Market (aka, portal links), so I like to have a portal there to my Little Place Closer nearby to TM.
The question maybe should be ‘Should intra-warps have zero cost?’
Same planet portals, with zero cost…I’d be using those far more often.
Suggestion I’ve made before but that I would like to raise again is the possibility of different kinds of Warp Conduits with different requirements or a way for warps to use Oort Shards instead of coin; with the advent of the new Engine updates, how about a reusable warp conduit gateway that consumes spark as fuel? 
The only thing I would like to be seen done to Warp and Portal Conduits is there to be different art and animation styles for blocks.
Perhaps I want to use them as some sort of decoration.
Not everyone can or wants to be part of a community to the degree that if they want or need a portal to a remote build of there own that they either can’t have one or have to have the support of a community behind them to be able to have one. Will this Boundless universe soon be shackled with community boundaries where the mayor/warden has the deciding vote where and who can have portals?
The answer is people will be running around with Warp Conduit to get to places they have on the same planet while Warp Crystals on a Totem get you to other planets 1 warp hop away. There is zero reason to have a cheap portal system when there are already things in place that are very cheap to make that get the job done.
I’ve never bothered to maintain my own portal conduit build, but if the Boundless Wiki page is accurate, then maintaining a portal even up to 3 hops away is pretty cheap per hour. If you’re able to gather the Oort Stone ahead of time and prepare yourself properly, you should be able to maintain a couple portals that are up to 3 hops away fairly easy.
Even if you’re only using Portal Conduit to provide easy doorways between your builds on the same planet, that’s 1 Oort Shard per hour. That’s 24 Oort Shard in a day. 1 Rough Oort Stone gives you 10 Shards source. That’s 5 to 10 hours of Portal Conduit up time. You can get this through Meteorites and hunting.
If all your advocating for is an easier method, then I get that. But if you’re going to play solo, then expect to have to put in a little more effort than those that collaborate on projects together or build a “guild” or “community” hub. Solo and group play are never going to be equal in this kind game genre.
The game is already extremely easy. It doesn’t need to hold your hand anymore than it already does.
You are absolutely right, I should dismantle my 2 portals immediately and start using the other methods of transport that you advocate. I have to apologise for my lack of experience in this game as I haven’t really put in that that much effort, I have only been playing this game for about six hundred hours and still have a lot to learn. As a predominantly solo player (due to selfish reasons of work, family, sleep etc) I have to admit that I have been spoon fed far too much by playing alone and any resources, materials, machines that I have managed to scrape together I am eternally grateful for. I am sorry that you have had to hold my hand through this entire process and I will remain forever in your debt. In future I will try and refrain from making any suggestions and attempting to open any discussion on aspects of this game.
I’m sure @crypticworlds did not mean that personally, and you should generally try not to take things said on the forums personally either. Sure, everybody has different opinions, and some times your opinion may be contrary to the vast majority of others. That does not make your opinion any less valid. Just brush it off and you do you.
Thank you Havok40k, I appreciate your sentiment. I am all for open discussion on any aspects of this game as I absolutely love it (discussion but especially the game). I understand we will all have our own opinions and viewpoints and at times we will sometimes have to agree to disagree on certain things but I did find the comments about putting in more effort and hand holding a little bit patronising. That said I would like to hold out the olive branch and apologise if my response came across too abrupt and rude.
I wasn’t trying to be rude to you Greyart247. I was just trying to explain how I understand the way the devs want it to be like when everything is wiped at the full feature complete release of the game. There’s suppose to be aspects of the game that are challenging. If having your personal portal network to various places you’ve built is challenging, then it’s designed to be like that and over time as you put more time and effort into maintaining those portals (either through acquiring more wealth or the sale of items you’ve found and made) it will get easier.
If you thought the comment on me saying you (specifically or not) should put more time and effort into this sort of thing then that wasn’t me trying to personally attack you. I probably did come up a little “aggressive” with what I said.
I think it’s a reasonable progression for someone to go from using Warp Crystals and Warp Conduits for a while until they start building up Oort Shards and their manufacturing output to warrant the need to build portals. I think that’s reasonable and considering how cheap it is to make Warp Crystals and Warp Conduits, I don’t think there is much room between that and Portal Conduits. Even the crafting cost to make Portal Conduits isn’t that expensive. It’s their maintenance cost of Oort Shards per hour that can be the costly thing.
If anything I’d like to see some sort of conduit for the next level up from Portal Conduits. Maybe something that requires Power and could be end game traveling along with airships. After all according to the wiki Portal Conduits are capped at 7 hops and that might not be very far if there’s a lot of Wonderstuck hosted worlds on top of player hosted worlds. There might actually be a need to develop a higher tier traveling method unless there’s a design reason to portal 7 hops away and then how ever many more hops to get to the planet you really want to go to.
I am also completely cool with whatever the devs decide to do with this kind of “issue” if it really is something for them to look at. At the end of the day, every item they give us in game to use is a block for a new build or a tool to get something else done. Whether I see the need to have short-range cheap portal conduits is irrelevant. What’s actually important here is whether or not the majority of the player base is going to enjoy that type of thing and I think they will. And if the block looks cool, I might use it in a build and not for its intended purpose.
In my opinion, portals should be cheaper, and easier on planets like Solum which is a beginner planet, and get harder as you move up the chain of world difficulty. I’m a new player, and i often find that walking for ten minutes strait is not pleasant and eats away at the longevity for which i will play or accomplish anything in game. It dulls the game, bringing the game down to a walking simulators level. My base is far away from most major cities, and i need to get to those cities in order to do business. If i can’t make and maintain portals between my main base, and Aquatopia for ex the game will die for me very quick. It will become a game of item transportation to and away from my base, not one where i can instead spend my time pveing, building, and mining. I have lost a majority of my money mostly on warping home, and i’m broke because the system is broke(en). Please, devs. Hear my pain.
@GreyArt247 and I have been talking this issue out on another thread. It is a juxtaposing topic. I see there are strong opinions on both sides. However I side with @GreyArt247. The most popular game experiences are always the ones that do not limit or restrict. Some of us, we live our lives under so much control and restriction that we subconsciously seek the no limits lifestyle that video games offer. Boundless touches deeply on this primal yearning by offering “boundless” opportunities. Limiting the solo player experience, while marginally affecting game intensity and difficulty, has a much more negative effect of introducing unnecessary boundaries and restrictions in a game that advertises just the opposite. When you compare “difficulty” with enjoyment, you must choose enjoyment. Life is difficult. Many players put many hours into a game because it is enjoyable. The theme of a voxel based buidler, at its core, appeals to the casual crowd. For instance I break from the insanely difficult FFXIV to relax with Boundless, and I much prefer Boundless.
The point is, don’t limit choice and freedom. We play Boundless so that we don’t have to be reminded of Boundaries.
I wasn’t aware I said you was rude to me, I thought I just said I found a couple of your comments a little patronising. When a post is directed at me for some strange reason the comments within that post do feel slightly personal, if it was a general response to the whole thread then I probably wouldn’t have. I also don’t think this is an “issue” as such, just people on a forum voicing their opinions and ideas on one aspect of the game. Everyone has different play styles and things that they enjoy doing in this amazing game and as the developers have seen fit to provide a forum it only seems right to hear everyone’s opinion and be able to have an open discussion about how certain things affect them in game. If all the developers ideas are set in stone then I would of assumed they would of just had an update page to keep us informed with a link to wiki.