Teleporter vs Portal - definition

[Lailantie]

Dear all who are new to this game - welcome :)

I found that there's often misunderstandings with the words in the title. And sometimes I truly want to help a person but I can't because I don't understand the question. So here's a short explanation what is what.

TELEPORTER

A round structure with a frame and blue light in the middle. You can build a teleporter at your base and travel to other places that show up on your list, like space stations you visited, other bases of yourself and others. Each space station has a teleporter, the Anomaly has a huge teleporter on the third floor.

PORTAL

A portal is a huge black alien building, and there's only one per planet. You need all glyphs to access a portal, and you need a glyph sequence, often also called coordinates, from a planet you want to travel to. You can find a portal by searching for a monolith (alien structure), either with maps from the space stations, or with the scanner of your exocraft. Answer the question of the monolith correctly, then you can ask again and receive a marker to the portal on this planet.

From a portal you can go to any planet within a galaxy (like Euclid, Hilbert Dimension, Eissentam and more), but you can not go to a different galaxy. If you are in Euclid and have the glyph code for a planet in Eissentam, you need to use a portal in Eissentam to get there.

After going through a portal, there's restrictions on what you can do at your destination planet, called portal interference. You can't build a base, you can't use a teleporter, you can't open the galaxy map. The only way out is go back through the portal to where you came from.

I wish someone had told me all of this when I was new, so I hope it helps :)

[Steven]

Thank you for the explanation. I’m sure it will be useful to many.

[Gumsk]

Good post. From the programming side, here are some other details:
- Miniportal - aka Short-range Teleporter - the single point to single point, max 200u phone booth things.
- Personal Teleporter - aka Teleporter
- Nexus Teleporter - specifically the teleporter on the Anomaly / Nexus. It has a completely different portal system. If you can't find your base in a normal Personal Teleporter, try the Nexus Teleporter.

[Goldylox]

Wow thanks, I am standing in front of my first portal, worried about what happens to me and my ship if I step thru and can't build a base or even save beacon to find it again. Does portal interference affect you once you activate and before you go thru? Is it a matter o moving far enough away?

[ShabDez]

The interference only takes effect on the other side of the portal. If you don't use the portal, nothing will happen. AFAIK, the portal will stay active until you reload (or maybe leave the system, don't know).

[Lailantie]

It will stay active and you'll have the marker until you leave the system, even if you log out and back in. As it's the only way out.

[ShabDez]

Originally posted by Lailantie:

It will stay active and you'll have the marker until you leave the system, even if you log out and back in. As it's the only way out.

Sorry, I was not precise. I meant the portal you activate and not the portal on the other side. That of cause stays active until you go back as Lailantie points out.

[Mako Kai]

This is super helpful.

So...if you’re at system A and you portal to system B, I understand that you can’t really leave the system... you have to portal back to system A. But, if while you were in system B and you landed on the station in system B, once you portal back to system A can you now reach system B’s station by your transporter network?

[Lailantie]

Originally posted by Mako Kai:

This is super helpful.

So...if you’re at system A and you portal to system B, I understand that you can’t really leave the system... you have to portal back to system A. But, if while you were in system B and you landed on the station in system B, once you portal back to system A can you now reach system B’s station by your transporter network?

System B will show up in your discovery list, but not in your teleporter.

[Sir Itchy Bottom]

I think this should be pinned, I can see how the definitions can confuse new players!

[Kaeru Gaman]

while I can't build a base.. I guess I can still place portables?

[Lailantie]

Originally posted by Kaeru Gaman:

while I can't build a base.. I guess I can still place portables?

After going through a portal, you can place save beacons and other portables, and you can build a bay for your exocraft. However you can't call your freighter.

[Kaeru Gaman]

thanks!
one more thing: do I take my ship with me through portals as I do through teleporters?

as a result, can I go through a portal, fly to the space station in order to register that teleporter to my list, return through the portal to my starting planet, fly to the space station and then take the teleporter to the system I discovered through the portal....?

[Lailantie]

Yes, you take your ship with you. Yes, you can fly to a space station. The teleporter at the space station will not work, and your location will not be registered in the teleporter.

[Kaeru Gaman]

ah! good to know.
many thanks for your answers.