Better: Portal Hub or Daisy-chain?

[prayl]

Planning for the future, as I still haven't found a swamp biome yet...which is better? Should I build a portal hub or daisy-chain portals to get around the map as I continue to expand my explored territory/biomes?

[Empada]

portal hub. daisy chain will get you tired of hopping for 3 diferent ones. if you are playing alone you do not need a lot of connected portals, just signs with the names and map marcations so you remember where it goes
change the portal name when you need to go there. you may leave some permanently connected like Haldor, but there is no need of a big portal hub

[kaypy]

A portal "hub" that consists of precisely two portals.
One that you can rename to match whatever portal you want to get to.
And one that is unconnected, that a distant portal can be renamed to match and get you back.

[chewer]

Originally posted by kaypy:

A portal "hub" that consists of precisely two portals.
One that you can rename to match whatever portal you want to get to.
And one that is unconnected, that a distant portal can be renamed to match and get you back.

This is the way. One portal for going out and one for coming back.

[RogDolos]

I say embrace the build and create a beautiful portal garden area. Theme groups of portals, IE: a "spooky" section for all the swamp crypt-clusters you've found, or a tower holding portals for boss-locations.

Depends on whether you're on a map as a long-haul home & you plan to revisit a lot of places (especially with friends!), or just grabbing resources & moving on.

Side-note: If you place a wooden block onto a torch, it will "mask" it from enemies & prevent spawns for a 20m radius. It can be a lot of work to setup an area like this, but it's pretty effective (screenshot is of a portal island my friends & I have).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3002782927

[Tangoblue]

Portal Hub, less names to remember

This is an early one I made:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2676320795

[Mharr]

For me the #1 advantage of the hub is you're naming portals after places rather than somehow trying to name the connection itself.

Note that two portals can be a hub if you have some signs with all the place names written down.

[explor]

when clicking on the name edit of a portal, a drop down list of all portals in the field and clicking on the one you want would simplify matters.

[Haakon_K]

Portal Hub is very practical, and can be made in many shapes and forms.
But if you wanna save time and mats - you need only 2, as others has already suggested.

I used to make nice big hubs, but these days I rather make only 2 or 3. One unnamed (blank) as it by default, that way I have the quickest way home because I dont need to name the portal for home. I use it all the time 'cause it's fast.
For all the portals in the field, I put up lots of signs by the other home portal, and copy/paste their names to be sure to get the spelling correct. I also mark them on the map, of course - but from there I can't copy/paste.

[NZ.Zero]

Hub.
I have about 8 portals currently, some which are good copper places, some where there are crypts I want to do, 4 for the wind directions so you can expand your exploration whatever the wind, and a couple for interesting ongoing base builds.

[sarteck]

I do a combination of all three things discussed.

I use a hub with many "active" connections for the places we often visit (main bases, spawn, usually the Trader, any camps we're using as major gathering points, etc.).

I have a few "spare" portals for both field exploration and for all the "inactive" connections we drop at places we don't often visit.

I daisy-chain a bunch of portals for specific resource gathering. For example, having a Surtling Geyser run from geyser 1 to geyser 2 to geyser 3 and so on. Also do this with Sap runs from Ancient Root to Ancient Root sometimes. (Other times, we find it more efficient just to stick a bunch of extractors into a single root, drain it dry, then move on to the next.) I'll typically have a portal at the start and the terminus lead to each other, but sometimes I forget.

[chewer]

I use the two portals approach in my base. For naming the in-the-field portals:
- mark them on the map (duh)
- have a simple naming system. For me this is stuff like "meadows1", "elder3", "haldor", "mist18", "start", "farm1" and so on.

Maybe this is personal preference, but I like my bases to be small-ish and compact. There simply is no need nor space for me to have hubs ...

[Sono]

I did a octagonal stone circle hub in one of my worlds, the columns were set on just right so it hid the parts of the portal so enemies wouldn't aggro it, and it made it looks like the portal itself was each arch of the stone structure. Bonus points for setting the portal near center and each portal is set roughly to the direction of where it leads to. That is of course mostly just decorative :P

As for utility, hub best for sure but if you wanted to cut down on the amount of portals what I did in one world is just set up 6 or so and put signs on the wall of all the available portal names, so when I need to access a portal that isn't active, i and whoever else will always be able to see the code to switch it. Saves room and mats. The downside is you must wait a couple seconds before trying to enter, if you don't it'll send you to the old destination and then the portal deactivates, potentially stranding you.

[ling.speed]

Hub is better when playing with people... When minmaxing stuff there should be 1 or 2 personal portals for every player, but hub fits the social aspect better.

Doing few smaller hubs, like per biome or per utility is also nice.

Daisy chaining is only good for when you build new base, or people play from different places at the same time which is rare.

But there is also a case of utility portal, to be used when encumbered, and that does not fit with above categories. (ps: this portal can be left unnamed)

So it tbh the real answer is... use all of them at the same time. Have a main hub for often visited places, have a personal portal or two that gets renamed constantly, and have a daisy chain through your old bases.

[Letheral]

You may wanna use a daisy chain for collecting charcoal off surtling spawners in swamps.

[UncleAcidic]

hubs can be problematic because they can be event locations. of course, you can protect the hub from mobs like any other structure, but instead I prefer to have one master portal at home with the names of all the other portals written on signs next to it. I just change the name for the place I want to go. sometimes I also use a secondary "blank" portal setup for exploration.
fewer portals at your base means better frame rates as well.