Question about nether portals

[OldMarriedDude]

While I was out exploring I built I nether portal about a minecraft day walk from my base I wanted to use nether rack as markers in the dessert. The portal dropped me right on a fortress bridge. When I got back to my base I built a second portal which sent me to the nether portal at the fortress. When I exited the nether it dropped me back in the desert so i destroyed. That portal and walked home. Reentered the portal at my base and when I left it created another portal in the desert. is there a way to prevent this or am I going to need to destroy the portal in the nether and reenter from my home?

[Gilberreke]

is there a way to prevent this or am I going to need to destroy the portal in the nether and reenter from my home?

It's more complicated than that I'm afraid. The game doesn't actually link portals up. It calculates where to put you each time you enter a portal. This means that whatever you do, you'll always end up in the desert when exiting that portal. Try moving your portal in the nether.

Edit: actually, scrap that. Do you have a second portal to the nether somewhere? If so, destroy the faulty one, go out of the nether with the other one, re-enter from your base. The portal will move to another spot though.

[OldMarriedDude]

Ok thanks Ill give it a go- worst case scenario ill build a long ass railroad to the desert.

[Racooknight]

The mechanics are :

A portal from the overworld will go to its coordinates in the nether, meaning its overworld coordinates/8, and check for a nether portal in 128 blocks around that position. If none exist, it'll create one.

A portal from the nether will go to its coordinates in the overworld, meaning its nether coordinates*8, and check for a nether portal in 128 block around that position. If none exist, it'll create one.

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Nether_Portal

"Likelihood of 2 overworld portals linking to the same Nether portal - Normal World portals that are within 1024 distance of each other on both X and Z axis are almost always going to link to the same Nether realm portal on initial construction because 1024 translates to a distance of 128 in the Nether Realm, and the game checks for existing Portals within 128 "radius" around the destination (the 257x257x128 box)."

Know that if several portals are in the 128 radius, the closer to the exact x/y/z position will be chosen over the farther ones.

"1-way long distance teleport - The portal choosing algorithm can be used for long distance travel by manual construction at carefully selected coordinates. If the player has a Portal in Normal world at (0,64,0) but makes a Nether Portal at (127,64,127) with its perfect Normal World pair at (1016, 64, 1016), then the portal at (0,64,0) will go to the Nether Portal correctly (1-way trip) because it is the only portal available within the 128 search distance along X and Z horizontal axes of the expected Nether portal position of (0,64,0)."

The first overworld portal finds the only valid nether portal, then the nether portal chooses the closest overworld portal to its proper overworld coordinates.

I myself have used nether portal for a long time, and they're a pain in the ass to set up :p and I didn't even try without the F3 now that BTW disabled it; though you can still count the blocks yourself one by one by walking them. You could even use a lense and check where the ray stops since it's 256 block long.

[OldMarriedDude]

Thanks for the great info- it will come in handy while i figure this mess out.

EDIT: So I got my portal issue fixed, the portal from my base dropped me on an island approx 20 x 20. If my calculations are correct I should be in the same general area as my first portal so ill build a bridge and hopefully find the fortress I originally found.

[Racooknight]

No worries - everything you need to know should be in the post, you don't actually have to navigate through the mess that is the minecraft wiki. Ask away if you tried something and it didn't go as planned.