Raevyn's Guide to Base Teleporters (or, See the World on Less Than 5 Inf a Day)

[Raevyn_Darke]

Between the forums and the Discord channel, I see a lot of folks confused about setting up base teleporters. It's easy to do once you understand the principles, but since there are things that aren't self-evident, I decided to put together a little guide. (With pictures and everything! Ooh! Ahh!)

 

I've separated my lame jokes from the main text by using a different font color for your convenience.  ;D

 

Contents:

1. The Basics
2. The Components
3. Setting Up a Zone Teleporter
4. Setting Up an In-Base Teleporter
5. Troubleshooting
6. Tips, Tricks, & Tidbits

 

---

 

#1: The Basics

(or, What's All This Hullaballoo About Teleporters, Now?)

 

Base teleporters are, in the simplest terms, a base item you can click that will move your character to somewhere else. Because real heroes & villains don't take cabs, and car insurance in Paragon is just outrageous.

 

What base teleporters can do:

• They can transport a player to any city/hazard/trial zone that has a beacon and matches their alignment.
• They can transport a player to another spot within the base, a new function since the old days that's super-cool.

 

What base teleporters cannot do:

• They cannot transport you to zones you can't access. (i.e., Heroes can't go to villain zones or vice-versa, and low-level Praetorians can't go to Primal Earth.)  Silly baby goldsiders, you can't escape Cole's utopia that easily, muahaha!
   
• They cannot transport you from city zones into the base. (Though, as noted by justicebeliever--thanks!--you can get a base teleporter power by collecting badges or purchasing it from the P2W vendor.)
   
• They cannot change where you zone in to the base when you use a base portal, or make it so different people will zone into the base in different spots.  No making the peons turn up in the back alley by the dumpster while the CEO shows up in the penthouse suite; sorry.

 

A note on "Secret Entrance" Portals:

 

Despite being a type of portal, the "secret entrance" is an entirely different beast than a teleporter, with different rules. The secret entrance cannot be deleted.  So much for that Poe-themed base idea. There can be only one secret entrance.  ...#highlander...  If you ever see more than one, it's a glitch; leaving the base empty of people for 20 minutes should reset it. Though the secret entrance can be moved anywhere in the base, the entrance room can't be resized or deleted. Typing /stuck will return you to the secret entrance. Anyone entering the base through the secret entrance will always be facing south.  And it just goes south from there! Haha! A-haha...ha...*cough* 😒 Leaving via the secret entrance will return you to the zone you were in before you entered the base.  Déjà vu, or a glitch in the Matrix? You decide. If you entered using a base portal, you'll reappear beside it; if you entered any other way, you'll reappear at the zone's designated teleport spot. (Thanks to justicebeliever for the clarification. :) ) Okay, so now that we know what teleporters are and aren't, how do they work?

---

 

#2: The Components

(or, 'Porters & Beacons & 'Port Points, Oh My)

 

Regular teleporters (i.e., the "teleport to zone" types from the live era) have two parts:

 

Teleporter                                                                                           Beacon

                                      (the thing you click)                                                                              (the place you go)

Arcane Example:                 

Tech Example:                     

 

 PI Paragon's VP of Engineering, Karen, agreed to be in these photos to provide a sense of scale. She's a shapeshifter and a bit of a clothes-horse, but so dependable and dedicated--I never see her leave her office!

 

For in-base teleporters, there's one other component, a teleport point...but we'll come back to that in a bit.

 

---

 

#3: Setting Up a Zone Teleporter

(or, Transportation by IKEA)

 

To make a working zone teleporter, all you need is a teleport device and a beacon of the same style placed within range. That's it!

 

Back in my day, we only had one basic and one advanced 'porter for each style...and you needed a special Transportation Room and enough power to run the thing...and even then, the basic 'porters would only go to two places, uphill, BOTH WAYS! These young whipper-snappers and their free, pretty, 10-destination porters don't know how good they have it! Muttergrumblemumumble...

 

(I'm totally kidding about the grumbling, to be clear. They can pry the new porters from my cold dead hands.)

 

The beacons, up to ten per teleporter, can be placed anywhere...above the porter, behind it, buried in the floor, wherever...as long as they are within range. You can tell if a beacon is in range in two ways:

 

Click on the beacon, and make sure there's a yellow box around the teleporter (or vice versa). -or- Click on either the beacon or teleporter, and check the object description box (the "Info" tab for beacons, or the "Aux" tab for the teleporter). The attached items should be listed.

 

 

---

 

#4: Setting Up an In-Base Teleporter

(or, "But I Don't Wanna Go Outside, Mom!")

 

For teleporting to another area within the base, there's one more piece you need: a teleport point.

 

Regular beacons teleport you to zone points the game already knows how to find. So, to make an in-base teleporter work, you need to explain to the game where you want people to end up. That's where this tab comes in:

 

 

Currently, there are ten points available to place inside your base. When placed, they look like this:

 

VP Karen not included.

 

So, let's say you want to teleport from your office to your bathroom. When you gotta go, you gotta go, amirite?

 

To do that:

• In your office, put a teleport device.
• In your office, put an Aleph beacon.
• In your bathroom, put the Aleph teleport point.

(Teleport points don't have a style, and can be used with either arcane or tech devices.)

 

And voila, you can teleport directly from the office to the potty. Base Teleporters: Bringing you proper hydration without fear since 2019.

 

Note, the above setup will only get you to the bathroom. If you want to teleport back, you'll need to repeat the steps above, except in the opposite direction and using a second teleport point.

 

---

 

#5: Troubleshooting

(or, LIEZ!! It doesn't work!! UR AY FRAUD AN SHUD B ASHAYMED!!)

 

I hope that amused someone because typing like that made me die a little inside.

 

If you've placed a teleporter and it doesn't work the way it should, there are a few things to check:

 

• Did the beacon connect to the wrong teleporter?
  • If you have two teleporters close together, the beacon may have linked to a different one than you expected. And next thing you know, the teleporter and the beacon are arguing about infidelity on Dr. Phil.

 

• Are you trying to connect more than ten destinations to a single porter?
  • Any beyond ten won't connect. That's what happens when you let the henchmen do the math.

 

• Are you using a functional teleporter?
  • As one might imagine, teleporters labeled as inactive or destroyed won't work, but it's an easy mis-click. Now where do I get a portal repair tech at 3 AM on a Saturday?!?

 

    The second-most common problem:

 

• Is your character the right alignment to see the zones in question?
  • A villain character can't go to hero zones, and vice versa, so the list will be blank even if the beacons are connected and working properly. Nice try, Lord Recluse.

 

    And--*drum roll*-- the biggie:

 

• Is your beacon the same style as your teleporter?
  • Items from the tech tab will not connect to items from the arcane tab; the styles must match. Arcane & tech elements in the same teleporter ensemble is so last season.

 

Remember...

 

	goes with
	goes with

 

 

---

 

#6: Tips, Tricks, & Tidbits

(or, Things You Wish You'd Known Before Wasting That Last 3 Hours)

 

• The order zones appear in any teleport listing is according to the zone's ID number in the internal database. The only way you can affect the list order is to link beacons to separate teleporters. We won't discuss how long I tried to alphabetize the teleport beacons before I learned this.

 

• I (like a number of other folks, it seems) like to set up my zone 'porters with one for blueside city zones, one for blueside hazard/trial zones, one for redside zones, and one for everything else (although our current base has them split up slightly more for aesthetic reasons). If you aren't sure/can't remember which zones are which, this wiki page may help; it has zones separated by alignment, and you can sort the list by type or level.

 

• None of the teleporters are tintable, except the Oranbegan Portal in the Arcane tab. That one lets you recolor the runes that circle around the edge of the portal. I see a red portal and I want to paint it black...

 

• There are currently no doors in the base builder that open/close...but you can simulate one using in-base teleporters. You'll need two teleporters (the Interdimensional Shard is a popular choice because it's small), two beacons, and two teleport points. Place the Shards as far inside your doors as you like, as long as enough sticks out for people to click on. Place Beacon A on one side of the door, and Point A on the other...then place Beacon B on that side, and Point B back on the original side, as noted in this high-quality illustration:
   
  [Point A, Beacon B, Teleporter]  {[DOOR(S)]}  [Point B, Beacon A, Teleporter]
  Great, there goes our whole graphic design budget.
   
  Note, you'll want to use two teleporters and make sure your beacons connect the way you intend, because otherwise both destinations would show up on the same teleport list, and someone could inadvertently teleport to where they already are. Ha ha, suckers. Er, I mean...  :-X

 

• Whatever direction you're facing when you click an in-base teleport point, that's the same way you'll be facing when you come out the other side. (As ajax34i observes, the points -- and the Secret Entrance, for that matter -- do have directional arrows you can see using the Hidden Markers option...but they don't seem to actually be correct or do anything.)  Turn around, bright eyes...

 

• Since you're actually teleporting instead of using the door like a door, you have the option of putting the "other side of the door" anywhere in the base you like. It doesn't have to be physically near the original door.  And they'll never know they've been fooled! MUAHAHAHA!! ...well, unless they look at the map.

 

• If devious hidden doors are your jam, you can easily bury your teleporter almost all the way inside pretty much anything...secret door hidden in the bookshelf, anyone? From Catgoyle: "For semi-secret in-base teleports, the globes are about the right size to fit the "interdimensional shard" into (and I hide the beacon under the floor -- enable room clipping)."  Just make sure Alfred doesn't set it off accidentally while dusting Wayne Manor.

 

• There's no way to re-name the in-base teleport points. What you see is what you get. Fun Fact: I learned that the point names are letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Thanks, Google!

 

• Clicking a teleporter always brings up a pop-up destination menu, even if you only link one beacon. At present, there's no way to make it click-and-go like mission doors.

 

• Some of the flatter teleporters (the Carnival of Light portal, etc.) are difficult to select once they've been placed. In addition to the usual camera angle shuffle, it can help to hold shift, which helps you click objects hidden behind other things. If all else fails, you can choose "Current Room," sell off the portal, and start over.

 

• If a sound/visual effect remains after you delete a teleporter, leaving the base for 20 minutes should reset the map. Anybody else entering the base in that time will prevent the reset; stowaways walk the plank.

 

• WanderingAries adds that if you've read all this and decided it's too much work, you can always coalition with someone who's built zone teleporters already and use theirs. 😉

 

---

 

So there you have it, everything you need to be a physics-defying location hopper. Did I leave anything out? Did something get added/changed since this post was written? Did I...*GASP*...get something wrong? Or worse yet...HAVE A TYPO?!?!?  :-[  Let me know, and I'll get it fixed.

 

Happy base building!

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Raevyn_Darke
Adjusted formatting after forum shift

[justicebeliever]

This a both a hysterical and helpful guide.  I love the presentation, you made me laugh, and it was well written.

 

I'd give more, but alas +1 Inf per awesome post...

 

Two thoughts

[*]You mentioned you can't teleport to the base with base teleporters...totally true, but you might want to add a comment there about use a Base Teleporter from P2W or earn it with badges...

[*]Also, when exiting your base (not teleporting), you will appear in one of two spots, depending how you got there...If you come in with a base portal, you will return to the portal.  If you come in any other way, you'll return to zone's SG beacon

[Raevyn_Darke]

This a both a hysterical and helpful guide.  I love the presentation, you made me laugh, and it was well written.

 

I'd give more, but alas +1 Inf per awesome post...

 

Two thoughts

[*]You mentioned you can't teleport to the base with base teleporters...totally true, but you might want to add a comment there about use a Base Teleporter from P2W or earn it with badges...

[*]Also, when exiting your base (not teleporting), you will appear in one of two spots, depending how you got there...If you come in with a base portal, you will return to the portal.  If you come in any other way, you'll return to zone's SG beacon

 

Thanks!! :D  And good suggestions; I've added them to the guide. :)

[_NOPE_]

+1 Inf for the cheeky attitude. All guides should hope to read like this one does.

[WanderingAries]

IDK if it's an ADD per say, but could put in that if you're just too lazy to build them, then there are others you can coalition to for portal use. :p

[AboveTheChemist]

What a fantastic guide! I too spent an inordinate amount of time trying to alphabetize the zone names. That may or may not have included destroying and remaking my portal setup about three or four times.

 

For anyone trying to optimize their portal setup, I think every available zone beacon can be accessed using four portals. Two portals connected to hero zones (ten beacons each), one portal connected to villain zones (seven beacons if memory serves), and one catch-all portal connected to co-op zones, echo zones, Praetoria, and anything else (nine beacons if memory serves).

 

One oddity I noticed when setting up my portals is that if I placed one portal and its corresponding beacons before placing the next portal and its beacons, everything went smoothly. One time I placed all four portals first and then starting placing beacons, and things went haywire. The beacons for the first portal I placed connected fine, but none of the beacons for the other three portals would connect. Nothing I tried would make them connect so I scrapped it and remade them one at a time and it was fine.

[Ulysses Dare]

Terrific guide! Alas, I too wasted several hours trying to alphabetize those darn beacons.  :P

[Catgoyle]

For semi-secret in-base teleports, the globes are about the right size to fit the "interdimensional shard" into (and I hide the beacon under the floor -- enable room clipping).

 

 

 

The way I organized hero-side was 1-20, 20+, special (PI, Echoes, Wards, RWZ, DA)

 

 

The spacing helped the tp units from getting confused --- I jammed those together.

 

[ajax34i]

Both the secret room teleporter and the in-base teleport beacons have directional arrows for arrival, if you enable the hidden markers in options.  They just don't seem to work.

[Garble]

Don't the teleporters still require power to work? Or did I25 change that?

 

Anyway, the way I group the beacons is to lump the Hazard Zones with the Echos to get an even split of 10 & 10 for Blueside. Then of course there's a portal with the 7 red zones, and everything else is Co-Op (Which I usually mark with yellow somehow).

 

[Raevyn_Darke]

IDK if it's an ADD per say, but could put in that if you're just too lazy to build them, then there are others you can coalition to for portal use. :p

 

Lol, good point - and added! ;)

 

 

 

For anyone trying to optimize their portal setup, I think every available zone beacon can be accessed using four portals. Two portals connected to hero zones (ten beacons each), one portal connected to villain zones (seven beacons if memory serves), and one catch-all portal connected to co-op zones, echo zones, Praetoria, and anything else (nine beacons if memory serves).

 

Same, and you reminded me that I wanted to include the wiki page listing all the zones, so thank you! I never seemed to have an issue with setting up a bunch of portals first, but the builder is notoriously glitchy. I'm pretty sure it's possessed by the spirits of all the heroes/villains who died while languishing in the base, waiting for their rooms to be finished. ;)

 

 

 

For semi-secret in-base teleports, the globes are about the right size to fit the "interdimensional shard" into (and I hide the beacon under the floor -- enable room clipping).

 

Love the globe idea - added!

 

 

 

Both the secret room teleporter and the in-base teleport beacons have directional arrows for arrival, if you enable the hidden markers in options.  They just don't seem to work.

 

I've noticed that. I think I heard that those things could all be rotated at one point, but because they were related to some crashes/glitches, the rotate functionality was disabled. (I don't remember who said that, so it may be totally made up in my head...but it makes sense.)

 

 

 

Don't the teleporters still require power to work? Or did I25 change that?

 

As far as I know, the only items that still require power/control are medical devices like medi-porters. Everything else is powered with the energy of our glee at not having to fill up bases with giant database objects. ;)

 

 

 

And thank you all for the lovely compliments! :D

[Raevyn_Darke]

Eep...I just love that feeling when you spend hours getting base items juuuusst so...and then reload the base and they've wiggled out of place. Glad the forum format/server shift let me experience that feeling outside of the game, by warping a bunch of the formatting in this guide, LOL. 😉  (All fixed now. 😊 )

[WumpusRat]

Speaking of teleporters, has anyone else run into a situation where some of them simply don't work? The only one that seem to work consistently for me when I'm building in non-standard areas (as in, I'm making 'terrain' and having a portal stuck to a rock wall or something rather than up against a fixed base wall) is the carnival portal. All the others either don't work, or only work sporadically.

[MyriVerse]

They all work consistently. There must be something you're not doing right.

[Diroc]

On 7/29/2019 at 6:00 PM, WumpusRat said:

Speaking of teleporters, has anyone else run into a situation where some of them simply don't work? The only one that seem to work consistently for me when I'm building in non-standard areas (as in, I'm making 'terrain' and having a portal stuck to a rock wall or something rather than up against a fixed base wall) is the carnival portal. All the others either don't work, or only work sporadically.

I spent hours trying to debug a couple teleporters that didn't work.  I was using Black Holes (Tech)  inside the door cavities of Arachnos flyers.

Two worked.  Two didn't. (Unless I jumped and clicked)  They were linked.

The portals were floating at the appropriate height and pretty much identical.

After MUCH mucking about,  I ended up turning on hidden markers.

The two that worked had the word "Part" at the bottom and an arrow pointing up on the red visible texture.

The two that did NOT work had Part on the top and the arrow pointing down.  (Though they looked identical with markers off)

I flipped the portals and BOOM.. they worked.    Guess I needed to be able to touch the lettering section or something.

As a side note, Lining up the portals with a red square (Hidden marker) plate is much easier than lining up a semi-transparent dark animation on a dark object.  Getting the depth consistent also was much easier as well.  Centering the Flyer "Entrance Donut" where it passed through the inset portal plane in the bright red square was a snap.  It also works very well for consistency between the flyers.

If you are having issues with portals not working try turning on hidden markers..   It made my life SO much easier.

 

In case it's not already evident,

Short (TLDR version) answer to your question...  YES! 😉 

 

[Lunchmoney]

Typing the following into the chat bar will get you an insta-TP2Base power with no cool down or interrupt.

 

/macro_image "Teleportation_Teleport" "TBCB" "enterbasefrompasscode ****-999"

 

Replace ***-999 with your base code. 

Handy way to get into your base and use your teleporters 🙂

 

See here 

to get your base code

Edited September 26, 2019 by Lunchmoney

[Dacy]

This is very cool, I adore it, and they are taking it away. Change is on test. 

 

-Dacy

[Lunchmoney]

Bum. 

I don't read the beta sub forums, having no interest (barely get the time to play, let alone playing in a test area). 

[Rooster Gold]

On 7/17/2019 at 10:30 AM, ajax34i said:

Both the secret room teleporter and the in-base teleport beacons have directional arrows for arrival, if you enable the hidden markers in options.  They just don't seem to work.

I can't seem to find "enable hidden markers" anywhere in the options menu, after looking for it for 20+min I gave up.

[Flashtoo]

18 hours ago, Rooster Gold said:

I can't seem to find "enable hidden markers" anywhere in the options menu, after looking for it for 20+min I gave up.

 

Not the main options menu, the base editing options menu:

 

[Rooster Gold]

1 hour ago, Flashtoo said:

 

Not the main options menu, the base editing options menu:

 

Thanks! .....Also that is awesome, it adds all sorts of helpful visuals. 😎

[RogerWilco]

Very nice post.

[StoneKarma]

Minor edit: Section #3 says that the porter can have ten items assigned to it, I believe the correct number is nine?

 

"The beacons, up to ten per teleporter, can be placed anywhere...above the porter, behind it, buried in the floor, wherever...as long as they are within range."

 

This is a wonderful guide, and I love the writing style. Thank you!

[StoneKarma]

Is there any functional difference between the teleporters, or are the only differences cosmetic?

 

Might be worth noting that the base editor will let you link more than nine porters, but only the first nine will work. I wasted so much time on this before I found your guide.

[Heraclea]

On 7/15/2019 at 2:05 PM, Raevyn_Darke said:

Leaving via the secret entrance will return you to the zone you were in before you entered the base.  Déjà vu, or a glitch in the Matrix? You decide. If you entered using a base portal, you'll reappear beside it; if you entered any other way, you'll reappear at the zone's designated teleport spot. (Thanks to justicebeliever for the clarification. 🙂 )

 

Note also that leaving thrugh the entrance into a zone that lacks a teleport destination, you will reappear where you were last (if an open zone) or outside the mission door (if you entered the base from a mission.)  In other words, ALWAYS rez in base if you die in Cimerora or the Shadow Shard.