AeroPortals in FTB Skies 2: Aero

AeroPortals lets a ship fly through a portal. Not you, the ship. Sail the hull into a Nether Portal and the whole contraption arrives on the other side, crew, cargo and balloon included, still moving at the speed it went in. This pack ships AeroPortals 1.3.2.^[1][2]

It isn't limited to the Nether. The quest book also lists the End, Ars Nouveau portals, Draconic, the Ender Gateway, TelePastries and even the Pina Colada. Whatever you use, build the portal big enough for the ship to pass through.^[2]

Where it sits in the quest book

The quest "Aero Portals" quest (subtitle: "The whole ship goes") is in the "Aeronautics" chapter, which is chapter 5 of 31 in the book and belongs to the "Main Questline" group. It comes straight after "Going Places" quest, the quest path about docking, ropes, navigation, automated routes, claiming your ship and taking it into other dimensions.^[2]

Among the quests whose details are shown for this chapter, none lists the Aero Portals quest as its prerequisite. The text of 39 of the chapter's 58 quests is not included here, so check the quest book for anything that follows it.^[2]

Limits to know before you jump

• The destination needs room. A ship that would arrive inside solid rock has its jump cancelled rather than the rock removed, so scout the far side first.^[2]
• If no portal is waiting on the other side, one of matching size gets built for you.^[2]
• A ship can't jump again for ten seconds after arriving.^[2]
• Keep the hull under 200,000 blocks of bounding box, or the portal won't notice it at all.^[2]

AeroPortals is about sending your ship through a portal, not yourself. Sail the hull into a Nether Portal and the whole contraption arrives on the other side, crew and cargo included, still moving at the speed it went in. So the first thing to make in this pack is a ship that actually flies. The portal comes last.^[2]

In the quest book, AeroPortals is told in the Aeronautics chapter (Main Questline, chapter 5 of 31). The "Aero Portals" quest quest comes after "Going Places" quest, which itself follows "Taking to the Skies" quest. Follow that route and you build everything in a sensible order.^[2]

What to build first, and why

1. Start with "Taking to the Skies" quest. It explains that a ship has mass, weight pulls it down, lift holds it up and thrust moves it. It also mentions that you already have a Physics Assembler and a Hot Air Burner on your starter ship.^[2]
2. Make Honey Glue from "Honey Glue" quest. It only attaches to Simulated Contraptions, so a bearing or piston contraption passing by won't drag half your deck away.^[2]
3. Keep the hull light. Copycat Board weighs 0.125 kpg, so you can skin it with a heavy-looking block and let your lift carry only a fraction of the weight. See "Light Hull Blocks" quest.^[2]
4. Get lift. Every cubic metre of hot air inside a sealed balloon shell made of White Envelope lifts 1.5 kpg. Point a burner into it and keep the shell airtight. See "Hot Air Envelope" quest.^[2]
5. Add thrust with Andesite Propeller. Spin it one way and it pushes, spin it the other way and it pulls. See "Propellers" quest.^[2]
6. Keep it level with Skybound Anchor. The quest calls it this pack's shortcut: it counters pitch and roll with no rotation, stress or fuel, and leaves yaw alone. See "Skybound Anchor" quest.^[2]
7. Work through "Going Places" quest, then reach "Aero Portals" quest.^[2]

Unverified The sources I have list no AeroPortals items and no crafting recipes for the mod, so there is nothing confirmed to craft for it. It works on portals you build.

Before your first jump

Build the portal big enough for the ship to pass through. If no portal is waiting on the other side, a portal of matching size gets built for you. This matches teleport.generate_matching_portal, which is on in this pack.^[2][3]

Two limits to remember. A ship can't jump again for ten seconds after arriving, which is 200 ticks in teleport.portal_cooldown_ticks. And the hull must stay under 200,000 blocks of bounding box, set by detection.max_sublevel_aabb_volume, or the portal won't notice it at all.^[2][3]

Also, teleport.onboard_portal_jumps is false in this pack, so a Nether Portal lit aboard your ship won't work as a jump drive.^[3]

AeroPortals has no machines or multiblocks that I can confirm. It works in the background: it watches for airships touching a portal and carries them to the other dimension. Everything below comes from the pack's server config, so these are the values you actually get in this pack.^[3]

Detection

The mod scans loaded SubLevels (your airships) for portal contact every few server ticks. detection.scan_interval_ticks is 5 in the pack, which matches the mod default. Any SubLevel whose world-space bounding box is bigger than detection.max_sublevel_aabb_volume is skipped entirely. That is set to 200,000 cubic blocks, again the mod default, so a truly huge ship will never teleport.^[3]

detection.verbose_logging is set to true in the pack. It writes detailed teleport diagnostics to the debug log, which is handy when you are reporting a problem.^[3]

How a teleport works

• Cooldown: after a teleport, the same SubLevel will not be teleported again for teleport.portal_cooldown_ticks ticks (200 here). This stops your ship bouncing back and forth.^[3]
• Finding the destination: the mod searches a horizontal radius of teleport.dest_portal_search_radius blocks (128) around the scaled destination point for an existing nether portal to link to.^[3]
• Making a portal: with teleport.generate_matching_portal on (it is on in the pack), a portal frame matching the source dimensions is generated if no portal is found or the existing one is too small.^[3]
• Player portals: teleport.match_player_portal_size is on, so when you travel on foot and a new destination portal is created, it is enlarged to match the portal you entered.^[3]
• Momentum: teleport.clear_velocity_on_arrival is false, so ships keep their velocity on arrival, subject to Sable's velocity retention setting.^[3]

Onboard portal jump drives

teleport.onboard_portal_jumps is false in the pack, so this feature is off. When enabled, a lit nether portal built aboard an airship acts as a jump drive: shortly after it is lit, the whole ship jumps to the other dimension, portal and all. The onboard portal must be extinguished and re-lit before it can jump again.^[3]

If you do enable it, teleport.onboard_jump_delay_ticks sets the wait between lighting the portal and the jump. It is 100 ticks, which gives riders time to abort by breaking the portal.^[3]

Safety net for falling ships

safety.catch_falling_ships is on in the pack. It catches airships that fall out of the bottom of a dimension and sets them down safely. safety.catch_ships_below_floor controls how far below the bottom a ship must fall before it is caught, and it is 64 blocks here, the mod default.^[3]

Choosing which travel methods carry ships

travel_methods.disabled is an empty list in the pack, so no travel method is ignored. Anything you list is left alone: the portal, drink or cake still works for players on foot, but it no longer carries airships.^[3]

The built-in ids are nether, end, aether, ars_nouveau, draconic, deeper_darker, create_teleporters, ender_gateway, pina_colada, telepastries, ae2_spatial, dimension_stack and kubejs. Ids added by other mods or KubeJS scripts can be listed too. Run /aeroportals methods in game to see every id and whether it is on.^[3]

Unverified No machines, multiblocks, items or crafting recipes for AeroPortals are described in the available sources, so none are covered here.

The quest book describes AeroPortals as a single quest with a checkmark task, and it doesn't break the mod into tiers. Progression is the ship-building path of the Aeronautics chapter. That chapter is in the Main Questline group, is chapter 5 of 31 in the book, and has 58 quests.^[2]

Where it sits in the quest book

"Aero Portals" quest comes after "Going Places" quest, which in turn comes after "Taking to the Skies" quest. Going Places is the quest path about docking, ropes, navigation, automated routes, claiming your ship, and taking it into other dimensions. Aero Portals is the dimension part of that.^[2]

Aero Portals sits beside four other quests that also follow Going Places:^[2]

• "Docking Connector" quest, followed by "Contraption Claim Block" quest.^[2]
• "Ground Travel" quest, followed by "Hang Glider" quest.^[2]
• "Ropes" quest, followed by "Rope Launchers" quest.^[2]
• "Navigation Tables" quest, followed by "Airship Station" quest.^[2]

Getting a ship ready first

Taking to the Skies tells you that the chapter is about building a ship that flies and staying in it. Its quest paths cover the hull, the lift, the engines, keeping it level, steering it, getting it somewhere useful, and arming it. You start with the Physics Assembler and the Hot Air Burner on your starter ship. Get a hull that flies before you think about portals.^[2]

What the quest says about a jump

• The whole ship goes through, not you. Crew, cargo and balloon arrive on the other side, still moving at the speed they went in.^[2]
• It works on more than the Nether. The quest names the End, Ars Nouveau portals, Draconic, the Ender Gateway, TelePastries and the Pina Colada.^[2]
• Build the portal big enough for the ship to pass through it.^[2]
• If the ship would arrive inside solid rock, the jump is cancelled and the rock is not removed.^[2]
• If no portal is waiting at the destination, a portal of matching size is built for you.^[2]
• A ship can't jump again for ten seconds after arriving.^[2]
• Keep the hull under 200,000 blocks of bounding box, or the portal won't notice it at all.^[2]

Only one quest in the pack's quest book is about this mod: "Aero Portals" quest, subtitled "The whole ship goes". It sits in the Aeronautics chapter, which is chapter 5 of 31 in the book, in the Main Questline group. That chapter has 58 quests.^[2]

What the quest asks for

There is no item to hand in. The quest has a single checkmark task, so it works as a lesson more than a challenge. It explains that a ship can fly through a portal, not you, and that the whole contraption arrives on the other side with crew, cargo and balloon, still moving at the speed it went in.^[2]

The quest text lists the portals that work: the Nether Portal, the End, Ars Nouveau portals, Draconic, the Ender Gateway, TelePastries and even the Pina Colada. Here is what else it tells you:^[2]

• Build the portal big enough for the ship to pass through it.^[2]
• If no portal is waiting on the other side, one of matching size gets built for you.^[2]
• A ship can't jump again for ten seconds after arriving.^[2]
• Keep the hull under 200,000 blocks of bounding box, or the portal won't notice it at all.^[2]

Where it comes in the chapter

The chapter opens with "Taking to the Skies" quest. "Going Places" quest comes after that, and it covers docking, ropes, navigation, automated routes, claiming your ship and taking it into other dimensions. Aero Portals is one of the quests that follow Going Places.^[2]

The other quests that come straight after Going Places are "Docking Connector" quest, "Ground Travel" quest, "Ropes" quest and "Navigation Tables" quest. So you can do the portal quest alongside the docking, ground travel, rope and navigation quests.^[2]

Everything for AeroPortals lives in one file, config/aeroportals-server.toml. Every option below is listed with the value this pack ships. For the options where the file states a mod default (the numeric ones), the pack matches it, so the pack hasn't changed any of those. For the true/false options the file doesn't state a mod default, so I can't tell you whether the pack changed them.^[3]

Safety: don't lose your ship

• safety.catch_falling_ships is true. If an airship falls out of the bottom of a dimension, it gets caught and set down safely.^[3]
• safety.catch_ships_below_floor is 64. That is how many blocks below the bottom of the dimension a ship has to fall before it is caught. The pack matches the mod default, and the allowed range is 0 to 512.^[3]

Teleport behaviour

• teleport.portal_cooldown_ticks is 200 ticks. After a teleport, the same ship won't be teleported again for that long, which stops it bouncing back and forth. This is the mod default.^[3]
• teleport.onboard_portal_jumps is false. If you turn it on, a lit nether portal built aboard an airship works as a jump drive and the whole ship jumps to the other dimension, portal and all. With it off, that doesn't happen in this pack.^[3]
• teleport.onboard_jump_delay_ticks is 100 ticks. It only matters if onboard jumps are on: it is the wait between lighting the onboard portal and the jump, so riders have time to abort by breaking the portal. This is the mod default.^[3]
• teleport.dest_portal_search_radius is 128 blocks. It is the horizontal radius around the scaled destination point where the mod looks for an existing nether portal to link to. This is the mod default.^[3]
• teleport.generate_matching_portal is true. When no existing portal is found, or the existing one is too small, a portal frame matching the source dimensions is generated at the destination.^[3]
• teleport.match_player_portal_size is true. When you travel on foot and a new destination portal is created, it is enlarged to match the portal you entered.^[3]
• teleport.clear_velocity_on_arrival is false, so airships keep their velocity when they arrive, subject to Sable's velocity retention setting.^[3]
• teleport.clear_destination_blocks is false. If a ship's arrival spot is blocked, the teleport is cancelled rather than anything being destroyed.^[3]

Detection

• detection.scan_interval_ticks is 5. It sets how often, in server ticks, loaded SubLevels are scanned for portal contact. The allowed range is 1 to 200, and 5 is the mod default.^[3]
• detection.max_sublevel_aabb_volume is 200,000 cubic blocks. Any SubLevel whose world-space bounding box is bigger than that is skipped when scanning, so a truly huge ship won't be detected at a portal. This is the mod default.^[3]
• detection.verbose_logging is true. It writes detailed teleport diagnostics to the debug log, and the file says to turn it on when reporting issues.^[3]

Travel methods

travel_methods.disabled is an empty list, so no travel method is ignored. Anything you list is left alone: the portal, drink or cake still works for players on foot, it just no longer carries airships. The built-in ids are nether, end, aether, ars_nouveau, draconic, deeper_darker, create_teleporters, ender_gateway, pina_colada, telepastries, ae2_spatial, dimension_stack and kubejs.^[3]