How to find timed portals

[MainiacJoe]

Suppose you enter a level and it has a Sewer, Ice Cave, etc. but you don't have magic mapping. Is there anything you can do to increase your chances of finding the portal before it times out? Just blundering around I feel like I'm only finding about a third of them.

[bel]

You can watch the messages, it gives an idea of how far you are.

[ajon]

Its like very distant, distant, ... something else? and near I think as you close in on them.

[byrel]

Well, I usually will go back to the floor above and check where the other down staircases are. If any are close to this one, I'll go to them and go down, as it has a decent chance of saving me some time. Never auto explore, try to cover large areas. Always be looking for portal vault type enemies, and explore those areas first. Otherwise... Not really much advice. Wearing a ring of tele would probably increase your chances of finding it, but the increase in your chance of dying probably makes it less than worth.

The hotter/cooler messages never struck me as very useful.

[dowan]

I find that if you explore manually, and don't try to go into every single crevice to see every last square of map, you can usually explore almost the whole map if you don't have to spend too much time resting between fights. As byrel said, certain enemies/dungeon features are a giveaway of a portal vault, which you'll learn to recognize with experience.

The messages aren't usually terribly useful, but if you notice it's very distant from one place, and only distant from another, you at least can prioritize where to explore next. The messages come so infrequently that it's not really that easy to rely on them though.

[bel]

I almost always find the portal through the messages. The only portal which has a relatively short timer is Lab. If I am still too far when time is short (again through the messages), I read a mapping scroll if I have one, otherwise I don't waste it.

[emikaela]

I almost always find the portal through the messages. The only portal which has a relatively short timer is Lab. If I am still too far when time is short (again through the messages), I read a mapping scroll if I have one, otherwise I don't waste it.

is there a better use for mapping? i tend to use it on timed portals and z:5, sometimes other branch ends, and usually have more than enough for that.

[dowan]

I like magic mapping firstly for portal locating, then branch ends, then z5, then special pan/hell levels, if I'm doing extended. So I usually have a surplus anyway, if you know there's a portal on the level, I'd use mapping right away.

[byrel]

Yeah, if you have a scroll, blow it. What are you saving it for? It's the classic 'don't sacrifice power now for power later' crawl advice. Most timed portals have an expected value of 3-4 useful tactical consumables. If you're lucky, maybe a useful strategic item as well (armour, jewelry, ?benemut, ?enchantfoo, book.) That's way higher value than a ?magicmapping which is NOT on my list of useful consumables. (I've never had my life saved by a ?magicmapping. Can't say it will never happen, but...)

[mopl]

Worship Ash

[Berder]

In open spaces you explore almost twice as many squares if you move diagonally.

[Hurkyl]

is there a better use for mapping? i tend to use it on timed portals and z:5, sometimes other branch ends, and usually have more than enough for that.

If you have to randomly teleport on an unexplored level, or you get shafted, that's a good time to use mapping.

[all before]

Also turn off autopickup.

[Lasty]

The hotter/colder messages aren't too bad. To make them more useful, throw an exclusion on the map every time you get a message; if you want to get more fancy, make a 3 tile exclusion for "very distant", 2 tile for "distant", and 1 tile for "near". In either case, that should allow you to get a pretty good sense of which areas of the map are worth checking and which are not, and the timers are generally long enough that it isn't hard to reach them in time once you know approximately where you want to be looking.

[bel]

I almost always find the portal through the messages. The only portal which has a relatively short timer is Lab. If I am still too far when time is short (again through the messages), I read a mapping scroll if I have one, otherwise I don't waste it.

is there a better use for mapping? i tend to use it on timed portals and z:5, sometimes other branch ends, and usually have more than enough for that.

You missed my point. I am saying that finding the portal is often possible without using mapping. In the case where you don't find it in time (the messages will tell you roughly how much time is left), you can use mapping. Anyway, this is far aside from the OP.

[jejorda2]

"Distant" basically means it within LOS of your LOS. It's *right there* by the time you are close enough for it to say distant instead of very distant. "Distant" should be changed to "nearby," IMO.

I think the prompts were changed three of four months ago, but it's still misleadingly wrong.

[Reptisaurus]

I think the "Close" prompt is VERY helpful.

But I've died a lot trying to not retreat or not resting when I'm trying to find a portal vault. So don't listen to me.

[Aule]

The problem with the messages is that they are as the boring beetle travels, and sometimes the maps twist around so much that a "nearby" message is actually a very long travel distance away. This might be fixable my incorporating autotravel code into the message logic.

As to the question of mapping scrolls, I use them only for timed portals, saving the remainder for the hell branches, which I usually do last. Almost never have I gained enough to have a surplus beyond those, even after one or two zigs before doing the hells. Usually, I have only about half what I need for that end.

[Sar]

I don't think it's a problem and I definitely think your proposal would make these messages way more confusing.

[Sandman25]

After playing crawl 2+ years I learned 2 months ago that "distant" means "far", not "nearby". I got a lab and moved on the map trying to get "very distant". I got it easily and spent much time exploring and wondering why I can't find the lab. It timed out and finally I looked into dictionary...

Spoiler: show

Don't ask me how I was able to find portals during previous years