Nether portals

The vanilla 1:8 compression mechanic. The cheapest way to cover map-spanning distance.

Standard vanilla mechanic — but worth its own page because building a proper Nether hub is the most efficient long-distance travel on Sunday Market. With no teleport commands, the 1:8 ratio is the workhorse of map-spanning trips.

Your portal frames don't have to be plain rectangles here — you can frame them in any shape you like. See Freeform portals for how, and note the Nether has been rebuilt into a tougher place than vanilla.

The 1:8 ratio

Moving 1 block in the Nether covers 8 blocks in the Overworld. Build 100 blocks of tunnel in the Nether → travel 800 blocks in the Overworld. This is the cheapest long-distance travel on the server because the cost is mostly time spent building, not consumables.

OverworldX:1280Y:64Z:-2048

NetherX:160Y:64Z:-256

8 blocks Overworld = 1 block Nether (Y stays the same).

So a base at Overworld (1280, 64, -2048) lands in the Nether at (160, 64, -256). Build any portal in the Nether at those coords and they pair up.

Building a Nether hub

A hub is a central Nether room with multiple portals branching to different Overworld destinations. The build process:

Step 1 — The home portal

Build a Nether portal at your overworld base
Step through, note the coordinates of where you land in the Nether
This is your home Nether portal — every other portal links from here

Step 2 — A destination tunnel

From the Nether home portal, build a 3-wide tunnel toward the direction of your destination
Each block tunneled = 8 blocks of overworld distance
So a 100-block Nether tunnel = 800 blocks toward your overworld destination
Stop at the calculated point

Step 3 — The return portal

At the end of the tunnel, build a return portal
Step through — you land in the overworld at (or near) your destination

Step 4 — Verify the link

If the new overworld portal is too close to an existing portal, the game's portal-linking algorithm may route you to the wrong portal on return. Test by going back through and confirming you land at the right Nether portal.

If misrouted, place the second overworld portal a bit farther from any existing portal.

Step 5 — Sign the entrance

A polished hub has labeled signs at each portal: "→ Home base," "→ Quarry outpost," "→ Tavern community," etc. Future-you and your friends will appreciate.

Building tips for the Nether

The Nether doesn't forgive sloppy tunnels. Some practical considerations:

Build hub tunnels with full block walls — open tunnels become death traps when ghasts and aggressive piglins find them. A 3×3 enclosed tunnel is far safer.
Light the tunnel — torches every 8 blocks prevent piglin and zombie piglin spawns inside.
Roof the tunnel — exposed top means ghasts can throw fireballs through the gap. Even a 1-block roof helps.
Build away from fortresses and bastions — tunneling through one without a plan often means waking up the residents.
Bring building blocks — lots of cobble or netherrack. You'll need them for walls, roofs, and emergency repairs.

The pearl-portal trick

Vanilla mechanic that works on Sunday Market: throw an ender pearl through a portal. The pearl travels through the portal and teleports you on the far side, often saving you the portal-emerge animation.

Useful for:

Combat retreats — pearl through a portal to escape a fight at the destination side
Loaded-chunk trick — pearl through to ensure the chunk on the far side loads before you arrive

Why Nether hubs are slow to build but pay forever

Setup cost: maybe 30 minutes for a hub with 4–5 portals. Once built, every trip across the network is a 30-second walk through a tunnel — vs. a 5–10 minute overworld journey.

For a base you'll use for 100+ hours, the build cost amortizes in the first day.

Nether portals vs Astral runes

	Nether portal	Astral rune pad
Cost to set up	obsidian + flint+steel per portal pair, plus tunnel work	1 emerald rune + 8 obsidian per pad
Range	unlimited (1:8 compression)	unlimited (same-dimension)
Cross-dimension	yes (overworld ↔ Nether)	no
Maintenance	the portal blocks themselves	none
Best for	true map-spanning	repeated short-medium hops

Many players build both: Nether hub for cross-map travel, Astral rune pads for "same-area-but-still-too-far-to-walk" hops within a region.

What if I just want to get out of the Nether?

If you're lost in the Nether and don't have a way back:

Building a quick portal: 14 obsidian + flint and steel = a portal back to overworld
/suicide if you carry nothing — respawns at your bed or spawn (you lose your current inventory to a recovery chest)

You're never permanently lost in the Nether. The penalty is the time and pearl/material cost to get out.