Originally posted by blprice61:

Originally posted by Megahurts:

I would skip the hut altogether. Just sneak through the portal when you need to...as long as you are 'undetected', nothing will bother it.

Of course, if say a drake and a stone gollem are squabbling nearby it could take some collateral damage so there are risks...but a couple stake walls aren't going to help much in that situation either.

Most of the time an undefended portal by itself is fine, but it is really easy to be distracted and either forget to sneak or not realize something detected you at the last moment. On top of that, the chest, workbench, and/or roof can come in handy in some situations

I suppose it's something of a matter of taste, but I'm in the 'better safe than sorry' camp.

Unless you're playing multiplayer and there is another player nearby, nothing happens on the other side of a portal once you jump through.

I don't use portals anymore, but I've probably left hundreds of undefended portals pretty much everywhere and never had an issue. I even hopped through a portal with half of a fuling village right behind me. Spent several minutes collecting myself, hopped back through and finished the job.

The only time I've had a portal go dark was when a fuling berserker was taking a swing at me as I jumped through. It must have hit the portal just as I went through because it went dark just after I got through.

FWIW, I just tested this to make sure it was still the case. All I could find near the other end of my test portal were a couple of greydwarf, but I went through the portal while they were attacking me, let it sit for a game day, went back through the next day and there was no damage to the portal or the crafting table next to it. The greydwarf just continued their attack.