Double Check Your Portals

I want to get a heads up to everybody out there, just in case you didn't already know. Resonator decay rates have increased !

Check those portals out especially your guardian. You will have to put a little extra effort and XM into recharging your portals.

My best guess is that this has 2 related intended goals:

1. Increase portal turn over.
2. Weaken portals quicker for the huge mass of new players to give them some opportunity to attack and claim portals in the well established game.

I could be wrong but it does make sense. You have thousands of new players instantly and you want them to become addicted. If you loose all of your XM on one attack attempt on a higher level portal and all the portals in your area are level 5+ that can become very discouraging. The new players could quickly loose interest and leave.

But no matter why or for how long this will be it is a neat new twist.

Happy Hacking ... And Recharging

Ingress Courtesy

I've learned a lot about courtesy to your fellow Ingress agents since hooking up with a local players group. Unfortunately, looking back before I joined the group and was operating solo, I had some bad habits which probably irritated some others in my faction.

1. Recharging - If you are hacking a friendly portal at least have the courtesy to at least put one recharge on it, especially if it looks like you are in a area that this person frequents. You can tell this if you see there name on multiple portals and having multiple resonators on it. So look at the portals as you hack them and see which players are associated with it. 
2. Linking - When I was a lone wolf I thought it was cool to try to create these really long impressive links. I even posted here some of those. But remember, links can not intersect, so by creating this giant link or field that looks good on the Intel Map, you may be screwing other players. Remember you get the same amount of AP for a link regardless of the distance, and you get the same amount of AP for a field no matter how large. 
3. Upgrading Resonators- At face value it may look like you're doing a good thing by upgrading a portal with either higher level resonators. But that may not always be the case. Higher level agents often create pet portals of a lower level, particularly L4 & L6, to be able to hack L4 & L6 resonators. Altering that can screw with others' plans.
4. Upgrading Portal Mods - Just like upgrading resonators, putting portal mods on a random portal my interrupt others' plans. Sometimes there is strategic reason for putting one mod versus another on a portal. This is even more important now that the rules about portal mods have been changed. Where before 1 player could place 4 mods on one portal and replace unwanted mods, now an individual player can only place 2 mods and mods can not be removed. 
5. Communicate - If in doubt get on the COMM and discuss with others. If you are not part of a local group find one. Most places will have some level of a local group. The may have private communication channels beyond the COMM and you can be in the loop on what is going on in your area. But there is nothing wrong with getting on the COMM, in the Faction channel and contacting someone who "owns" a portal and saying, "I pass by ___ portal regularly and wanted to know if you minded me upgrading it." 

So just show a little courtesy to your fellow players and keep the game enjoyable for everyone.

Defending Your Portals

So you've taken the time and energy to take a portal and now you want to keep it, but that is often easier said than done. The enemy faction is constantly blowing it up. And now you have to rebuild it.

First understand that it is not possible to make an impenetrable portal. No matter what you do a Level 8 player with enough L8 XMP Bursters can (currently) take down any portal no mater how well defended it is. But some times it is a war of attrition you know they can take it, but make them work their butts off for it.

Keep it Charged
The easiest thing you can do is keep your portal fully charged. This basic step helps no matter what other tactics you use. A weaker portal is an easier one to take down.

Portal Mods

Portal Shields - Your portal shields are your basic building block of portal defense. Their defense rates range from 10 mitigation for common shields (the green ones) to 30 for the very rare ones (the pink ones).

Force Amplifier - These are nice mods to use in conjunction with other portal modifications, but you will not want to stack your portal with Force Amps because after deploying the first one you get less protection from each additional one. The first one deployed does double the damage to an attacker.

Turret - This great portal mod gives your portal more attacks.Like the Force Amp you do not want to stack these up on a portal because of diminishing returns. You will want to combine it with other portal mods. Placing a turret on your portal will have your portal attack an attacker twice but will also give a hit bonus of 30%.

Links
A not so commonly known fact is that links, either incoming or outgoing, provide a defensive bonus to portals. One link gives about a 10% defensive bonus to a portal. Each additional link gives less of an increase until you have 8 links. A portal with 8 links gets a 50% bonus, but after 8 links there seems to be no advantage.

Other Portals
Another interesting trick you can use to protect a portal is use other portals around it to defend it. The picture below is a local level 8 farm. The portal circled in red has no defensive portal mods, but rather heat sinks and multi-hacks. The portals around it have shields force amps and turrets. This is great for farming. We have 14 L8 portals and one is a very fruitful portal. You can walk the path of this artsy park and each sculpture has a portal. Then the monument in the center has the multihack and heat sink. As you walk the path, you can hit each portal and every 2nd or 3rd sculpture hit the monument. Walk the path a few times and you have hopefully loaded up on some goodies. The outer perimeter portals protect the inner one. An attacker would sustain significant XM losses and have to use many additional XMP Bursters to take down the farm. It's not impossible, and happens somewhat regularly, but it takes a lot of resources on their part to do.

Portal Keys

Yes, Portal keys can be a very effective defensive tool. When you get the alert on your scanner that you have a portal under attack, start recharging the heck out of it. Eventually your portal may fall, but once again you have cost the attacker to deplete their inventory much more than they otherwise would have. 

With these tips hopefully you can defend your portal well and atleast annoy the heck out of any would be attackers.

Happy Hacking

Most Valuable Commodity - L4 Resonators

If you are like me and you have been leveling up, you might be excited when you start to see that you're getting Higher level gear and you may even start to grow some discontent when you hack a portal and get lower level items.

But not so fast there ..

Your lower level resonators are very valuable, especially your L4 resonators. Think about it:

• If you are a Level 8 to fully power a portal by yourself you need:
• 1 L8, 1 L7, 2 L6, 2 L5 & 2 L4 Resonators to make a Level 6 Portal
• If you are a Level 7 to fully power a portal by yourself you would need:
• 1 L7, 2 L6, 2 L5 & 3 L4 Resonators to make a Level 5 Portal
• If you are a Level 6 to fully power a portal by yourself you would need:
• 2 L6, 2L5 & 4 L4 Resonators to fully power a Level 5 Portal

You get the picture. 

But there may be strategic reasons for building lower level portals; i.e. being able to readily hack the L4 and lower level items you need.

I can't tell you how many times I haven't been able to complete fully charging a portal because I haven't had L1- L4 Resonators. It is irritating. So do yourself a favor and be sure to hack/build lower level portals regularly so you can build your stock of L4 and below resonators.

Now, the same does not hold true for the XMP Bursters. As you move up your strategic need for lower level XMP Bursters goes down. I generally keep XMP Bursters of my level and 2 below and strategically use my lower level ones as not to waste the higher level ones. 

But don't don't just drop them or recycle them. Help an up and coming player of your faction and arrange a drop.

Happy Hacking!

Mid-level Player Player Strategy

So you're a level 4, 5 or 6 agent and want to continue to advance, but it's your finding it hard to. Don't give up.

First, hack, hack, hack! Build that inventory - especially XMP Bursters. At this level your bursters aren't powerful enough to do massive damage to portals your level or higher, so you need to rely on quantity. You will also need a source of XM. So if you are not hacking in a portal rich environment, you will want to make sure you have some power cubes. Hack, for a few days then plan your attack. When you think you have enough items, keep on hacking.

Second, do your research! Get on the +Ingress  Intel Map and take a look at what you have available and what makes a promising target.

Here's what I look for.

1. A portal which is my level or lower. I might do one level higher if the portal is weak
2. Links - The more the better. Links do not have any bearing on the portal's defensive strength, just points for you. You get 187 AP for each link you destroy.
3. Control Fields - Like links the more the better and they don't have anything to do with the portal's defensive strength. You get 750 AP for each control field you destroy.

Here is an example of a portal I'd want to attack as a level 6.

• Level 5 Portal
• 5 Links
• 4 Control Fields

Attacking and flipping this portal would give you 6285 AP

• Destroying 8 resonators at 75 AP each       = 600 AP
• Destroying 5 links at 187 AP Each             = 935 AP
• Destroying 4 control fields at 750 AP each = 3000 AP
• Deploying 8 resonators at 125 AP each      = 1000 AP
• Capturing a portal                                      = 500 AP
• Fully charging a portal                                = 250 AP

This gives you the most bang for your buck.

Here's an example of a portal which is weaker and I might consider for a L3 or even a L@ with a lot of resonators and the ability get more XP through other nearby portals or through power cubes.

Here's a screen shot of a portal I attacked that had 13 links and 8 control fields attached to it. I got 10781 AP for:

Work smarter not harder my friends! This will make your leveling up happen a lot quicker, but does require some planning on your part.

Happy Hacking!

New Finding - Crop Circles

I saw this on +Ingress  on Google plus a while back and have been meaning to comment on it.

Apparently the game has created what they are referring to as "Crop Circles." Designs which show up on your scanner made up of inventory items.

The one pictured to the right reportedly contained approximately 600 level 1 & level 2 resonators.

I think it would be really cool to find one of these.

So keep your eyes open in case one of these pops up nearby.

Happy Hacking!

Scoring Strategies/ Leveling up

I've developed some scoring strategies I think you will find useful. Using these strategies I went from a high level 2 to a level 4 in one afternoon.

Stock up
Do not pass up an opportunity to hack a portal; friendly or enemy. This is the quickest and easiest way to build your inventory of resonators, shields, XMP Bursters, Media, Portal Keys and everything you will need.

True you do not get any Action Points (AP) for hacking neutral or friendly portals, but they do yield items more often than not. I actually leave for work 10 minutes early now so I can hit a few portals to hack.

Remember higher level portals yield have potential to yield higher level items.

Do Your Homework

Spend some time looking at the area yo will be working on the Ingress Intel Map. http://www.ingress.com/intel
Be sure to zoom in all the way so that in the bottom right corner it reads "Showing All Portals." This way you can find unclaimed portals. You may be surprised how many there are out there. Waiting for you to claim. This takes patience. Zoomed in this far you don't get too see that many, if any at all, on one map. So you will have to scroll around a bit.

Also think about the places where Ingress Portals are found. Historical Markers are one of my favorite places to go. Besides being a true nerd and like reading these things, many of these are portals. And if they are not go ahead and submit it as a portal.

I live in a pretty rural area, but it is old (in U.S. historical sense) and rich in history there are many historical and Civil War Trail Markers. If you think about your area and where you see these markers you have a pretty good chance of finding a portal. Also, remember post offices (both current & former), libraries and even some municipal buildings are frequently portals. My county seems to have an inordinate number of post offices to our population so those are a good source. Knowing your area can give you a distinct advantage.

 

Love your L1 Resonators

I've seen online many people who get frustrated at the number of L1 Resonators they acquire. They call them useless, some people even write that they drop them when they get them. IMO they are really missing out. Here's what I do. When I do my homework and find the places I want to go there are some which I would have no chance, or even desire to maintain without a portal. This is where I love the L1 Resonators. I can pretty quickly score 1750 Action Points and use no more than 8 L1 Resonators, but quite frequently net using only 6. 

I find the portal and hack it. I will most likely get a L1 Resonator. I deploy my 8 resonators and mainly because my phone is slower, I then hack again after I've deployed the resonators. Boom 1750 easy points. 

Strategically Manage Your Portals

 I have 4 categories of portals I own.

1. Higher level portals I link and actively manage
2. Higher level portals I strategically manage
3. Lower level portals I strategically manage
4. Portals I don't manage. 

The first level portal I make sure the resonators are fully charged every day. These are the higher level portals  that I often link to. Keeping them fully charged and managed well yields me better items when I hack. 

The next group I "strategically manage." This takes two forms. One is higher level portals are ones that I don't link but do actively manage. What I will do is recharge the resonators individually that is all but one of the lowest level resonators. I will let that one decay all the way down. Then every 10 days after it has fully decayed, I place a new resonator. An easy 375 points.

With the lower level portals these are ones I will make only a L1 Portal. They are in areas I can manage easily enough, but choose not to because they don't seem to get any activity from other players. I do not recharge these resonators and let them all fully decay, in between their decay I go to hack them and probably get enough L1 resonators to rebuild them. So I make sure to visit them regularly enough to track. Another easy 1750 AP. 

The portals I don't manage are ones I find in my travels and may fully charge initially or not. I won't put anything higher than a L1 on and I won't place a shield. These are portals that are typically not in an area I frequent. I never recharge these and have no intention of reclaiming. 

Know Thy Enemy

Sun Tzu's war fighting knowledge applies to Ingress too. Keep tabs on your enemy's portals. It may be strategically (AP wise) better to continue to hack their portals and let them continue to decay. Then, when they are nearly completely decayed that's when you attack their resonators. You have gained 100 AP each time you go to hack, then you can use some of your L1 XMP Bursters, which have limited value to destroy their weakened resonators. You earn 75 AP for each resonator destroyed, then you can claim the portal for 1750 AP not bad at all. 

Sooner or later you will learn which portals near you your enemy likes to actively defend or not. You may also become familiar with your opponents by name. This will help you know the opponents in your area and what they typically do.

Happy Hacking!

Defending Your Ingress Portal

You put a lot of effort into capturing your portals you don't want them falling into enemy hands. So you need to protect them.

Here's what you can do to protect your portals.

• Deploy Portal Shields - There are 3 varieties of Portal Shields
• Common - These have bright pastel green markings and are easy to find but they offer the least protection
• Rare - These have pastel purple markings and are relatively easy to find but they offer moderate protection
• Very Rare - These have bright pastel pinkish-purple markings and are more difficult to find but they offer the greatest protection
• Each portal can hold up to 4 portal shields
• Keep your Resonators charged!
• The greater your charge your Resonators have the more resilient to an attack they will be.
• Also, charge the Resonators for your faction's portals when you hack them. 
• Remember, if you have the Portal Key for a particular portal you can charge it remotely.
• Defend your portal when attacked
• When your portal goes under attack and you loose a Resonator you will receive an email. If you are able, this is a great time to remotely recharge your Resonators. 

Deploying Resonators

Deploying resonators in Ingress is crucial. Think of  a resonator as an amplifier. The portal itself is like raw energy, it needs an amplifier to enhance it. Resonators come in eight (8) levels L1-L8. The higher level the resonator the more energy it harnesses. The value of the resonators gives the portal it's level; however, this is not  a simple average. Higher level portals have the ability to link greater distances.

When you deploy a resonator to a neutral portal you are capturing that portal for your faction. It takes 8 resonators to complete a portal.

An individual player does have limits as to how many resonators they can deploy at a single portal. This does upgrades, believe me I tried.

Here's  chart showing what an single player can do:

Player Level	Resonator Level
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	8	--	--	--	--	--	--	--
2	4	4	--	--	--	--	--	--
3	--	4	4	--	--	--	--	--
4	--	--	4	4	--	--	--	--
5	--	--	2	4	2	--	--	--
6	--	--	--	4	2	2	--	--
7	--	--	--	3	2	2	1	--
8	--	--	--	2	2	2	1	1

I think this emphasizes the need for teamwork in both deploying and upgrading portals.

You do need to use some strategy in deploying your resonators.

First if you are going to be deploying resonators of different levels, do not place then directly next to each other. Try and place your highest level resonators opposite, or as far as possible, from each other. This applies to upgrading resonators too.

Next, place your resonators as far from the portal as you can.

The reason for these strategies is to help protect them from attacks. Even if an individual is standing immediately at one of your stronger resonators the residual damage to your other stronger resonators is lessened. The would be assailant may run out of XMP Bursters before destroying all of your resonators.

Attacking Portals in Ingress

Here's something I wish I knew earlier about attacking enemy portals and firing XMP Bursters in +Ingress.

You are not attacking the portal itself. You are actually attacking the resonators which are powering the portal. So here is the best strategy for attacking a portal.  Your XMP Burster have a limited range and the further away you are from the portal the less damage the burst does to the resonator. The resonator you are closest to will sustain the most damage, but as an added bonus the surrounding resonators will also incur damage.

Tips for attacking enemy portals.

• Do your homework.
• Look at the resonators
• What level are they?
• How fully are they charged?
• Where are they "physically" located?
• Are they accessible?
• For individual play

• Go to the most fully charged resonator of the highest level that you can get directly over/on
• Fire your highest level XMP Bursters you have available.
• Repeat as necessary
• Once the resonator is destroyed, use your scanner again to find the next most fully charged highest level resonator.
• Once again start by firing your highest level XMP Burster when you are at the resonator.
• Repeat until all resonators are destroyed.
• For team play
• The team member with the highest level XMP Bursters that they can use target the most fully charged resonator 
• Other team members go to the next resonators relative to the most powerful XMP Bursters they have available to the most fully charged of the highest level
• I suggest firing sequentially and waiting until the previous person confirms the damage recorded before the following person firing. 
• The reason I say this is the speed and capability of some phone/networks can create additional delay in getting the damage. If you do not fire sequentially as I mentioned the team member with the faster phone/network may waste XMP Bursters and energy firing multiple times before the next person can fire. The residual energy from your teammates can cause enough damage to reduce your need to fire. Not all people agree with this, but I believe it holds true. 
• This strategy may require reshuffling of the team at their positions. Say I am a level 6 with dozens of level 6 XMP Bursters. I destroy my resonator, but still have the most higher level bursts. I should then go to the resonator that is now the most fully charged of the highest level and the other team members should regroup accordingly. This should be done every time a resonator is destroyed. It will help ensure the quickest and most efficient destruction of resonators. 

Thanks for reading, come back for more tips!

Your Ingress Scanner

Your Ingress Scanner

No you don’t have to buy a separate item for this you simply download the Ingress App from Google play and load it on your Android device. Sorry it’s not available for iOS products.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.ingress&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5uaWFudGljcHJvamVjdC5pbmdyZXNzIl0.

It’s free, but just remember that right now it is in a closed beta stage.  So even if you download the app you wouldn’t be able to participate in the game until you get an invite.

One word of caution… It will suck your battery dry in no time flat, so please make sure to have a charger handy. On my Motorola Droid 3 I would say it would take me from a full battery to empty in less than an hour.  I am a high user of my phone and realize the Droid 3 doesn't have the best of battery life in normal conditions, but this is extreme.

The Scanner is relatively easy to use.  Making things even better the game starts with a brief tutorial on using the scanner. At start up it will display your current location. You will see a GPS type view of your area you can only expand your view out to approximately one mile out.  Your location is the triangle in the center of the thicker blue ring.

You will notice that periodically you will emit a thinner blue ring that goes out and ultimately fades away and another will be emitted. Think of this as your radar. This radar will find the portals for you. Some higher level portals will be on your map before the radar hits it. But lower level ones will need to get a hit before they display.

Hint. It is very tempting to try playing Ingress while driving. Not only is this not safe, often times it is not practical. At highway speeds, you will not be able to locate the portal, target, and hack before you are out of range. So please do not try while you drive.

Once you see a portal appear on your screen, touch and hold it for a second. It will give you a few options: Target, Fire XMP, Deploy & Recharge.

If you select target when the portal is out of range it will keep track of the distance and open to the portal’s screen when you are in range. I think this is a really cool screen. From here you can Hack the portal, Link to another Portal (More to come on that later), Recharge the resonators, Upgrade the portal, or cancel back out to the map view.

You can also see how many resonators the portal has, their level, how well charged they are.  Sometimes there will be a photo of where the portal is in the top left, but not always. You can also see how powerful the portal is, who is the current owner, and even more information on the portal.  You can see what mods if any the portal has too. By touching the picture you may be taken to some really informative info about the site especially if you are at a historical location, artwork or something else that may have a story behind it.

Your scanner can also act as a communication device. At the bottom you will see the COMM button. This will allow you to chat with other players. You can set the chat up to only get messages from members of your faction, only ones in your area and more. You will also be informed here and by email if an opponent destroys your resonators. This is a useful tool if you are going out in a group (I’ll cover group play soon).

You also have the OPS button at the top. This will take you to the game menu. From here you can see the items you have under Items. This is useful because by default if you want to fire an XMP Burster or deploy a resonator it will deploy/fire your lowest level one and many time s you may not want to do that. It is also useful because you can see what Portal Keys you have and more. Another thing you will find on the Items page is where you can enter passcodes (more about these later).

The Intel tab will basically give you the worldwide game score.

The mission tab will go over the training demos with you that you went through when you first got your invitation.

Recruit allows you to send invites to others to play. You need to earn the ability to do this first.

The device tab basically lets you set your scanners settings.

That’s your Ingress scanner in a nutshell.