My Daughter Made Level 8!

My daughter hasn't been an active player for a while. She got hooked into Ingress when I told her about the anomalies and she wanted to participate. Tried as we may to get her to 8 before Darsana, we just couldn't get there.

Since Darsana she has played a little here and there, mainly coming out with me when I want a little help taking out a particular portal. A few weeks ago I was hitting a few targets of opportunity while running some errands with her and she said she was going to play. She told me she was now so close to 8 she wanted to make a push for it.

We began heading out a few times, unfortunately time wasn't on our side. My typical playing time is generally from 10:00 pm to 1:00 am and I wasn't going to keep her out that long, so we went out in 1 hr bursts. One of our local Resistance players even kept tabs on her progress (Mainly because it was his portals we were hitting.) One night he sent a message on the COMM saying he was waiting up for her to hit again and level up. It turned out to be a little while before we could go out again.

This past Friday night. I was loaded with nearly 1000 L8 XMPs and was ready to do some damage to the Resistance dominated areas. I on the intel map I found a nearby portal with dozens of links and many, many fields coming and going from it. I estimated that portal alone would give her the AP needed.

We headed out and that portal was number 1 on our list of targets. We get there and I drop a handful of L8 Ultra Strikes on the center of the portal to kill the shields and then tell her to spam it with XMPs. Well I see the portal is going down as the field starts to look weak. Then next think I know it is full blown recharged. The resistance was recharging on her, and by the look of it several people were recharging. So I decide to help and fire off a few L8 Xmps. When it started looking weak I would stop as not to steal the AP from her, but they were relentlessly recharging.

So I then decided to spam it with L8 Bursters. It starts to get weak again. I back off to let her take it out, but they brought it up again. I start spam bombing again. Between the two of us we got it down to 4 resonators. By this time we'd each used probably 100 XMPs. But I back off again and again they are able to keep it fully charged against her. So I start firing again and what do you know one of my XMP bursters took out 3 of their resonators and I got the over 28K AP. I went ahead and took out the last remaining resonator too, but let her claim and fully deploy to.

In hind sight I would have walked to reach resonator and fired Ultra Strike to more strategically taken them out, and save on Bursters, then once it was down to 3 have her do the same. Oh well live and learn.

We went out and she did level up later that night and we were out until 4 am (and the wife was not happy about that).

So I am happy to now have a second powerful player in my family to help me.

Ultra Strikes Revisited

Okay it has been a while since Ultra Strikes have been available to everybody.

In my last Ultra Strike post I wrote that I didn't see the big deal about Ultra Strikes. Those opinions were based on not having used them, but only what I had read from others. Well now I have been using Ultra Strikes for just over a month and wanted to revisit Ultra Strikes.

Pros:
Their intense burst is effective at taking out individual resonators or helping weaken or destroy portal modifications.

They are commonly hacked, so getting them is no problem.

Cons:
Their burst while quite intense, has a very limited range.

They are much slower to launch than XMPs.

Lower level Ultra Strikes are relatively useless.

Conclusion:

The Ultra Strike weapon is an interesting tool. Higher level Ultra Strikes can help with heavily defended portals, but lower level ones aren't worth the effort.

Will I use Ultra Strikes? Why of course I will. Will they be my weapon of choice? No. I would prefer to consider them a tool rather than a weapon. When I come across that heavily defended portal I will weaken it with some Ultra Strikes and then go in for the kill.

So do they live up to the initial hype? No. Maybe it was just me, but from the initial hype I was expecting this incredibly cool and powerful weapon. But I wouldn't go as far as to say they are useless. They are functional tools, but not worth the hype and not worth the exclusivity they were first appeared with.

All else being equal I will continue to use L8 XMPs for the majority of my attacks.

Happy Hacking.

My Wishlist for Future Ingress Development

Over the past 8 months or so there have been many upgrades and enhancements to not only the game but to the user experience. I'm sure our friends at Niantic have some great enhancements to come. Here's my pie in the sky list of what I'd like to see in some form or another.

Greater Number of Items in Inventory

2000 items seems like a lot, but like many of you I am hitting my inventory cap several times a week. I would like to be able to have more items at my disposal. Now, I don't think I necessarily need more at any given time, but I think it would be nice to have more items in a cache. The trade off could be that once you put something in your cache it would not be available again to you for 4-5 days. 

Greater Functionality from the Intel Map

Well first lets say I've been really disappointed with the functionality of the Intel Map. One of Google's strengths has always been Google Maps. So I was expecting more. 

I'd like to be able to search for portals with multiple criteria. For example I'd like to only be able to see blue, L7 & 8 portals with links in a certain radius of a given location. 

I would also like to see more game interaction from the Intel Map. When I receive an alert of a portal being under attack I'd like to access my portal keys from my desktop somehow and recharge my resonators. 

I think it would also be great if we could access our inventory from the Intel Map including being able to drop and recycle items.

I would also like to have the ability to redeem codes again through the Intel Map like we use to be able to. 

Portal Invisibility 

Imagine a portal mad where you can make a portal invisible to an individual enemy. So you have a pesky enemy agent when you deploy this mod you can enter a players agent name and the portal will not be visible to them. But a portal equipped with this mod wouldn't be available to be linked to other portals.

Instantly Create a Portal of a Certain Level

When you deploy to a neutral portal you select what level portal you create and the correct resonators are deployed instantly to make that portal. The same rules apply so an individual can not create a L8 portal. But say I want to create a L4 portal I just select a create L4 portal button and it is done. 

Instant Portal

Another cool item the game could add that could be even more rare than Jarvis/ADA is an Item where you can instantly create a portal without any approval needed. Now if you give it an inappropriate name or make it inaccessible to the public, then it would be removed. 

Offensive Weapons

Think of how awesome it would be to have a weapon which can directly used against enemy players. You can fire this weapon at an enemy who is physically in proximity to you and disable their scanner for some period of time say half an hour to an hour.

Another offensive weapon idea would to have a weapon that has a range of a certain distance and when an enemy passes within its range it would fire at them and do damage to their XM levels. These weapons wouldn't appear on an enemy's scanner or Intel Map, but could be destroyed with an XMP of proper level in proper range.

Scanner Mods

I mentioned some mods which attack individual players, so to keep some balance we could offer some scanner mods. Like a scanner shield. The shield could mitigate damage done by offensive weapons, but the trade off would be it would lessen the range/ power of your XMPs or Offensive weapons.

Another scanner mod would be one which would be interesting would be a mod which you can increase your likelihood of obtaining a certain type of item (resonators, bursters, cubes, keys) but not exclusively. If you had this mod set up to increase your chance of getting XMPs you would still get other items just at a proportionally lesser amount.

Care Packages

When I was a leveling player I had some L8 agents help me out by dropping items for me. Some of these larger drops could take half an hour or more to transfer items. What I'd like to see is a way to build into a package. So I can in one package transfer hundreds of items if I wanted. It could be as easy as selecting an item then, selecting the quantity you want to add to the package. Then the intended recipient could just pick up the one care package.

This doing things in bulk could also apply to recycling items too. So you could instantly recycle say all of your L4 XMPs at one time.

Portal Transport

Say I have some items I want to transfer to another player. If I am at one portal and the other player is at a different portal then, I can select what portal I want to send items too. The portals must both be under control of the same faction and items not picked up within a short period of time would decay.

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 Ingress Item - Power Cubes

In the 1.23.1 release of Ingress we were treated to a new item among other things; Power Cubes.

So what is a Power Cube and What will it do for me?
It appears they are XM storage units. and there are 8 levels of power cubes. The higher the level the greater the storage.

What I do not know yet, but am assuming, is that they work like XMP Bursters and you can not use Power Cubes greater than your player level.

How do I find Power Cubes?
They are an item you get when you hack a portal, much like XMP Bursters, Portal Shields, etc...

Get out there and find some Power Cubes!

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.