Awesome mission, awesome teamwork!

Because of where I live and the fact I'm virtually the only Enlightened agent in my area, I was contacted to ask to be a part of an awesome mission. This group was building an 18 layer mega-field with one of the main links going through the area where I live.

The issue is because I am virtually the only Enlightened agent, the Resistance (two agents in particular) really dominate the area. They constantly have their own 100K Mind Unit Mega field over the area and apparently they have virtually unlimited keys to the other remote portals. I take it out and minutes later it's back up. I actually got to the point of saying I'll just leave it up because it only gives them more points each time I destroy it when they put it back up.

This ended up being a pretty good strategy. Not only did it keep them from continuing to get massive AP and medals, it prevented not only them but other agents from throwing up other links and fields which could interfere with the mission, yet I could take out their fields with just taking out 3 nearby portals in my town.

The leader of the mission came to my town and briefed me on the mission. I just liked the thought of being part of a cool mission like this. Very similar to the mission I posted about much earlier. He then asked where I was on my Illuminator badge. I told him I was at gold. He then told me he'd save keys to the remote portals for me. After I take out the blocking field, I could try to meet him at the southern tip of the field and put up a final field. The first 17 layers were to be before the checkpoint. With me taking down the field immediately before the checkpoint and the southern tip being almost an hour away my field wouldn't be in the checkpoint if at all. It was very possible the remote anchors would be gone before I got down there. But I appreciated the opportunity and didn't expect it.

I made it down just in the nick of time and put up the 18th layer just as the Resistance agents were striking other layers in the area.

Here's a gif of the action:

Here's a screenshot of my field going up:

Here's a shot of the dog tag the organizer made for the dozen or so agents who participated.

Wow it's been over a year!

I couldn't have imagined it's now been over a year since my last post. I keep telling myself I'd post about this or that. So much has happened in the game in the past year it would be impossible to do a full catch up. I have a few ideas for some blog posts that will touch on some of the happenings in that time, but I will mainly plan on moving forward.

Where have I been??? 
I never stopped playing, though the intensity in which I played did drastically slow down. It use to be very common for me to head out several times a week and play from about 10:00 pm to 1:00 am several times per week. Well I'm getting a little too old for that and honestly it was impacting my work and other things so I've virtually stopped that. But I am thinking of picking that up again on Fridays & Saturdays that wouldn't interfere with other things in my life.

So you may ask why an I beginning this again after sooo long.
There are a couple of reasons. I have increased my activity level the past few months maybe even as many as the past 6 months. For a lot of this time I was playing again as a lone wolf. Like I wrote earlier the game is much more fun when you play as a group with other people. Then recently I got involved in some great group projects which brought me back up again. I'll be posting about one particular project I was involved in which was massively fun.

Also, the game is fun and I've missed my adventures while Ingressing. I'm hoping that by bringing my blogging activity back up I'll also bring up my playing activity.

Where am I now?
I'm currently a level 12. I have all the medals I need to make 15, but that's a lot of AP away. If you've ever used the app "Agent Stats" (which is pretty cool) that app says I'll be a L16 in 2019. I've now set a goal to make it in less than a year. It's a pretty big undertaking for someone who plays the way I've been playing lately, but it's achievable.

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

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.

Welcome iPhone/ Apple Users to Ingress

After much waiting and anticipation Ingress has finally come out for the iOS. The rumor mill has it that the Apple version doesn't have all the features yet. But what do you expect it's Apple ... J/K ;)

I will be setting up an account for my daughter who is all about her iPhone. I've been saving all of my low level items to give to her to get her started. She has been on the fence about playing, but I've convinced her to give it a shot. And I can't wait to clear up my inventory of things I normally recycle.

She has a bad perception of Ingress because for the past year and a half trips together seemingly take twice the normal time and being a teen with all the angst and everything else that comes with that age she would literally get angry. If I just pulled over and stopped at a portal which was on the way. Not to mention when I'd go off the intended route to claim or kill a portal.

Now hopefully she will begin to enjoy the game as much as I do. I plan to take her out with me before the end of the week.

Just the past day or so I have seen such a huge boost in activity from new players joining in on the game. I am really looking forward to it.

I don't know if it is related or not, but I've also seen a huge increase in the appearance of new portals. Maybe some of the dozen's I haven't heard from will make it through and I will finally get to upgrade my Seer badge.

Happy Hacking - Especially to you iOS/ Apple agents