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

My Ingress-aversary

Today is my Ingress-aversary!

One year ago today I received my invitation to play Ingress. Back then it was still very much the same game, but far few portals and the scanner functions are much more basic.

When I first started playing I was a lone wolf. just playing on my own where and when I could. Which wasn't much and there were only 2 portals in my town and no opposing players. I also played a little on my way to and from work, but really didn't pass too many portals. 

All that being said it took me a long time to level. I had just made Level 5 in June when I went to Disney, which was my first experience in a portal dense environment. For better or worse at that time it was all basically green, so there wasn't a lot of AP to be gained. 

Then in July I met up with our local Enlightened group. I went from a low Level 5 to 8 pretty quickly from there. While I was a fan of the game before, this is where I became addicted. The social aspect of this game is like no other. The teamwork, camaraderie and more make this game like no other and have kept my interest in the game high - even the fun banter with opposing players.

Thanks +NIA Ops for making +Ingress  and thanks to all of my friends I've met the last year playing. 

Happy Hacking!

Portal Submission Tips

Following up on my last post on complaining about portal submissions I wanted to give my tips to help maximize your chances of having your portal accepted. I'm not saying this will guarantee acceptance, but will increase the likeliness of them being accepted. Many of these things come from the Ingress Portal Submission Guidelines, others come from posts on +NIA Ops and others come form personal experience and elsewhere.

Lets start with the portal you are interested in submitting. Good portals are:

• Public/Municipal portals-
• Libraries
• Water Towers
• Public Park Signs
• Post Offices
• Train, bus or other transit stations
• Fountains
• Gazebos
• Memorials
• Art
• Statues
• Sculptures
• Murals
• Plaques
• 'Artistic' Graffiti 
• Buildings
• Historical
• Unique
• Interesting Design/Architecture
• Religious
• Churches
• Mosques
• Synagogues 
• Temples

Portals that are generally not accepted include:

• Police Stations*
• Fire Stations*
• Hospitals*
  * These items were once commonly accepted, but Niantic has since stopped accepting them. The rumor is that they are even removing these portals.
• Schools
• Bridges
• Homes (non-historic/unique design)
• Landscape Images

So now you've selected your target portal you would like to submit lets talk about actually submitting it.

Photo

There are 2 methods of portal submission through your scanner. One is taking an existing photo which is in your scanner and selecting share and then share it to NIA Super Ops. Select the location, Enter the Title and description and then submit. Pretty easy.

The second way, and from what I understand is the way Niantic prefers, is in the game touch your scanner on where the portal should be. Select "New Portal", confirm the location (you will probably have to make a slight adjustment because it will locate to where you are), enter the title and description and you're done. Again pretty easy.

Photo Tips:

• Use your scanner's camera
• Activate GPS tagging on your scanner's settings.
• Take a quality picture 
• Do not include people, faction type objects (frogs, smurfs, androids, etc)
• Do not include identifiable information such as license plates

Title

Your title can make a difference in getting your portal submission approved. Your title should be brief, concise, catchy and accurate. Your title can help tell the reviewer about the portal. For example my local fire department has a pretty cool mural on the side of their building. Now when submitting it I wouldn't want to call it "________ Fire Department" regardless of what it you are submitting and how good the picture is or the mural is that title is begging to be rejected. A title with a greater probability of being accepted would be, "Mural Honoring Firefighting Heroes."

Likewise a boring title could also work well for things which are commonly accepted like libraries, water towers, post offices work well like "My Towns Water Tower."

Description

Descriptions are not always necessary. Many possible portals are self-explanatory like water towers and post offices, but other portals a description will help the reviewer rule in your favor. I've found this is particularly helpful with historic buildings, unique architecture and local unique businesses. 

Remember you know why you thing the location is portal worthy, the reviewer may be thousands of miles away from you and is impartial. You need to convey to them the significance of your portal. 

Now while you want to to give a good description, you don't want to copy and paste from Wikipedia or some other source. 

With these tips I think you will find your acceptance rate increases. 

Good luck and happy hacking!