Ingress: Portal Building, Field Building, Farm Building, Team Building

You start out by building portals. You deploy resonators, you fill up the slots, and you build portals. Then you go on to build fields. And I still get major kick out of it. The geometry of building fields gets me still. Then you go on to build farms. You can build up to a Level 5 farm on your own. You need two L8 agents to build a L6 farm, three for a L7. And the grand daddy of all are L8 farms: you need 8 Level 8 agents for that. Agents loaded with L8 bursters are just waiting to explode.

And farm building is great fun. L8 farms are probably the best part of hitting L8 as an agent in the game. Many agents go on to build home territories. They lay claim to maybe 20 portals. If you flip them, they will flip it right back.

What's after farm building? I think the answer is team building. There are only two global teams possible. Those who ask for a local count of mind units have not read the Ingress storyline. But there are countless local teams. There's room for as many teams as you might wish to create. One city can hope to have many teams. Just like there is no limit to how many portals you can submit, it is for you to decide if you want to build a team.

I am glad to have reached that stage in the game where I am taking active steps towards building what I hope will be the top Resistance team in New York City. My team really starts taking off when there are at least three times more people playing the game. Ideally my team will thrive best when the game is fully public. Anyone can get Gmail today. Anyone should be able to start playing Ingress. There are about five members of timtomhuze who have taken to expressing hostility to me personally on the local faction chat. They don't like the idea of me building a team. Guess what! It is not like I need your permission. This is not your game I am playing.

Ingress is not a complex game. It should not be turned into a complex game. A L8 agent should not be too much more powerful than a L1 agent. I love Niantic's goal of having a billion people play the game. Email is not just pigeons carrying letters. Ingress is not just Capture The Flag.

This is not a complex game. The only complexity comes from how big a team you can build. Complex farming and attack events are possible when you have a large team. But large is not how many people you manage to get on your G+ group. Large is how many people you can get to show up for your events. Last I checked the two teams in NYC hovered at about a dozen people showing up at any one time. This game is early stages. I look forward to building my team: The Squad.

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Ingress Suggestion: Portal Enhancements

I think more incentives should be added to portal ownership.

One would be the concept of collecting rent. So for every day you own a portal you collect maybe 10 points. That would also increase the velocity of the game in that you want to take back a portal before those 24 hours are up. There are players who nurture about a dozen portals or two that are close to where they leave. I think they should be rewarded for keeping those going. Or even 20 points per day. So 10 portals at 20 points per day would bring you a cool 200 points, which is not a whole lot, but it is something. It would make remote recharging more rewarding. And as more portals are added this would make it less likely that portals go out of use and decay.

Another would be the concept of portal history. When you collect a key for a portal it would also have a section that gives you a history of all agents who have owned that portal in that portal's entire history, time stamped.

These two enhancements would make portal ownership more rewarding, and more people would go for it.

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Ingress: L8 Farm Types

The Unisphere, built for the 1964 New York World's Fair, in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't think there is one right way to do it. Two things are for sure: it takes eight L8 agents coming together, and the L8 portals are targeted very, very fast.

You pick a time, you pick a place, and you collect the RSVPs. 10 is the safer number. And you maintain silence. All this is common sense. If your location is remote enough, maybe they will not come. But then it is harder to get your agents to go to that remote location as well. It cuts both ways. An odd time like 3 AM might work better -- and I have been to those -- but then again it is harder to get your agents to show up at such odd times as well.

Ideally you want to hack to burnout. It might cost you one L8 resonator per portal, but then you get back about five L8 resonators and five L8 bursters from each such portal. The good part is after agents are loaded they feel compelled to go out there and do some damage. Doing L8 farm events -- and that alone -- might be the top act of a team if the idea is to dominate a territory.

Of course more portals are better. 20 portals are better than 10. 30 portals would be a bonanza. You have to factor in the response time. In Manhattan the response time has been anywhere from 40 minutes to 10 minutes. Sometimes the attacking agent has showed up before the L8 farm even took shape! Because after a few times you kind of know the times and venues. They become predictable to an extent.

There is the thrill of taking down a L8 farm. It is an experience.

Even in New York City there are not enough active, organized agents to make complex events possible. But I organized a L8 farm at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park that just so happened to coincide with an inter-faction event in Bryant Park and I actively sent out a L7 agent to keep a local green agent -- currently the King of Queens -- engaged in battle on his home turf. So we created two distractions, one by accident, another on purpose. I managed two burnouts of half the portals that day.

I like the idea of involving L7 agents in the fightback. It is possible to have enough agents waiting who will keep recharging. In return they get rewarded with L7 bursters. It is not the ideas that are lacking. It's just that there are not enough active, organized agents. And if you can manage a burnout, you don't really care if the L8 portals get taken down, as they surely will.

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Ingress: The Game Changes

I don't understand people who hit Level 8 and then give up. I can understand slowing down because you are pressed for time, you have other obligations. But plain giving up? Why did you get started in the first place?

Not only am I in, at four million action points I feel like I am just getting started. This is a game. And it is great fun. That is the starting point. It is a great game.

In 2010 I wrote a blog post called Mobile First. Fred Wilson read it and wrote a blog post echoing the theme, and that blog post of his became his top post for that year. Ingress is futuristic, in that it it about mobile, about gaming, about location, and a few other things. So for industry watchers it is a great way to get into the action. This is not a waste of time.

It also allows you to get to know a neighborhood like a local. It opens up the city's geography. And that is a big part of the game for me. Seeking opportunities to deploy Level 1 resonators still has appeal for me, and this is a big reason why. I am at a point where I can get any amount of ammo of any level. Ammo is no constraint. Time is. And you use up low level resonators like anything when you go for it.

The point of having high level ammo is to have the option to use it when it makes sense to do so.

This is a simple game like a knife is a simple weapon. I don't think a knife is a simple weapon, if you know how to use it. Some very complex strategies will become possible when there are 10 times more people playing the game, or even 100 times. The velocity of the game increases and more options open up.

Most people who play the game think there are two sides in the game. And the mind unit count makes that suggestion as well. But I think that is the simplistic version. More than two sides are possible. There are many many sides in the game. The AP count is the compass, and many, many sides are possible. Small, agile teams can do more, I believe, than large, scattered teams that waste a lot of time "socializing" on G+.

You still have two basic tools, you have the app, and you have the Intel map. And you are good to go. Time is the only ammo worth counting.

I am at a phase where I need 10 times more people playing the game in New York City to seek the next level of fun in the game for me. Until then I practice the basics, get to know the terrain better, get more intimate with the city's geography, make good use of the two tools and, yes, socialize.

Ingress And Complex Strategies
Ingress: Phase 3
Ingress: A Great Game For The Knowledge Worker
Ingress Tips
Level 8 In A Month

Level 8 farming for Level 8 ammo is probably the top collective activity in the game right now. And it is no secret. A secret is something that only one side knows. If both sides are doing it, it is not a secret. Both sides build and harvest L8 farms. Both sides try to be as secretive about it as possible. My observation has been most of the harvests get used for vain claims to territories. People use up a lot of ammo to keep what I call their vanity portals. I wish more of that high level ammo were used to create spectacular events. You are not building anything permanent in the game. All you can hope for is screenshots. And perhaps event reports when the screenshots do not do justice.

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Ingress Tips

Join The Squad (Values)

The photo is me hitting Level 7 on Wall Street. Look at the mess I created!

First let's start with what is out there. There are some great sites that give you Ingress tips.

Ingress Tips
Ingress Tips (2)
Ingress FAQ
Ingress Bootcamp

My tips are with NYC on my mind. Even in NYC Manhattan has so many Portals and "Farms" compared to the outer boroughs. So my tips might not be universally applicable.

(1) Get An External Battery 

The game is a major drain on the battery, and you are going to be easily frustrated if you don't get an External Battery. I got my 10,000 mAH battery for $40 on Amazon, the best thing I bought since I bought my Nexus 4! And Nokia gave me a 2,000 mAH External Battery for free for attending a Nokia event during Social Media Week 2013. Go Nokia! 10,000 plus 2,000 plus 2,000 on my phone, and I am good for an entire day if need be! And for me this is not just about the game. I am a power user. My smartphone is my mobile office, my personal assistant. I don't like my personal assistant going to sleep or - worse - going into a coma. This tip on the External Battery came to me by way of a fellow Ingress player I bumped into in Union Square. Hello slomar! His real name is Omar.



(2) Put In The Hours

Especially during the early stages it might feel like you are making slow progress. But moving from Level 6 to Level 7 took me less time than moving from Level 1 to Level 2. This game is a lot of perspiration. It makes you walk! During the early stages you want to hack as many Portals as you can. Hacking friendly Portals is a great way to collect ammo.

(3) Know The Numbers 

• Establish a control field 1250 AP
• Destroy a control field 750 AP
• Capturing a portal (place the first resonator) 500 AP
• Link two portals 313 AP 
• Complete a portal (place the eighth resonator) 250 AP
• Destroy a link 187 AP
• Apply a portal shield 150 AP
• Place a resonator (new resonator) 125 AP
• Hack a portal (Enemy) 100 AP
• Destroy a resonator 75 AP
• Upgrading an existing resonator owned by another agent 65 AP
• Resonators discharge 10% of their maximum XM daily and must be recharged if they are to persist. Recharging can be done either by being within range of the portal or by using a portal key to access the portal remotely.
• Resonators are destroyed when their XM reaches 0. 
• You can only have 2,000 ammo items at a time. That's a lot unless you are high level and have been hacking a long time. 

Level	AP Required	Max XM	Burster Damage	Burster Range	Resonator HP	Portal Range
1	0	3,000	150	42	1,000	160 m
2	10,000	4,000	300	48	1,500	2.56 km
3	30,000	5,000	500	58	2,000	12.96 km
4	70,000	6,000	900	72	2,500	40.96 km
5	150,000	7,000	1,200	90	3,000	100 km
6	300,000	8,000	1,500	112	4,000	207 km
7	600,000	9,000	1,800	138	5,000	384 km
8	1,200,000	10,000	2,700	168	6,000	655 km

I have not memorized them. All these numbers are in an Evernote file on my phone for quick references.

(4) Use The Map

That is how you know where the Farms are, where the Portals are. If you are low on ammo and need to hack friendly Portals for a few hours, go to the map. If it is time to find a cluster of enemy Portals, go to the map. The map changes as Portals switch from one side to another. (IITC)

(5) Farms Help You Level Up Fast

The top farms in Manhattan are:

• Battery Park + Wall Street.
• Madison Square Park 
• Washington Square Park 
• Rockefeller Center 

Other good ones are: City Hall, Union Square, Bryant Park, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), 7th Avenue from Macy's to Times Square, Times Square itself, Columbus Circle, the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. 

There are a few others that look good on the map that I have not explored yet. 

The formula is how many Portal hacks are you managing in an hour. If you are walking a block to hack one Portal, that is not the best use of your time. So stick to the big Farms to level up fast. 

Open parks are more GPS friendly than places like Wall Street and Rockefeller Center. Tall buildings seem to confuse satellites. The upside is when your GPS goes haywire, you are collecting XM from places you have not been, you are hacking Portals that are far from you!

Update: September 9, 2013: By now, Greater Jackson Heights is the top place in Queens for leveling up, and also one of the top citywide. 

Update: October 22, 2013: By now, East Village along Houston has emerged the top farm in the city. It is no longer Battery Park. Derpdom.

(6) Hack A Portal Four Times In A Row

You are much more likely to create Links and Fields. This is also why a Farm works better. You start with the first Portal, by the time you have hacked the final Portal on that Farm chances are the first Portal is ready for hacking again, since it has been past four minutes. A second or third hack might get you a Portal Key.

During the early Levels you create any Link you can. But later you want to get strategic about it. Remember the goal is to create Fields. It's best to Link short distance Portals with no Portals in between. You are doing well when creating one Link is giving you two Fields at once!

Update: October 20, 2013 Now you get a key each time you hack a portal if you don't have a key for it already. That makes the game way more fun, since linking and fielding is my favorite part of the game. Leveling up is now faster as well.

(7) Strategic Hacking

Bursters are scarce. So once you hit a certain Level, make a point to only go after Links and Fields. A great use of Bursters is to sit in the middle of a large Farm with many enemy Fields and take over. You earn APs like anything. This tip came to me by way of an "enemy" Player (derp) who had 4,000,000 points to my 400,000 who I bumped into in Madison Square Park. He happened to be an engineer at Google. He started in December, I got my start on February 1. He said I had wasted so many Bursters trying to take over one Portal. I should have instead used them to destroy a Field or two.

Destroying a Portal that is supporting two Fields is a great idea. You get a flood of APs.

Submit Portal suggestions. It is just like sharing a picture from your phone to Facebook. The process takes months apparently. And the ones I submitted have not showed up yet, but they will and I will be ready for them at Level 8.

(8) It Adds Up

Low level Resonators are useful to fill up Resonator slots once you capture a Portal. Every Resonator you add and every Portal you complete brings you points. The tortoise won the race, remember?

(9) It's The Resonator, Stupid

"You aren't attacking the Portal, but the Resonators. Stand right on top of every resonator when attacking for maximum effect.  It currently should take ~32 L1 XMP Bursters to destroy a L1 Portal's Resonators. You do ~15% damage to a Resonator when you are standing directly on top of it. If you are not, the damage falls off to 5% or 1% very quickly. .... if you wait for decay and hit them right before expiring, then even L8 Resonators could be destroyed easily. .....  .... Anecdotal evidence suggests a major difference between standing within a meter of a resonator vs 5m away and only a minor difference between 10m and 15m away.  .... ... If you don't have enough ammo don't even start a fight, it would be just a waste of xmp and your time."

(10) Socialize

The number one reason I started playing this game was to meet new people. I fire up Ingress, but then I also fire up my HDR Camera+ app, and my Highlight and Sonar apps. If I am going to be walking around this beautiful city like a mad man, I am going to take some pictures along the way. I am also going to expand my personal network.

It is not hard to spot other Ingress players. Their phone screen gives it away. Say hello.

Update: June 6, 2013

(11) Resonator Placement: Spread Them Out

When you capture a portal, stand as far away as you possibly can and then deploy. That way you spread out the resonators and it becomes just a little harder for an enemy agent to take them down.

Update: June 30, 2013

(12) Make Portal Submissions

Start making portals submissions as soon as you start playing the game: when you are a Level 1 agent, during your very first week. Do not wait. Portal submissions take weeks to go through anyways. You should have about 20 portals that you can walk over to any time. And so submit 50 with that in mind. This is also the top advice I have for all Level 8 agents I know. Don't just chase portals, make them come to you as well. Build a home territory. Churches, sculptures, arts, artifacts, murals, paintings are a good bet. Aim to build portal clusters. Dense clusters are good for gaining a lot of AP fast.

Build a home territory. A home territory is one where the majority of portals are your submissions.

Update: October 21, 2013

(13) The Ultimate Challenge: Team Building

It is my belief that is the final challenge in this game. You could work to build your neighborhood team, or a citywide team with slightly different values, or perhaps a global team. You could join an existing team and carve out space for your own team building within, or you could launch a brand new team of your own.

You can play this game solo just fine, and even as a team member you will engage in a ton of solo action, but this game is meant to be a social game.

Ingress New York City Public
Greater Jackson Heights Resistance
Squad Junior
The Squad
The Commando Squad
The Cross Faction Squad

My Photo Albums
Ingress: My Blog Posts

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