Ingress

[Miisa]

I am meeting some people today, they require face-to-face contact with at least one existing member to be let into the supersecret local faction group. Am already chatting with the people in the larger area group.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Miisa

I am meeting some people today, they require face-to-face contact

Who are you and what have you done with my Miisa?

[Qingdai]

It's face to face contact, where one is staring at one's phone. So there's that.

[Miisa]

These are Finnish people. There may possibly be glancing to confirm I am an entity made of matter and not a bot. Then a nod and we go our separate ways.

[Miisa]

I survived the encounter! And attacked my first portals! I probably couldn't have done much against such high-level portals alone, but with a high-level player backing me up I got loads blown away.

And now I am sooooo frozen, despite the balmy weather.


ETA: and now I made it to level 5

[Miisa]

[Kyuss Apollo]

Level 3 now. Took over an enemy portal at a post office along my route to work the other day -- was surprised I was able to do it, but the energy levels were very low.

Haven't met anyone else playing -- most of the portals I have hacked are along fairly busy roads in central places, albeit the general character of much of this whole area is rural.

Just have to be careful I don't go over my data plan playing this!

[Miisa]

The worst thing is when visiting someone and you need to "go out for a walk" rather desperately, especially in an area of fresh-to-you portals and even unclaimed ones.

Of course, I am a bit of a recluse so this hasn't happened yet in the three weeks or so I have been playing, but that awkward situation is inevitable a week from now.

[Ensign Steve]

You should take up smoking.

[Miisa]

EXCUSES!!!

[slimshady2357]

A L8 player whose name I had seen on a couple of portals messaged me today to say he was passing through and bored so he trashed some smurf portals and that I should 'enjoy!'

I took a look at the map and he blew away every single one in town that was still blue, like 15 of them. He left them all neutral and I was lucky enough to be heading into town anyway



Ended up getting over 60,000 AP and now I'm on about 225,000 so well on my way to level 6

By the time I was leaving town a resistance regular had already taken back 3 of them, but the AP was nice anyway.

I'm getting better at organizing my keys too, so that I have the ones for the portals I'm visiting in the capsule to make sure I can get another.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Miisa

The worst thing is when visiting someone and you need to "go out for a walk" rather desperately, especially in an area of fresh-to-you portals and even unclaimed ones.

Of course, I am a bit of a recluse so this hasn't happened yet in the three weeks or so I have been playing, but that awkward situation is inevitable a week from now.

AWKWARD.

[Miisa]

It took me a while to get my keys sorted as well. On moderately frequently hacked portals I tend to keep spare keys in a capsule and drop the active one before hacking. On rarer ones I don't dare and capsule my key for safe keeping in hopes I will get another. I lost one key once after I dropped it.

I now have about 170 spare or otherwise hidden keys. Good thing I have two capsules.

[Qingdai]

Aw you're all so cute! I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I sometimes refer my fitness program on my phone as to why I'm going out for a sudden walk to take something down. I'm glad to hear that people who have been playing longer are sharing their fun/ap with you. I got promoted to moderator in my local community, hold me, former moderators, I'm scared!

[viscousmemories]

I'm about 1/3 of the way to Level 8, but I promise I'll still talk to you all after I make it.

[Miisa]

I think I have heard something similar before...



I am only just approaching level 6...

[slimshady2357]

Me too, level 6 is just around the corner. I think I only need another 16,000 AP and there are loads of portals around to smashy-smashy.

It was nice to find that once you get some more powerful XMP's (like L4 and above) even portals with rare shields are not a problem if you have enough of them. I was worried I'd never be powerful enough to actually destroy enemy portals, but now I'm knocking them down daily (and they're re-taking them just as fast).

Hopfully level 6 tomorrow!

[chunksmediocrites]

Wait until you fire your first level 8 burster in an area packed with opposing team portals, and watch the wave of resonator damage ... (and then watch force-amped turrets electrocute your XM bar). It's kinda magical.

[Qingdai]

Ultrastrikes are also fun, of any level. They tear off shields and destroy resonators in sort of a precise way, you have to be on top of it to destroy it, but it's pretty animation and very effective, especially when some one distant is recharging on you.

[Miisa]

How do you best destroy shields? By standing at the centre of the portal? Or they also placed around the edges, depending on where the person was when they deployed the shields, like with the resonators?

So far I have just stood on resonators and fired away and the shields/other mods break sooner or later.

[slimshady2357]

The best way to destroy shields is to stand right on the portal and use ultrastrikes like Qing said. They do a smaller range of damage than XMP's but a higher level, so get right on the portal when you fire one.

If I don't have any ultrastrikes then I'll stand right on the portal and fire the XMP's until the shields are gone and then the resonators get destroyed pretty fast after the shields are gone.

Also, I never read about this anywhere, but you can increase the damage your XMP's do by holding down the fire button until the circle of energy closes right in on your symbol. If you get it exactly right you can get +20% damage, but some where between 15% and 20% is easily doable every time. I had no idea about that until the hardcore dude who travelled an hour to help out showed me.

[Ensign Steve]

I have been reading this thread and I keep thinking "damn I need to go out and play this game so I can understand wtf these people are talking about!" So this morning bey and I went out a-portal-hunting on our walk to boot camp and all I could think was "damn I need to go read that thread so I can figure out how to play this fucking game!"

We're both on team Green. Somehow we managed to level up to L2 in the course of the morning. There are loooooooots of portals around our neighborhood (though I have no other neighborhood to compare it to yet), and I imagine there will be a shitload at work, too. Most of the ... fuckin things you deploy, I forget ... are labeled L7 or L8, so I don't know how much good we're doing spewing our little L1s and L2s everywhere, what whateves. I also have a a bunch of inventory I don't know how to use. Thrilling!

[JoeP]

You have been assimilated.



And bey too.

[Miisa]

So the portals around you have level 7 and 8 resonators? Are the portals blue or green?

If they are blue then trying to blow up the resonators won't do much with level 1 and 2 bombs, though that can be fun too. You'd probably be better off just hacking them. 100 points per enemy hack!

If you find grey portals, take them! And deploy whatever resonators you have, more pointses! Even better of you can link the portals together and then make triangular fields between them.

But I must say much of the fun in the beginning for me was just finding new portals in my neighbourhood and getting new stuff.

[beyelzu]

I'm level 4, our downtown area has lots of portals that are mostly occupied by smurfs. When we went to a 5k run yesterday, we went to a different downtown area. I back a lot and have made files and even took out an almost dead level 8 resonator to make the portal unoccupied.


What do you actually need portal keys for?