Ingress

[brilligtove]

You found a portal that has been converted with a virus. There are two weapons - the JARVIS and the ADA virii - that can be used to swap the colour of a portal. You have to be a high enough level to do it, but when you do, everything about the portal is in your name.

Confused me the first time I saw it too.

Oh - and you need to be L8 or greater to use L8 items. You can get to L8 in a day if you hook up with a local group and go on a level-up run. They will soften up big targets for you, and then let you collect the AP for clearing them. They'll also help you make relatively large fields, and give you equipment to work with.

[Enkidu]

oh, thanks! There is a portal where I work and some bastard has it locked down like that

[brilligtove]

Get on Google+ and find the ingress group for your team and city. They will help you. You can use the Comms to get in touch with them too. Happy walking.

[Enkidu]

Is there a distance limit to links based on lvl? I had the keys to create a control field but the portals were out of range of each other (i.e. I could not see the portal I was trying to link to). Or is this just a limitation on my phone?

[DG]

Linking is limited by the power of the portals that you are trying to link (and relies on both the home and target portals having a full contingent of resonators). As far as I am aware the level of the agent it not a relevant factor.

[HighPockets]

Has anybody noticed a lessening of XM just in general. I feel like in the last couple weeks I'm not recharging like I used to. I'll take the dog for a walk, throw out some resonators, hack a couple portals, throw out a link or two, and when I get home I only have half a bar of available XM. I don't know if it's just me, or the dog taking different paths to avoid XM clouds, or maybe it's because i'm like 100,000 points away from getting to level 9.

It just feels like there's something different going on.

[DG]

I think it was something to do with the winner of the last Ingress Anomaly. There has been a significant decrease in XM, but there are Lawson cubes that are supposed to "store the XM that's not now in the atmosphere" - or some such nonsense.

[HighPockets]

your paying more attention to the nonsense then I am. I wondered about those Lawson cubes.

I should really play the media once in a while rather than just automatically recycle it. but now I need that XM more than ever!

[DG]

your paying more attention to the nonsense then I am. I wondered about those Lawson cubes.

I should really play the media once in a while rather than just automatically recycle it. but now I need that XM more than ever!

Ahh, no, I just asked the question in our hangout "What happened to the XM?" and someone replied with the above.

I've never watched any of the media... I really dont play all that much, too lazy. I should try doing a mission, but it just seems so unlikely that I'll ever get to the next level (Lvl 12) that it's hard to be motivated.

[brilligtove]

I rarely watch the media, but I'm in a hangout with the local players, and some of them are consistently in the top 3 on the leaderboard. Portals are no longer producing XM. Who knows for how long? Cubes are going to be more common for now, though, and Lawsons should help. I've only hacked one Lawsons, but then I seem to be the one who is at the far end of the bell curve for getting the new things. It always takes me a long time.

[Caffiene]

tl;dr version of current events:

Since the last Anomaly Event, portals have stopped generating xm around them. "Ambient" xm (the stuff that just lies around all over the place in general) and Power Cubes are still present.

The general consensus seems to be that this is a Bad Thing (tm), and presumably in reaction to the bad publicity in the last few days there was a storyline about "powercube stockpiles" being released. In game terms: Hacks now give more powercubes, to make up for having less xm around portals.


Lawson cubes are separate. They are like an additional battery of XM. When you use one it gives you a second bar; when you use XM as normal, your XM bar then gets refilled automatically from the 2nd bar. IIRC it auto-recharges you for about 3 or 4 bars worth of XM (the amount varies based on your level).

[HighPockets]

Two days in Chicago and I added over 125 Unique portals but I'm still 430 away from my bronze explorer badge. And as an unexpected bonus, I cleared bronze for Purifier.

[brilligtove]

Nice!