Extendiality

Ingress players already know that recent update brought long-awaited Regional MU scores to the mobile app!

Basically, this adds a bit of a challenge, which this game lacked. Who has ever paid attention to Global MU scores? I believe, no one seriously as it is hard to believe that every single player’s contribution is decent enough to change the numbers.

Now, things went much more appealing. Planet is divided into regions and you can view MU stats for your region and neighbourhood. Timeframe, called Cycle, is 175 hours (according to Shapers calendar) and it is slightly more than a week. These extra 7 hours bring shift to the Cycle when using normal “Earth calendar”, so it starts/ends on a different time. Ingress Cycles are synchronized globally.

There are 5 hours Periods in each Cycle, ending with a Checkpoint. This is what you need to keep in mind — MU count is frozen at the Checkpoint, regardless of what was going on during these 5 hours: furious battle or everyone was sleeping :). Timer shows exact time, when current Period ends and it makes game more intense! You need to be sure that when timer counts to 0, your faction owns more MU in your region, than your rivals.

Graph shows these Periods and a running average, which is based on previous MU stats at the Checkpoints, so make an effort towards the end of the Ingress Cycle!

You are able to see history of previous cycles, though currently history shows 0 as Regional Scores have just been introduced. There are also Top 3 and Top 50 lists for those who like bragging 🙂 Only those created final link for MU are counted in the scoreboard and it is updated every 175 hour Cycle.

It also seems a bit slow, when navigating between regions and tabs in the app, but most likely will be fixed later. Good job, Niantic!

P.S. Update. Small note: if your field spreads over multiple cells (regions), then MU is spread among them. Also, you can check a handy web tool — Ingress Cell Map, where cell borders are clearly visible. Unfortunately, it does not show actual stats.

Not a fresh news anymore, but found in my notes. Remarkable Ingress Resistance team achievement – 335 fields by 225 links! Can you imagine such a dedication to the game? 🙂

It was done in Russia, Tyumen city, in the middle of the summer. Of course, it did not live long, as Enlightened could not tolarate this and destroyed this beautiful piece of art. But at least we have screenshots.

New Ingress scanner update is coming and this time it is really interesting.

Niantic decided to include to long-awaited features — Badges and User Stats.

Badges are given to you, when you perform some activity. Apparently, this is same as in many other games. Sadly, Ingress ones are quite simple at the moment. Only basic achievements can be reflected in the badges:

Submitted New Portal, Deployed Resonators, Linked Portals, Created Fields, Hacked Portals, Destroyed Enemy Portals, Visited and Hacked Remote Portals. As you can see, all pretty boring, but can encourage new players to play more. Interesting, what Remote Portals are? Remote from the city? This one seems pretty cool.

Stats will show your activity for All Time, Month and Week separately and contain all related actions, like hacking, resonator placing, destroying enemy portals etc. Something to be proud off and compare with each other. I am surprised, why no sharing to Facebook and Twitter yet 🙂 Anyway, can motivate some players to play more as well.

Interesting field there — “Max time portal held”. Very nice idea, but it is a team work, so many other agents help to defence “your” portal. Also, will be good to know, whether All Stats will show all your previous activity retrospectively. What do you think?

Let’s wait for an Ingress Scanner update and test it.

As you probably know, logic for adding Mods in the Ingress game now changed.

You can get 125AP now for placing one Mod (there was AP reward long time ago, but it was removed after abusive activity from some players), but at the same time can only place two per portal and cannot remove them at all.

This seems logical, though makes rural players to struggle, as they will have hard times shielding all their portals. Anyway, Niantic still tries to find the best balance and we can only welcome their efforts.

Also, I believe, some game rules will be changed all the time to match the main Shapers story, published by Chapeau.

New limited Ingress Mod appeared recently for some selected users to test.

It is called an “Ultra Strike” and it is capable of focusing strike power presicely on the needed resonator. So, in other words it is a personal Mod – kind of XMP burster. There is not much information on how it works in detail, though already know that it will be graded by Levels (like XMPs) not by Rareness (like Mods).

Its significance is hard to underestimate. Say, you have a portal on a busy street and one of the resonators is therefore placed inside the building. L8 resonator + Very Rare Shield + Turret + Force Amp make this battle a real challenge.

As Niantic is constantly trying to balance the game, then these Ultra Strike Mods are aiming to improve the situation.

Some time has passed and Ingress game got many valuable enhancements. Power Cubes full of precious XM, new mighty shields, 5 new mods and so on.

Previous are here, here, here and here

But we still can help Niantic to make it even better by providing feedback and ideas.

11) Pickle XM to Power Cubes

Power Cubes are great, especially as new mods and shields strike you hard and your inventory can be drained quickly.

And I believe, many of you wondered, why can’t we pack excessive XM for future use, while walking in a high XM density area? In other words, create own Power Cubes as a preparation for a battle. This seems very logical and helps to balance fighting with those new +30 mitigation Shields and Force Amps.

12) Personal Mod to increase scanner radius

This could be a nice option. Rare mod with a limited time of usage that could increase your app radius, say in 1.5 times. This allows you to hack more portals around you and to place resonators even further from the portal.

13) Augmented reality via camera gameplay

Something I do not believe will be done soon, but still my personal thoughts.

When I first saw Ingress trailer I first thought about Layar style application. You point camera on a historic monument and App shows animation around it. In my opinion, this is augmented reality, which eliminates the distinction between the objects and virtual world. This requires brand new 3D animations and new interface.

And to be honest, using camera is not so convenient, though building this ideas into Google Glasses will be amazing.

Ingress Report video revealed new game items — Mods.

Up to now, players could only use Shields, which was apparently not enough for many of us. Remember, we wanted at least Turrets? Our prayers have been heard. Fasten your seat-belts, we are taking off the ground!

Turrets

These ones increase rate of portal attack. Basically, all these lightning attacks, when you fire XMPs, are the same turrets, but now they will be much more active. Not sure if they fire just when you pass by, but this is logical.

Update: Portal attacks 2 times faster and a bit harder

Heat Sink

Should be something related to portal burn-out time. Either decrease portal burnout duration or timeframe between hacks. Or probably increase hack number before burnout.

Update: Descreases time between hacks. -20% every other Heat Sink. So, 4 Heat Sinks will allow you to make 4 hacks in 6 minutes, instead of 15

Force Amplifier

 Amplifies something like portal strength or field durability.

Update: Amplifies overal portal strength by 2

Link Amplifier

 This one affects links. Probably, length of the link or its effect on the portal strength.

Update: Increases distance of the link – up to 3 times! So, L8 portal should theoretically link across 1200 miles or 1970 km around

Multi Hack

 Hack portal more times or faster than each 5 minutes. Similar to Heat Sink Mod.

Update: This adds 8 additional hacks before burnout (12 total)

Overall, there are many questions still but soon exact function of those new Mods will be tested and reported. Just wait for the next Ingress app update