Ingress General Discussion: we're all BRTD now

[Bacon King]

I told you years ago if/when I ever got an Android I would download Ingress and give it a shot. You may not remember, but I am a man of my word so I have just downloaded it on my new HTC Desire EYE and joined the Resistance and now it's telling me to walk two kilometers down a country road to go visit a church that probably uses snakes in its worship services

is this functioning as intended

[Bacon King]

also Ingress General Discussion thread if anyone else plays this

[Bacon King]

Do I really have to walk the entire way or can I just drive to the parking lot? How long will I have to be at this church?

[Bacon King]

Far as I can tell, there's about 25 portals in BK's hometown (the actual town limits), another dozen or so scattered around it, and about 30 in the closest town to the southwest. And the whole area seems to be a stronghold of the Enlightened, which actually is a benefit when starting out since it gives you more level up opportunities.

hometown = Auburn
town to SW = Dacula?

or do you mean Braselton/Auburn? or Winder/Auburn?

I'm living in Braselton at the moment but will be moving soon to Athens where I assume there is also a buttload of portals. Where can I find a complete list of them?

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hot diggity daffodil I'll be sure to whip this game out next time I go to the city

[Bacon King]

BRTD most of the portals in my area appear to be linked together by the Enlightened in some sort of network that turns its interior green on the map. Will this affect my gameplay? Will the people who established this network notice when I start disconnecting their nodes, and come try to stop me? What happens then- will someone break my kneecaps?

[Bacon King]

Cool thanks for the help BRTD I guess I will go capture rural churches for the resistance now

[Bacon King]

How do you choose between the Resistance and Enlightenment?

Sure seems like fearing the aliens would be a very Tea Party-ish thing to do, which makes me really surprised BRTD picked it. Do you just ignore logic like that and join whichever team your friends are on?

The prompt to pick a side was basically the first thing it asked when opening the game for the first time, and it gives you a warning that the choice is permanent. The choice was something to the effect of "The Enlightenment who are working with advanced aliens to uplift humanity" versus "The Resistance who are fighting to prevent those aliens from enslaving humanity". Basically just enough information for you to allow yourself to paint whatever "insider vs. outsider" division you want to, without the game inherently making one side good or bad itself.

I viewed the decision in the paradigm of colonialism, with Enlightenment being the local elites co-opted by the colonizer and the Resistance being the people fighting for self-determination, so it was the better choice I think.

[Bacon King]

Ingress update: I am visiting my parents and I open up ingress to reveal they live tantalizingly close to a portal but I have no reason to awkwardly walk along the road and go up to a church that has at least twenty cars in its parking lot right now

[Bacon King]

Update: I am now level two but I still haven't taken any portals because they're all really high level, is it supposed to take forever to capture a portal? Also in Winder there is apparently a portal at the funeral home, I think that's a questionable design decision

[Bacon King]

Thanks for the tips J-Mann and BRTD. I'm now officially moving to Athens in eight days and they have an assload of really dense portals downtown so I'll try to go level up once I move

[Bacon King]

And yeah BTRD I looked on the Intel map and I think I saw some portals in the international terminal at ATL (as in, the far side of the TSA checkpoint)

[Bacon King]

You get stuff by hacking portals of both colors

You defend portals by putting resonators on them and also mods

You capture portals by destroying enemy resonators with XMPs. To fire an XMP you don't click on the portal you just hold down on the map screen and then the button to fire XMP will show up just above your finger

You link up your side's portals in triangles to get points for your side

Best way to level up is to asplode (lower level) enemy portals and capture them and link them if you can, you will only have low level stuff so they'll get taken back over quickly but that's good because then you can turn around and capture them again for more experience

When you use your energy from recharging a portal or lose it from being attacked, you get the energy back from hacking portals or walking around and picking up the blue dots (XM aka exotic matter)

That's basically all I've figured out so far Lief

[Bacon King]

My first portal: the childhood home of Senator Richard B. Russell

[Bacon King]

Update: I'm at level 3, halfway to 4. Got really lucky on the way to my parents on Christmas eve because a lot of portals in Winder were suddenly uncaptured so I made a lot of links that lasted until after Christmas (winder is super enlightenment). Now in Athens there are a lot more portals. The portal in my previous post is now my guardian of 9 days.

[Bacon King]

Yes! I think I'll be going to that. Trying to talk my gf into joining me. I'm almost level 6 and today I went to the state botanical garden which has like a bazillion portals! I am a member of the Athens resistance and I will be getting a matching hoodie with my username on it for the event if I go to it (I guess I'm in the cult now)

[Bacon King]

Oh also this happened

[Bacon King]

Nice! Especially as I see that's Athens and not even a rural cell. I never rank high FYI (unless I drive through a rural area and throw up a huge field or something) because I live literally two blocks from the border (Minneapolis is split into two cells) so I play heavily in two instead of just one.

Yeah I looked on intel and saw if I took a slight detour on my drive home today I could make a series of huge fields spanning my corner of the city using keys I already had or could pick up on the route. In half an hour I made 17 links, making 14 fields totalling something like 3500 MU. It brought me from 9th to 2nd

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Yes! If all goes well I'll hit level 6 tomorrow which I'm told is when I first become genuinely useful for team play.

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Oh that DarkKnight guy? I saw on his profile that he did a series of ATL missions that gave him mission badges spelling out RESIST, and ever since I saw that I've been wanting to go yo Atlanta and do those missions except in the wrong order so it spells out SISTER or maybe just do five and have it spell TIRES (I can't think of anything better but I am very amused by the idea)

[Bacon King]

Ha, that's really clever. So far no one has done anything like that here. Someone made a series of 18 in Singapore that apparently represent the story of Romeo and Juliet and if done in the right order show some sort of cross faction logo.

Oh and I'm so happy, I made over 200k points tonight and broke 26 million.

You've also maintained a link for an entire year now!

[Bacon King]

Hey anyone who wants to try Ingress should let me or BRTD know so we can send you an official invitation email, because now we get an achievement for recruiting people

[Bacon King]

Update: level 7

Also on Sunday I met someone through Ingress when hw met me in the park to give me a bunch of items. He was literally exactly how I imagine brtd is in person

[Bacon King]

he had a band shirt on but i forgot the band

I have officialy joined Ingress!

username?

BK have you registered for the anomaly yet?

oh no i forgot do you have the link?