Slice of Chaotic Life

This morning before work it happened. I reclaimed a portal the Resistance family tour had taken, and claimed a recently activated portal not far from it. I linked up a tight cluster of portals. And suddenly I was level 6. This is good, but it doesn’t feel good. It makes things a lot more complicated.

Up until this morning, Ingress was simple: Submit everything, claim everything, deploy everything, hack everything, link everything, recharge everything. Now suddenly I no longer have the ability to create portals that yield XM objects of my own level. And portals only give keys if you don’t carry a key for that portals already (and sometimes not even then, but usually in a couple tries). Now, there is very little reason to hack one of my own portals. Yes, I could get a very rare multi-hack or heat sink or Jarvis virus, but the chance is well under 1%, probably more like 1 in 1000. Most likely I will get items that I have to recycle to make room in my inventory for the next hack. This will take a while to get used to, I suspect.

Portals to still hack: The remaining blue portals, while they last. This gives AP, and they are also my level this time. Higher-level portals left by visiting allies and not yet torn down by visiting Resistance members. That’s it, and it makes up only a few portals, scattered around town. Now I definitely regret reclaiming the Resistance portal by my workplace. It was high enough level that I could have gotten relevant XM objects from it, and I could have converted it with a Jarvis virus when it was about to fade to gray, then add multihack and stock up on good gear. Oh well, too late now. But if I make enough links to this portal, the Resistance will probably return for it.

Was in contact with my nearest ally, but he is reluctant to travel 30 kilometers, especially in the traffic congestion, to get to Kristiansand. I can get to his portals and upgrade them, which will get them to a level where we both can get level-appropriate gear. Will probably do that if I run out of guest portals. Hopefully that will take a while – there is a new guest coming tonight. He is short on high-level gear, but even replacing my 4 x level 4 resonators with 2 x 5 and 2 x 6 would be enough. He is just passing through and staying overnight though, so probably won’t venture far from the camp site.

It is OK. I will continue to harvest keys for the Enlightenment in other parts of the country to use. This is something that does not depend on level, so anyone can do it if they have the diligence. The goodwill earned by this will probably come back to me, if I and the game both stay up long enough. ^_^