Slice of Chaotic Life

Two blue (Resistance) agents visited Kristiansand today. The stronger of the two tore down many of the most centrally located portals, while the lower-level one built blue portals in their place.  I went to the city and took the portals back, but unfortunately I can only make them level 5, not level 6 as they were. Well, it is hardly a big problem: I have stocked up so much that I have had to delete perfectly usable items in order to continue hacking and get the occasional rare item. Today I got a chance to spend both bursters for attack and resonators for building, so that gives me some room for more hacking. And of course, some AP toward my next and final level.

I suppose if I reach level 8, I will have rather less motivation without the AP, but I don’t see myself suddenly quitting the game if my health keeps up. It is fun, and good exercise. The game now actually counts the distance walked. I am not sure how accurate it is, but it is clearly able to tell walking apart from driving with at least some devices.

So the last couple days two different (?) Resistance agents have visited Mandal and tore down a couple of my portals each time. It is unclear what they try to achieve: Unlike the more famous visitor from Rogaland who stopped by Kristiansand, they have not tried to take over the portals for themselves, much less set up any links or fields. It seems their only concern is to help me gain more AP by rebuilding the portals and links. Which is surprisingly nice of them, if a little strange. With their help, along with the excessive amount of recharging dozens of portals in Kristiansand, I am now level 7.

The reason for my question mark above is that the two of them exhibit exactly the same behavior. They attack the same portals with the same size of bursters, and until just some minutes ago even at similar times of the day. What’s more intriguing is that they follow the same pattern as another Resistance agent which stopped by here a couple months ago. Not sure if it’s the same person with different mobile phones or whether there is some recurring activity in Mandal that attracts visitors. Perhaps one of the local hotels is used for seminars or something. Strange though that only Resistance members attend these. I really doubt there are dedicated Resistance seminars in Mandal – or anywhere, really.

In any case, it livens things up a bit. I am quite happy to be the only active Ingress player on the south coast of Norway, but an occasional visit doesn’t hurt. Perhaps another time I’ll visit them. ^_^

A level 8 Agent of the Enlightenment in the eastern part of Norway just happened to go to a wedding here in Kristiansand today. It was probably not his wedding, although for a sufficiently dedicated Agent, any occasion is an Ingress occasion…

He offered to upgrade the portals in Kristiansand while he had some time today, and he did: Approximately two dozen portals all over a 2x2km area. That’s pretty impressive.

For me, this was a rather big thing. At level 6.6, I can only make portals at level 4. That is simply not enough to yield much useful stuff, so I generally don’t bother with even hacking them. At level 8, he can create portals at level 5. But together, by one of us upgrading the portals of the other, we can make them level 6. That is just the right size for me.  So I walked around town for 3 hours, hacking like a hungry man picking fruit.

Indeed, since around the time I turned level 6, Kristiansand has been like a huge strawberry patch that must be watered almost every day, but where only two of the plants give ripe berries with any regularity. You can see how that turns out to be less than motivating if you are doing it just for yourself, and most of the time I am. But today suddenly it was like pretty much the whole garden was full of ripe sweet level 6 strawberries, more than I could eat. It was like a miracle, although in this case a miracle with feet. ^_^

I suppose the Resistance won’t just let this slide – Kristiansand must be shining like a small green sun on the national map now – but that’s part of the game. And at least I got to pick a lot of level 6 resonators and quite a few power cubes as well.

On my way through the city after work, I noticed that many of the gray portals in the northern part of Kristiansand had turned green. This is good, because green is my color, that of Enlightenment. (I really disagree with their choice of colors, but that’s beside the point by now.)  Other portals that had lacked some resonators had been filled out. Some of the resonators were level 1, with one of them eventually level 2, as if a brand new player had gained his first level here in Kristiansand. I am not convinced it is a local, though, because there were also higher resonators, up to 5, by another green player. I would have noticed if he used to be active here, so he must have gained his levels elsewhere and just be visiting. The other is probably a friend or family member that has just started.

I upgraded the low-level resonators and was on my way to the bus when the Ingress alert went off. A well-known top-level Resistance member from Rogaland was attacking the three portals at the railway station, and using the highest-level bursters available judging from the radius. This implies that he was probably on a train making a short stop in Kristiansand, and making the most of his time here. I could hurry to catch my bus or get into a one-on-one duel with one of the country’s most accomplished Ingress players who had no doubt stocked up on level 8 bursters and power cubes. Given my knowledge of how long the trains stop in Kristiansand (they change direction so the seats are turned around) I had no chance to delay him long enough. The game favors attackers anyway, more so on higher levels.

He took over the three portals around the railway station and even made a link back to Stavanger. This pleases me, since keys are consumed in the process of making a link. I returned later in the evening and destroyed the link as well as erasing one of the portals to gray, and leaving the two others with a sliver of one resonator each, in case the newbies wanted to give it the final blow.

I guess my practice of leaving some gray portals for the newbies must have given rise to some rumor that I have retired or something. I am baffled that someone as dedicated to the game as him would imagine that I’d just leave a blemish like that on Kristiansand. You cannot take Kristiansand for the Resistance without a moving van. Kristiansand belongs to the Enlightenment, and like waves erase footsteps on the beach, we will wash away any trace of the Resistance unless you make them anew each day.

I have not seen hide nor hair of the newbies, neither the two green nor the one blue, for a full week now. There are gray portals for them to capture and link, but it’s like they’ve all gone away. However, the other day another green newbie appeared, captured one portal, and stopped. I have no idea why. Was he just traveling through? It was definitely a newbie, because he clustered all the resonators closely to the portal instead of spreading them as widely as possible. That’s a typical newbie error. Also, he only used level 1 resonators, and from around level 4 upward you don’t usually carry those, there’s no reason to and you don’t usually get them by hacking.

I upgraded the portal, as I’ve done with the rest. There are still many gray ones left, and I considered today whether I should claim some of them. But it is kind of nice to not have to walk around for an hour before work and two hours after work just to keep all the portals recharged. In addition to Kristiansand, I have the portals in Mandal, Vigeland, and Grimstad. (Although someone level 7 has stopped by Grimstad and set up a couple portals just lately. There used to be newbies there as well, but they haven’t been active for weeks.)

I can only assume that most people who sign up for the game stop when they realize that they won’t progress fast unless they actually walk around regularly. You probably have to like to use your body to stick with it. Well, that excludes most of the world’s population, I am sure. But it means the game is very rewarding: Not only do you make progress in the game, but you also “level up” in the real world, gaining health benefits and quite possibly a longer life. Science has tentatively concluded that you live an hour longer for each hour you exercise, barring random accidents. If that is the case, those hours ought to be fun hours. Ingress is that for me, but evidently your mileage may vary – literal miles, in this case.

It looks like Kristiansand has got its first native “smurf” (Resistance member, named for the blue color of their portals – we are usually called “frogs” or sometimes “aliens”). The Enlightenment has taken down all the fields over Kristiansand, almost all the links and almost all of the portals as part of our two operations, “Kristiansand by Night” and “Lucky Star”. At this time, before all the portals were back online again, a newbie has appeared and taken control of 3 portals. Why do I think it is a new local player? Because the resonators are all level 1 and there are very few of them, not enough to fully power the portal. This implies that the user probably started today, as a day or two of hacking should give enough resonators. A visitor would have brought with him his resonators, as they follow your scanner (actually your Google account).

Now I am in Kristiansand, to make sure there are no improper links in town. Unfortunately, buses are infrequent on Saturday night, so most likely I will not be back in Mandal until 00:30. Actually, I am not even sure of that: The timetable of the bus company says 23:45, but the app says 22:15. Presumably only one of those is real, and I have to show up for the first in case the second does not go.  To add to the sacrifice, I am coming down with some kind of infection. My head is hurting slightly, my digestion is upset, and my pulse is over 80 instead of 60. I did not feel too bad until I left home, but I would probably have gone anyway. Overall, I’d say Ingress has been great for my health so far.

Yesterday after I came home, I was making the usual XM harvest circuit in Mandal, but when I was about to recharge the two portals in Vigeland, they had turned blue. I checked the Ingress map and found that they were now owned by a famous Resistance agent on the west coast. (I won’t mention his name as he may be searching for it.) I decided to take them back today, before he could make any trouble with them. After all, this is pretty far from his hometown, so I doubted he could get anything done the same day.

I was wrong. The next morning, Vigeland was the corner of a large field in southern Norway. It was one of several large fields set up by the same user. I wonder how he could do that without a private helicopter. Anyway, there was no helping it. I took the AM bus to Vigeland.

Vigeland is about a quarter by bus west of here, at least in theory. I think it took a few minutes more, but not enough to be a problem. The road is fairly good (it is E39, an interstate, after all) and passes through a charming mixture of farmland and some wilderness. Vigeland itself surprised me by being an actual town, even if much smaller than Mandal. I had expected a bunch of farms, a clump of residential houses, a gas station and a combined grocery store and post office, perhaps a nursing home. But there were numerous shops and a dense residential area, looking from the inside quite like a proper town.

Conveniently, four monuments are placed fairly closely together not far from the bus station. There are also a couple more near the church, I submitted one and hope to be back later to submit another monument and the church itself. Unfortunately I had a narrow window of time to take down and take over the four blue portals before the return bus, unless I wanted to stay for two more hours, which would have made it hard for me to also visit Kristiansand and harvest level 6 resonators the same day.

There was no attempt to defend the portals. The game balance right now is badly skewed in favor of attackers, and I am sorry to say that it just got worse this week with the inability for a single player to add more than one shield (later adjusted to two, which helps). I can see how this makes for a more dynamic game, and this time it worked I my favor: It did not take me long to pull down four portals created by a level 8 player (I am still 6, and probably will be for some months more, especially since we must prioritize the new agent.)

I have to say I really enjoyed the look and feel of this small town. I would not mind moving there next, even if it means my bus ride increases from 45 to 60 minutes. Half the year I can use the bus ride to read, when there is not direct sunshine. (Reading in sunshine triggers my migraine, it is pretty much the only thing to do so. This also makes it harder for me to Ingress on sunny days.) When I can’t read, I can still think, long may it last.

Recently I noticed that several of my portals had gotten new level 1 resonators by the same user. I contacted him on the faction channel and asked if he was a local or a visitor. Turns out he was indeed local and lives in Kristiansand, so finally it seems I will get someone else to maintain the almost 40 portals in downtown and central eastern Kristiansand.

The timing was almost ideal as well: I’d like a couple days later, but I decided to start operation Kristiansand by Night the next day. What we will attempt is to let all fields in downtown Kristiansand decay over the course of a week, then next week set them back up. Making fields is far and away the fastest way to level up in this game, and as long as there is only him, he should be able to pick up several levels from it, enough to make him a useful agent within two weeks! And the best part is that the Resistance can at most speed up the process, they cannot slow it down, unless they arrive here in a moving van.

I have further plans after that, but this is all that is public for now. I am quite relieved to finally have someone to help with Kristiansand. Actually, it would be ideal if he could maintain Kristiansand alone, freeing me up to expand westward and northward. I expect him to be level 4 by the end of this operation, and the next operation just might get him to level 5, at which point we could make level 5 portals without the need for visitors. The portals are currently for the most part level 4, which are nearly useless for me.

It’s the end of the week and I’ve not prioritized getting to bed early the last half week, so I have regenerated less than I could have done. Also my digestion has not been ideal for walking around for hours. I claimed a new portal yesterday, but several others have lost some resonators. Well, it is not a big deal. I get more AP for replacing the resonators than I would have gotten for recharging them.

Today I picked up a plea in the COMM channel from someone who wanted help to make Mandal blue (the color of the resistance). I still have seen no sign of any startup Resistant agents here, but of course they might be content to hack all the portals. But I don’t see the XM disappearing either, until I scoop it up to recharge resonators. So I have no idea why anyone would ask for that about Mandal in particular. There are many other towns in this country, why not pick one of those if you don’t live here?