Showing posts with label Union Square. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Union Square. Show all posts

Friday, March 01, 2013

Level 8 In A Month



And that in February, the shortest month. I hit Level 5 without an External Battery. And now that I am a Level 8 I am going to relax a little. I will still go out at least once a week with the express intention of hacking, plus I will be hacking when I am out and about town doing other things. But now I expect to be more skilled at it. Deploy just the right Burster, for example. That is a judgment call.

Now my Ingress focus is going to shift to the hyperlocal apps Highlight and Sonar. The number one reason I wanted to play Ingress was to meet people.

1,000,000 Action Points
Ingress Tips
Ingress Can Be Modified For Grassroots Organizing
Ingress Tips
Ingress Tips (2)
Would Like An Ingress Invite
Ingress And Location
How I Just Made Two Purchases
An External Battery As Big As The Phone

Now I am going to enjoy the scenery more, and I am going to venture beyond the Farms. I am going to the isolated Portals, because I want to see the city, and I want to meet people.

Photography
Highlight
Sonar

I took the train to Madison Square Park in the afternoon, not long after lunch. Madison Square Park, Union Squar Park and Washington Square Park all looked blue. I took turns and created a whole bunch of Fields all three places. And I kept walking. I destroyed a whole bunch of green Portals near City Hall, and created blue Fields. Then it was off to Wall Street and Battery Park. I hit Level 8 while I was working Trinity Church, right off of Wall Street.

It is a very good feeling to hit Level 8. Now I can relax some. I had cold sores the final few days, all those late night hours in Battery Park. You get those cold sores when you go up the Himalayas if you are not careful.

It is an amazing feeling to use a Level 8 Burster for the first time. You do some major damage.

I'd like to share some photos.

Creating Fields in Union Square. This is also the Level Omar was at when I met him, and I met him in Union Square.




It was a long walk between Washington Square Park and City Hall. You pass through this zone where there is one Portal per block, often less.



City Hall: green territory turned all blue.



Hitting Level 8 at Trinity Church near Wall Street.



What the Battery Park, Wall Street area looked like when I hit Level 8. Hint: it is not all blue. And that large Field you see I created after I hit Level 8.




About to use a Level 8 Burster for the first time.



The aftermath.




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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Ingress Tips


Join The Squad (Values)

The photo is me hitting Level 7 on Wall Street. Look at the mess I created!

First let's start with what is out there. There are some great sites that give you Ingress tips.

Ingress Tips
Ingress Tips (2)
Ingress FAQ
Ingress Bootcamp

My tips are with NYC on my mind. Even in NYC Manhattan has so many Portals and "Farms" compared to the outer boroughs. So my tips might not be universally applicable.

(1) Get An External Battery 

The game is a major drain on the battery, and you are going to be easily frustrated if you don't get an External Battery. I got my 10,000 mAH battery for $40 on Amazon, the best thing I bought since I bought my Nexus 4! And Nokia gave me a 2,000 mAH External Battery for free for attending a Nokia event during Social Media Week 2013. Go Nokia! 10,000 plus 2,000 plus 2,000 on my phone, and I am good for an entire day if need be! And for me this is not just about the game. I am a power user. My smartphone is my mobile office, my personal assistant. I don't like my personal assistant going to sleep or - worse - going into a coma. This tip on the External Battery came to me by way of a fellow Ingress player I bumped into in Union Square. Hello slomar! His real name is Omar.



(2) Put In The Hours

Especially during the early stages it might feel like you are making slow progress. But moving from Level 6 to Level 7 took me less time than moving from Level 1 to Level 2. This game is a lot of perspiration. It makes you walk! During the early stages you want to hack as many Portals as you can. Hacking friendly Portals is a great way to collect ammo.

(3) Know The Numbers 
  • Establish a control field 1250 AP
  • Destroy a control field 750 AP
  • Capturing a portal (place the first resonator) 500 AP
  • Link two portals 313 AP 
  • Complete a portal (place the eighth resonator) 250 AP
  • Destroy a link 187 AP
  • Apply a portal shield 150 AP
  • Place a resonator (new resonator) 125 AP
  • Hack a portal (Enemy) 100 AP
  • Destroy a resonator 75 AP
  • Upgrading an existing resonator owned by another agent 65 AP
  • Resonators discharge 10% of their maximum XM daily and must be recharged if they are to persist. Recharging can be done either by being within range of the portal or by using a portal key to access the portal remotely.
  • Resonators are destroyed when their XM reaches 0. 
  • You can only have 2,000 ammo items at a time. That's a lot unless you are high level and have been hacking a long time. 
Level AP RequiredMax XMBurster DamageBurster RangeResonator HPPortal Range
103,000150421,000160 m
210,0004,000300481,5002.56 km
330,0005,000500582,00012.96 km
470,0006,000900722,50040.96 km
5150,0007,0001,200903,000100 km
6300,0008,0001,5001124,000207 km
7600,0009,0001,8001385,000384 km
81,200,00010,0002,7001686,000655 km

I have not memorized them. All these numbers are in an Evernote file on my phone for quick references.

(4) Use The Map

That is how you know where the Farms are, where the Portals are. If you are low on ammo and need to hack friendly Portals for a few hours, go to the map. If it is time to find a cluster of enemy Portals, go to the map. The map changes as Portals switch from one side to another. (IITC)

(5) Farms Help You Level Up Fast

The top farms in Manhattan are:
  • Battery Park + Wall Street.
  • Madison Square Park 
  • Washington Square Park 
  • Rockefeller Center 
Other good ones are: City Hall, Union Square, Bryant Park, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), 7th Avenue from Macy's to Times Square, Times Square itself, Columbus Circle, the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. 

There are a few others that look good on the map that I have not explored yet. 

The formula is how many Portal hacks are you managing in an hour. If you are walking a block to hack one Portal, that is not the best use of your time. So stick to the big Farms to level up fast. 

Open parks are more GPS friendly than places like Wall Street and Rockefeller Center. Tall buildings seem to confuse satellites. The upside is when your GPS goes haywire, you are collecting XM from places you have not been, you are hacking Portals that are far from you!

Update: September 9, 2013: By now, Greater Jackson Heights is the top place in Queens for leveling up, and also one of the top citywide. 

Update: October 22, 2013: By now, East Village along Houston has emerged the top farm in the city. It is no longer Battery Park. Derpdom.

(6) Hack A Portal Four Times In A Row

You are much more likely to create Links and Fields. This is also why a Farm works better. You start with the first Portal, by the time you have hacked the final Portal on that Farm chances are the first Portal is ready for hacking again, since it has been past four minutes. A second or third hack might get you a Portal Key.

During the early Levels you create any Link you can. But later you want to get strategic about it. Remember the goal is to create Fields. It's best to Link short distance Portals with no Portals in between. You are doing well when creating one Link is giving you two Fields at once!

Update: October 20, 2013 Now you get a key each time you hack a portal if you don't have a key for it already. That makes the game way more fun, since linking and fielding is my favorite part of the game. Leveling up is now faster as well.

(7) Strategic Hacking

Bursters are scarce. So once you hit a certain Level, make a point to only go after Links and Fields. A great use of Bursters is to sit in the middle of a large Farm with many enemy Fields and take over. You earn APs like anything. This tip came to me by way of an "enemy" Player (derp) who had 4,000,000 points to my 400,000 who I bumped into in Madison Square Park. He happened to be an engineer at Google. He started in December, I got my start on February 1. He said I had wasted so many Bursters trying to take over one Portal. I should have instead used them to destroy a Field or two.

Destroying a Portal that is supporting two Fields is a great idea. You get a flood of APs.

Submit Portal suggestions. It is just like sharing a picture from your phone to Facebook. The process takes months apparently. And the ones I submitted have not showed up yet, but they will and I will be ready for them at Level 8.


(8) It Adds Up

Low level Resonators are useful to fill up Resonator slots once you capture a Portal. Every Resonator you add and every Portal you complete brings you points. The tortoise won the race, remember?

(9) It's The Resonator, Stupid

"You aren't attacking the Portal, but the Resonators. Stand right on top of every resonator when attacking for maximum effect.  It currently should take ~32 L1 XMP Bursters to destroy a L1 Portal's Resonators. You do ~15% damage to a Resonator when you are standing directly on top of it. If you are not, the damage falls off to 5% or 1% very quickly. .... if you wait for decay and hit them right before expiring, then even L8 Resonators could be destroyed easily. .....  .... Anecdotal evidence suggests a major difference between standing within a meter of a resonator vs 5m away and only a minor difference between 10m and 15m away.  .... ... If you don't have enough ammo don't even start a fight, it would be just a waste of xmp and your time."

(10) Socialize

The number one reason I started playing this game was to meet new people. I fire up Ingress, but then I also fire up my HDR Camera+ app, and my Highlight and Sonar apps. If I am going to be walking around this beautiful city like a mad man, I am going to take some pictures along the way. I am also going to expand my personal network.

It is not hard to spot other Ingress players. Their phone screen gives it away. Say hello.

Update: June 6, 2013

(11) Resonator Placement: Spread Them Out

When you capture a portal, stand as far away as you possibly can and then deploy. That way you spread out the resonators and it becomes just a little harder for an enemy agent to take them down.

Update: June 30, 2013

(12) Make Portal Submissions

Start making portals submissions as soon as you start playing the game: when you are a Level 1 agent, during your very first week. Do not wait. Portal submissions take weeks to go through anyways. You should have about 20 portals that you can walk over to any time. And so submit 50 with that in mind. This is also the top advice I have for all Level 8 agents I know. Don't just chase portals, make them come to you as well. Build a home territory. Churches, sculptures, arts, artifacts, murals, paintings are a good bet. Aim to build portal clusters. Dense clusters are good for gaining a lot of AP fast.

Build a home territory. A home territory is one where the majority of portals are your submissions.

Update: October 21, 2013

(13) The Ultimate Challenge: Team Building

It is my belief that is the final challenge in this game. You could work to build your neighborhood team, or a citywide team with slightly different values, or perhaps a global team. You could join an existing team and carve out space for your own team building within, or you could launch a brand new team of your own.

You can play this game solo just fine, and even as a team member you will engage in a ton of solo action, but this game is meant to be a social game.

Ingress New York City Public
Greater Jackson Heights Resistance
Squad Junior
The Squad
The Commando Squad
The Cross Faction Squad

My Photo Albums
Ingress: My Blog Posts

(This post has been visited 1063 times as of 10/22/13)
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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Music Bands, Tech StartUps: Much In Common


Puma Store: Union Square
Events: Week Of October 17
US Royalty
Tweets: 1, 2, 3, 4.

This would be my favorite US Royalty song:



But I think they consider this to be their signature song:



I showed up 10 minutes early so I walked around at the Union Square Farmers' Market in the drizzle. I bought a little something to eat. I was not hungry. And then I walked in right on time. I crossed the street.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Inviting Charlie O'Donnell To A Pillow Fight

Hello Venture Capitalist Dude Charlie O'Donnell. On behalf of all the would be tech entrepreneurs that you have refused to fund since the snowball fight in December I am hereby inviting you to a pillow fight in Union Square on Saturday at 3 PM sharp. You can bring along as many VCs as you want with you. Angel investors also welcome, as are super angels.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Bloggers' Block For Fred Wilson: 10 Blocks Of Emergency

Image of Victoria Cross Medal as appears on CW...Image via WikipediaI learned the top VC blogger in the world has hit some kind of a bloggers' block. That is an emergency situation, people. I am declaring an emergency for 10 blocks in every direction from Union Square. All startups in the vicinity, please take note.

You are being urged to participate in the comments section here. If you don't, the emergency is not going to be lifted. And you are going to be deprived of your daily staple of blog posts from Fred Wilson. Think about that.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Dumbo And Union Square

Location of Manhattan on New York City.Image via WikipediaI am headed to Union Square Friday afternoon to spend a few hours with the PaperlessPost team and its fearless leader Alexa Herschfeld. I had a voice mail from her Wednesday and Google Voice had transcribed her name as Celexa Ourselves. Not good, Google Voice, not good.

And to me it is feeling like I am headed to Dumbo. Dumbo and Union Square are two places in town that have tech clusters. There are a whole bunch of tech startups congregated in those two locales.

If there are other such clusters in the city, I am not aware of them as of yet. I am surprised there are not similar clusters in Williamsburg and Chinatown. I know of at least one major tech company that is based out of Chinatown, but I don't think you would call that a cluster.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Alexa's PaperlessPost


Image representing Alexa as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBaseI first met Alexa Hirschfeld when she was sitting on a panel during Social Media Week 2010. We have met here and there, stayed in touch, an email here, an email there. I brought this idea months ago. I said let me do a few blog posts about your startup. Finally looks like I get to do it. We are meeting Friday. She says they just moved to a new office. It is near Union Square. Most tech startups in Manhattan are near Union Square for some reason.

This is not going to be an act of journalism. I am not a journalist. This is not a professional blogger out to gather material either. This is one tech entrepreneur reaching out to another. But this is the age of social media, so it is not just going to be a let's-catch-up kind of conversation. The conversation will happen and then it will spill over to my blog, which is just fine by Alexa.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Monday, December 20, 2010

A Guggenheim Walk

Last night I was at the Guggenheim for about two hours for a free concert. The line was long. But the wait was worth it.

I was wearing blue jeans.

There was this newly retired Chicago couple - college sweethearts - right in front of me. We chatted. I ended up talking about ethnic prejudice in Nepal.

I was one of the top Obama volunteers in the city, friends with the founders of Manhattan For Obama, Brooklyn For Barack and so on. When they finally published the names and profiles of the prominent Nepali Obama supporters in the city in the Nepali newspaper in Queens, I was not on the list. That is ethnic prejudice for you. (Am I Smart?, Larry Ellison)