New Again
in General
I've rejoined the game after many years; can someone kindly point me to a way I can catch up?
Red portals, bounties... outta my depth here.
I think the last time I played was 6-8 years ago, but I can't be sure.
Thanks in advance
Bennetheclone
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Easiest way unfortunately is probably go back through News announcements or ask your local community.
Overall things have remained mostly the same, aside from the redesign of the Prime app. Same things to get AP, hack and glyph hack, capture and destroy Portals and Resonators, deploy mods, etc etc.
Biggest change is you can link and field under larger fields currently (5 km right not I think?) However you still cannot cross links with preexisting links.
The Red Portals are Machina, an AI/computer "team" that will capture Portals and slowly level itself up, as well as spreading to other nearby neutral Portals over time. Hacking these Red Portals gives very low level gear, regardless of the portal level. and zaps 100% of your XM bar.
However, if you Neautralize Red Portals, they will often drop a combination of Keys, Resos and Bursters of the same level as the portal, and sometimes purple or pink Mods like Shields. Capturing a portal that was owned by Machina within 24 hours-ish gives you a +1 on the Reclaimer badge.
The Bounties program is very similar to Pokémon Go's Tasks. They're daily incentives for you to do certain things (changes each day) and you get extra gear and AP for them. Bounties reset at Midnight global time.
Another change to be aware of is 2x Tuesdays. From 4pm to 9pm local time, any actions that give AP are doubled. Includes capturing Portals, deploying Resonators or mods, making links and fields, recharging, etc.
There's also an item called Apex that you sometimes get. This doubles AP output for 30 minutes from time used, and you can use multiple to extend the time. This usually stacks with any ongoing events that increase AP as well.
There are also kinetic capsules that allow you to produce stuff.
A Drone to remotely hack portals. No key is given for drone Hacks AXA shields are now Aegis Shields
We have Softbank Ultra Link Amps, which have mostly replaced the VR Link Amp in most cases.
Lawsons/Circle K cubes have been renamed to Hyper Cubes
Overclocking is relatively new and allows you to get a lot of stuff really fast. (only Do if you are very comfortable with 2D glyphs)
Apex doubles AP for a short period of time
Rare Battle Beacons allow Niantic to show clearly which portals are valuable during special events.
Very Rare Battle Beacons, mostly the same as Rare Battle Beacons but flips the portal at regular intervals, really handy for fast AP gain from engines.
Key Lockers allow you to hold more keys than normal and keys in these do not count towards your inventory count.
The Intel map has been fixed, and is pretty fast and useful for most everyday ops
There is a Subscription if you choose called CORE. It gives you several perks
We have the ability to Recurse once we reach Level 16, giving you the option to change Factions, and enjoy the grind back to L16 again, Recurse again and this loops forever.
There are a tonne of other features but these are half baked
Russian region is banned while the Ukraine war is on, ironically we've seen a lot less spoofers.
MUFG Capsules became Quantum Capsules,
These were removed from the game early in 2023, that means having to go back and farm keys for portals, but not to worry, there is plenty of options to farm lots of keys fast
You find up-to-date information on player-created sites, for example the Fevgames guide.
https://fevgames.net/ingress/ingress-guide/
Niantic is not providing information in a structured way.