I reached the silver badge yesterday 13:02 UK time and just managed to add my backlog data until my 500ths point – so time for a look back. How did I get there and what experience did I gather throughout the journey so far.
Thursday: Aurora is anti-casual play. It went live 18:00 UK time on Thursday last week. I already had 10 points from the short time it accidently was life – so I thought a great opportunity to get a quick start.
That was when I had an unexpected episode of ultra casual play. Actually it was fantastic – my son – first time in a long while – volunteered to play with me. We had a dog that we took care for a week that needed some walking as well. So lets go out and head for the local park.
Dog on a leash and glyph hack – not a good combination. Coordinating with a ultra casual (my son is close to level 6 now) is not worthwhile. Looping back – never happened. We had a great walk of maybe 45+ minutes, I bonded with my son, the dog got exercise. I had a great time – but it was abysmal for Aurora. I gained 11 points from 12 portals (one failed glyph hack). So much for a quick start.
Friday: Next day it gets reconfirmed that casual play and Aurora just doesn’t mix. I’m off to drop some packages for a few of my customers ( https://www.thodsbazaar.com/ ). My son helps out as it is nearly a mile walk one way – so another opportunity to bond and have the dog out. I tend to walk there to save the environment, have some exercise – and to do some Ingress on the way.
No – I can’t glyph one handed. Yes – the dog is still an issue. I don’t want to stop all the time and there is more parcels as normal to carry – so no play on the way out and home I realise I’m now up to 20 portals hacked and 17 points with 18 hours gone into the challenge. As much as I enjoyed it so far – this doesn’t work.
I change my approach and settle to drive to the neighbouring town of Dover and do a stroll across the Western Heights. There is a small cemetery with 10 portals very close to each other plus another 50-80 portals to go for.
I end on 111 points total for the first 24 hours. Taking into account that I got 10 points from the short time it was accidentally life I managed my goal of 100 a day – just. I triple pointed the cemetery and did double points on nearly everything else.
I don’t do anything in the evening but spend the time writing an analysis and transferring 300+ snapshots from my phone into a spreadsheet. I foolishly decided that Aurora is the perfect opportunity for me to gather a large clean dataset for glyph hacked data to settle issues like keys per glyph hack and shed more light into the inner workings of the algorithms.
A great idea – but it means another hour+ in the evening spend in front of the computer to input everything. And off course it also means I slow down myself by waiting for all animations to fully play out at each single portal.
Saturday: I haven’t learned. I’m out in the morning with my son and dog. My inventory is bursting and I didn’t clean it out. I mainly aim for some 4-glyph portals that are rare in my town as I can’t build them up and my son is still level 5 and can’t help me. Not to add that he played more in the last 2 days as in the last 3 months combined. 4 failed glyph hacks in a row and I realise this truly is not my day. I can’t chat and do a 4-glyph hack at the same time.
On the bright side – I can confirm that you can rehack a failed glyph hack. Rumours started to circulate – but most agents still rant how unfair it is that you can’t.
Time for a visit to Dover again. I scoop 8 more points on the way in the small village inbetween. After doing the horses for my wife I do a small round to double hack the four portals here – one I added myself not too long ago. Not efficient – but every little helps.
I buy a 2 hour parking ticket in Dover and set my timer. Actually I’m here to also do some shopping for dinner – but I guess I could have managed that within the free 30 minutes parking allowed. I end up triple pointing a small area before rushing back to my car. I”m now on 200+ – just – inside the first 48 hours.
A try to take the dog for an evening walk and clean up a few points I left on the first evening. Didn’t I learn by now that this isn’t efficient. Well – the dog got exercise and I end on 209 points total. Late evening addition of my data becomes another issue – but I try not to fall too far behind.
I also finally manage to get a point for my home portal – in the fifth attempt.
Sunday: I do a stroll into town and take back an important strategic portal – the Deal Pier portal. Likely an hour of time for a few more points. It doesn’t help that this is the area where likely my original 10 points come from and that I lose track what I did hack at what level close to my house. Yes – I could look it up in my spreadsheet – but I tend to be too tired by the time it is up to date to actually use it for this purpose.
Instead it is another visit to Dover. This time the sea front. I happily double point a whole area that is neutral / has a few resistance portals to blew away – only to notice after a while some green fielding activity in the direction I’m heading. Seems a fellow Enlightened player had the same idea and just started on the other side of the sea front.
This really screws up book keeping. It makes it difficult to know where have I been at what level. It is also a reminder about accusing players of spoofing. It takes me nearly 10 minutes to finally spot the fellow agent. And I even know how he looks like – so I’m not looking for someone incognito who might be playing but I’m activity on the lookout of a fellow player who is somewhere close by according to the activity. We exchange greetings and go our way. A shame we both made our work more difficult.
I end the day on 316.
Monday: Another walk to the DPD drop-off. I aim for the Deal sea-front on the way back, way to do shopping. No – this isn’t the direct way – but an area where I know I haven’t hacked yet since Aurora started.
I notice a new portal on the sea front. A gift from a German visitor in town earlier in the months it seems. An Old Steering Wheel. In my view it is inside private property – but you can easily reach it from the promenade and it is just a few meters in. So no complains – that is 2 more points and a real unique. On the way there I even notice a blue plaque commemorating ‘The hero of the Goodwin Sands’. I take the time to nominate the place and make a 360 for google maps – seems that drove me above 5000 hits just today for my Ingress documentations. More time not doing Aurora – but I play to enjoy and this is a portal sparse area where I didn”t expect anything worthwhile.
Having spend all morning on a lot of things – but not efficient glyph hacking means I need another good rich area. What better to go for as Dover Castle. Great that I have a membership as it would be costly otherwise. This is my favourite spot to hunt portals when I really want to do a lot of AP. I spend 4+ hours here for 1 million AP during level 8 day (double AP day). This is the closest I ever got to fully take the castle and layer it up – I nearly succeeded.
I don;t manage the whole castle. Maybe not even half of it. But I double pointed that area and had a few remains of Resistance to clean out as bonus. I end up on 425 on the day.
Tuesday: taxi service for my daughter to the horses. Can you be back in 2-3 hours? That just allows me to finish the Dover Castle I think – so no problem. I make a detour to the White Cliffs of Dover. 10 portals – but more importantly they include an anker portal for are a large (well – large enough) blue field that also covers part of the Dover Castle. Turns out this idea was flawed on two aspects. First – I punch a huge hole into the blue field but leave a sliver that covers the east side of the castle. Second: I happily double/triple field it when my Dover Resistance nemesis wakes up. I’m suddenly back under a blue field. It can’t prevent me to gain 25 points from these portals – but it cost me a few micro fields / AP.
It also means I nearly wasted an hour and arrive at Dover Castle to be guided to the overflow car park. The good news – there are a few hard to get portals here that I would otherwise have ignored. The bad news – I still haven’t figured out to play efficient it seems.
An unexpected plus – I chat to the car parking warden as one unreachable portal close by (an old battle ground) is on the field close by that is normally fenced off. Funny that he a) tells me there should be a footpath somewhere close by b) more or less encourages me to trespass c) tells me what I really wanted to hear – the field is ‘open’ next bank holiday weekend as overflow parking for English Heritage. Apparently they rent it on busy days only. I knew I had seen it used that way but never when I passed by. So finally a way to get to that portal – or should I say to go the last 10 metres.
I never finish Dover Castle. I get a message from my daughter before my timer goes off to pick her up. At least I manage to get to 500 just before I reach my car.
Later that day I take out the bike to do Walmer Castle. A lot less portals – but it is just a 8 min bikle ride. I end up after 60 hours of the event at 533. And I nearly catch up with my spreadsheet.
Wednesday:
I try to plan my day. I get some time early morning to finish my spreadsheet only to hit the 500 mark and instead decide to write this blog.
My daugther better comes down to breakfast soon or no taxi services today as I will be in Folkestone. Other plans – a visit to London on Friday. Not sure how well this will go and how much I learned not to mix casual play and Aurora. After all I’m there to go around with son and daughter. But I surely will get a few points in this portal rich environment – I just have no clue how many.
The journey to 500 by numbers
539 total glyph hacks. 508 unique glyph hacks. 500 points and silver badge
I mainly hacked level 1 and 2 as I take over neutral portals or take down Resistance ones – apart of the area close to home which is predominately Enlightened already. No level 8 hacked yet as non in my town of Dover close by.
I hacked 278 unique portals. That means I reach an average of 1.83 points per portal. Nearly half the portals are 2 points with not a single 5-pointer and just one 4-pointer.
I managed an overall success rate for glyph hacks of 94%. But the success rate goes down steeply with number of glyphs hacked. A few of the failures are rain induced and also a very few time outs. In addition a few glyphs where I accidently hit a point I should not. I use an iPhone6 SE with a small screen. Glyphs like knowledge have to be done very carefully.
I do wonder if they took out the imperfect Glyph during the event as I can’t remember to have seen it once. But Maybe I just got lucky.
| Glyphs | Success | Fail |
| 1 | 100% | 0% |
| 2 | 96% | 4% |
| 3 | 86% | 14% |
| 4 | 63% | 37% |
| 5 | na | na |
| All | 94% | 6% |