In mid June I presented a small study investigating the effect of glyph hacks and especially the speed bonus on the chance to get a key for a P1. You can read about this study here: https://drthod.com/investigating-level-1-portal-key-and-glyph-hacks/
The main findings were:
a) ownership (neutral/Enlightened/Resistance) has no or only a small effect on drop rate (at level 1)
b) a higher speed bonus does increase the chance of a key. Your chance of a key increases by approx. 2.5% (absolute) for each additional 10% of speed bonus. Going from 13% to 93% would therefore gain on average +0.2 keys.
The most common question I got asked – but what about higher levels. And more importantly – can you give us a rule for the optimal portal level for key hacks.
I seem to be a sucker for punishment. Not only did I go for gold during the Aurora challenge – I waited for full animations after each hack take 3 snapshots of each of me 1096 hacks: a) hack bonus b) dropped items normal hack c) dropped items bonus hack. And then in the evenings I added all that data into a large spreadsheet.
So what are the rules for optimal portal level?
Just 3 simple rules
- You need to glyph hack
- Go for the highest portal level where you reach 90%+ success rate
- If in doubt, go for a lower level
I start with my actual raw data during the event:
| Keys | Glyph keys | Total keys |
| normal hack | na | 0.75 |
| 1 | 0.58 | 1.43 |
| 2 | 0.70 | 1.52 |
| 3 | 0.84 | 1.60 |
| 4 | 0.85 | 1.60 |
| 5 | 0.97 | 1.72 |
| 6 | 0.74 | 1.35 |
| 7 | 0.89 | 1.46 |
| failed | 0.10 | 0.86 |
In my original work I got a drop rate of 76.5% which was inside my confidence interval for a 75% drop rate (72.2-77.8). I now got 74.8% on 1096 hacks which nicely confirms that.
The difference between level 2-7 seems small. I will go into that later. What really stands out are failed hacks. They give you significantly less keys.
The following table gives the rounded chances for zero, one or two keys for different number of glyphs and my average speed bonus:
| Glyphs | 0 keys | 1 key | 2 keys | Speed bonus |
| normal Hack | 25% | 75% | 0% | na |
| 1 | 40% | 60% | 0% | 90% |
| 2 | 30% | 70% | 1% | 75-80% |
| 3 | 20% | 75% | 5% | 60-65% |
| 4 | 20% | 75% | 5% | 40% |
| failed | 90% | 10% | 0% | na |
And here are my success rates for Glyph hacking during the event
| Glyphs | Success | Fail |
| 1 | 100% | 0% |
| 2 | 96% | 4% |
| 3 | 90% | 10% |
| 4 | 71% | 29% |
| 5 | 0% | 100% |
| All | 95% | 5% |
Getting 2 keys on a P2 is a pretty rare event – but I have the screen shots to proof it (and yes – I know it adds up to 101% – this are approximate values). The value for zero keys drops from P2 to P3/4/5 while the chance for 2 keys takes a significant jump. P3/4/5 is therefore currently the portal level where I gain most keys – albeit only slightly more as I get for P2. I guess it was only during the Aurora event that actually P3/4/5 surpassed P2 for me as my success rate slowly inched up. I likely can increase the gap further by getting the speed bonus to 65-75% and the success rate closer to 95%.
The drop rates for successful P6/7 seem to be the same as the ones for P3/4/5. This is misleading as two trends more or less cancel out each other. P6/7 has higher drop rates at the same speed bonus – but the 20-25% lower speed bonus cancels this out. My success rate of only around 70% leads to a similar overall rate of key drops as a P1.
Before Aurora I was likely at or below 50% – so I already improved a lot. The P6/7 data shows that the penalty for failure is harsh. As I said in rule 3 – if in doubt – go for a lower level. Anyhow – you can’t build up a P6+ on your own but you can always build up a P5 – provided you are level 8 or above.
I still need to combine my new and old data sets and might have to look into effects of ENL/RES portals at levels >1. The vast majority of hacks was for ENL but I have a nagging feeling that there might be an effect. But that is unlikely to alter the rules I wrote to find the optimal portal level.
The good news for beginners and poor glyphers – you can do already pretty well by glyph hacking P1 or P2.
And here is what you hope for (but too often don’t get – 2 keys as bonus
