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Should a person keep lots of level 1's, or discard them for level 2's? Or do you skip those completely for levels 4-8? And at what proportion? When hacking and deploying, I wonder how many of the low level stuff I should carry. Just curious what others think or suggest

7 Answers 7

15

In order to capture a portal by yourself, you need 2 L4 Resonators, 2 L5s, 2 L6s, one L7 and one L8. When upgrading portals, you usually need one L7 and one L8 resonator. So, a reasonable strategy will be to carry the same amount of resonators in each level, starting from L4.

For example, if I have 200 resonators in each Level, I would be able to capture 100 portals and upgrade an additional 100. If I tend more towards capturing and less towards upgrading, I could reduce the number of L7s and L8s. If I tend more towards upgrading (as most L8s should, actually), I could reduce the number of L4-L6 resonators.

There are two reasons to carry lower level resonators:

  1. As a L8 player, lower level resonators are usually harder to come by. So sometimes I compensated for the lack of L4s (compared to my L5s and L6s) with L3s or lower.
  2. Handing out equipment to lower level players (especially L5s, who still need L3 resonators in order to completely capture a portal by themselves).

The ratio that worked best for me, after taking into account the various factors and the amount of use I had for each item level, is to have, for each L5 resonator: ~2 lower level resonator (L1-L4), 1 L6 resonator, ~2 L7 resonators, ~2 L8 resonators.

I usually had ~700 resonators in my inventory at any one time, but I can't pretend to have a strategy behind that number. It just the average amount the I carried.

4
  • Note that you can glyph for L4s and L5s resos while deploying. A lot of people (including myself) carry very few of those (20-50) and hack more as they go. Dec 31, 2015 at 0:08
  • 1
    Yes, this glyphing thing didn't exist back in my day...
    – idan315
    Jan 4, 2016 at 6:43
  • 1
    Capturing a portal only requires 1 resonator. Your first paragraph is describing fully deploying a portal.
    – M.M
    Sep 3, 2016 at 4:32
  • An easy way to get low level resonators is to partially deploy until the portal is at the level you want, then glyph hack.
    – M.M
    Sep 3, 2016 at 4:32
6

It depends on your play style and a bit on your environment.

If you generally play alone, then it's actually easier to run out of low-level resonators since building up an empty portal on your own requires at least 4 resonators of level 5 or lower, and if there are other high level players around, you also don't get many low level resonators from hacks. They can easily be your scarcest resource!

But if you mostly play with high level friends, you can build up portals without ever needing low level resonators, so in that case you can probably discard everything below level 4 or 5.

As for other stuff: power cubes are great, no matter the level. XMP bursters get so much stronger at the higher levels that the lower ones (say, below 6) aren't really worth your time. Whether you want to collect media is a matter of taste. Portal keys are always useful, except those from places you won't visit again.

3
  • Only 2 r4's are required for completing a portal by yourself.
    – jrennie
    Feb 27, 2014 at 2:15
  • 1
    You can always hack low level stuff by hacking before you have placed all your resonators. A simple way to get them if you need them.
    – Rory Alsop
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:00
  • @RoryAlsop: yeah, but you'll still get them at a lower rate than high-level resonators (if there are active players from your faction around who build up portals) while using them up at a higher rate. Apr 9, 2014 at 7:05
4

So dependent on strategy and local conditions. Here's what I do:

  • 100 L1 + L4
  • 100 L5
  • 200 L6
  • 200 L7
  • 300 L8

I think L1s are better than L2 or L3 because a fully deployed 87665511 portal is L4, so you can use L1s to get more L4s out of newly-captured portals.

I seem to be able to keep in a roughly steady state with those conditions, but you should adjust to what your conditions are and what you find allows you to generally keep inventory stocked. This is also based on the fact that I'd like to be able to give away 50% of my resonators at any time to a teammate and still be able to operate effectively.

2

You can hack for lower level resonators as you deploy. I find I can deploy to level 4 (lvl 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, empty, empty), glyph hack, and deploy the rest (lvl 4 or lower) without running out of lower level resonators. As long as I hit the high level farms to restock lvl 5+ resonators, I never run out of resonators.

For bursters I recycle anything lvl 5 or lower when I need XM. I also recycle lvl 7 and 8 resonators when I have significantly more than lvl 5 and 6 resonators. It's been a good way to balance my inventory from home while working on recharger badge.

2

I would focus on L4 and higher, because that's the minimum you need to capture a portal solo.

Given that L8 resonators are harder to come by as you need a L6 portal or higher to give L8 resonators, which means you need at least 2 people, I'd give priority to the L8 resonators. Also because you will need them to create L8 portals.

But if you have lots of active L8 players in your neighborhood and you often play together (often enough to nearly never need to capture portals solo), you should definitely focus on having many L8 and L7 resonators and only have L6, L5 and L4 as spare.

In fact, you could be focussing on bursters and keys more.

As for bursters, I would recycle any bursters of level 3 and lower. Level 4 bursters can be used effectively on a portal that has no shields anymore, so you can use spare L4 bursters to save on your higher bursters (but only if you have the luxury to have place for spare parts).

0

If you can destroy 25 portals in one day, I suggest to keep atleat 100 L3, 100 L4 resonators. And if you regularly farm from 4 portals, I suggest to keep atleast 20 L8, 20 L7, and 40 L6, 40 L5 resonators. That makes total 320 resonator.
And if you think the opposition can destroy more than you can hack, keep more than I suggested for farming.

-2

Here are my notes:

BEST ITEM MIX - 1,940 (Items in 2 Red Capsules) Have 1800 max when going out to load up INV (CAPSULE) TOTAL Capsules - 3 (Load 2 Red) 3 Mods - 0 (22) = 22 (10 Rare Shields & 10 Rare Turrets) (2 Rare Multi Hack) Portal Keys – 180 (Local) Power Cubes – 80 (30) = 110 Resonators – 1,100 (Capsule) L1-4 = 130 (20) = 150 L5 = 180 (20) = 200 L6 = 280 (20) = 300 L7 = 190 (10) = 200 L8 = 240 (10) = 250 Weapons - L8 Bursters 500 L8 Ultra Strike 30 Ada Refractors (20) Jarvis Virus (20)

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