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Portals allow for a player to acquire items that are key to playing the game. To hack a portal, it must be within your interaction range (the blue circle around your location pointer), and you must have enough XM. When you hack a portal, you can receive items such as Resonators, Xmp Bursters, Shields, Media, Power Cubes, and Portal Keys. The higher the portal's level, the higher the level of items that can be acquired (although usually you will not receive items any higher than one more that your level). Depending on who controls the portal, what/how much you receive will vary. Hacking portals under control of your side normally provides better/more items. Hacking the other side's portals will get you AP, but you may come under attack from doing so.

Portals are key to creating control fields that contribute to your side's overall MU's (Mind Units, or how global control is measured). To establish a control field, you must create links between 3 portals to form a triangle. To create a link between two portals you must have both of them fully loaded with resonators, as well as being within a specific distance of one another. The maximum distance that they can be apart is determined by the level of the “origin” portal, the one that you are linking from. The easiest way to see the distance allowed for a portal is to go into the “upgrade” screen and look at its range value in the top right corner.

A portal's level is determined by the average level of all resonators deployed to it, rounded down. You can see the level of the portal when you bring up the detail screen for the portal. The table below shows the range of each portal level.

You can also use the Portal calculator

Resonators allow for you to capture a neutral portal as well as improve the range of the portal for creating a link with another portal. Resonators have energy that is depleted through normal decay (10% per day) or when the other side fires an Xmp Burster within range of the Resonator. You can recharge resonators by using your available XM. The below table shows how much energy each Resonator provides.

L1: 1000 energy

L2: 1500 energy

L3: 2000 energy

L4: 2500 energy

L5: 3000 energy

L6: 4000 energy

L7: 5000 energy

L8: 6000 energy

The Official Help topic on the matter indicates that a single person can deploy a limited number of Resonators on a portal at one time. This encourages you to work with your fellow players to help increase the overall level of the portal. Note that you can deploy 4 L2 and 4 L3, as an example, but you won't be able to upgrade the L2 until you reach level 4 and replace the L2's with L4's.

L1 - 8 Resonators

L2 - 4 Resonators

L3 - 4 Resonators

L4 - 4 Resonators

L5 - 2 Resonators

L6 - 2 Resonators

L7 - 2 Resonators

L8 - 1 Resonator

L1 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 50m

L2 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 75m

L3 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 100m

L4 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 125m

L5 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 150m

L6 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 200m

L7 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 300m

L8 Xmp Burster [Very Common] - Range: 400m

Portal Shield [Common] - 6 mitigation

Portal Shield [Rare] - 8 mitigation

Portal Shield [Very Rare] - 10 mitigation

AP gain is itemized below. These can stack: for example, placing a resonator on a neutral portal will give you AP for placing a resonator as well as capturing the portal. This also holds true for placing the 8th resonator, as well as creating/destroying links and control fields.

Capture neutral portal: 500 AP

Place resonator: 125 AP

Place 8th and final resonator: 250 AP

Recharge resonators: 10 AP

Place shield: 150 AP

Create link: 313 AP

Create a control field: 1250 AP

Hack an enemy portal: 100 AP

Destroy an resonator: 75 AP

Destroy a link: 187 AP

Destroy a control field: 750 AP

A player's level is determined by their total AP. As you level up, you gain the ability to use the Resonators and XMP Bursters at that level. Here is the breakdown of total AP required per level. Note that AP gain is cumulative (Example: after obtaining the 10k AP for L1, you only need 20k more AP to get to L3)

Level 1: 0 AP

Level 2: 10k AP

Level 3: 30k AP

Level 4: 70k AP

Level 5: 150k AP

Level 6: 300k AP

Level 7: 600k AP

Level 8: 1200k AP