Machina links in rural areas are bad for Ingress. They force agents to drive to ridiculous places (“Adventures on Foot?” No, adventures on gas fumes) and hike for hours to get links on trails down, then if you don’t cap every damn thing everywhere and keep them blue (or green, if that’s your jam), they’ll just spread again. I cannot keep up with them and I don’t have unlimited gas money to reach all the “driving” spokes, nor do I have unlimited time to bushwhack through tick-infested trails to tamp down the infestation. Not to mention that Machina has an uncanny ability to proliferate in places we literally can’t go to, like closed military bases, or places accessible only through a paywall. Miss a few portals and the nightmare continues. I need another few hundred slots just to keep all these keys to recharge shit I have no desire to have to go to again just to throw a field. It took 6 hours and a quarter tank of gas over 2 days just to get to 100 for reclaimer - what a colossal waste of time and money. The badge was a terrible idea - it’s just a stupid way to justify ruining the fielding game. What about the people who don’t have a car? What about the people who physically can’t walk for hours in a forest to grab every damn trail marker? I love Ingress and I love a challenge but playing against a spoofing AI has ruined the fielding game for me. I don’t have the time or money for this. Why even bother making a field plan anymore? Forget the score, forget trying to rebuild communities that have been crushed due to the pandemic. I might as well just grind for AP with microfields and recurse another 17 times. /endrant (or is it?)