Reposted by permission from @cheekasaurus
ABQ Linkstar: #MIRecursion Challenge #2, #StarlightStarbright
Team Name: NM Resist
Our Team for this Op: @0ctal @3cho1c @Adric @amethyst8 @cawd369 (IO) @cheekasaurus (TL) @craftsalot @ELKookooee @lIlllIll @mobmf3 @pink13521 @ultravioletjaic
Total Links: 24 out / 210 in / 234 total
Op Duration: 2.5 hours
Star Lifetime: 4+ hours with all links
@crafstalot called our attention to the #MIRecursion linkstar challenge for week #2. She knows I’ve been wanting to do a linkstar op, so this was our chance.
We had about a dozen people interested. Only 7 would be available to roll on the day. Thankfully the others were able to hack keys for us in the days leading up to the op.
With such a small crew, I thought hitting the 50+ mark would be good, and would qualify us with 5+ links per agent. It seemed possible we could get 100 links, and a very remote chance we could get 200. Our toads are generally pretty attentive and we thought they were likely to hit the anchor portal early on.
With those goals in mind, I threw caution to the wind and drew up a Reswue op with almost 300 links, using a star-themed portal called UNM Observatory. What could go wrong?
As it turns out, almost nothing went wrong! The thing that worried me most is we needed all our boots on the ground and didn’t have another local intel operator available. I knew we could get a remote one, but I really wanted someone with local street intelligence. Then @cawd369 stepped up, a first-time IO, and did a fantastic job. We met an hour before the op, loaded the tools on her laptop, and she was good to go.
The day before the op, @cheekasaurus and @ultravioletjaic cleared a large green-infested area and threw some strategic rails to keep the space relatively clear for the op. We didn’t know whether that would help much, but it turns out to have been very useful.
Op start time was set for 1500. We met at 1400 to hack more keys, trade gear, and assign areas of operation. At 1500 we jarvised our central portal to inoculate it, deployed with 2xSBULA + 2xAEGIS, threw out 20+ links, then hit the road.
In 2.5 hours, we had exhausted all of our keys. We had 24 outgoing, 210 incoming, for 234 total links. We met all the basic requirements, and a couple of the bonus points. Our central portal is star-themed and our link star spans more than 2km. We thought for sure we would get to battle in person for the anchor, but the anchor stood for over 6 hours! When a green agent did attack it, a few of us had a fun recharge battle. He eventually took it down, but at least he didn’t resort to virus.
This was great fun. I enjoyed being team lead and @cawd369 is now a bonafide IO. A few agents got to use new tools like Zello and Zello overlay, and the experience is great prep for the upcoming Albuquerque Anomaly in Feb 2019!
Lessons learned for linkstar ops: (1) farm more keys (2) farm more resonators (3) have some dedicated smashers clear for linkers in a planned way, not ad-hoc (4) farm more keys (5) farm more resonators