"Hypothesis Testing: Ingress Portal Level affecting Pokemon Go item yield quality (null)"

#PokemonGO: Imgur album of graphs and journal screenshots: http://ift.tt/2cu71oJ: http://ift.tt/2c7iJrj; DR: Ingress portal status does not affect Pokemon Go item yield quality.There was a post on Reddit the other day about how upgrading Ingress portals to a higher level results in higher item yield quality in Pokemon Go. That hypothesis and anecdote was reported by an L4 player whose entry into Ingress was to view XM concentration to predict Pokemon Go spawns. As an L14 Ingress player, I am interested to test the hypothesis. The original report was made with the portals upgraded to Level 4, the highest portal that can be built by an L4 Ingress player. A single Ingress player can construct the highest an L5 portal, after which would require fellow players to assist in making the portal level higher (to a max of Level 8).In an effort to maximise the effect of Ingress portals, I decided to create Control Fields with the candidate portals, in addition to making them Level 5 portals. This is because Control Fields are the most valueable creation a player can make in Ingress. Not only it yields more AP (Ingress' version of XP), but it also gives Mind Units, the regional and global score that tracks which of the two Ingress factions are "winning". Lore has it CFs increase XM generation.The candidate area is a group of 6 Pokestops of which one loop around them takes ~4 minutes. This eliminates the 10th-visit bonus for a 10-stop loop, however random item yield bonuses were still observed. I did several spins around the loop before commencing the Ingress portal upgrading, however it slipped my mind to take screenshots of my Pokemon Go journal. Hence only 2 loops prior to portal capturing were recorded. To save time (the sun was setting already), I have also recorded 2 loops which were done while in the midst of upgrading the portals and making fields (I did not stop to upgrade the portals and make links, instead choosing to upgrade them as I walk the Pokemon Go loop, hence taking 2 loops to complete upgrading the linking the portals). Loop 5 and onwards are the Pokestop spins that were done after the CFs were made.A total of 9 loops were captured after all 6 portals were made into Control Fields (2 CFs total). There was a 10-minute gap where no farming occurred, that was because I wandered off to neutralise a nearby gym (not pictured in the screenshots). The item totals were of a 6-stop loop, instead of individual stop yields. All spins are right-to-left.Based on the limited control data, there were no significant observable difference that Ingress portals level made to Pokemon Go item yields. At most a 1 total item difference in a 6-stop loop was observed, where the average total item yield in the control loop is 18.25 items vs 19.2 items in the upgraded portals loop. There was at most a difference of 1 Pokeball per 6-stop loop LESS compared to the control, and ~1 Ultra ball MORE compared to control.Some graphs:http://ift.tt/2cu7HdT average numbers for the control loop matches what I usually see in my usual farming session (my main farm item is Pokeballs, so I've been observing Pokeball yields all this time), hence why I'm comfortable in calling this one null despite failing to record more of them for this analysis.Further improvements to the analysis would be to increase the data collection for control loops before commencing portal upgrades. Also more Pokestops (up to 9, I reckon) should be included in the loop to average out small differences between stops, as is the case for low-yield items like Ultra balls. For absolute maximum effect, the portals should also be leveled up to level 8 (eight L8 Ingress players are required for this).EDIT: Since item yield is independent of anything other than trainer level, and according to the last TSR survey quite a few number of Travellers are L25>x>L30 (I'm L27 now), perhaps we can compare notes? Any other 6-stop loop farmers out there? Or normalising the item count to 6-stop equivalent? Or it's better to normalise my data to a 1-stop average? If your data (assuming you checked on Ingress that your candidate area is all neutral portals) is indistinguishable from my After CF yields, then we can confirm this as null. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2bOPfzp