The Inventory tab contains all the Items owned by the agent. The agent can use this screen to maintain his or her collection by dropping, recycling, encapsulating, and items.
The Inventory screen also tracks the agent's item count. A Verified Agent's inventory is capped at 2,000 items, and an unverified agent's inventory is capped at 200 items. As an agent's inventory approaches or exceeds the cap, he or she will be locked out of performing some actions.
Filtering the Inventory
Selecting the bottom-left dropdown opens a list of the item categories, as well as the agent's item count for each category. Items contained in Capsules don't count towards these totals.
If the user exits the OPS Menu and reopens it soon afterwards, the Scanner will remember the last category and item he or she selected.
Sorting the Inventory
The Capsules section of Inventory has a secondary dropdown that allows the agent to sort his or her Capsules by ID or pickup date. In the latter mode, dropping a Capsule and immediately picking it up will send it to the end of the row.
Technically, the Capsules are sorted in descending order of rarity, then full before empty, then by the selected sort. That is, all MUFG Capsules appear before standard Rare Capsules, then all Capsules with contents are sorted, then all empty Capsules appear in a stack following the same rarity's Capsules.
Keys can be sorted by distance or name. If sorted by distance, the Keys will only be re-sorted when the agent closes and reopens the OPS Menu, even if he or she is on the move.
Maintaining the Inventory
An agent can remove unwanted items from the Inventory by dropping them on the world map or recycling them into Exotic Matter. To do so, select the target item to open its Item Card, then tap the Drop or Recycle button as desired. Items can be recycled in bulk, but must be dropped individually.
Dropped items will appear on other agents' Scanners for 12 hours, and then vanish. Recycling the items denies other agents the ability to salvage them, and provides a small amount of XM.
To load an item into a Capsule, open the Capsule's Item Card, tap the Load button, select the desired item, set the quantity, and hit Load.
Using Items from Inventory
An agent can activate Power Cubes, XMP Bursters, Ultra Strikes, Flip Cards, Media, and Portal Keys from Inventory. Notably, Power Cubes, Flip Cards, and Media can only be used from Inventory.
Resonators and Portal Mods can't be activated from Inventory. They can only be dropped or recycled.
Inventory Cap
Agents can only hold a limited number of items. Unverified agents' cap is set at 200 items, and Verified Agents' cap is set at 2,000 items. Items contained in Capsules still count towards inventory cap.
If an agent's inventory count is at cap or higher, he or she can't hack Portals. Attempting to do so will warn the agent that he or she is out of inventory space. In addition, MUFG Capsules he or she owns will not produce items.
In order for an agent to pick up a dropped item from the world map, he or she must be below cap. To pick up a Capsule, the agent must have an open slot for each item within the Capsule, plus one for the Capsule itself. If an agent attempts to collect a dropped item with insufficient space, he or she is often, but not always, warned.
Inventory Overload
Hacking a Portal while close to cap can overload the inventory and cause the agent to possess more items than cap. For example, if a Verified Agent holding 1,999 items perfectly Glyph Hacks a Level 7 Portal, he or she could be awarded with 4 Resonators, 5 XMP's, a Shield, and a Key for a total of 2,010 items.
In addition, reaching a new Access Level always awards the agent an Item Pack, even if that puts the agent significantly over cap.
Carrying more inventory than cap has no special effects. The agent is simply unable to Hack, pick up items, or receive interest from MUFG Capsules until his or her inventory count drops below cap.
Key Lockers
While a Key Locker itself takes an inventory slot, its contents do not. An agent may carry up to five Key Lockers, and each Key Locker may carry up to 100 Portal Keys, effectively giving the agent an extra 495 inventory slots over the 2000 maximum (but only for Portal Keys). The Lockers are color-coded for your convenience. The drawback is that while in a locker, Portal Keys are invisible to normal operations and cannot be used.
Strategy
Selecting a weapon from Inventory, opening its Item Card, tapping the Fire button, firing the weapon, pressing OPS, and repeating allows the agent to fire more rapidly than repeatedly firing from the same screen. With a fast Internet connection, this allows an agent to increase his or her damage-per-second by up 50%, outrunning the Portal's counterattacks and enemies recharging its Resonators.
Managing cap and optimizing inventory is a key skill in high-level play. An agent's collection of Capsules, high-end Portal Mods, Flip Cards, and important Keys will tie up a substantial amount of Inventory space, making item allocation an important strategic decision.
An agent with a substantial number of Resonators in different levels and a large stash of Keys has maximum versatility in Linking and Fielding, but lacks the hundreds of Weapons required to attack a fortified area. Likewise, an agent who devotes more space to Weapons and Cubes can attack nearly any target, but could be cut off from the Resonators required to Link, Field, and upgrade friendly Portals after a relatively short time. Some agents prefer to leave slots open to store an increased number of common Portal Mods, reduce the amount of prep work before Farming, and readily acquire dropped Capsules. Some agents stockpile only Level 7 and 8 Resonators, and rely on Hacking to fill out Portals.