Capsule

A capsule is an item which can contain up to 100 other items. A capsule consumes one slot in your inventory for itself, plus one for every item inside it. (Thus, putting items inside a capsule does not save any space in your inventory.) Any items can be placed inside a capsule except premium items or another capsule.

Loading and Unloading

To use a capsule, select it from your inventory and tap “Manage.” You will be shown a screen with the capsule’s contents at the top and your inventory at the bottom. Each has an interface similar to that used in inventory and key management. There is also a toggle at the center-right to switch both areas between items and keys.

To perform a transfer, swipe left and right to find the item(s) you wish to transfer. With the key filter selected, you can use the control to the right of the “Close” button to sort them by name or distance from your current location, making it easier to find the desired key.

Once you’ve found an item to transfer, tap it. An arrow will appear, showing the direction of the transfer. Tap the “-” and “+” buttons below to change the number of items to transfer. You can also use the “Select All” button to the right of the “+” button to select all of that item to transfer. After selecting the number of items to transfer, you can swipe left and right to find more items to queue for transfer. The total number of items to be transferred is displayed below.

After you have selected all the items you wish to transfer, tap the “Load” (or “Unload”) button at the bottom to execute the transfer, or tap “Cancel” button to clear the transfer queue and start over.

Premium items (those which must be purchased from the store) cannot be loaded into a capsule.

Benefits

Capsules are handy for transferring gear to another agent. Load up the capsule with the items you want to give them, then drop the capsule for them to pick up. Just make sure an enemy agent doesn’t swipe the capsule! Capsules have a randomized ID (shown below the word “Capsule” on the capsule’s inventory card and above the count of items inside the capsule on the transfer screen) that can help you distinguish one from another. Tap the pencil button to change the ID to whatever label you would like.

Items contained in capsules are not usable in any way: resonators can’t be deployed, mods can’t be installed, XMPs and ultra strikes can’t be fired, keys can’t be used for linking or recharging, etc. They take up space in your inventory, but that’s it. If you wish to use an item in a capsule, you must first unload it from the capsule into your inventory. There’s an upside to this, though: a portal won’t normally drop its key if you already have one for it in your inventory, but capsules “hide” keys from portals. So one way to farm more keys for a portal, place all existing keys you have for it into a capsule before hacking (although it’s easier to simply request a key using the Hack button submenu).

Recycling a capsule grants you 100 XM for the capsule itself, plus the recycle value of everything inside it. If you’re willing to sacrifice the capsule, you can load it up with gear you don’t need and turn it into a ghetto power cube. However, it’s generally best to use actual power cubes for this purpose, and give your extra capsules to agents who need them.

Key Locker

Unlike the regular capsule, the key locker can only contain keys, but its contents don’t count against your item cap. One key locker can hold up to 100 keys. Thus, buying a key locker effectively increases the amount of gear you can have by 100.

The key locker is ideal for hoarding large numbers of keys for a future operation, or for keeping souvenir keys for interesting places you have visited without using up inventory space.

As a premium item, key lockers can only be obtained through the store. There are two types of key lockers:

  • There are five regular key lockers, each a different color (blue, green, red, white, and yellow) and each costing 3,700 CMU. You can have only five of them in your inventory, although you can have more than one of the same color if you want. You can buy a pack of five key lockers, which gives you one of each color and sells for 14,900 CMU. If you purchase a single key locker, the pack of five becomes unavailable for purchase (since doing so would put you over the limit of five).
  • special edition key locker is only obtainable as part of a special event. Thus far, there has only been one, a red and black key locker that was made available as part of the free Year 5 Pack. Only one was available per agent.

At this writing, then, it is possible for one agent to have a maximum of six key lockers. As with all premium items, key lockers cannot be hacked, dropped, or recycled. Once you obtain one, you can’t get rid of it. As it is both a capsule and a premium item, a key locker cannot be inserted into another capsule.

Note that you can unload keys from your key lockers at any time, even if you are already at item cap. Thus, it’s entirely possible to load up six key lockers, max out your inventory, then unload them and end up with 2,600+ items in your inventory, even without being a C.O.R.E. subscriber. No matter what, though, the key locker itself counts as a single item.

Kinetic Capsule

The kinetic capsule is a capsule variant that can be used to forge inventory items. Items are crafted by converting input items, XM, and kinetic energy from walking into new items. If the Adventure Sync feature is turned on in your options, the capsule will capture kinetic energy from walking even while the scanner is not active. Otherwise, you must have the scanner open for it to capture the energy.

Kinetic capsules are a little different from other types of capsules because instead of loading items into them for storage, you destroy existing items in order to forge new ones. There are currently two types of kinetic capsule: common and rare. (Niantic has stated that very rare kinetic capsules may be available in the future.) The table below explains the differences between them:

Common Rare
Hackable no yes
Store cost free 2,000 CMU
Required access level 4 n/a
Max quantity per agent 1 n/a
Required walk distance 8 km 4 km
Number of uses infinite 3
Recyclable no yes

Up to seven kinetic capsules can be actively forging at once. Rare kinetic capsules will show the number of uses remaining when you view them in your inventory.

The process of using a kinetic capsule is as follows:

  1. Locate the kinetic capsule you’d like to use in your inventory, then tap “Manage.”
  2. A carousel at the bottom of the screen displays “programs” which the kinetic capsule can run. Each program card displays the item(s) that will be forged and its XM cost (currently 4,000 XM for all programs). Select the desired program from the carousel.
  3. Above the program carousel is the forging display. It has a slot in the center displaying the item(s) that will be forged, and six slots around it for input items. When you select a program in the carousel, the input and output are shown in the forging display. Each input slot shows the type and rarity of the input item, how many of that item you have in your inventory, and how many are required for this program. If you have enough of that item to run the program, the outline and item counts will be blue, and an animated magenta beam will connect it to the output slot; otherwise, the outline and item counts will be red, and the beam will be static and gray. If you have all the required items and sufficient XM for the program, the outline for the output slot will be yellow and the “RUN” button will light up; otherwise, the outline will be red and the “RUN” button will be disabled. Make sure you have all required items for the selected program, then tap “RUN.”
  4. A confirmation dialog appears, displaying the items that will be consumed to forge the new item. Tap “RUN” to confirm or “Cancel” to go back to the forging display.
  5. The items and XM required by the program are immediately consumed, and the capsule’s card in the inventory display will show a progress meter for the kinetic energy you have put into the capsule, which will fill up as you walk. The capsule will also have visible particles floating inside it. The program cannot be paused or cancelled once started.
  6. Continue walking until the program is complete. You will receive a COMM alert when this happens.
  7. View the capsule in your inventory again and tap “Manage” then the “CLAIM” button to receive the forged item(s). You can always claim forged items, even if you have reached or exceeded the inventory limit.
  8. If it a rare kinetic capsule and has no more uses, it disappears from your inventory.

A kinetic capsule will only accept up to 40 km worth of kinetic energy per day. Any walking above that limit will not count toward forging, though it will still count toward the Trekker medal.

Programs

Input Output
3× rare portal shield
3× L4+ XMP
3× L4+ resonator
1× very rare portal shield
3× rare heat sink
3× L4+ resonator
1× very rare heat sink
3× rare multi-hack
3× L4+ resonator
1× very rare multi-hack
3× rare link amp
3× L4+ XMP
3× L4+ resonator
1× SoftBank Ultra Link
1× ADA refactor
16× L4+ XMP
1× JARVIS virus
1× JARVIS virus
16× L4+ XMP
1× ADA refactor
40× L4+ resonator 8× L8 resonator
10× L4+ power cube 5× hypercube
5× L8 resonator 40× L1 resonator
26× L6+ resonator 50× L4 resonator
43× L3+ resonator 20× L5 resonator
28× L8 resonator 50× L6 resonator
45× L5+ resonator 20× L7 resonator
42× L3+ XMP 20× L5 XMP
45× L5+ XMP 20× L7 XMP
1× ITO EN-
24× L1+ resonator
1× ITO EN+
1× ITO EN+
24× L1+ XMP
1× ITO EN-

Quantum Capsule

The quantum capsule (previously known as the MUFG capsule, when is was sponsored by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group) was a variant capsule type that duplicated items contained within it over time, with the new items appearing inside the capsule that generated them.

On 10 January 2023, Niantic announced that the quantum capsule was soon to be retired. The consequences of this change were:

  • Quantum capsules were no longer hackable.
  • Existing quantum capsules would be converted to regular capsules with their contents intact.
  • A rare kinetic capsule would be granted for each converted quantum capsule.
  • Passcodes that originally included a quantum capsule would instead grant a rare kinetic capsule.
  • Rare kinetic capsules would become purchasable from the store for 2,000 CMU.

The rules governing duplication were:

  • Certain circumstances could prevent item duplication:
    • You were already at your inventory cap.
    • The capsule already had 100 items in it.
    • The capsule was on the ground instead of in your inventory.
    • The capsule contained only very rare items (which did not duplicate).
  • Capsules were independent of one another; you could find that one of your capsules had duplicated an item while another had not, even when their contents were identical.
  • Items duplicated at differing rates. In general, items with higher hack rates duplicated more frequently. Very rare items duplicated very slowly at first; after 30 November 2018, they didn’t duplicate at all.
  • Duplication was random. It was entirely possible to get no new items one day and several the next.
  • The more of one item you put in a capsule, the more likely it became that it would be selected for duplication.
  • Adding or removing items didn’t reset the duplication timer.
  • An item’s level seemed to have no bearing on its duplication rate.

History

  • 8 April 2014: The capsule becomes available.
  • 3 June 2015: The v1.78.0 teardown reveals the first evidence of the MUFG capsule.
  • 24 June 2015: The MUFG capsule becomes available. Originally, very rare items could be duplicated by the MUFG, although very slowly.
  • 24 September 2015: The v.1.83.1 teardown reveals the first evidence of what the code refers to as a key capsule (later officially called a key locker).
  • 25 October 2015: The key locker becomes available in the store.
  • 31 July 2017: Reports begin to surface that the MUFG capsule is no longer hackable. This is later confirmed by community manager Andrew Krug, who hinted that a new capsule variant was forthcoming.
  • 15 November 2017: The Year 5 Bundle includes a key locker, making it possible for agents to have six of them instead of only five.
  • 11 December 2017: Niantic announces that the MUFG capsule will be renamed the quantum capsule and would become hackable again. The rename occurred with the release of version 1.129.2 shortly afterward, but the quantum capsule remained unhackable.
  • 18 January 2018: First reports surface that the quantum capsule is starting to be hacked from portals.
  • 30 November 2018: Niantic announces that very rare items will no longer duplicate in quantum capsules.
  • 11 October 2020: Niantic announces the kinetic capsule.
  • 19 October 2020: The kinetic capsule becomes available.
  • 12 March 2021: The Resistance win the Resonate the World weekend event, unlocking the JARVIS virus program for the kinetic capsule. (The ADA Refactor program was released later.)
  • 8 June 2021: The hypercube program is added for the kinetic capsule.
  • 7 September 2022: Niantic announces the rare kinetic capsule.
  • 14 September 2022: The rare kinetic capsule is released.
  • 10 January 2023: Niantic announces that the quantum capsule is being retired.
  • 15 February 2023: Eight more programs for the kinetic capsule are released: L4 – L7 resonators, L5 and L7 XMPs, and ITO EN+ and ITO EN-.