How fast does XM regenerate?
There are 2 types of XM found:
- Portal XM - XM thrown out of portals
- Human XM - XM thrown out of humans.*
Now my observations on XM generation, no hard info sources:
- portal XM is generated pretty fast, after I cleared the portal of XM, it has new XM in about 10-15 minutes
- XM is being constantly produced by portals and humans*
- XM is being accumulated and after certain level no more XM is produced
- XM regenerates the best when no player is around (it's almost like "watched pot never boils")
- I believe several times XM was generated near the portal and consumed by me directly
- I believe XM is user independent and can/will be consumed by any player, probably on first in first gets basis
* Conspiracy theory: I noticed that Human XM is being almost randomly distributed over the map, but when you compare it with human traffic in the same area it almost perfectly simulates it. It is not clear to me where the niantic lab takes this info, maybe they get some info from other google services, like mobile maps, gmail etc and place XM there where the most people go.
If two players simultaneously gather the same XM (i.e. gathered before the cache updates), they both get it. So it helps to go around in groups!