THE BASICS
Bugs in your 1 mile home circle generate penalties once a day.The closer the bug is to the centre of your home circle the greater the penalty will be. (0 miles = 250 points, 0.25 miles = 63 points etc.)
New bugs appear in your home circle every day - the game is currently set to deliver 2 new bugs at 4am daily.
To reduce these penalties you need to move bugs out of your 1 mile circle - once a bug is outside your 1 mile circle there are no penalties.
All bugs are cleared at the end of each month and the whole process starts over again.
MOVING AND SQUISHING BUGS
To pick up a bug your route must go within 80m of a bug (just like picking up coins etc) and also leave your 1 mile circle. THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you do not leave your 1 mile circle the bugs will remain exactly where they were.Assuming you have left your 1 mile circle then your bugs will either be dropped or squished.
In the following explanation of your route:
H refers to your home point,
A is the point where you pick a bug up,
B is the furthest point on your run away from H,
C is the point where your route crossed over your 1 mile circle,
D is the point where your route crossed over the furthest mile circle (i.e. if your route took you 5.5 miles from home then point D would be the point on your route where you crossed the 5 mile circle).
Remember:
It makes no difference the direction in which you run. All that matters are the points A and B.
Bugs travel away from H and towards B.
Point B must be outside your 1 mile circle or nothing happens.
Distances travelled are always straight line distances, not the actually wiggly route you ran.
If the distance travelled (as the crow flies) between A and B is greater than 1 mile then the bug will be squished. (Bugs can travel exactly 1 mile without being squished).
Scoring
If a bug is squished you will score 100 points and that bug will cease to exist.If the bug travels 1 mile or less then you will score points and the bug will move:
You will score 100 points x (distance between A & B) for each bug that you move. [100 points for a mile, 50 points for 0.5 miles etc]. The maximum score for a bug, per trip is 100 points as it will be squished if you try and carry it more than 1 mile.
How does a bug move?
If the distance between A & B is 1 mile or less then the bug will move and it will be dropped randomly, somewhere along your route between point B (the furthest point) and point D. Remember that point D is the point where your run crossed the furthest mile circle – this could be the 1 mile circle, 2 mile circle etc.If you are not running an out-and-back route then there will be two points where your run crosses your furthest mile circle – once on the way out (call this D1), and then again on the way back (D2).
Remember that dropped bugs will be randomly positioned along the route between D1 and D2. Let's say that D1 and D2 are on your 5 mile circle and B, the furthest point on your run is 5.9 miles away from H. Some bugs may be randomly dropped 5.1 miles from H potentially scoring significantly less than other bugs dropped randomly 5.9 miles from H. It might be worth running that extra 0.1 miles and crossing the 6 mile circle as that will force all bugs over that line.
HERDING
This is where tactics known as herding come in to play.If bugs can be collected into a single place then they can easily be picked up at a later point and moved further - getting more points for every bug moved or squished.
To ensure that bugs collect in one place, rather than spread out all over the place, you need to make sure that points B and C are very close together - i.e. you run to a point that is only just outside your 1 mile circle and then run back into and stay within your 1 mile circle.
This means that bugs can be herded to points just outside your 1 mile, 2 mile, 3 mile circle etc. Of course you can pick up bugs that are not herded, it just takes a lot more effort zig-zagging all over the place.
You will need to have at least 2 if not 3 herds on the go for bugs in different parts of your 1 mile circle as if you move them over 1 mile they will squish.
Once you have created a herd you can then move it or squish it earning up to 100 point per bug. It is possible to move a herd from just outside your 1 mile circle to just outside your 2 mile circle, as bugs are not squished if they move exactly 1 mile. This herd is then easily moved on again for more points at a later date. But if you don't travel over the 2 mile line the bugs will just spread out over your route (between the 1 mile and 2 mile circle) and if you travel slightly more than a mile the bugs will all die.
REMEMBER
Remember that bugs will only move away from H, and it doesn't matter which way you run your route. So if you run from work to H bugs picked up along the way will move towards work or be squished. If you have a bug herd at work which you dropped off in the morning, you won't be able to score more points by running them back towards H - bugs only move away from H.