Gameplay Elements

Intel

Intel doesn't win you a single fight by itself — no direct combat power, no direct cash. What it does instead is make almost everything else you do pay out more, which is exactly why it's worth treating as a priority, not an afterthought.

What Intel Actually Boosts

Every Gym train (Speed, Power, Strength, and Intel itself) gets a flat bonus added on top of the normal gain — +0.015 per 100 Intel, so a higher Intel makes literally every future training session worth more.
Streets cash and XP both get a percentage bonus from Intel — +10% per 50 Intel up to 1,000 (max +200%).
Combat EXP gets the same percentage bonus (not cash, just experience) — another +10% per 50 Intel up to 1,000.
Scrap prices at the Junkyard — +5% per 50 Intel up to 1,000 (max +100%).

None of this is a one-time unlock — it's a permanent multiplier sitting underneath everything you already do. A player with high Intel is quietly out-earning and out-leveling an identical player with low Intel, doing the exact same activities.

The Curve: 1,000, 2,500, 5,000

Every bonus above runs on the same three-step curve:

Up to 1,000 Intel — the full rate.
1,000 to 2,500 — half the rate (Streets and Combat: +5% per 50, reaching +350% at 2,500).
2,500 to 5,000 — a quarter of the rate (Streets and Combat: +2.5% per 50, reaching +475% at 5,000). Nothing counts past 5,000.

The Training Cap: 1,000

Here's the part that makes Intel different from Speed/Power/Strength: you can only train Intel to 1,000 at the Gym. Once you hit your cap, Intel drops off the Gym's list of trainable stats.

A Sidekick with the Mentor branch's Tutor skill raises that cap by 100 per rank, up to 1,500. The Penthouse Gym Suite follows the same cap.

Getting Past the Cap

"The History of Masked City", a book in the Penthouse Training Room: 10 Prestige for +0.5 Intel a read, repeatable up to 2,500.
Streets bonus rewards — a small chance of +3 or +10 Intel on a run. Not something to plan around, but it ignores the training cap.
The weekly war bonus — the Top 10 War Points, Top 5 Fighters and Top 5 Claimers each get +100 Intel for the following week (see The Watch Tower). It sits on top of what you trained, never counts against your cap, and is the one way to go past 2,500.

Bottom Line

Get Intel to 1,000 as early as you reasonably can — every train, every Streets run, and every fight from that point on pays out more because of it. After that, the Tutor and the Training Room book keep you climbing, but it's a much slower grind than the free ride to 1,000 was.