DroneNet concerns; remote interaction with portals

1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
edited June 2020 in General

So the feature is coming soon and, presumably, this will allow hacking portals. I want to share a few concerns before some game-breaking extensions to the feature are considered or implemented.

  1. Will drone hack increment Sojourner?
  2. Will drone hack increment Explorer?
  3. Will drone hack acquire key?
  4. Is there a possibility of another kinds of portal interaction via drone?

I will sleep calmly if the answer to all four of these questions is "NO".

Otherwise:

If drone hacks are to increase medal counts, it goes against the spirit of the medals and is unfair to those who gained the medals before the drones are released.

If drone hacks are able to acquire keys or make other actions with portals, the worst of which is deploying and neutralizing, then it goes straight against the spirit and exploration nature of the whole game. An agent should have possibility to interact with a portal only and only if the portal is within his action circle (or weapon range for XMP), recharge being an exception.

Any other interaction possibilities undermine value of all those hard-to-reach, remote, strategic portals, and value of Agents movement in real world to reach them. Ingress is an exploration game which requires real world movement and should remain such.

Post edited by 1valdis on
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Comments

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    @YellowLightning

    What if, what if...let's wait and see what exactly this thing does before the #mimimi starts :)

    I think it is easier to prevent stuff which I don't want to be in game from being considered and developed, than it is to get it removed after its release.

  • oscarc1oscarc1 ✭✭✭✭✭

    We don't know anything about the feature yet, so everything is purely speculation. It could be tied to the battle beacon stuff, so maybe somebody deploys a beacon and you can use a drone to go to the target to then perform some kind of remote battle? Much like remote fortressing and remote raiding in Harry Potter and PoGo.

    I just hope that it's not some form of ability to deploy a drone to perform actions on a portal, that would adversely mitigate the advantages of hard-to-reach / low-reception portals.

  • What if one group of people can get a massive improvement in their ability to hack portals by buying satellite Internet data? Is that fair?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't see the damage at all if this feature will only allow simple hacks (no key). I'm very sure it will still have a range of action, and if it work the way I'm thinking, will help a lot for sojorner and explore, while not making no harm to anyone.


    Yes. it is. Being rich isn't cheat.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020

    This has nothing to do with game's functionality, because factually the game itself allows access to all portals. You only need to overcome real world constraints: transportation, cellular reception and so on. Everyone needs to. So yes, at the side of the game it is fair.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    So much this.

    @1valdis this is one of those cases where you make up the what-ifs and start complaining about your made-up what-ifs.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020


    Where exactly do you see "complaints"? I clearly stated in both the title and the post that these are "concerns". I haven't yet said that Niantic did something wrong, because, as previously said, we should wait until release and then we'll see. My thoughts are mostly about future expansions of this feature. I made this topic for people from Niantic to think twice if they think "hmmm what more we could add to DroneNet?".

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think drones is for ppl that cant maybe reach a portal from home to increase sojourner? and also for maybe the upcoming battle beacons mode? and it doesnt look according ot fevgames that u will be able to get keys from hacks..

  • jontebulajontebula ✭✭✭✭✭

    Did you think we must use drone to use Battle with Battle Bacons?

  • StranditStrandit ✭✭✭

    I have very little skin in the game, but I wanted to note that I don’t think allowing key hacks is terrible. Quantums make keys common, even if you only start with 1. The ship has sailed.

    Allowing map changing actions is a much more significant change; my democratization instincts (yay reduce the need to spend money on BGANs, yay let’s reduce the dumb arguments about military bases and stop calling MPs on each other) clash with my fondness for strategic play. All in all I’m gonna wait and see what the implementation looks like.

  • joecainjoecain ✭✭✭✭✭

    Why the radio silence from Niantic on this?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Because is a working in progress, all the data until now is leaked/hacked. No company is used to talk about their secrets before official release.

  • GreenVamGreenVam ✭✭✭✭✭

    Fellow developers, make level 1 drones free for everyone. 5 drones per person, for example. But also make paid drone models with improved features that you could buy in a store. For example, paid drones would have a higher flight speed, or faster reloading, or for example a large capacity of portable equipment. For example, a level 1 drone could carry 1-3 items, a level 2 aerial drone could carry 15-20 items already. A drone of level 3 could already carry 50 items.

    If these drones were not for subscription and I would buy them as for example a badge, I would gladly pay you today.

  • AzhreiaAzhreia ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think let's wait and see what it actually does before compiling a list like this. The drone might not even do what you think it does. It's likely also not a paid feature.

  • I have a dronemark in my invetory 🙈

  • quirischaquirischa ✭✭✭✭

    Place it in MUFG and after a week look at the result!

  • I cant 😖, can only see the dronemark, but not move or use it.


  • Seems like everyone has it. Hmmm weird.

  • HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

    I don't. For people who have it, have you registered for IFS?

  • XQlusioNXQlusioN ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020

    Only shows when loading a capsule.

    It doesn't show in normal inventory yet

  • jontebulajontebula ✭✭✭✭✭

    I hope drone are free for every agents not pay in store and more P2W.

  • I don't see drones destroying the game, maybe they will act as a temporary way to increase your action circle by a limited distance and time. Seeing how this has been done in the other Niantic AR games, it seems only fair that Ingress gets a way to do this. It may be an end to some hard portals.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    It may be an end to some hard portals.

    @Brit0martis this is exactly what I don't want to happen.

  • NineBerryNineBerry ✭✭✭✭✭

    If the drone allows hacking hacking nearby portals remotely, this will be great for playing missions. There's often cases when you get stuck playing a mission because a portal is just a few metres out of reach or in a closed park or cemetery. Having a drone ready for such a case could solve this.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020

    I agree this is indeed a good use case. But only while it doesn't allow to do anything with a portal, except for no key hack.

    Except for cases where it was intentionally made like this.

  • edited June 2020
    1. Drone allows hacking of nearby portals. The range appears to be within a short distance, more than what the scanner can see but not much more.
    2. Drone glyph does not appear to return key.
    3. Unknown if sojourner or explorer is affected since I've already recharged for the day, and I've visited that portal before
    4. No deploy, no capture. Trying other methods for now. Edit to add: no link, no recharge (even if you have a key to it).
    5. I tried to hack it a second time, and it tells me that portal has burned out. I selected a portal right next to it, and it says portal not in range.


  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Now that we have more info on the current iteration of DroneNet, I can say that for now this looks good.

    Drones can only hack, their hacks don't count for missions and unique portals hacked, they don't get keys. Good.

    No info for sojourner though.

    But I'll remember that this is only Mark I.

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