Playing Ingress from an airplane: myths and reality
Hi,
Recently, game actions with a time interval suggesting the use of an airplane have taken place in my playing area. In the opposing faction, it turns out that a player actually has a pilot's license.
Assuming that a small plane is indeed involved, I have several questions about the concrete possibilities that its use offers to carry out various actions in Ingress. My queries are as follows:
- Is playing Ingress from a small airplane (like a Cessna or similar) something that is common in Ingress? If so, who can share their feedback?
- Is it allowed to interact with a portal from an airplane, given that the player is not, in reality, within 40m of the portal? I would tend to say yes, because it is accepted that a player at the top of a tower can interact with a portal on the ground, or vice versa.
- Is it allowed to interact with a portal by being the pilot himself? I would tend to say no, by analogy with the prohibition of playing while driving.
The next questions are ideally addressed to people who have a pilot's license, although I'm not against having "external" opinions as well!
- Is it possible to maneuver the aircraft in such a way that it passes right over a portal (within a radius of 40 m)? If yes, is it possible from the first attempt, or is it necessary to make several passes by adjusting the trajectory?
- Let's say the plane passes within range of the portal. With its speed, will it be possible to interact with the portal, for example to make a hack or use a Jarvis/Ada?
- Still taking into account the speed of the plane, what do you think about the possibility of drawing a link?
- Assuming it is possible to interact with the portal by flying over it, how much action do you think can be done? For example, how many xmp can be drawn, or how many resonators can be deployed?
- After passing the portal once, how long does it take for a small plane to turn around and fly again right over the same portal? Can it be done in one attempt, or does it take several maneuvers?
Thank you for your clarifications!
EDIT: Questions apply only to airplanes, not helicopters, thank you!
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#infosec your not likely to get any of those answers in a public forum....
It's all entirely possible. Prime made fixed wing aircraft far harder to use, but helicopters still work just fine.
As long as the person is there with the smartphone on their hands, within 40m radius, everything is permitted, nothing is true.
It is not common to play from an airplane or helicopter, but it is not unheard-of either. One of the most famous instances involved taking down a (very impressive and well-executed) field over a Las Vegas anomaly that one faction thought would be impossible to ****. Taking down the field between the third and fourth measurements changed the outcome of the event.
Ingress does not have a Z axis.
"Allowed" is interesting in this sense, and is not something that Niantic can reasonably police. It's entirely possible that someone else was in the plane with him and took the controls while he interacted with the portal. How would Niantic know?
I do not have a pilot's license but have taken the controls of a small plane many times in my life, and I've interacted with portals from a small plane. (Local opponents are well aware of this too, so I'm not revealing any new information.) It is absolutely possible to get within 40 meters of a portal from a small plane and to do so repeatedly-- bear in mind that small planes land on runways as small as 10 meters wide though 20-30 is more common I think, and large commercial runways top out around 80 meters wide IIRC. Obviously navigating to a precise spot is easier on the ground because of visual cues, but it can be done from the air. I can't speak to interaction with Prime, but it was absolutely possible to interact with portals in many ways using Redacted.
You could figure a lot of this out for yourself. You really just need to know the stall speed of a small aircraft, factor in winds since planes will be traveling at air speed rather than ground speed, and then get a friend to drive you past a portal at that speed repeatedly and see what you can accomplish. Obviously do this in an area where it is safe to do so and you aren't likely to encounter other traffic.
Having flown in small planes several times for work (Cessnas, etc) and having several friends with pilots licenses, I know it can be possible to nearly hover in place or at least move at very slow speeds if the wind conditions are right. If there is a 60 knot wind blowing north to south and you're flying south to north (into the wind) with a prop speed (I forget the correct term) of 65 knots, you have a ground speed of 5 knots; 65kn (plane speed) - 60kn (wind speed) = 5kn (ground speed). If you're flying into the wind and the wind speed matches your prop speed, you will essentially be hovering in place, which can allow 'unlimited' portal interactions.
All this to say, in theory it's certainly possible BUT I can think of a few agents that would claim to do something like this while spoofing in reality.
It is uncommon to fly personal aircrafts here, it is all amusing in my view.
Is playing Ingress from a small airplane (like a Cessna or similar) something that is common in Ingress?I'm afraid even without this post, everyone knows that it's uncommon. That's what we call common knowledge.
Here a link to some pics of an Operation of the Swiss Resistance Airforce: https://telegra.ph/Resistance-Airforce-03-07
It contains a link to the Sitrep. These were still the times of Redacted (or the old scanner) not sure whether this would be possible with prime. I have the suspicion that Prime has a speed limit built in, Redacted did consider speed only between actions in the game. If you did not do any game play until before you reached the portal, you were ok in terms of speed.
Thank you for all these opinions.
@Kusi24 I was aware of this special operation you mentioned, even though I wasn't involved that day. In fact, it is partly because of this operation that I have doubts about certain recent actions.
As shown by the multiple trajectories of the airplane that day, it took about ten portal overflights to simply reach it and ADA it. And we can see that on all overflights, only some (2 or 3?) meet on the same 40m diameter area. I conclude that it is difficult but possible to fly over a portal precisely and interact once with it.
What has happened recently is totally different. I observed:
In my opinion, it is far-fetched (to say the least) to believe that, on each of these four portals (separated by several kimolometers) , the wind was exactly calibrated for the pilot (we are talking about an airplane, not an helicopter) to hover right on top to perform multiple actions.
@Suidoko One thing to look at is the direction of the craft when those actions were performed. If they were all or mostly all performed while the plane was going one direction then it's possible. It wouldn't take all that much of a headwind to fly over a portal at just over stall speed and be essentially stationary at ground speed.
Also, remember that if you're dealing with one portal there is no speed lock because Ingress sees all of your actions as being taken at (essentially) the same place. That info is from having done this with Redacted and TBH I'm not sure if there are different speed lock rules in Prime but I think it would be essentially the same.
A highly-skilled pilot can hit the portal most of the time, in my experience.
Been there, done that, and i liked it..
If I summarize, the general opinion expressed so far here is that it is reasonably possible to place an aircraft in a stationary position over a portal in order to perform multiple actions and then repeat this performance three times in the following minutes on portals a few kilometers away. Not being a pilot myself, I am in no position to dispute these points. But I do note, in the Siterep mentioned above, that it took at least 10 overflight attempts by another pilot to simply ADA a portal ("Multiple attemps to hit the target at Klausenpass").
I would also like to point out, in the case I'm wondering about, that the resonator deployment were perfectly symmetrical, which indicates a zero speed and not a low speed, because even at walking speed the resonators are not placed at the same distance.
Location lock :)
I assert that a skilled pilot in good conditions would have a pretty decent chance of flying within range of a portal on most passes. There is a second skillset involved in interacting with portals, and that is facility with using the scanner under those conditions. There can also be signal issues. It's been long enough that I can say that in the Las Vegas field takedown mentioned above it took two passes to flip the portal. The pilot nailed it on both passes even though it was his first Ingress flight but the weapons officer fumbled the ADA on the first pass.
I assert that with a highly-skilled pilot it would be possible to deploy a portal in one pass under the right conditions. I believe there is a near-zero chance of having every resonator at the same distance-- that just doesn't pass the smell test. If that happened then @SSSputnik is probably right about location locking.
Completely agree with the second part. Some pilots could pull it off consistently but reso distance all being equal is a MAJOR red flag.
I dont know, Rick, looks fake. The use of joystick is so high these days, it is impossible for me to believe this.
It is a known fact that there are lots of agents using it for short distances. Yes there are pictures and sure they went in airplane, but how can you tell they did not get those minor distances by faking the location?
Spoofing 20 meters is still spoofing, never forget that.
I know for a fact it's possible to virus from air, seen it done.
I ADAed a portal on landing once.
But portal was at start of runway and plane slowing for touchdown. (I could walk to it after landing as well).
Full deploy would be tricky as all hell.
> I would tend to say no, by analogy with the prohibition of playing while driving.< driving and flying a plane are vastly different - and while there's a "don't play while driving" popup, that's just to cover Niantic's rear - don't recall anything in the TOS that says you can't play while in a car.
>Is it allowed to interact with a portal from an airplane, given that the player is not, in reality, within 40m of the portal?< there's no up or down in Ingress - remember that - and the scanner won't allow you to interact with a portal if you're not within 40 feet east, west, south, or north.
I'm curious why you're asking these sorts of technical questions here instead of asking them of actual pilots?
I'm more curious why you comment on things where if you have no input on the matter, the back button is a click or a tap away.
Hey @Suidoko,
as a player who did this (and annoyed the heck out of my opponents doing it) i feel comfortable enough to answer a few of your questions.
Is playing Ingress from a small airplane (like a Cessna or similar) something that is common in Ingress? If so, who can share their feedback?
I would not consider it common, but it happened often enough.
Is it allowed to interact with a portal from an airplane, given that the player is not, in reality, within 40m of the portal? I would tend to say yes, because it is accepted that a player at the top of a tower can interact with a portal on the ground, or vice versa.
That's a clear yes, agent and phone are on the same spot and within the 2d-range of the game. As opposed to using a drone with a phone attached which is clearly against the rules (as stated by Niantic).
Is it allowed to interact with a portal by being the pilot himself? I would tend to say no, by analogy with the prohibition of playing while driving.
That is for the pilot to decide, I would strongly advise not to do that.
Is it possible to maneuver the aircraft in such a way that it passes right over a portal (within a radius of 40 m)? If yes, is it possible from the first attempt, or is it necessary to make several passes by adjusting the trajectory?
Yes, if you are / have a skilled pilot. Several portals usually need several passes, depending on your inventory and the defense of the portals ofc.
Let's say the plane passes within range of the portal. With its speed, will it be possible to interact with the portal, for example to make a hack or use a Jarvis/Ada?
You can do whatever you want with that portal as long as your phone gps position is within 40m of the portal. You better be quick.
Still taking into account the speed of the plane, what do you think about the possibility of drawing a link?
I think that was explained very well above and also depends a lot on your skills of using the scanner and knowing how to improve the situation regarding the link calculation duration (and best knowing a bit how ingress works, that can be found here on the forum).
Assuming it is possible to interact with the portal by flying over it, how much action do you think can be done? For example, how many xmp can be drawn, or how many resonators can be deployed?
You can perform as many actions as you want until you run out of fuel (or time, gear, happiness of the pilot, ...) or get speedlocked if you aren't mastering the scanner good enough.
After passing the portal once, how long does it take for a small plane to turn around and fly again right over the same portal? Can it be done in one attempt, or does it take several maneuvers?
Not very long. Even small planes fly very fast. Depends on the plane and the pilot ofc.
This google location history is not that accurate, but it shows you we made several overflights of a very tiny island with several (l8 4 shields) portals on it.
As i said, I would not recommend that the pilot plays. We were 4, one pilot and three active players. We all had our inventories prepared for purely combat actions, since we expected a strong defense (didn't help ;-)).
The crew. We had a lot of fun that day. It got even better, after our (ever-losing) opponents accused us of spoofing.
@Guschtel thanks for your feedback. How many pass did you need to take down this portal? With how many players?
Here is a screenshot of the deployment of one of the four portals (this one was neutral before). It was deployed 12 minutes after the breakage of a portal located 20 kilometers away on another mountain. It takes several hours to connect the two by ground.
@Suidoko Read my post, you'll find the answers to your questions there.