Suggestion: Intel Map - Planning Map

Many people use the intel map to help plan out fields. There have been, over the years, numerous complaints about the map not functioning correctly.

I would like to suggest creating a planning map.

This is something where you would click a button and get the most recent data. Then, however, nothing would update unless you specifically made the request. This would allow you to scroll, pan and zoom without the need to constantly reload data. It would also reduce overall server lag and bandwidth usage as most of the visible assets would be stored in browser cache. This also means it would save Niantic money. I would make sure that there weren't any kind of "intelligent" actions. (ie. automatically trying to create a link to some random portal instead of the one you want)

It seems to me that the constant reloading of data is unnessessary until you move from the planning stages to execution. Then you would just click a button, get updated data, and then go from there.

Comments

  • ArkFangArkFang ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Isn't that mostly already accomplished with the Filter options? Just disable Links and Fields so it only shows portals. Then once you know what your plan is, reenabled them to see what’s what.

    In regard to the refreshing thing, you would have to continually ask for more updated results after zooming in anyway, especially when plotting larger fields. You’d need to zoom out to pan over to the new area, zoom in to see that area, rinse and repeat easier to just do it automatically.

    plus, there’s some different 3rd party tools that can help with this, if you allow yourself to use them.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Look up iitc community edition, then look for plugins to accomplish what you need to do. While the stock intel map has seen some improvements, it pales in comparison to what people have created in the form of iitc

    Post edited by ZeroHecksGiven on
  • A static map page of "just the portals" would work for planning, and would provide a data source that PoGo players can use without hammering the actual game data.

    If you want a less clunky map, then there are other options like IITC out there, but due to their nature, Niantic is hesitant to give them it's blessing, because used generally they're fine, but at the extremes, alternate map methods can have a negative impact on the community and game. Guardian hunting in 2014 through 2018 generated lots of alternate methods that definitely had a negative impact.

  • First, I was under the impression that using third party apps for the game was against the TOS, that if we used something other than the normal intel map, we could get banned. There's also nothing that says that some of those other apps might have other things hiding in them that we don't want on our phones and there is no real guarintee that those third party apps will always work or always be updated.

    Second. I know that many people enjoy unlimited data, I'm not one of them. To have that data constantly loading every time I move or zoom is not very good for limited data plans. I believe that even if you use the filters, they only hide the data and it still gets loaded in the background. This means that consulting the map in the field consumes a lot more data.

    I know that HTML5 provides a way to store data that exists outside of standard browser cache and the intel map is based off google maps. Google allows you to download maps to your phone for when your outside data range or to cut down on data usage. It seems to me that we could download areas in a similar fashion and populate them with current data but that there would be no need to update that data every time you zoom or pan. I thought that you could use HTML5 data to store portal locations within an area.

    I could be wrong. I don't know the ins and outs of the programming used to make that intel map work. I just don't understand why I can see all this data loaded from a zoomed out location but then to have it re-load the same exact data when I zoom in closer. It just seems that there has to be a better way and unnessessary to be constantly loading fresh data.

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