Scanning Update Wish List!

ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

Love it, hate it or just want to finish it, portal scanning is a thing. We still don't know how they'll be used or if they'll even be used in Ingress, but for the few people out there scanning, we could really use some fixes, updates and quality of life improvements. I think I've got 24 hours to edit this, if anyone else has anything they'd like to see added to this list, post it up and I'll add them in.

Would love to get some feedback from someone at Niantic on if any of these fixes or updates are on your radar currently and what rough timeline we might have on some of this. Are we weeks out, months out, no eta?

1) Upload Queue - Would love to know how many scans are in our queue and once the upload starts, how many are remaining. I'm not sure how the system works, but what if we take a call during our upload, do we lose any, is the current upload paused? If they're lost, is there potential to pause after the next successful upload via a button in settings?

2) Intel Map - Adding in the ability to see which portals we've controlled and which portals are volatile has been great. But we really need to see if a portal is controlled, remotely. As agents scout numbers build, we're looking further and further away from home. If there was no limit on portal scans, this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but even then, it's something we should be able to see. I don't think agent name is important. This leads into the next point.

3) Scout Decay - This really needs to be fixed. I'm not sure what this looks like visually, but if a portal needs a single scan to be controlled, that should be clear. Right now, it's anything but clear. We all understand the mechanics, but the information displayed is barely helpful. Once the 30 days have elapsed, I'm not sure if an agent is still technically the controller, but in my opinion, once the entire 30 days has elapsed, the name should drop and appear as neutral.

4) Notifications - I recently started a thread about this, but this really needs to be removed or given an option to choose. As I mentioned before, since portal scanning is more of a side quest that doesn't affect gameplay, there really isn't any reason to be regain scout controller other than to work on a medal or to troll the opposite faction with your agent name. Once I've controlled a portal, I have no real vested interest in what happens past that. If I've scanned a big park of 40-50 portals 300 miles away and 6 months later someone comes along and does that same thing, getting 50 notifications over 30 minutes is just obnoxious.

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Comments

  • CliffMCliffM ✭✭✭✭✭

    Portal history is often wrong or missing, as these two images illustrate. It’s the same on Intel too. According to Intel, I have never visited, captured, or scanned this portal. Not true at all. I have visited it probably 5-6 times, captured it 2-3 times, and scanned (and gotten Controller!) once

    And evidence I have scanned all the portals on this island (i am scout controller on the other un-ornamented portal)


  • saarstahlsaarstahl ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    all good suggestions. I hope Niantic can work on them after the COMM issues have been fixed.

  • I always assumed the lack of Scout Controller decay was intentional, even if it's not explicitly admitted. Gyms in Pokemon Go decay rapidly but never fully decay, which gives the impression of activity even for gyms that go untouched for months. I imagine this was a gameplay lesson learned from Ingress: if a controllable game object can fully decay, then it becomes easier to see what regions are likely to be relatively inactive. If that object instead remains the same until another player takes control, then it becomes harder to tell at a glance how much or how little gameplay a given area gets.

    Right now, if I arrived at a random town and saw that the Portals were Scout Controlled, then I have no way of knowing if it was scanned earlier in the day, or a week ago, or six months ago. All I know is that someone else came by and took the time to scan it.

    (I do think that not decrementing the number of points is a bug, though)

    I'd like to see this applied to scans and nominations. The button to scan could say "Scan Portal (400)" to show how many scans are available, and the button for nominations could say "Nominations (14)" when nominations are available. That way, I don't have to check submission emails and repeatedly try to submit a nomination just to see whether I have nominations available.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    The lack of scout controller decay is "working as designed".

    It remains an open question as to when we'll get to the "iterate" part of "launch then iterate".

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I suppose if the number was updated, that might make a difference. A date would definitely work. For me, personally, if I’m in a new area and I see a majority of the portals are controlled, I just pass on scanning entirely. To me, that’s a loss for Niantic. Am I willing to do 1-2 scans to become a controller? Absolutely, am I willing to do 3+ though, more than likely not. And I’m speaking specifically to a large group of portals. Could those 3+ scans be 45 days old and not even matter, maybe, but I’m not willing to gamble my time like that. With the way medals are set up, scout controller ticks are the only thing I care about. If Niantic thinks no decay is working as planned, so be it, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who skips scans because they’re not interested in doing five scans to get a single tick as a scout controller…

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2021

    Is Niantic only taking feedback from XMAs at this point? 2000 scans not enough experience for my feedback???

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Bump

  • Personally, I agree with all 4 of these points.

    The scanner has a history of 'incomplete or inaccurate' information, like virus flip timers, hack cooldowns etc. Information on how many are still to be updated, the true status of a Scout Controller, and notifications on changes, would be great. And I'll always agree with more useful information on the Intel map.

  • ikaros02ikaros02 ✭✭✭✭


    PGO has this screen which shows you how many scans you have stored and how much data their upload will use. I'd be happy if we got even this as a feature. Wasn't Ingress supposed to be the testing environment for this kind of things?

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    The data info is really nice.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    *waves at anyone at Niantic…*

  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    They don't really owe you a reply or comment , man. They read everything but that doesn't mean they need to comment on everything. There's some good ideas. Maybe they are all n the pipeline but there are more important matters first. Maybe we don't know if they will happen or they don't know

  • gazzas89gazzas89 ✭✭✭✭✭

    There is a bit of truth to that, but, as pointed out, scout controller does t actually tell you if it has decayed or how many scans it will take to control it. The gyms in pogo do give an indication if how much decay has happened and you can roughly work out how much is needed to kick a pokemon out

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    It doesn’t mean I won’t keep asking. Some of y’all are content with the status quo that Niantic has created. I’m not okay with it and even if it means me being an annoying ****, then so be it.

    If anything, it’s a nice reminder that if they just started communicating, they could read something else instead of this thread I’m going to continue bumping for the foreseeable future.

    Also, they don’t comment on anything. At least anything here in the general forums. I’m perfectly okay being the guy in Shawshank redemption that writes a letter every week, because eventually, it worked out for him. Maybe, just maybe, the Ingress team will actually start caring enough about the people keeping them employed

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Also having this issue where if I hit Scan Portal while too far away, the "get closer" popup comes up twice.

  • CliffMCliffM ✭✭✭✭✭

    I appreciate the response. I am well aware of the inconsistency with Intel. (I may abuse this feature a little in planning my Scout Controller Onyx badge. lol)

    I was saying the portal history for that and several other portals is missing completely, regardless of whether I am using the client or using Intel. I can request the info for that one portal over and over on Intel, and not see history flags. (zoom in, refresh a few times, observe the json etc)

    Anyway, I don't expect a fix, but it does complicate my scanning plans, dealing with portals without history. I just have to "know" I have done certain portals and ones in the vicinity.

    even now, as I sit at my desk, I can see portals I have interacted with many times over the years that are missing history.

  • ofer2ofer2 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Do you see it in the scanner? If not, when you interact with it in the scanner, does it appear after?

  • CliffMCliffM ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2021

    For visits and captures, when I interact with it, I do get "new" history. For scans, because of how it is implemented, I can't get history for it, because I am (forevermore) the Controller already.

    I literally tried this yesterday. I got a portal moved a few miles from where it was originally placed to it's real location. Seemingly, all of the portal history was gone too. I captured it, and got the capture and the visit, but my scan did nothing, because I was already controller.

    This portal in particular:

    https://intel.ingress.com/?pll=38.776507,-77.088727

    IITC image (shh, don't tell anyone...)

    And then in scanner images, showing Scout Controller (twice - two separate times) and lack of history indicator


  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just noticed an interesting performance adjustment that happens. Out in the sun scanning a large church, first…20 or so scans were 40-55mb each. My phone was starting to get warm and I noticed the frame rate dropped, as did the upload size. Down to 20mb each.

    This would be awesome if there was a way to choose frame rates/upload size. Uploading 50-50mb scans in one swoop vs 50-20mb scans is quite the difference.

    Anyways, just an observation. Might leave my phone on my dash next time I’m out to try and force that frame rate drop 🤔🤔

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2021

    Would love some sort of notification when the upload are done. Dropping 25-50 scans takes a bit, especially when the app has to be open to upload. Would love a voice or noise to alert me.

    “Your uploads are now complete, thank you”

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    the new iOS update just dropped and I’m enjoying the new update to scanning. I’m seeing how the app finds corners or contrast and then turns those into colored hexagons. Two things I’ve noticed.

    1) the upload sizes are dramatically smaller.

    2) I’m guessing the app now has a point threshold vs a time threshold. So now, if I’m scanning something that triggers a ton of hexagons, my scan might only take five seconds. Though, I just did a bunch of scans of a skatepark and some scans took over the usual 15 seconds. Even though there is a TON of varying surface, it’s all smooth and doesn’t have any contrast, either in color or physical surface. I’m curious how this will translate vs something like a Minecraft statue, lol. Side note, I’m guessing this could potentially cut down on fake scans because if someone is trying to scan the ground, it’s not really going to create these hexagons.

    Anyways, I just zipped through 100 scans in the time it would take me to do 50. I’m digging the update and hope that it helps the ingress team get closer to a public release of these models.

    Thank you 🤙🏼🤙🏼

  • starwortstarwort ✭✭✭✭✭

    There was a thread on this a while back.

    But then you must know this as you commented on it. :-P

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2021

    It’s been a minute. Have slowed my scanning down as I wait to hear more about the nomination “bug” happening right now.

    I did run across a few uniques that I thought I’d grab, especially since I had some time to ****.

    But something has changed. So with the new hexagon capture deal. When this was first introduced, my scans were in the 20-35mb range, much more palatable and often times my scans were under the halfway mark, 10 seconds or so. But the scans I did today almost required the entire scan length to capture. I even had a few fail because I apparently hadn’t captured enough hexagons to warrant a good scan. This is a park sign, so a little short on detail, but wasn’t a flat wall or anything and I was able to do an entire 360 degree scan. My scans, moving at a slow pace were all around 120mb.

    So now it seems like instead of length of time, Niantic now requires X amount of hexagons before allowing us to stop the scan. So what if I run around the sign? So I did. Now I was capturing more hexagons in half the time. My scans where I was running were now down around 65mb.

    Will these be helpful? No idea. But I’m a little peeved that even good quality scans, slow pace, steady camera is either going to result in 100mb+ or even a failed scan. Not sure what changed, but considering how long these scans take to upload, 100mb per scan just isn’t feasible. If I do 50 scans, which is pretty normal, that’s 5GB of data, yikes!

    Anyways, a random update. Brian had mentioned if we had issues to post them. Just try to offer up my real world insight and/or struggles.

  • I like when I get a notification that someone took Controller. It's like a scrapbook - oh yeah, when was I there? And I can check the profile of whoever took it - have they done any cool mission banners?

    After 30 days, it could say "AgentName is controller: 0 Scout Points" - meaning you could take controller from them with 1 scan.

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