Drone Visited Layer

HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

Anyone else would like a layer to show which portals you have already hacked by drone?

It doesn't even need to be an extra layer, just add that to current drone layer.

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Comments

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Why?

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Why show which portals you have already hacked by drone? Simple: to show which ones you have already hacked by drone (so you wont visit it again). It can't be more self explanatory than this.

  • kiloecholimakiloecholima ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2021

    The other three layers show us uniques, the drone layer should as well. Would also like to see a badge added for it.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    Classic Niantic to give us a drone layer, that has more or less no use and doesn’t fall in line with the other existing layers. Just can’t seem to hit the mark…

    This is a long overdue addition, layer and medal, especially considering the pandemic. Hopefully something soon (tm)

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    yeah why cant we have a badge for visited drones? without that it makes no sense having a layer for something that doesnt give badge whats the point.

  • kittysukittysu ✭✭✭

    Lots of people have expressed a desire for this in several threads in the forums already - we still don't have it.

    It would be nice if Niantic listened and acted - I would have thought the basic methods can be ported across from captured and visited layers and it would be a quick and simple QoL improvement for those of us who use the drone this way.

    There are plenty of bugs (comms, lag) that I would like to see fixed too.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2021

    Until there is a badge for it, why?

    Personally hope no badge. Drones should be removed.

    The object of the game is to get out and explore. Very few areas are in lockdown these days.

    Sitting on your couch driving a drone around does not match game mechanics. Get up and go capture some.

  • ZeroHecksGivenZeroHecksGiven ✭✭✭✭✭

    I kinda agree with you, but also, I work 8-12 hour days and it’s a nice little break from that each day to buzz around different places and stay engaged with the game, in a different way.

    Also, like the drone hack medal, I’d assume any numbers already gained will be put towards any new medal, so would be nice to have a layer to help keep things straight.

  • saarstahlsaarstahl ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2021

    For me, the drone is often the incentive to go out and play, because drone hacks fill up my inventory, and I have to go out and use the hacked items.

    By the way, why is a badge better than stats? For example, there is no badge for the longest time you hold a field and for your longest link. Do agents not try to boost these stats?

  • I was very exited last year when the drone layer was announced, finaly I would be able to see which portals I have drone visited. I couldn't think of anything else that layer could be, showing visited portals, what else could it be? I love exploring with the drone and trying to visit them all, I don't care about moving between a couple of high level portals.

    And then the new layer went live, what a disappointment! See other drone's, Niantic came up with something useless.

  • kittysukittysu ✭✭✭

    I have detoured to new areas to collect keys and gone to areas I would not otherwise have visited to collect keys - for my drone. I have walked in places with no portals seeking potential new ones to try and join areas up for the purposes of drone flight.

    Why? Because I enjoy the opportunity to virtually explore the portal network in places I would not pay attention to if I was physically there capping portals, and because I enjoy the challenge of making the longest possible drone distance in my country.

    Just because you cannot see a way the drone promotes exploration doesn't mean it cannot be used to further Niantic's aims.

    Having a badge (and a visible record) for unique portals drone visited would encourage more people to travel for their drone and further Niantic's aims. The current badge for drone hacking certainly does little to encourage exploration of new places - all you need for that one is a single portal.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2021

    Is exploring via drone really exploring? You certainly don't experience the area, you get a tiny window on what's actually at the location.

    You'd be better off driving around on the screen in Google Street view...

    Also some of us can't get to other cities via drone. I think the furthest anyone here has managed is 70km before portals thin out too much to hop further.

  • 90 km without keys is possible in the Ruhr area of Germany.

  • ToxoplasmollyToxoplasmolly ✭✭✭✭✭

    In order to accumulate unique drone visits, you need to visit new cities and drop off your drone while you're there.

    This is false. You can get plenty of "unique drone visits" simply by moving your drone through areas that you've (physically) visited previously.

    The Pioneer and Explorer medals are the real drivers are getting out there in the world and exploring. The drone just comes along for free.

  • kiloecholimakiloecholima ✭✭✭✭✭

    Perhaps I was imprecise. New cities unique to your drone. The point is, you have to keep moving it to different places in order to get uniques. My drone is currently about 150km from home. It didn't get there from my couch.

  • kittysukittysu ✭✭✭

    As I have already said in this thread, the speed of drone movement means I actually pay attention to the portals my drone visits, and read descriptions for the interesting ones. When I play in a new city, I am often looking at my phone, not the art, buildings or whatever else around me, and could not tell you what portals I have capped. If a portal is something tucked away off the main road, I would not see the real world object. A little further off the path and I won't even walk close enough to capture it - but my drone covering the same area likely will visit.

    It is a different way of exploring that complements other aspects of game play.

  • "Exploration" by drone? No offense, guys, but it looks like: 

    "- I've been to Prague! 

    - Wow, really?

    - Yeah, I looked at pictures of Prague online!"

  • kiloecholimakiloecholima ✭✭✭✭✭

    Speaking for myself, the only way my drone would ever make it to Prague is if I traveled to Prague and dropped it off there.

    My drone has exhausted every portal dense area within 30 minutes of me, and a number of other areas within an hour, so in order for me to continue getting uniques, I have to travel long distances to areas well outside of my playbox where my drone hasn't visited. I fail to see how that isn't exploring or getting out in the field.

  • But you still go to these places PERSONALLY. 

    Notionally, it is unlikely that you would go to Prague just to leave a drone there. But you would leave the drone there if you were there for some other reason.

    The main impulse remains personal visitation and I have no problem with that.

    But I don't agree to consider "exploring" a situation where the player just drives the drone from his house into some wilderness and looks at pictures. And it's good if they have an interesting/quality description.

    In that case, as @SSSputnik said earlier, looking at Google Street View will provide more " exploration" than that.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    Some of us live in pretty remote areas. Getting a drone somewhere far off requires driving it there.

    Places like Europe, Japan, you can probably go an awfully long way.

  • kiloecholimakiloecholima ✭✭✭✭✭

    " Getting a drone somewhere far off requires driving it there."

    Yes, I'm glad you agree, this is exactly the point I've been making, counter to your original argument that the drone should be removed and we shouldn't have a badge because it's just sitting on the couch.

    "Places like Europe, Japan, you can probably go an awfully long way."

    There's been some posts here conflating unique drone visits with flight distance. Going for flight distance often sacrifices thoroughness in order to travel farther quicker, meaning you'll likely skip many surrounding portals on your flight path if distance is your focus. Going for unique drone visits is the process of thoroughly going to each portal one-by-one in a (preferably) dense area. This is why the unique drone layer is requested because it is easy to forget if your drone already visited a particular portal or not in these dense locations. It can take weeks just to get through some cities, which means you aren't traveling very far (I've never gone further than 5km since I started focusing on uniques).

    Prague, yes, I would have other reasons to visit since it's on a different continent from me. 😅

    I have however taken long drives just for the sole purpose of dropping off my drone, with no other reason for visiting the area. Just like when I was going for onyx explorer and pioneer. I saw a lot of cool places along the way, but I also went through several other less memorable places for no reason other than to look down at my phone and repeatedly tap hack and deploy.

  • kittysukittysu ✭✭✭

    You can explore a subject by reading a book.

    I don't think drone exploration is the same as exploring on foot. Just as I don't regard exploring scientific discoveries by reading about them as the same as repeating the experiments. But that does not mean it has no value as a form of exploration.

    I wouldn't say I have been to central Prague if all I did was drop my drone off at the outskirts - but I would have learnt more about the PoI there from drone visits than I would running around after every unique I could reach. Admittedly, central cities probably are not good places for drones due to player activity levels. 😅

  • kittysukittysu ✭✭✭

    It depends where in Europe. I live in the UK, and if I sit on my couch I can get my drone approx 13 km.

    The only reason I can get further than 2km from my couch is because I got up and went out and added some extra portals.

    Within the UK, I have managed to get my Furthest Drone Distance up to 156km. To achieve that, I had to go to one end of the route, launch the drone, collect some keys to allow longer jump distances. I then had to go to the other end of the route and collect some more keys for longer jump distances. And launch my drone again from that end because it got force recalled the first time.

    Because I enjoy seeing what I can do with my drone, I have gone out to walk in places I would normally ignore to see if I can find portal-worthy objects to add to the network and increase the places my drone can go to without having to be recalled and restarted.

    I have physically gone to places and paid attention to those places motivated by the drone and its capabilities/limitations.

    I know there are plenty of people who do no more than send their drone around a small group of portals to farm gear. But just because some people are happy to capture portals in the same city centre over and again doesn't mean other people don't go out exploring new places to capture new portals. Equally there are people who EXPLORE by sending their drone to portals they haven't been close enough to hack.

    Merriam-Webster defines explore in several ways, the first is "to look at (something) in a careful way to learn more about it to study or analyze (something)" and this is 100% what I do when my drone goes to a new place. They don't even include the concept of travel as part of their "Essential meaning of explore", that only gets mentioned in the full definition.


  • grendelwulfgrendelwulf ✭✭✭✭✭

    My drone helped me discover a cluster of new portals I had never visited before and probably would not have found without it. Last night I drove out and captured and fielded them all.

  • Most of the drone explorers (including myself) also go out and hack portals for the explorer badge. Only 9 of the 1000 top drone explorers in the 2021 Ingress Worldwide Competition have a more unique drone visits than unique portals visits.

    However, I do a lot a unique hacks when I travel on tram or bus. It is hard enough to hack/deploy the portals at just the right moment, so I stare at the screen most of the time with hardly a chance to look at the real POI. All I can do is look at the hacked keys after the ride.

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    There's people who have coasted down the entire Florida coastline with drones. Over 100 km.

  • SSSputnikSSSputnik ✭✭✭✭✭

    I guess I don't see the attraction on a personal basis.

    If i want to find portals, I use mission designer or Intel, if I want to explore, I go there.

    If I want to view an area, I use Street View.

    Sending a drone seems like a risky waste of time I'm better of spending on destroying or fielding.

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