Banner Missions

a21schizoidmana21schizoidman ✭✭✭
edited June 2019 in General

Hello everyone.

One of my favorite parts about Ingress is traveling and exploring new places (or even finding places I didn't know about in my own locale!). And one of the things that let's me find those places are banner missions. By making me snake through places to get every portal I get a reward and a long lasting memory of an image.


So, let me ask you, users of New Ingress Forum, what are some of your favorite Banner Missions that you have done?

What ones have you seen that you would like to do yourself?

Comments

  • One of my recent favorites was the Toronto Skyline banner in Toronto, ON.


    Took about 6 hours on foot. I travelled all over the city. Then afterwards I relaxed with a nice dinner at a First Nations inspired restaurant called Bannock. I got to see all the major landmarks, it was cool but not cold, and I had a lot of fun picking up a bunch of Explorer and Pioneer points.

  • ArtilectZedArtilectZed ✭✭✭✭✭

    The Link Amp (animal) banners. I'll try to do them whenever I'm near one.

  • CriminalBizzyCriminalBizzy ✭✭✭✭

    I chase after Batman themed banners!

  • I chase after Batman themed banners!


    Have you found any good ones @CriminalBizzy ?

  • The Link Amp (animal) banners. I'll try to do them whenever I'm near one.


    Which is your favorite so far @ArtilectZed ?

  • SubCmdrTauSubCmdrTau ✭✭✭

    i like the space themed ones. starfields, galaxies etc. i'll even extend it to space craft, and other Sci Fi themed banners.

    (even created a couple)

  • CriminalBizzyCriminalBizzy ✭✭✭✭

    @a21schizoidman Yes! I have a lot of missions. 2 jokers, 1 batman, 1 B&W pic of Adam West, Poison Ivy, and The Riddler. There are many more that I want to do.

  • ZhioonZhioon ✭✭

    My favorite banner is only 30 missions

  • My favorites are Explore and Enjoy Paul's Valley, and the University of Central Oklahoma banners. A lovely steam engine from Paul's Valley, and a macabre original piece of art from UCO.

  • gwenixgwenix ✭✭✭

    The Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, PA, it's long with 56 missions, but the display is fantastic in the scanner.

    Via Noir's Darkside of XM in Chicago. Because Pink Floyd.

    NOTLD in Pittsburgh, PA, because I love Night of the Living Dead references.

    Toronto Sign in Toronto, because it's so bright.

  • I loved all the banner missions in Denver and Boulder. Was glad I chose to spend a whole week around the anomaly. It helped that I knew the area, especially Boulder, and felt safe enough to Ingress alone, even in the wee hours of the morning.

    All the missions were well designed with great flow and little need to backtrack or look at the map to make sure I didn't go off track.

  • GlenuendoGlenuendo ✭✭✭✭

    There are a couple in Vegas that look insanely long but would be sweet to do, The Statue of Liberty and Stratosphere. If I had sufficient time, I'd be all over them.

  • VasatiVasati ✭✭✭

    There are a few I love. Mostly the ones that are created by the local group here for IFS. Several IFS that I've been to have had additional missions in order to get banners, so along with the fun that happens at IFS events, there's that extra challenge.

    The longest one though, was this one Batman one at Victory Memorial Parkway/Drive in Minnesota. 72 missions, took me over a week I think, in the middle of summer. It was a pain, but it was so nice to finish.

  • RyogueRyogue ✭✭

    Too many to pick from; many favorites. Certainly, picture quality and vibrance go a long way when I chose to do mission banners. Great banners take you on a logical tour (no backtracking) of the neighborhood and are mindful of all ability levels (sidewalk/ADA accessible, relatively short, open 24/7, to name a few).

  • sonjohansonjohan ✭✭
    edited June 2019

    Doctor Who themed ones. Tardis.

    Still trying to find a good way of having a weeping angel one, where the angel gets closer (or further, haven't decided yet) with each mission.

  • I’m biased. My favorites are the ones I created. (Friday the 13th one and the other is Macho Man giving Jesus the flying elbow from the top rope in heaven).

  • @CrimsonGrimoire that Macho Man banner sounds hilarious. Where is that?

  • @RoyalAmethyst21 I believe it's in Champaign, IL

  • @vidicon


    Agreed.


    One of the first things I like to note about doing a banner is the flow. Is it going to take me around the city or is it going to stay in one area? Does it randomly backtrack or reuse a bunch of portals for no reason? If it's not sequential (and this is where the Navigation function on Redacted is key) does it randomly branch off and leave me guessing which direction to go to have the least backtracking?


    I don't mind passphrases, they are fun when it's in your native language or if the clues are on the portal or given out throughout the mission. But I do hate when there might be a misspelling in the answer they have and it screws you out of being able to finish a mission because they wrote "mo" instead of "no" and you have no idea what to put. I love the idea of a banner STARTING each mission with a passphrase, most I have done like to end with them, meaning a good number of early missions end up requiring a heat sink since you accidentally hack it because the passphrase box didn't come up and you forgot that was the final portal.

  • Patka07Patka07 ✭✭✭✭

    I love banner from Poznań City, Poland. It's big blue Resistance key. Took me almost 4 hours to do it, 15km by foot. I met new players because this mission required upgrades and i had to jarvis a portal to do it. So I contacted locals for permission and got to know awsome people!

  • BarthaxBarthax ✭✭✭

    I'd love to get the Towers of London on my scanner.

  • CzarlCzarl ✭✭

    @vidicon

    good points...I created a pretty good one in Victoria, BC and for me, for banner missions they have to have a good flow and be "hack only"...I created the Victoria Banner and it is you are generally heading from North to South within 2 blocks east/west and the image at the end is of the building you end at (Parliament Building)

    Ingress Mosaik mission 12609 (I can't post links yet)

    If you want to make it linky linking, make sure the description mentions that it is a difficult one...or just keep the linky links in single missions "worlds hardest mission" type.

  • vidiconvidicon ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Czarl Yeah, that's another good rule for good missions - if you're going to make a difficult series, make sure you a) make the first mission indicative of how difficult the rest will be, and/or b) explain the difficulty in the description. I don't want to find out on Mission 7 of 12 that I have to pay for entry into a botanical garden, or on mission 17 of 18 that I have to go into a park that's closed at night. I've had both of these happen.

    There was another series I did that started with 17 quick around-town hacks, and ended with a hike up a mountain with a great view. The mission author explained this in the description on the very first mission, and that made me very happy - I love hiking up mountains, but I would have been very irritated to find that out unexpectedly.

  • Ech0TomEch0Tom ✭✭✭

    I recently finished the Grumpy Cat banner in London, it's called Мяу в Лондоне and it was made by a Russian player. Its got a great picture, great tourist route for the missions and its not too long. great banner

  • @Czarl @vidicon Yes, to both of these. I hate starting missions to find out it's not completely finishable in a day, or without a big paywall. Or to find out that the last mission in the set is 100 portals and goes back to every part of the banner because the person making it was sadistic.

    Though even worse is when you go do a banner and find out you can't finish part of it because of something completely out of the author's control, like construction that blocks portals/waypoints. Happened to me in Sun Prairie, WI. I was doing the banner in town, but a few weeks earlier there was a gas explosion, so part of the town was fenced off. There was a SINGLE waypoint on mission 3 I think, that was JUST outside of reach from at the fence. I filled it in with a single mission (of a bird because I like birds) but was still disappointing.

  • It should be on mosaik.

  • MorganzaMorganza ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've done thousands of missions, hundreds of banners, but a few that I have the strongest memories of:

    1. Chewbacchus in New Orleans. This was back when banners were rare and precious, none of this luxury of being picky. The route... The route follows a traditional Mardi Gras parade route, twisting and turning, spirals, backtracks. (I later learned that the parade routes themselves follow traditional funeral procession routes, designed to confuse any evil spirits that might be following the coffin.). As I describe it, you are steeped in the local flavor of "we are following a bunch of partying drunks.". In addition, I got to learn the backstory of Homer J. Plessey, losing plaintiff in the US Supreme Court decision that tops most lists of the worst court decisions ever. (Sadly, I did this before I started being fussy about doing single missions in multiples of 6, so it's forever misaligned with the rest of my banners.)

    2. NDSM X-Fac banner in Amsterdam. The banner layout and art? Yawn. The setting? Amazing. An abandoned industrial area turned into an artist colony. Amazing graffiti. Junk turned into art. A crane with a personality. Well worth the (free!) ferry ride to get there.

    3. T Rex eating the Minneapolis skyline. Yeah, I could have done the bigger banner of Princess Leia in the same sculpture garden if it were just a stats contest. But instead of Yet Another Star Wars Banner, I've got a cool souvenir of my trip to Minneapolis.

    4. PILSEN in Chicago. I had already anagrammed GIANTS in SF to ATSIGN, so as soon as I realized that I could spell SPLINE with this one it went on my "must-do" list. This would have been dead easy by car. But I was on foot, alone, after midnight, walking past little **** encampments. The backtracking to do the missions out of order added a few km. The doglegs up to the main street with the lights and stores and people added a few more, but that seemed better than walking in the emptier streets. An adventure. (I know people use these letters to spell rude words, but if Niantic ever ruins my cool travel souvenir by suitcasing out the icons I'll be pretty upset. Why punish everyone for the juvenile behavior of a few?)


    It's hard to stop at 4. The Swamp in Virginia, sitting on a bench with a magnificent view of an undeveloped stretch of the James River. The Night Kitty in Philadelphia, where a Res agent saw a group of dumb Enl from out of town and sent cops and PoGo players to clear the meth dealers out of a few parks. The Sundial Bridge in Redding, a gorgeous park I'd have never known existed. A day trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

    So many cool places Ingress banners have taken me.

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