Successful Ingress OP

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JustinR
Posts: 1852
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:53 am

Successful Ingress OP

Post by JustinR »

So a while back, I had posted a thread asking if anyone played Ingress, Niantic's (Google company) first geolocation capture the flag game (before Pokemon GO.) During the last few months, we got my wife an iPhone so she could play, and by random chance saw a message from friendly (same team) players on the in-game comm instructing how to sign up for the social media groups for our local players on Google+ and Telegram group chat.

I signed up and started talking with local teammates, and it quickly became apparent we were missing out on the social aspect of the game. Teamwork is an important part, and having group chat outside of the game allowed us to get to know the folks around us. We got to meet them at local "fracking" parties at local pubs where there are portals we can quickly make highest level and then farm for resources while eating and drinking and visiting.

About two months ago, one of the local high level players that is kind of an unofficial leader because of experience and contacts, approached us to be a part of a nationwide OP. We made sure we both had yesterday off and free of any obligations. Our area of responsibility was from Durant, OK to Tyler, TX, but ended up being slightly larger. OPSEC was paramount to keep the enemy from being alerted. In order to make a link and control field, there can be NO enemy or friendly links in the way. We were each given a target to drive to, and wait for the GO command. We had several people acting as floating link-killers in case friendly agents not in the OP threw a last minute link, or the enemy started throwing blocking links across the lane. My target was a portal SE of Tyler, and my wife's was up near Bonham.

We were to be at the targets at 14:30 CST, with a scoring checkpoint we were trying to make at 16:00. Our area operator, coordinating the lane clearing and watching the overall Intel map told us the planned drop time had slipped to 15:30 due to problems in other sectors. Since attacks show up on comm and alert the portal owner, we were to wait until everyone was in position.
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Our fearless leader had been sent the furthest north into Oklahoma. He realized too late that despite being on Cricket (supposed to be ATT) his service sucked. The operator had no location or communication from him. He told my wife to nuke her target immediately, and proceed to our leader's second target ASAP, since she was closest. She dropped it, and raced toward her new target, 30 minutes away. Suddenly leader checks in over a wifi connection, he has dropped his first target, and operator tells him to leave for second NOW. My wife gets there first, at 15:58. She starts hitting it with all she's got, but it turns out it's the portal closest to the guy's house, and he's recharging (defending) furiously. She manages to drop it at 16:02.

We hear from our operator that agents in another sector are having problems, so it's no longer our fault we didn't make checkpoint, and we breath a little breath of relief that we did all we could. Something like 5-10 minutes later, the field appears!
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The anchor portals were a spot on the Hawaii coast that had to be hiked, a post office in far northwest Alaska, and several portals in Beaumont in a park with gates that closed to the public at 17:00.

The next scoring checkpoint was in five hours, but sadly some cheaters ruined it for everyone. Several enemy agents (which have been scorned by their own teammates) with jailbroken/rooted phones GPS spoofed to the portals and killed them. The Alaska one was killed by a person in Minneapolis, the Hawaii one had our agents sitting on it with no one around when it was taken down, and an enemy agent arrived at the park in Beaumont after 17:00, realized he couldn't get to the portals, and has testified there was simply no one else around when they were taken out. There are a bunch of people rightfully upset, but the honest enemy players are just as mad as we are, because they know how much hard work and time went into the planning and coordination. So far, Niantic hasn't done anything that we know of.

All in all, it was great fun, a bit stressful, and great to be a part of something that big, even if it wasn't successful completely in the ways we wanted. Several of us got together and had BBQ in Tyler for dinner, did some key farming, then drove back to DFW. It's just a game, but it's gotten us out to see a lot of new places, and meet new folks, and that's really the important part.

From the national organizers:
Hella fine work to all involved. Pass gratitude and thanks from OpsTeam to every single Boots on the ground agents, stand by agents, extra eyes on the map, the spouses that put up with this nonsense for <insert however long you've been staring at a computer/scanner>, those that donated gear, money and cars, agents that flew to far away places, agents that haven't left their house in a week , the kids that made themselves breakfast, lunch and snacks today, the agents on sat modem talking other agents through the pending death of their dog last weekend, the agents dealing with Dr House: Canine Edition, the drunk agents that snuck out of a xfac event to deliver a Mexican phone to an agent that janked his, agents that rode hours in cars in the middle of the night to deliver keys to other agents, and all the rest of the insanely crazy stories that have yet to be told in connection with this op. Thank you never seems to be enough and for many it's more than ever expected. Fielding is why I fell in love with Ingress. While I don't get to do it as often as I used to, working with all of you on an op like this is why I still love Ingress. Thank you @mynja for your crazy vision and letting me hitch a ride on the latest version of the ENL Crazy (Fielding) Train.
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"The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: You dream, we build." -Mark Owen, No Easy Day

"My assault weapon won't be 'illegal,' it will be 'undocumented.'" -KL
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randy
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Re: Successful Ingress OP

Post by randy »

No real clue on what exactly you were doing at the field locations, but glad you had fun.

Sounds somewhat like Amateur radio Fox Hunting (hidden transmitter hunting) where the "fox" places a transmitter and the "hounds" try to locate it using RF direction finding. Not as simple as it seems in movies/books, especially if the fox knows how to manipulate the RF signal through clever placement.
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
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JustinR
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Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:53 am

Re: Successful Ingress OP

Post by JustinR »

The "portals" are locations that have energy (XM) around them, are able to be captured, linked to other portals to create mind control fields, and farmed for resources (resonators to capture portals as well as modifications such as shields, energy cubes, and both area of effect weapons called XMP's and point weapons called ultrastrikes.) You have to be within a 40 meter radius to hack for resources or capture a portal. High level XMP's have a 60-80 meter effect radius, but the effect sharply drops off with distance. In order to take down links in the way of the field, we had to be at the portals to attack them (or use a virus to flip a friendly portal to an enemy portal so it's links would drop).
"The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: You dream, we build." -Mark Owen, No Easy Day

"My assault weapon won't be 'illegal,' it will be 'undocumented.'" -KL
BDK
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Re: Successful Ingress OP

Post by BDK »

OK, so with the caveat that I don't have "a clue as to what you are on about," somehow, that the enemy exploited an electronic weakness to win, seems surprisingly realistic for a combat game.
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JustinR
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Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:53 am

Re: Successful Ingress OP

Post by JustinR »

Well except for the so-called weakness defeats the whole purpose of the game...hense why they were scorned by their own teammates for cheating.
"The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: You dream, we build." -Mark Owen, No Easy Day

"My assault weapon won't be 'illegal,' it will be 'undocumented.'" -KL
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