Dronenet is a feature that was added in Ingress Prime 2.48 as Drone Mark I and was updated to Drone Mark II on 03. May 2021.[1] Agents can deploy a Drone to a Portal in order to hack it to obtain items, with the sole exception of Portal Keys 
. The Drone will have a different appearance depending on the Agent's faction, but will function the same otherwise.
Operating the Drone
The Drone will follow the Agent's position until the Drone is deployed. Once the Drone is ready to move a ● (red dot) will appear within the OPS menu-button 
as well as next to the Dronenet-button and will stay next to the latter until the Drone is moved. In the Dronenet interface of the Scanner the Agent can select any nearby visible Portal. The selected Portal's name, image, and level will be displayed alongside a confirmation button. The Agent can select "MOVE" to send the Drone to the selected Portal, or "CANCEL" to cancel the movement process. They do not have to select "CANCEL" to select a different Portal for visiting.
Only eight Drones can be deployed on any Portal at the same time. Should a ninth Drone try to visit a Portal, the Scanner will show an error message and not move the Drone. After a Drone moves, it cannot move for the next hour.
After the target Portal has been selected and confirmed, an hour cooldown starts and an animation occurs, showing the Drone move from its last position to the selected target. The Agent can then click on the Portal in order to hack or Glyph hack it. Any Portal can only be hacked once per Drone deployment, trying to hack it again displays a burnout error. It is not possible to obtain any Portal Keys via Drone hacks, because of this the usage of the 
'More'- or 
'Less'-Glyphs during the Command channel phase has no effect. An Agent can move the Drone back and forth between two Portals in order to hack the same two Portals repeatedly. If a Portal's alignment changes, the Drone is forcibly recalled back to the Agent.
Cooldowns and Burnouts are shared between an Agent and their Drone. If an Agent burns out a Portal with 'physical' Hacks and then attempts to Drone hack the Portal, the Drone Hack will fail. Likewise, if an Agent Drone hacks a Portal, and visits the same Portal physically before the Cooldown expires, they will have to wait until it does before being able to hack the Portal again. This becomes apparent during Events where the Drone Cooldown is reduced.
Strategy
- An Agent can venture out for Level 7 and Level 8 Portals and deploy Drones on them to get high-level Gear. Some Agents also use hour-long timers to alert them when the Drone can move since Ingress does not send notifications about the Drone. It is also a tool for keeping Sojourner streaks since Drone Hacks do count toward Sojourner as well as the Hacker-medal.
- Agents can also use the Drone to visit new unique Portals with it, venturing out with it, visiting as many Portals as they can, or venturing out as far as they can. Drone visits do not count toward Explorer.
- Agents can try to hack as many Portals as possible, which counts towards the Maverick-medal.
- During Events where the Drone Cooldown is reduced, deploy on more dense areas, or on Portals with Multi-Hacks
.
Stats
There have also been new stats since the addition of Dronenet:
- Unique Portals Drone Visited
- The number of unique Portals an Agent's Drone visited.
- Furthest Drone Distance
- Drone Hacks
- Forced Drone Recalls
- Drones Returned
- The number of times an Agent sends back another's Drone due to a Portal's alignment change.
- Both Enlightened and Resistance Drones are counted.
Trivia
- When in Drone Footage view, the Drone's rotation will follow the Agent's.
- There is a model for the Mk III Drone in the Scanner files. While it is currently unused, its design is used by the Maverick-Medal.
Gallery
