Nemesis: Umbra Anomaly Rules

Capture Battle

Umbra is trying to gain hold via neutral portals in the Anomaly Zone; agents must capture and keep them. Capturing and holding these portals for your Faction will keep Umbra's barrier vulnerable.

Longest Link Path

Agents must make a long path of links starting from one of their Faction's Base Portals. Long link paths can destabilize Umbra’s barrier, and get us one step closer to re-establishing the connection between the Niantic Project Researchers and our world.

Unique Portal Hacks

Agents must hack as many different portals in the Anomaly Zone as they can. Hacking the portals casts the net to capture Umbra.

Deciphering Challenge

Umbra's true name is hidden behind layers of shadow and mystery. While the anomaly battle will prevent her plans from coming to fruition, in order to truly defeat her, the agents must uncover her true identity. Agents must decode enciphered passcodes and enter them into the scanner in order to identify information about Umbra.

The point total for each site is 100 scoring points. It will be split as follows:

• 35 scoring points: Capture Battle
  This will be distributed proportionally to Capture Battle final raw score (maximum score at any measurement).
• 40 scoring points: Longest Link Path
  This will be distributed proportionally to Longest Link Path final raw score (maximum score at any measurement).
• 15 scoring points: Unique Portal Hacks
  Winner takes all. All 15 points will go to the Faction with the higher Unique Portal Hacks final raw score (average over Anomaly Period).
• 10 scoring points: Decoding Challenge
  Winner takes all. All 10 points will go to the Faction which is first able to input the Master Code for the site.

The Faction which claims the most scoring points is the victor for that site.

Benefits of Victory

The Faction winning more cities in the Umbra series of Ingress Anomalies will gain first choice of an Umbra Key Advantage, usable in the Nemesis Sequence Finale in 2020 (the other faction will get second choice).

Capture Battle

Details: Agents are competing to capture Anomaly Zone portals. Some portals (approximately 10% of the Anomaly Zone portals) will be marked as volatile, and be worth additional points in the Capture Battle. Which portals are volatile will change during each measurement period.

Measurements: There will be nine Capture Battle measurements, at the end of each 20 minute period during the entire Anomaly Period (i.e., at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 80 minutes, 100 minutes, 120 minutes, 140 minutes, 160 minutes, and 180 minutes after the start). Measurements have a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time).

Site Scoring:

• Only portals captured by Agents with an Onsite Activation ticket for the site will be counted.
• Each volatile Anomaly Zone portal will be worth 5 points.
• Each other Anomaly Zone portal will be worth 1 point.
• A Faction's raw score at a measurement is the total value of each Anomaly Zone portal it controls at the measurement.

The final raw score for each Faction will be its maximum score from any of the Capture Battle measurements during the Anomaly Period. 35 scoring points will be distributed proportionally between the Factions, depending on their final raw score.

Longest Link Path

Details: Agents are competing to create the longest continuous path of up to 8 links from one of their Faction's Base Portals. Each Faction will have several Portals marked as Base Portals in the Anomaly Zone. Base Portals will change during each measurement. A Link Path must start from a Base Portal, must continue to other Anomaly Zone Portals, and cannot loop. Links to Portals already included in the path and links to offlimit Portals or Portals outside the Anomaly Zone will not continue the path.

Measurements: There will be nine Longest Link Path measurements, at the end of each 20 minute period during the entire Anomaly Period (i.e., at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 80 minutes, 100 minutes, 120 minutes, 140 minutes, 160 minutes, and 180 minutes after the start). Measurements have a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time).

Site Scoring: The first link in a Link Path is counted as its length in km, and additional links are increasingly multiplied: the second link in a path is worth 2x the length in km; third is 3x, and so on up to 8x. A single Link Path's score is this total weighted score (1x first link length + 2x second link length + 3x third link length + 4x fourth link length + 5x fifth link length + 6x sixth link length + 7x seventh link length + 8x eighth link length). A Faction's raw score at a measurement is the total weighted score of their single highest-scoring Link Path starting from any of their Base Portals.

In other words, the link originating from the Base Portal will have its link distance measured in kilometers. Each additional link will have a higher multiplier applied to its length. If a Link Path is comprised of three links with the distances of 100km, 25km, and 50km, the score for the Link Path would be (100x1)+(25x2)+(50x3) = 300 points.

• Only links made by Agents with an Onsite Activation ticket for the site will be counted as part of a path.
• Only links which between ornamented Anomaly Zone Portals (links which originate from any ornamented Anomaly Zone Portal and terminate on any ornamented Anomaly Zone Portal) will be counted as part of a path.
• Only Link Paths which are active at the measurement time will be included.

The final raw score for each Faction will be its maximum score from any of the Longest Link Path measurements during the Anomaly Period. 40 scoring points will be distributed proportionally between the Factions, depending on their final raw score.

Unique Portal Hacks

Details: During the three-hour Anomaly Period, each registered Onsite Agent will have the number of unique Anomaly Zone Portals they hacked counted. Any Portal with an Ornament is valid for the Unique Portal Hacks competition. Only hacks during the Anomaly Period will be counted. A Portal hack does not need to count towards an Agent's Explorer Badge in order to count for the Unique Portal Hacks competition.

Measurements: There will be one measurement, at the end of the Anomaly Period. This measurement has a measurement window of 2 minutes (records may be taken up to 1 minute before or after the measurement time). Each Agent's hacks over the Anomaly Period will then be counted and the Faction’s score computed. Only registered Onsite Agents will be counted towards the final score.

Site Scoring: The final raw score for each Faction will be the average from all of its Agents, after removing any with fewer than thirteen Portal hacks and then removing the highest and lowest 15% of Agent scores. The Faction with the higher final raw score will win the entire competition, gaining the full 15 scoring points.

Deciphering Challenge

Details: At the beginning of the three-hour Anomaly Period, each registered Onsite and Offsite Agent for that city will be sent an email with links to a number of miniciphers specific to their city. Each of these miniciphers is an encoded message which can be deciphered to a passcode (one use per agent, resulting in a media object). When a registered Agent for that city (either Onsite or Offsite) enters one of these passcodes, it will be counted for their Faction. Once a Faction has entered enough minicipher passcodes to reach the Critical Level for their city (at least 75% of the miniciphers for their city), their Faction members will receive an email with the Master Code for their site. When deciphered, this will also result in a passcode. Emails will be sent from "Niantic <niantic@info.ingress.com>".

Measurements: Faction progress on the minicodes will be checked every five minutes during the Anomaly Period (with a two minute measurement window, up to one minute before or after). If a Faction has reached the Critical Level, they will be emailed the Master Code at that time.

Site Scoring: The Faction which first reaches the Critical Level and enters the Master Code solution will win the entire competition, gaining the full 10 scoring points.

Anomaly Zone Details

During the two hours before the start of the Anomaly Period (12:30PM to 2:30PM local time), Anomaly Zone Portals may be spontaneously neutralized. This is likely to happen multiple times leading up to the start of the Anomaly Period. This will not affect inoculation times.

During the Anomaly Period, fields and links using Portals outside the Anomaly Zone and crossing into the Anomaly Zone may spontaneously de-materialize when detected. This includes fields which cover a large part of the Anomaly Zone, even if they do not cover the entire Anomaly Zone.

Capture Battle

• Q: Will agents with an Onsite ticket need to make 13 hacks before their captures will be counted for score?
  A: No.
• Q: How will portals affected by a Jarvis Virus or ADA Refactor be counted?
  A: Portals owned by Jarvis or ADA will not be counted.

Longest Link Path

• Q: Will agents with an Onsite ticket need to make 13 hacks before their links will be counted for score?
  A: No.
• Q: If we control a base portal from the other faction and link from it, will it count for our Faction or the other Faction?
  A: It will not count for either Faction. Note that this is unlike Shard Battle, where Faction control is ignored.
• Q: Can an opposite Faction's Base Portal be part of a longest link path?
  A: Yes -- all Base Portals are ornamented anomaly zone portals, so an opposite Faction's Base Portal may be part of a Link Path if your Faction controls it. However, the Link Path must start from one of your Faction's Base Portals.
• Q: Does the direction of the links make any difference?
  A: No.
• Q: In the situation on this image, what would be considered as longest link path? 0 links, because it has a loop, 4 links starting at yellow pin and ending at red circle, or all 7 links?
  
  A: 6 links: the final link back to the red circled portal would create a loop, so would not be counted. The higher-scoring path of 6 links (i.e., the longer one) will be used.
• Q: In the following situation (with links in red), are the following green paths of links all valid for consideration?
  
  
  
  
  A: Yes, those are all valid link paths.

Unique Portal Hacks

Deciphering Challenge

• Q: What happens if neither Faction deciphers the Master Code during the Anomaly Period?
  A: In this case, neither Faction will receive any scoring points for the Deciphering Challenge.
• Q: What happens if a Faction enters the Master Code solution before reaching the Critical Level?
  A: A Faction must have reached the Critical Level (by entering minicipher solutions) in order for the Master Code solution to be scored.
• Q: Is there any benefit to multiple members of a Faction inputting a minicipher solution?
  A: No. The Critical Level counts whether each minicipher has been solved, and does not care how many members of a Faction have solved it.
• Q: Will the emails containing the miniciphers be unique to an agent or group of agents, or will every agent have access to all the miniciphers for their city?
  A: Every registered agent will have access to all the miniciphers for their city.
• Q: Can a single Agent solve and enter multiple passcodes?
  A: Yes.
• Q: Can a single minicode be solved by both Factions?
  A: Yes.
• Q: What happens if an Agent who is not registered for the site enters a minicode solution?
  A: It will not be counted, and it will not prevent another registered Agent from entering the solution.

Anomaly Zone Details