I won't kill you, just educate you, which may kill you through boredom and how much shit you have to go through to do this(well in sapphire anyway). Also this is a long ass post and there will no be TL : DR version. It also just occurred to me that this probably looks like a guide as well, but this what I need to do to RNG in Sapphire and he asked.
Let's start off with what RNG is. RNG is the random number generator. The RNG(for pokemon anyway) handles everything from your Trainer ID/SID, events that happen, the Pokemon's nature and stats, it's ability, the damage and critical hits, ect,ect ect. However, because it is a computer, and computers only have set parameters, the RNG cannot be completely random, so it tries to mask it by spewing out seemingly random numbers. Because of the predictability of Pokemon R/S/E's RNG, the RNG can be exploited to achieve the same results or desirable results, which is what RNG abuse is, to exploit it.
Pokemon R/S/E run on a frame RNG(not sure what the technical term is but we are going with that), with going at 60 FPS. However, in Emerald's case, the RNG is broken. How is it broken? Well, each time you reset the game via soft reset, the frame resets to 0 and goes up by 60 FPS. So in theory(and practice), if you encountered a Pokemon at frame 5000(which is around 83 seconds) on the first try, soft reset the game, waited 83 seconds and THEN encountered a Pokemon, that Pokemon will have the exact same everything(stats, PID, nature, gender, ability), as the previous Pokemon.
Pokemon R/S do it a bit differently, however. R/S also have a seed function inside the game. Seed is tied to time and date. With a dead battery, the seed is stuck at 5A0(which is Jan 1st 2000 at Midnight). However, with an alive battery, the seed changes every minute, and the seed change takes place when you soft reset the game. Because of the seed function, it will obviously have different results from Emerald, but the actual process of RNGing them on R/S/ compared to Emerald, is identical, just different results.
So basically, if you want to RNG in R/S(with a dead battery) or Emerald, grab a stopwatch and aim for consistency. Of course, you'll need the RNG Reporter to get spreads.
Now you may wonder, "How the ♥♥♥♥ can I reliably RNG on a live battery if the seed changes every minute?" Well, it's more simple then you think, but it involves taking out the battery of the R/S cartridge, so if you don't have the tools(or heart) to take out the battery, you may as well stop right here. I used my Sapphire cart, because I'd never dismantle my Ruby cartridge.
BUT FIRST, we need to find a spread. Go to the RNG Reporter and go to Gen 3 Time Finder. Click on the "Capture" tab. Uncheck the dead battery box and set your parameters accordingly. I searched for a Careful 30/30/30/x/30/x spread(x meaning don't care about those IVs). Boom, I already found one, and the seed time is 00: 07. That means we need to wait 7 minutes for our seed to generate. A seed of 7 minutes is 5A7. In the main window of the RNG reporter, put 5A7 in the "Seed(Hex)" and hit generate. This shows all the results that Seed 5A7 can produce. We have our seed and our spread, but we won't be using it until later, keep the RNG reporter open though, you'll need it.
Got that? Good, now unscrew the cartridge. When you open it up, you should see a battery connected by two tabs. If your R/S battery is dead, using a small flathead screwdriver, carefully get under the battery tabs and begin separating the battery from the tabs, but be very careful not to break them or scratch any of the game components, because you are pretty much ♥♥♥♥ed if you do.
Once the battery is out, take a new CR1616 watch battery(this is the kind of battery you just took out of the R/S cart) and put it between the two tabs. With a small piece of electrical tape, put the tape over the top tab of the battery. Make sure the battery tab is still connecting to the battery!
Now, take a small piece of paper, about the size of the bottom tab, and put it on top of the bottom tab. This allows you to disconnect and reconnect the battery from the tab at will. Put your cart back together. Turn on your game. If you did everything right so far, you should see "The Internal Battery has run dry" message. Once you do see that, turn off your game and unscrew the cartridge again. This time, take out that little piece of paper that was covering the bottom tab. Screw the cart back together and wait ONE(1) minute before turning the game on.
When you turn the game on, as soon as you get to the black copyright screen at the start, write down the time. For this example, we will be using 4:10 PM. If you did everything right so far, there should be NO internal battery is dry message. You may turn off the game now. Since we need to wait 7 minutes for the seed to generate, do something until 4:16 PM. Why 4:16 PM? This allows us to set up everything when we actually RNG.
Skip ahead to 4:16 PM, and turn on the game. Set up your timer to your frame that you need to hit. Oh look, it's 4:17 PM! Soft reset your game and RNG like you normally would. As soon as your timer hits 0, start the battle with the Pokemon or use Sweet Scent. Capture the Pokemon and look at it's IVs using an IV calculator. Look at the RNG Reporter main window and see if your Pokemon's IV's match up with a specific frame. If you hit your frame, congrats, you did one of the hardest things to do in Pokemon RNGing! If not, put the piece of paper back into the bottom tab, turn the game off and on, take the paper out, wait one minute, and try again.
Whew, that took like 30 minutes to type.
Cell got a reaction from Doopliss2008 in Pokemon
