I've been Googling and I think I've gone through at least three different guides by now, trying to find out how RNGing actually works. All the guides I've read only seem to talk about what the individual needs to do to get their proper Pokémon; they never seem to explain how they game processes the information we feed it to give us the results we're looking for.
I think that if we did more to elaborate this, more people would be able to grasp the entire picture, maybe even without other forms of communication outside of text. Without this information, they'll just dive in, mess things up, and start bombarding others with noob questions about why they didn't get their flawless shiny legendary. (And we all know we've been guilty of similar issues.) By giving examples of mistakes and how the game responds in patterns during such mistakes, we could also help explain to people how the game spat out the results it did--ultimately narrowing down the possible things the person messed up on.
This way they don't have to restart, praying they get every single little detail on the bulls-eye, without even really knowing what went wrong. They'll be able to pinpoint the human error and eliminate it within the first few tries, knowing full well that none of the other elements were the issue. All this is really offering is just the proper means of practice; if the individual was without a clue as to what went wrong, if they're smart they'll end up looking for the thing that caused their problem: they'll try to control all but one function and fluctuate that one while the others remain fixed. If that wasn't it, they'll do so with another function, ultimately leading to a ridiculously grueling process of trial and error.
If you get what I'm saying, does anyone else agree with this? Or have I simply been looking in the wrong places, where the game's processing hasn't been addressed?
Well, there are a lot of factors in RNG abuse that a lot of people don't understand it took me a while to understand. When you start the game at a certain time, the game generates a seed. You try to manipulate what the seed is by starting it at a particular hour, minute and second. You can also use keypresses to change which seed you hit. If you do a different keypress but same time, you will get a different seed. Also, there is a little annoyance called timer0, which is a seed encryption variable that is quite a bit more difficult to control. You will usually have two timer0s per game. It is speculated that timer0 is related to which part of the second you start the game in, with one being in the earlier part of the second and the other being in the latter. This is by no means confirmed, just speculation from experience.
With capture RNG, you first interact with the IVRNG, which determines the IVs (Individual Values) of your pokemon with a max of 31 per stat. So on this seed with capture RNG, every Pokemon you encounter will have the same IVs but a different PID (Pokemon Identification Number).
The PIDRNG (Pokemon Identification Number Random Number Generator) is what determines shininess, nature, gender, and ability of each Pokemon you encounter. The PIDRNG is separated by frames and each frame have a PID on it. You may find duplicate PIDs on the list, but usually each frame is different. Now, the game also does interesting things that advance the PIDRNG through each frame. Any time you walk through the grass or a cave with wild Pokemon in it, the game advances the PIDRNG by 1-2 frames per step. Also, by listening to a Chatot's customer chatter, it advances the PIDRNG by one frame each time. Also, each time an NPC that does random movement moves, it advances the PIDRNG. Battles advance the PIDRNG and IVRNG as well. Also, the C-Gear advances the PIDRNG by a frame every ~1.7 seconds. There are other ways to advance the PIDRNG, but these ways are usually the most common.
The whole point of RNG is to manipulate all of these factors to get the Pokemon that you want. If you want me to continue to elaborate, let me know... I could probably ramble on for a bit longer.
Hm?
I made it work previously on Ubuntu 10.04 and Fedora 15..
I can't say that it "worked just fine" but it worked "fine enough" xD
It calculated everything right.. things like "invisible checkboxes" were annoying but not impossible to deal with :3
Oh, very good! You got a lot farther with it than I ever did, of course I was running PCLinuxOS KDE.
Yeah, you pretty much have to like the look of the shiny to want to put the effort in... But sometimes the final evolution will look awsome so that's what I go by. I've been working on my collection of shinies based on which ones I personally like, either because I like the Poke or because I like the coloration on that particular one.... But in my case there are less than half I dont like... So I'm pretty much working on collecting all eventually.
I'm not a big fan of some shinies as well, usually if I'm breeding I'll decide which one to do by what I like more... but with capture I usually prefer non-shiny especially in 4th gen due to the whole abusing IDs and stuff.
Might as well put this here... The other RNG Mac helped me out with a while ago:
Tepig
♂ | Level 5
eb | 46682 | White
Adamant | Blaze | 31 31 31 05 31 31
Tackle | Tail Whip | - | - |
Props to Legendary FSK for being first to show me the layout. =]
Congrats again, eb ^^ I can't believe you abused your starter right off the bat xD
Well, my seconds might be messed up. It's random every time. I tried calibrating yesterday and got 11 seconds for each of my calibration attempts (I did it twice).
There was one time I calibrated and I got 14 seconds. My delay rate is 497-513.
Weirdly, how could the seconds rate change? And using timers is a bit hard...it runs pretty fast. Should I use it with speakers? My first calibration was a Moltres capture in Mt. Silver and my second and third calibrations were a Zapdos capture in the Power Plant. Maybe that will help clear things up?
And also...a bit off-topic, but I'm wondering if someone can help me check the IVs of my newest but still unavailable RNG abuse project later on... I use HeartGold to RNG, which is a pain due to delays. Black and White RNG abuse is less of a pain, but I use a flash cart. (So much for getting Nobunaga's Rayquaza...and so much for getting Zekrom)
Are you getting different seconds each time you calibrate? If so, are you starting the game at the same second each time? For example, starting at 30 seconds and consistently getting 41 seconds means your calibrated second is 11. Or are you actually trying to RNG a pokemon? If this, you might have too wide of a search in Seed to Time. Try -100,+100 delay and -1,+1 second.
I'll join too, I know 5th gen standard, egg, and a little cgear abuse...
I'm struggling with both Entralink RNG and TID/SID abuse in 4th gen.
For my Entralink RNG, I'm consistently hitting within 5 frames of my target delay (5225, if anyone is curious) but I can never exactly hit my frame. It's frustrating, to say the least, and I've spent close to 5 hours trying to get it right. Anyone have any hints?
That and I just don't understand ID RNG in Plainum. At all.
Entralink abuse is all about hitting delay and then praying you get the right nature because right now it's rather difficult to control the PIDRNG with the C-gear on. Luckily, Smogon has been doing a lot of research on this topic.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4106028&postcount=12628
Now for Platinum ID abuse, you need to start your game at the end of the first timer, then hit A at the tv screen at the end of the second timer. I recommend a delay over 7000... it allows me enough time to go through and enter my name and everything and still have around 20 seconds to wait before I hit OK at the tv screen. When you first see the tv screen, it takes a few seconds before you can even hit A, so allowing more time is always good.
Well, maybe I know something? ID RNG should be RNG abusing your TID/SID for a Shiny Pokemon, right?
I know that one in Platinum. I've done that for about three times (these are the times when I succeeded).
It's pretty simple. Should I explain here? And I'm talking about RNG abusing to get Shiny Pokemon by hatching eggs, not catching Shiny Pokemon.
You need to know your TID/SID in order to get shiny Pokemon. You don't need to abuse your IDs to get these, though.