Hack Series: Pokémon Photonic Sun & Prismatic Moon

[Buffel Saft]

Oh sorry i didn't notice it. Btw i have a little problem, i have Marshadow on my team but the guy in Tide Song Hotel won't give me the Z crystal.

No worries. He needs the Marshadow to be a fateful encounter, so sadly he won't give you the Z-crystal for a Marshadow that was caught in the hack.

A friend noticed an inconsistency with encounters in Brooklet Hill.

The documentation says encounters are level 20-23, but Feebas can appear as high as level 27.
His theory is that encounters were set for exp value, with Feebas's changed from Erratic to Medium-Fast, but the encounter itself wasn't adjusted accordingly for such and thus now appears at a higher level.
It seems fairly plausible to me, since opening the file in pkhex displays the level 27 Feebas as level 23.

There may be other inconsistencies with similarly-edited mons, but I haven't noticed any so far.

Was the Feebas found in a bubbling spot? Those can be a higher level than the regular encounters; in Brooklet hill they range from level 20 - 28. Not sure why I didn't document that, guess I can add a note in the document's intro.

Levels are definitely just stored as levels, storing them as experience would be a waste of space (though Gamefreak doesn't seem to care about that) and would also be needlessly complex. There's only one level range per encounter table, so if that was minimum exp to maximum exp, Pokemon in different experience groups would all be wildly different levels.

 

[Urriah Wade]

No worries. He needs the Marshadow to be a fateful encounter, so sadly he won't give you the Z-crystal for a Marshadow that was caught in the hack..

oh i see. Thank you. So it seems that even Keldeo and Meloetta can't teach their respective moves to change form? Thank you

 

[Buffel Saft]

oh i see. Thank you. So it seems that even Keldeo and Meloetta can't teach their respective moves to change form? Thank you

Meloetta comes with Relic Song when it's caught, and Keldeo was supposed to have Secret Sword at the move reminder but it seems that's still on the todo list. Will give the Marshadow encounter its Z crystal when I fix that too.

 

[Volnatius]

Hello, I have a question! When I played your other hack for Pokemon X/Y it was possible for me to edit the shiny rate with pk3ds and by using my own build cia. However, with this one here it does not seem possible? Cause I did everything the same and the shiny rate has not changed. Text during the opening is also missing but encounters seem to work. Could it be cause of the update? Sadly you cannot play without it, unlike in Eternal X and Wilting Y. That would be a bummer.

 

[Buffel Saft]

Hello, I have a question! When I played your other hack for Pokemon X/Y it was possible for me to edit the shiny rate with pk3ds and by using my own build cia. However, with this one here it does not seem possible? Cause I did everything the same and the shiny rate has not changed. Text during the opening is also missing but encounters seem to work. Could it be cause of the update? Sadly you cannot play without it, unlike in Eternal X and Wilting Y. That would be a bummer.

Hey, the shiny rate is in the code.bin file, which is part of the update. If you build a .cia of the hack instead of using layeredfs, the update will override any changes made to files that are included in it (this is also why the text is missing). You can get around that by creating a custom update cia, or by adding your changes to the hack's layeredfs folders. I'd recommend the latter as it's simpler and faster than building a cia.

 

[Volnatius]

Thank you for the reply! Was thinking about using layeredfs instead of the cia file, but not really sure what to add to the folder since I changed the shiny rate, static and some normal encounters. Directly editing the hack did not seem possible or maybe I did something wrong.

I put the extracted cia with all the changes I made in the romfs folder and also the code.bin file. But that will sadly only result in an ARM11 error.

Spoiler:

 

[Buffel Saft]

Thank you for the reply! Was thinking about using layeredfs instead of the cia file, but not really sure what to add to the folder since I changed the shiny rate, static and some normal encounters. Directly editing the hack did not seem possible or maybe I did something wrong.

I put the extracted cia with all the changes I made in the romfs folder and also the code.bin file. But that will sadly only result in an ARM11 error.

Spoiler:

View attachment 97498

View attachment 97499

Yeah, pk3Ds will only edit a complete ROM, so you'll have to merge the hack into the extracted cia, then edit it and move the edited files into the layeredfs folders. Don't put the entire ROM in there; just the files that have changed.

There's a list of what each file contains in pk3DS - see the "About GARCs" option.

 

[Volnatius]

Ok, yeah that makes sense. For example, ecounterstatic is at a\1\5\9. Do I need all files from that last folder or just 9?

But nothing has changed so far. Even with only the edited files in place, I get the same error as before. Really thought I could make this work :( .

 

[Buffel Saft]

Ok, yeah that makes sense. For example, ecounterstatic is at a\1\5\9. Do I need all files from that last folder or just 9?

But nothing has changed so far. Even with only the edited files in place, I get the same error as before. Really thought I could make this work :( .

You only need 9. Have you replaced the code.bin file by any chance? If it's the one from the vanilla ROM instead of the one from the update it could be the cause of the ARM 11 error.
And just so we're both on the same page, is this the process you're following?

• Copy hack's romfs and exefs (the exefs is just the code.bin) files into the extracted cia
• Make changes in pk3DS
• Copy edited files back into the hack's folders
• Copy the hack's luma folder to the root of your SD card

EDIT: just remembered I've got a code.ips file with the hack instead of a code.bin, so if you've got the ips and bin files on your SD card that'll cause problems. I'd suggest deleting the ips file and using your edited code.bin instead.

 

[Volnatius]

Yes, that is exactly everything I did. Replacing the code.bin sadly did not change much. Will try one last time and do the whole process over again. Maybe I messed up somehow.

Edit: After doing it all over again, it finally worked. Not sure what went wrong before but now everything is fine. Thank you so much for all the help!

 

[Buffel Saft]

Yes, that is exactly everything I did. Replacing the code.bin sadly did not change much. Will try one last time and do the whole process over again. Maybe I messed up somehow.

Edit: After doing it all over again, it finally worked. Not sure what went wrong before but now everything is fine. Thank you so much for all the help!

You're welcome! Glad you got it sorted!

 

[TheDudeCubed]

HI, i was hoping to get a step by step on how to ranodmize this, and the Wilting X and Y games. I couldn't really understand the earlier posts

 

[Buffel Saft]

HI, i was hoping to get a step by step on how to ranodmize this, and the Wilting X and Y games. I couldn't really understand the earlier posts

Hey, which part are you having trouble with? Randomizing hacks isn't much different than randomizing a vanilla game. As above all you have to do is copy the hack into the extracted ROM files before you randomize them.

 

[r4ndu1n]

Not sure if this was asked before, I couldnt find it but can natures be conveniently changed?

 

[Buffel Saft]

Not sure if this was asked before, I couldnt find it but can natures be conveniently changed?

It's been asked enough times that I need to to add it to the FAQ I think, but anyway, there's no in-game way to change natures. You can use a save editor (pkhex is good) but that's not exactly convenient unless you're playing on PC.

 

[r4ndu1n]

I am new to Sun and Moon so still a bit inexperienced with the SOS battles but I finally managed to get the 1% Bagon to spawn in Route 3 I believe. Now I just chain it until a Salamence appears or how does it work? Are there odds for this?

 

[Buffel Saft]

I am new to Sun and Moon so still a bit inexperienced with the SOS battles but I finally managed to get the 1% Bagon to spawn in Route 3 I believe. Now I just chain it until a Salamence appears or how does it work? Are there odds for this?

Yep that's exactly it! It's also a 1% chance for a Salamence to appear, so it may take a while. Good luck!

 

[Darkevoir]

Were any changes made to poke pelago? It's not in the docs

 

[Buffel Saft]

Were any changes made to poke pelago? It's not in the docs

Nah, haven't changed it at all. I don't even know which files I'd need to edit to change it!

 

[revuwution]

I've been playing through this (rebalanced ver) for the last week or so and I have been thoroughly enjoying it. The first island was a bit of a pushover but the second island was *really* hard and it felt like a true achievement to get past the trials and the kahuna - I even had to break out the showdown damage calculator and plan my strategies out.

The levelling curve is however really unforgiving even in the context of being a difficulty hack - for example, the second trial is over ten levels above the best grass available, and you really do need those extra levels wiith how hard the Araquanid hits. I ended up just putting an exp modifier on because I didn't want to grind for an hour.

Getting some pokemon, especially later in the game, is also kinda annoying in some places. The Ralts family is a good example, if you want a megavoir/megallade later you havee to go all the way back to the first route and level a level 3 Ralts up all the way to the rest of your team, as the evolved forms don't appear anywhere else in the wild.

Otherwise, USUM with this hack has genuinely become my favourite Pokemon game after BlazeBlack 2. It's so good.