CONTENTS:
Berry types
Seeds: Plain vs Very Strong
Misleading Tooltip
Picking up Berries
Blooming
Withering to Death
The Mathematics behind drain rates (before update)
The Mathematics behind watering (before update)
The Mathematics behind drain rates (after update)
The Mathematics behind watering (after update)
When to Water?
Berry Charts (new) All of the published data and conceptions have been tested by the author of this article! PART I
Berry types
First of all, let’s remember that the total number of berries available in this game is 43 (including Enigma berry No 43).
I like to classify them into 4 categories:
1) Berries that basically do nothing (e.g Wepear, Pinap, Nanab, Bluk, Razz etc)
2) HP/PP restoring
3) Status condition curing
4) EV reducing
5) Stat boosting
You might assume that you don’t need berries that do nothing. But it’s a good idea to plant them due to their shortest growth time (9 hrs). They could be harvested into valuable seeds which you will use for more important berries. PART II
Seeds
There are only 5 types of seeds, based on their flavour:
Spicy, Dry, Sweet, Sour and Bitter.
However they come in two different variations (Plain and Very).
When you harvest seeds from a berry you usually get plain seeds but also have a chance of getting a strong seed.
Plain has a strength +1, and Very has a strength +2.
For example,
in order to get Iapapa berry the recipe calls for Sourness +4, which could be achieved either way: 1 very sour + 2 plain sour (sourness: 2 + 1 + 1)
or 1 very sour + 1 very sour (sourness: 2 + 2)
However, for Aspear berry you need Sourness +3 which is: 3 plain sour (sourness: 1 + 1 + 1) or 1 very sour + 1 plain sour (sourness: 2 + 1) PART III
Misleading Tooltip
[spoiler]The pop-up window for planting has a nice fancy interface and a smart tooltip. However some messages are not very accurate.
1) Wepear has a full growth time 9 hrs and Chesto has growth time of 13 hrs while tooltip shows ‘short growth time’ for both. Maybe it would be reasonable to change Wepear’s message to something like ‘extremely short growth time’.
2) Iapapa has a drain cycle (from flooded to 0) of 10 hours and Hondew a drain cycle of 12 hours, while both are marked as ‘thirsty’. As a matter of fact, there are 5 various drain cycles and only three indicating messages (not very thirsty, thirsty, very thirsty).
Tooltip gives us a general idea, but doesn’t provide the accurate numbers, which is not a bad thing, since it leaves a bit of mystery in the game.
Tooltip became more specific after the latest update, since numbers indicating growth and wither times were added to the tooltip and some inaccurate messages were changed.
[/spoiler] PART IV
Picking up Berries Misconception:
Most people think if they water plants just before its final stage when it yields they will get more time to pick up their berries before they wilt/wither, however it is not true. Once a tree has yielded, moisture level no longer matters and all trees will start reducing berries at a certain rate.
Plants will lose a berry every 1.5 to 4 hours depending on withering rate.
Tooltip provides the following messages which indicate withering rate: wilts very slowly
wilts slowly (4 hours)
wilts quickly (2, 2.5, 3 hours)
wilts very quickly (1.5 hours)
Term 'wilts very slowly' is now obsolete. PART V
Blooming
When you reach to the blooming stage you get one of the following messages: flowers are blooming poorly flowers are blooming nicely flowers are blooming beautifully flowers are blooming excellently
This messages tell you that if the tree is blooming poorly you will get a random number of berries within the minimum possible range, while if the tree is blooming excellently you will get a random number of berries within the maximum possible range. PART VI
Withering to Death
Some people wonder how much time after reaching the dry stage a plant has before it dies. Misconception
People think that if they get ‘the soil is dry’ message that means the final yield will be reduced. It is not true. Dry stage is within the moisture range from 0 to 20%. Entering this range doesn’t harm a plant. You only get yield reduced once you’ve reached 0% moisture. I've successfully entered the dry stage myself several times and still managed to get the highest amount of berries possible.
There are only 2 reasons that may reduce yield and eventually kill a plant:
when you water a plant to 100% moisture level,
when the moisture level drops to 0%.
Every time you reach one of these borders yield is reduced by one stage, until it reaches zero.
As I’ve noticed plants don’t die at a fixed time. It seems like once they’ve reached the bottom limit of their yield Perish Song counter gets activated, however for some reason plants might get a different number of counts before they die, apparently due to the randomness of their possible yield. Plants which generate lower yield die earlier.
Here I have a picture of Iapapa sprouts planted at the same time and which hadn’t been watered at all. As you can see, a poor plant died untimely, while its fellow friends are doing fine:
And after an hour all of them are dead, such a disaster:
So basically, my advice here, don’t live your plant dry for too long if you really care for it or the RNG will punish it.
Plants with short growth time, such as Chesto, Rawst, Aspear or Wepear simply don’t have enough time to die, because they yield before they could even dry out. They are like freaking Chansey, they just don’t want to die. PART VIII
The Mathematics behind drain rates (before update 01/04/2016)
[spoiler] Drain Rate is amount of decrements a plant has before it goes from Flooded to Absolute Dry.
One decrement is one hour. Finding Minimum and Maximum
First, let’s find out the absolute minimum and the absolute maximum.
Is there a limit for watering a plant can take or could we continue watering it infinitely?
I planted two exact same berries (Hondew) and watered them until flooded. I left 1st plant as it is and watered the 2nd plant about 5 more times. I took notes of moisture level messages for several hours and they were identical for both plants. Flooded > Flooded > Flooded > Almost Flooded > Almost Flooded > Wet > Wet > Moist etc.
This means that no matter how many times we water a plant at some point it reaches absolute maximum (100%) and may not take any more water.
Now, we need to find the absolute minimum. I left plant to dry for a very long time. But no matter how long it dries when you water it, you get the following message sequence: Dry > Almost Dry > Moist > Moist > Almost Flooded > Flooded
That means it is at point of absolute zero and the moisture level may not lower any further.
Before that point if you water a plant at a Dry stage which is not absolute zero it will return the following message sequence: Dry > Moist > Moist > Wet > Flooded > Flooded
Thus, Absolute Maximum is Flooded (100%) Absolute Minimum is Dry (0%)
Now if we bring a plant to fully flooded state and wait until it reaches absolute minimum we will be able to find the number of decrements per drain cycle. Drain Cycles:
Bluk, Nanab, Pinap, Razz, Wepear – 10 hrs
Aspear, Cheri, Chesto, Pecha, Rawst – 12 hrs
Aguav, Figy, Iapapa, Mago, Wiki – 14 hrs
Grepa, Hondew, Kelpsy, Pomeg, Qualot – 17 hrs
Liechi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apricot – 21 hrs Drain Value
Now since we know the number of decrements per cycle we can easily calculate the drain value of each increment. We will use a scale with values between 0 and 255 255 / Number of hours per cycle = Drain Value
For example, for Hondew
255/17 = 15
for Iapapa
255/14 = 18 (rounded down)
for Chesto
255/12 = 21 (rounded down)
for Wepear
255/10 = 24 (rounded down)
for Liechi
255/21 = 12 (rounded down)
Now we can calculate moisture levels at any stage to know exactly where we are at.
If we analyse the chart above me will be able to find the border values of each moisture level and if we convert them from 0 – 255 scale to percentage we can get a chart like this: [/spoiler] PART IX
The Mathematics behind watering (before update 01/04/2016)
[spoiler] In order to calculate the value of one watering can we need to get to absolute minimum and see how many time we can water a plant.
If we do so we get the following sequence of messages: Dry > Almost Dry > Moist > Moist > Almost Flooded > Flooded
Which means that after watering a plant 5 times we get to fully flooded stage. 255/5 = 51 (20%)
[/spoiler] PART X
The Mathematics behind drain rates (after update 01/04/2016)
The last updated hasn’t totally changed the mechanism. The length of the drain cycles and drain values have remained intact, the only difference is the order in which moisture level messages appear in a sequence, due to the fact that moisture level ranges have been redistributed. In other words, moist, wet and almost dry now have different ranges from what they had before.
If we compare the new sequences with the old ones we will be able to define the boundaries of each moisture level:
and again after converting border values from 0 – 255 scale to percentage we get a new chart: PART XI
The Mathematics behind watering (after update 01/04/2016)
Let’s bring a plant to a fully dry stage and try watering it. We will get the following sequence of messages: Dry > Almost Dry > Moist > Wet > Wet > Almost Flooded > Flooded
Before the sequence looked like this: Dry > Almost Dry > Moist > Moist > Almost Flooded > Flooded
We might assume, that if we can water a plant 6 times (before it was 5), one watering can is 16.6% (before it was 20%), but that is false. Earlier in this guide we figured out that dry level had a range between 0 and 20%. If by watering a plant we go from dry straight to almost dry stage, which is above 20%, one watering can can’t be less than 20%, however if it was 20% or greater we wouldn’t be able to water a plant more than 5 times. The only explanation is, that water can no longer has a fixed value, but simply bring the moisture level strictly to the highest value of the next stage. PART XII
When to Water?
Now, once we’ve figure out all numbers and values we can make a routine which best suits our needs. The method I like is to water seeds in the beginning to almost flooded (87%) and then water it after the number of hours specified in the chart (see drain rates in the charts below).
For example, if I water Hondew in the beginning I will have to water it again after 12-14 hours, because after 15 hours the moisture level will drop to zero, which is not desirable. Top Drain Value of ‘Almost Flooded’ level – (Number of hours x Drain value) = 220 – (14 x 15) = 10 = 3.5%
As you can see from the equation, after 14 hrs Hondew will still have 3.5% moisture, however the dry stage starts at 20% moisture and the water indicator starts blinking with a threatening red light. It is not clear whether entering dry stage (20%) is harmful or whether the moisture level has to fall to 0%. Just to make sure there is no damage done to the plant the times for watering in the charts I posted indicate the point at which a plant enters its dry stage. But from my experience, entering dry stage several didn't reduce final yield and I managed to get the highest amount of berries possible.
Also, you must remember that the starting point once you’ve planted your seeds is moist level or 120 (47%).
Plants get their moisture level reduced by a certain amount (drain value) every 60 minutes. The counter starts from the moment you plant seeds. Watering does not reset the counter. If you water a plant 5 minutes prior to the the moment it usually drains it will still drain 5 minutes after, but not 60 minutes after you watered it. PART XIII
Berry Charts
Healing Berries:
EV reducing/Stat boosting Berries
Berries which have no effect
