Breeding Questions

deathrider

I've been doing a bit of breeding lately. I've got a team in every gen and I'm looking to egg them and send their offspring up through the games, through the bank and into X. I know I could just do a spot of trading to get other versions of these teams, but I'd much rather have babies from the original teams that I personally raised. However, getting them just right seems awkward, and I'm not sure if there are any particular measurements I should be following in order to have them born with the their parents' moves/abilities. Some of them are coming out quite close to what I'm looking for, some even better, while others are just being born with Tackle and Growl.

Any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Banjo

I'm not an expert, but I dabble. While we wait for the pros to show :

The basics :
When Mommy Pokemon and Daddy Pokemon love eachother very much, they make eggs. This is where the similarity to real life ends.
Well, that's not true - pokemon are more likely to fool around with foreigners.
Breeding is done in Daycare. 2 Pokemon enter, lots of eggs leave.
Some pokemon can only be Male or Female (eg Tyrogue or Jynx). You can't breed 2 males.
Some pokemon - notably the ones that look like they're robots or blobs of spewtum - don't have a gender at all.
Legends can't breed, except for Manaphy, though Manaphy cannot breed more Manaphy.
A Ditto can breed with pretty much anything, and is your solution to homogenous or nongenous Pokemon breeding. Ditto is both male and female.
There are several tiers of compatibility, based on what the man says when you talk to him outside daycare. "They'd much rather play with other pokemon than eachother" (or something to that effect) means they won't breed. Anything else just affects your egg probability. Low to high it's something like :

Identical Pokemon from different trainers and different regions
Identical Pokemon from different trainers
Identical Pokemon from the same trainer or different pokemon from the same egg group but different trainers.
different Pokemon from the same trainer

And that probability fires off every 250 steps or so, or in earlier gens the probability of an egg is only checked between 250 and 750 steps depending on the match up. Or something like that. Note : 2 pokemon from the same evolution chain at different stages, eg Dratini and Dragonair, are considered different pokemon.

Egg Groups :
Each pokemon that can breed is part of an egg group. Some are part of 2.
You can only breed with Pokemon from your egg group
Usually it's intuitive, like the Human Shape or Dragon group, but there are 3 Water groups that are not interchangeable.

Passing on Nature :
Each pokemon has a nature (there are 25 natures, each positively affects one stat while negatively affecting another, with 5 of them being neutral as they + and - the same stat)
This depends on the generation. I think Gen 4 and Gen 5 the Mother could pass on her Nature (ie Modest, Adamant, Timid etc) if she held an Everstone. Not sure when the change was made but in X / Y both parents can pass on a nature in this way.

Passing on Stats (IV) :
Each Pokemon has 6 randomised Individual Values. Each stat's IV is a unique boost to that stat that get's averaged out and added on to the affected start as the pokemon levels. Max value is 31, min value is 0.
Each parent passes on 2 of the 6 available IVs
There are a bunch of items (Power ___ ) each of which ensures that one of the 2 passed on is a specific one (eg Power Bracelet passes Attack)
Destiny Knot - if you're breeding for a perfect IV set, the Destiny Knot is your best friend. It ensures that an extra IV gets passed to the children. So give this to a 'Mon with 3+ perfect IVs.

Moves :
A pokemon has a starting move or 2.
If both parents know a move that the child can learn by level up (NOT by evolution!) then the child will be born with it.
If the Male parent (this has changed to either parent in Gen 6) knows an "Egg Move" that the child can learn, the child is born with it
If a Male Parent (this no longer applies in Gen 6, since TMs are multi-use) knows a TM that the child can learn, the child is born with it.
If the child stands to learn more than 4 moves at birth, there's a priority that I don't remember...

deathrider

deadly stuff. Thanks very much for the swift and huge reply. It's gonna take a while for me to process all that info.

You said "A pokemon has a starting move or 2.
If both parents know a move that the child can learn by level up (NOT by evolution!) then the child will be born with it."
Does this mean that a young pokémon can't learn evolved moves? For example, could a Starly be born with Roost, or can it only learn that when it becomes a Staraptor? The flipside to this is that I'm pretty sure I have a Piplup born with Hyrdro Pump.

gnfnrhead

deathrider wrote: »

deadly stuff. Thanks very much for the swift and huge reply. It's gonna take a while for me to process all that info.

You said "A pokemon has a starting move or 2.
If both parents know a move that the child can learn by level up (NOT by evolution!) then the child will be born with it."
Does this mean that a young pokémon can't learn evolved moves? For example, could a Starly be born with Roost, or can it only learn that when it becomes a Staraptor? The flipside to this is that I'm pretty sure I have a Piplup born with Hyrdro Pump.

Bad example but it's only one I can think of. Butterfree learns Confusion as soon as he evolves but Caterpie/Metapod wont no matter what level he is on. I think that is what he means. Piplup learns Hydro Pump even if he never evolves.

deathrider

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Bad example but it's only one I can think of. Butterfree learns Confusion as soon as he evolves but Caterpie/Metapod wont no matter what level he is on. I think that is what he means. Piplup learns Hydro Pump even if he never evolves.

Ah, ok. Cool. I'm understanding a bit more now. I'll have to have a look online and see which moves are learned at which evolutions.

Banjo

Another example, Wiscash (sp?) Can learn earthquake, barboach cant, so you can't breed it in.

deathrider

Banjo wrote: »

Another example, Wiscash (sp?) Can learn earthquake, barboach cant, so you can't breed it in.

Ok, deadly. That might be where I've been going wrong then. Cheers for the info, folks. I can see tonight being a bus one, lol. Also, while ont he matter of breeding and transporting pokemon. I've got GBA titles in my DS along with Diamond. Both are popping up on the home screen as inserted, yet there doesn't seem to be a "migrate" option. Is there a certain point that I have to reach in LeafGreen/Emerald before it will allow me to do this?

gnfnrhead

deathrider wrote: »

Ok, deadly. That might be where I've been going wrong then. Cheers for the info, folks. I can see tonight being a bus one, lol. Also, while ont he matter of breeding and transporting pokemon. I've got GBA titles in my DS along with Diamond. Both are popping up on the home screen as inserted, yet there doesn't seem to be a "migrate" option. Is there a certain point that I have to reach in LeafGreen/Emerald before it will allow me to do this?

Pal Park in Diamond. Think it's after the Elite 4 and you can only do six per game per 24 hours. It's also one way. You can't send them back.

deathrider

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Pal Park in Diamond. Think it's after the Elite 4 and you can only do six per game per 24 hours. It's also one way. You can't send them back.

I've gotten to Pal Park, but I was wondering if I need to also be in a certain postition in the GBA titles too. The whole one way craic is why I'm egging up all my old teams.

gnfnrhead

deathrider wrote: »

I've gotten to Pal Park, but I was wondering if I need to also be in a certain postition in the GBA titles too. The whole one way craic is why I'm egging up all my old teams.

Think you just have to be able to trade. So basically have more than one Pokemon.

Both games have to be from the same region. So a European GBA game wont work with an American or Asian DS game and vice versa.

deathrider

That's what the problem is then. My DS and Diamond are local, but my GBA carts are American. If I was to score an American version of Diamond, would that work even though the DS is European?