Metalloid Research

That's everything except the Update page here and the pokedex, AFAIK. I've only ever gotten one e-mail about the pokedex. If there is anyone besides that one person (who knows who they are) that thinks that MR needs a pokedex, let me know. Failing that, I'm sure I'll get to updating the update page here sometime soon.

The big news, however, is that Metalloid is getting a new address. After the last update, the webmaster of pkmn.net (pkmn.co.uk) graciously offered pop-up-free space. Putting the site in a no pop-up, pokemon-friendly zone seems like a great idea to me, so that's what's happening. Effectively immeadiately, the contents of MR are available at a new address. The main page can be found at http://hexagonal.pkmn.co.uk/mr/main.html and the updates will be at http://hexagonal.pkmn.co.uk/mr/home1.html. Everything else should be easy to navigate to from those links. The original site will stay up for awhile now (I'm figuring a couple of months) so that anyone who might still find the site useful from time-to-time should still be able to find where it's going to be.

There is more news at that. Anybody paying attention to that address will note that MR is a subdirectory. The main directory is to be for the new site for R/S. I've already picked out the name, but it's rather strange and convoluted. The name for the new site (currently) is Hexagonal Research. At first glance, that name would make absolutely no sense to just about anyone. I was looking for a name to encompass both the new games and good old Metalloid. The only thing that both gems and metals have in common is that they are a form of crystal (most solids are to some degree), but Crystalline Research was to close to sounding like it was centered on Pokemon Crystal. There also wasn't much in the way of gem synonyms (and gemmatic just sounds awful, really). So, I did some digging on crystals. Something that jumped out was the classification of crystals. The one that seemed to fit things best was a definition I found for the Hexagonal category - This system comprises crystals with four axes. Three of these axes are in a single plane, symmetrically spaced, and of equal length. The fourth axis is perpendicular to the other three. This actually isn't a bad description for the releases of the pokemon games if you think about it (the Stadium games have more than one point of intersection when you think about it, though). Okay, so I've got a name and space for the new site, how long until I'll have actual content? I'm not exactly sure, but I'm estimating sometime either next week or the week after that, depending upon how my schedule goes. The first thing I'll have up should only be the short descriptions for attacks, but even that should have some info that hasn't been showing up elsewhere (at least as far as I know), so it could actually be useful to people out there.

A question which nobody has asked, but some who come here might be wondering is "Will there ever be any R/S content here?". There hasn't been any here so far for two reasons. The first is that I don't like pop-up ads. Let me rephrase that to accurately depict my opinion on the matter. I absolutely despise pop-ups. I think the person who thought them up should be taken out and shot with a Vulcan Cannon using depleted-Uranium rounds. Even though I'm not subjected to them since I'm using Mozilla for my browser, I don't like that they're being inflicted on others in order to view this site. The second reason is that despite the fact that I now run the site and have done the majority of the work for it, I don't feel that it is my site. I had looked for a couple of free servers for setting up a new site. The two that looked best at the time (and therefore were the only ones that I made a note of) no longer exist. I'm not currently aware of the reasons why .

Also not asked is what have I been seeing for R/S as far as information for it. Why would this be a concern? I can't speak for Jman, but when I went in on this site it was because the full information for G/S wasn't to be found out there. From what I gathered Jman started it because he was seeing some of the information on the forum at Azure, but they weren't putting it up at the site there, making finding the information difficult. So, after explaining the reason, what am I seeing? Just about the same thing as with G/S. There is information out there, but almost all of the in-depth information is in a not-very-permanent form. This pretty much hit me over the head when I put up the new information for Baton Pass over at Azure. Some of the things that I noticed while doing the research, I just haven't been seeing anywhere else, like how powerful Imprison really is. These useful little details are what I know caused this site to get any traffic in the G/S era. I suppose what it really ends up meaning is that I am planning on making something similar to Metalloid for R/S. Just as soon as I find an appropriate server for it.

That was basically it for this one. Just popping in to uploads those and note that they were done. Something that I should have noyed during either of the last two updates was the change to the Belly Drum page. There was an important bit of functionality that has been noted there thanks to Uiru's discovery roughly the middle of last year (yeah, been missing that for awhile). You can also find a link to Uiru's site on the Links page.

Next update will be the big list o' corrections, again as pointted out on our Forum (no, I donn't expect anyone else to start going to there, it's pretty dead, I'm just giving credit where it's due). I'm also hoping to finish off updating all the pages, but that will probably be the update after that.

Metalloid has a Links page. Yeah, we've never had that before. Why? In the beginning it was more important to actually have a site than have links to other sites. After we started to get some content up we weren't getting much in the way of hits. The only people that were coming here were doing so from other well-known pokemon sites. It just wasn't a priority since pretty much anybody coming here was already guaranteed to be coming from a well-established place where they could be getting links to other good sites. So, why are we putting up a page now? Well, we have a noticeable traffic flow at this point. It's nothing spectacular, but it's not something that would make you think the patient is dying if you put it on a heart monitor. Besides, it's kind of bad web karma to put up a dead-end site. The information must flow (I'll add it to the Main page and the navigation tree script in the next update).

Okay, first up for updates are Raptor17's pages. From him we get the w's: Water Gun, Waterfall, Whirlpool, Wing Attack, Withdraw, and Wrap.

For non-Attack page conversions we get the Contributors and the King's Rock and Brightpowder compatibility listings pages.

And for our updates this time we have more moves listings that get altered by the NYC Pokemon Center as listed on Pokemon.com. The pages affected were Absorb, Agility, Barrier, Bubble, Dizzy Punch, Doubleslap, False Swipe, Fury Attack, Growth, Leech Seed, Lovely Kiss, Mega Kick, Mimic, Rage, Rock Throw, Safeguard, Seismic Toss, Sonic Boom, Splash, Submission, Substitute, Sweet Kiss, Sweet Scent, and Synthesis.

And if people can come up with a logical reason for all of those move choices, I'll be amazed. Growth on Eevee (like we needed it hammered into us any harder that the Eeveelutions are now the best BPers), Bubble on Majikarp (come on, it's supposed to be useless), Mimic on Wobbuffet (it's only supposed to have those 4 moves, I guess they figured Wynaut).

Raptor17 brings us the following conversions: String Shot, Struggle, and Stun Spore. Yes, everybody's favorite moves. I'll stop making stupid comments now.

I also finally got around to updating for the moves listed on Pokemon.com for the NYC Pokemon Center. The pages affected were Agility, Amnesia, Beat Up, Faint Attack, Flail, Foresight, Fury Attack, Future Sight, Hypnosis, Low Kick, Metal Claw, Mindreader, Moonlight, Night Shade, Rage, Rapid Spin, Safeguard, Scary Face, Sharpen, Spikes, Sweet_scent, Swords Dance, Synthesis, Thrash, Twister, and Whirlwind. If I'm going to do this more often, then Coke is going to have bring back Surge.

Today, we have 21 revised attacks. Raptor17 pointed out that the page for Poison Powder wasn't a revised version, so that goes up. There are also 20 of the pages that he has revised. This goes from Sleep Powder to Strength.

Hopefully, I'll get around to doing osmething for the next update. Something like updating the other pages or maybe putting up that Categories/testing list page that I said I would get to sometime in the future ever so long ago.

If it were just me, we probably wouldn't be updating this quickly. However, MR has someone new helping out, Raptor17. He's gotten started with converting over some of the Attack pages. In this update we get: Sharpen, Sing, Sketch, Skull Bash, Sky Attack, Slam, Slash, and Zap Cannon. He's also got some good ideas for strategy guides, which will finally give us some content for our Articles section.

With Raptor17's help, it looks like we might actually be on track for weekly updates. I made fixes to the Main page after he noted some problems with it in the Forum, so that has some minor changes to it as well.

That's it for now.

At least I don't think so. I could be mistaken on that score, though, especially when one considers how long ago I last updated. I don't expect there to be too much of a change in my schedule, which means updates will be infrequent, but hopefully less infrequent then it took for this one.

Nothing too incredible this time out. A table was actually put in for the scale on Magnitude. There are 15 updated attacks (yeah, not much) from Rock Slide to Shadow Ball. I also updated the Stat growth scales page. The primary reason for it was the suggestion that came from the forum. The nitpicking side of me says the new table needs more work. The 'I don't have enough time' side of me says it has the needed info (at least if one pays attention to the exact arrangement of cells for a couple of the attacks), so come back to it when you're going to either overhaul everything again or if you move the site.

Continue: logging off for now. (Yes, that is weird when you think about it.)

The thing is, I have neither the desire nor the want to update this site. It was a large project to begin with. I must admit, I did very little except the base HTML, which took over 4 hours to code and perfect(but I guess Continue is changing them).

As far as I'm concerned, I'm done. This really isn't a shocker, as I haven't done anything for a long time. Metalloid Research will remain as it is, or however Continue would like to update/change it. He can move it, whatever. Please catch me still at the Azure Heights forum, occasionally on #pokebattle, or even via my new email.

I'd like to send thanks to all who have given me support, advice, and ideas. This project wouldn't have started without me finding Azure Heights in the first place. I would also like to thank you, the viewer, because without Pokémon trainers eager to learn exactly how Sunny Day works or what Pain Split does, we wouldn't be here. But most importantly, I'd like to give my sincerest of thanks to Continue, who did the most work on this site and kept this thing going. This is his work, not mine.

I still remember the day I started this website. We've covered a lot of time since then. Continue's work was used in the making of the GSBot and I suspect the NetBattler thing. This site's content has been quoted on Meowth's board, Azure's board, and at least at Pojo's as well. Thank you all, once again. This is Jman, signing off for probably the last time. Goodbye.

Last update, over a month ago, I said I was shooting for updating on a weekly basis. That died a little over 12 hours after I posted that. My manager called me into his office and informed me that my termination date (as part of the office closing) had been moved up by a little over 2 weeks. That threw off my schedule, not that I should have been surprised by this (any long-term plans that I've had since getting that job had been successfully shot down by it), since I had been attempting to brush up on my skills for my search for my next job. Add in the fact that work became non-stop (because same-as-previously-mentioned manager was buckling into some bad last minute requests), and I was left with very little time. Metalloid just didn't get enough attention. It still won't for the forseeable future, as I just don't have the time.

What is new for this update? More attack page updates. This time there are 48 updated attack pages, from Mega Punch to Roar.

When I first put in the new attack page designs I had concerns due to the Javascript link menu. Some people who don't like pop-ups simply disable Javascript in order to avoid them. Due to Angelfire/Lycos' poor policies in that regard, this is a real concern at this site. If the site were truly mine, I would have moved it. As it is there is a viable alternative for those who want to avoid pop-ups, but want to keep Javascript going in their browser. The alternative is the Mozilla browser. With the download habits typical of people on-line these days, the browser isn't a big one, and what it can do makes it worth the sacrifice of that time. Why I mention it here is that by unchecking one box under the Prefernces (Open unrequested windows), you can make sure not to see any pop-ups anymore (there are reports that it doesn't stop all pop-ups, but none have gotten through on any site that I've been to). I've checked several pages on the site and found even the ones that even the ones that are as broken as only normally being able to run under IE are rendered normally under Mozilla.

For now, expect nothing from me in the immeadiate future, as I'll be working on other things. If there is anyone out there that would like to continue to update the site, let me know (e-mail address on the Contributors page). I received one previous offer for help, but haven't heard from that person after I replied. So I'm not repeating the same mistake, I'll let it be known now: For anyone who wants to help out, any content and/or work that they wish to contribute will be happily accepted, as long as it is within Metalloid's general theme (if you have a question what that theme is, send me an e-mail) and not stolen from others.

I'm hoping to update things here a little sooner than this one. Specifically, I was hoping to go for weekly until everything has been converted over.

This time there's been 63 attack pages converted over. They start at Earthquake and go through to Mega Kick.

After converting over the attack pages, all of the other existing pages will be converted (unless there's some reason not to do so). After that we may see something else, I'm not sure on what else yet.

I am sure that I will put up a page that will break down the testing of all of the current attacks. The reason for this will be to facilitate rapid testing of those attacks when the new version of Pokemon comes out for the GBA. It's obvious that there will be new attacks, but from what has been seen of the new game so far, it appears unlikely that any of the underlying mechanics for the gameplay will change. A good testing list should cut down the time to uncover the full behavior of the attacks to a few months. It could probably done in much less time with a coordinated set of people doing it, as well.

It's been how long since we updated?! Okay, two months is way too long. Basically between work and going back and forth way too many times between the new colors, this has taken way too much time. If you would like to register an opinion on the new colors for the updated pages, do so on the Forum or send me an e-mail via what's on the Contributors page.

Which pages were updated? So far only all of the attacks from the first alphabetical attack page. That's 54 attacks, so I'm not listing them all here. I'll just say it goes from Absorb to Dynamicpunch in terms of the alphabet.

There are two other things to take note of with the current update. There is now a seperate Main page (the links colors will be changed, gimme a day).

The other thing to take note of is the new navigation menu on the updated attack pages. It's done using Javascript, so if your browser is disallowing Javascript, you'll need to turn it on in order to use the menu. Why did I change the menu? It's much easier to maintain the menu across all pages this way. A dynamic menu also makes the overall presentation of the page much less cluttered, which really helps the appearance. It doesn't really speed up getting to the needed page as you move around the site, unfortunately.

We will be continuing to update as often as we can.

First off, a bunch of attacks were updated. Some were due to what's been said on the Forum, alot were just adding more pokemon to the the list of which ones can learn the move due to the New York City Pokemon Center, a couple just had some mistakes that I finally corrected. There also some other minor changes to all of them, but I would rather let anyone who is concerned about it discover it for themselves (it's nothing really important). The attacks that were updated include: Ancientpower, Belly Drum, Cross Chop, Crunch, Double-Edge, Earthquake, Encore, Headbutt, Lovely Kiss, Magnitude, Metronome, Mimic, Mirror Move, Petal Dance, Roar, Rock Smash, Sing, Sketch, Sleep Talk, Submission, Surf, Sweet Kiss, Sweet Scent, Swift, and Zap Cannon.

As I noted in the last update, there were a few new pages made. For basic reference, there is the Type Chart and Type Immunities page, the Stat growth scales page, the Held Item page, and the King's Rock and Brightpowder compatibility listings page. Additionally, there is a first-draft Glossary page up. If anybody can see something else that they think should be added to that last one, speak up.

The Status Conditions and Critical Hits pages have been updated with some link changes as well.

There are no extra navigation links on the individual attack pages (as there aer on this page). With the number of updates the attack pages need for their own content, and the number of times they would have to be updated as new pages are added the way they are now, some site design changes are needed. Otherwise, maintenance is going to become too cumbersome. I'm going to consult with Jman on this one and see what he would like to do. MR is his creation and his design, after all.

Yeah, I know I said that there was no correct formula for Beat Up out there and that I would only have a placeholder page. It turns out Meowth346 almost had the correct formula up. For some reason he had the incorrect value for the base power. Seeing what it works off makes sense, though. It's the only thing about a pokemon besides PP of the move that hadn't yet been swapped into the damage formula in place of what's normally there. So, with the proper crediting of the source and a correction at the source, we have that almost complete. I say almost because there is still one anomalous value that was obtained in testing which the formula can't account for. Further testing will be done on reproducing that.

What's up on deck next:

The next time I put something up will be a Type page. It'll have the usual type chart, but also it will explain clearly about type immunities (including which types aren't affected by which status conditions and when).

The plan after that is for a Glossary page. It will be a clear listing of the various pokemon terms. Veterans know them all, but relative newcomers are usually letf wondering what some things mean. If you have any suggestions on which terms should be included, feel free to let it be known in the Forum. All suggestions will be considered.

We'll also get a page with the Stat growth and Accuracy/Evade scales, since they've been referrenced in the pages enough.

That's all for awhile now, though, since I'm going to be gone on a business trip for a little over a week starting this Friday (ugh).

For new attacks, we have: Bide, Flail, Frustration, Rage, Return, Reversal, and Sky Attack.

As to the last 3 attacks, for 2 of them I need to check with Jman to make sure I'm not misinterpreting the authorization that he noted in an old e-mail. The last one, Beat Up, will be a problem, however. Awhile ago, when the issue came up on AGNP (alt.games.nintendo.pokemon, I realize I didn't note what that stood for in the last update) that Beat Up did not follow the standard damage formula, I did some experimenting and collected some damage values for data. The data did not fit in with minor variations on the standard damage formula, nor did it work with Present's altered damage formula. There is also a formula that is claimed to be the correct one for Beat Up, but its results do not match with the data that I gathered. I rechecked what results this formula predicted this week and verified that it does not produce the results that I recorded, forcing me to conclude that it is not the correct formula for Beat Up. I may just put up a placekeeping page for Beat Up in the meantime, if I get the time to make one.

First off, as anyone who tried to look at it after the link went up knows, Forum2 is down. It was up long enough for me to note one suggestion, which I responded to, but I'm not sure how much longer after that it lasted. I have implemented the change, so if the person who suggested the change to Sleep Talk can e-mail me (addy on the Contributors page), I can put your name up under the Contributors page with the proper credit (I believe I already know, but I want to make sure of it). Last I heard, it was being looked into, but I have no idea of what the status of that is (other than the fact the UBB still isn't working). Hopefully, that can be remedied soon. In the meantime, if there is something you would like to communicate or point out, please use the original Forum.

Secondly, for the past couple of weeks I've been doing some updating to all of the Attack pages. It's not a big change since I don't have alot of time each day. What was implemented is that all of the pages now have the same left-hand link listing as the Updates/Main page here in order to make navigation a little better (minus the link to Forum2 until it's fixed). In addition, all attacks mentioned under the description for specific attacks now has links to those attack pages for much easier cross-referencing. This wasn't put in at first because the pages didn't exist, so now a semi-monumental effort was put in to get all those links in place.

For a new addition this time, we have a page on Critical Hits. As far as I've ever seen, the complete information on Critical Hits in G/S/C has never been available together in one place. Most of the well-informed places have accurate information on how to get them, but I've only ever seen two places that have had the correct information on how the various effects considered during damage are treated when a critical hit occurs (I could note why these are the only two to get it, but it's unnecessary). Those two places are AGNP and AH. AGNP is a newsgroup and therefore the only place you'll find information that isn't recent (and this isn't) is in archives (like Google groups). AH (Azure Heights, though I doubt there are more than a handful reading this that don't know what AH is) has the information in their research lab section, but the search function has been bad recently and not enough people seem to know that the information is there to be searched out anyway. So, now we have a comprehensive page on it.

Lastly, we do have a few new attack pages. They are: Magnitude, Metronome, Mimic, Mirror Move, Rain Dance, Sketch, and Sunny Day

As something of a compensation for the long wait, we've put up a page on the various Status Conditions. The link is up on the left for navigation from the main page for now, but it may be moved into the articles section once we get more pages for the articles. The Status Condition page seemed necessary since no other website that I've seen out there (and I have seen all of the majors and most of the informative minors that are in English) have all of the proper information, or even worse they have incorrect information. From that standpoint, this is a very necessary page, although individuals will find the unique information of varying degrees of usefulness.

Also on the left is a link to the UBB forum. It's been sitting out there in a relatively unknown location for awhile. While the forum that actually had a link hasn't been getting any traffic for awhile, it's pointless to just put something up and leave it around for no reason. Put up a post on whichever of the boards you like better so we can see which one should be retained when we get to making the needed changes there. In addition, if anybody still has questions about an attack after reading a page on it, post it to one of the forums. We may have worded things badly, or not done something in the description which could be easily fixed if it pointed out to us. I'm being repetetive here, but if you don't understand, ask.

That's all for now.

Also, Tackle and Whirlpool have been updated for consistency.

Next time we'll have information for one of the attacks that you've probably never seen before (only because no one ever cared about looking into that aspect).

The following attacks have been either updated or added: Aeroblast, Agility, Amnesia, Barrier, Conversion2, Counter, Crabhammer, Cross Chop, Cut, Defense Curl, Dig, Double Team, Flash, Fly, Foresight, Growl, Growth, Harden, Karate Chop, Leer, Lock-On, Meditate, Megahorn, Minimize, Mirror Coat, Razor Leaf, Roar, Sand Attack, Screech, Slash, Smokescreen, Strength, String Shot, Surf, Swords Dance, Tail Whip, Vital Throw, Waterfall, Whirlpool, Whirlwind, Withdraw

The Attack summary pages have also had small fixes applied for some problems as well as getting links added for all of the attacks in this update.

Future updates will probably not be as extensive as this one, but we do hope to make them on a much more regular basis.