Project Pokémon OP
GBATemp OP
PokéCommunity OP
Reddit /r/3dshacks OP

ROM hack of: Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon (3DS)



Pokémon Supernova Sun and Penumbra Moon are mods for Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Like my Rutile Ruby & Star Sapphire hacks and my Nova Sun & Umbra Moon hacks, their main purpose is to provide a more challenging game experience while not artificially limiting the player. The premier feature of Supernova Sun and Penumbra Moon is the ground-up redesign of Pokémon Trainers in the world to increase the game's challenge. Every trainer in the game has been edited, and the level curve expects use of the Experience Share, which means that the player levels up very quickly. Every Pokémon in Trainers' teams has a a proper moveset and many are holding items. The Elite Four and Champion are Level 100, and the player doesn't need to grind to equal that!

Supernova Sun and Penumbra Moon's secondary focus is inspired by Super Smash Bros. Melee's "20XX Hack Pack" which is designed to improve competitive players' ability to practice and grind. In Supernova Sun and Penumbra Moon's Legit Build, everything obtainable is 100% legal and legitimate for real online battles or trades. In all Builds, some features are designed to make preparing competitive teams much less of a hassle. Competitive hold items are much more available, a 6IV Ditto is available through an in-game trade (holding a Destiny Knot), Eggs hatch in one cycle, and Level 100 Memento Blissey battles are available in the Battle Buffet once the main story has been beaten.​

Information about this project has been moved to my WordPress.​

 

[GodsSon521]

Hi again!

I've been playing Supernova Sun for more than 2 weeks now and it is going very well so far.

I wanted to ask you, sometimes I think that the opponents are weirdly strong, even though I am most of the times +10 lvl from them. It has occured many times that I have the typer advantage, and with a Super effective 100-120 Power move I deal the same or less damage than the other pokemon. Even wild pokemons are sometimes very strong. It occured before in Po Town, when the opponent team had an Ampharos which despite 9 levels weaker, either had a ton of life or a ton of defense, because I used 7 moves to take it down bit by bit. Whereas it brought my team down with 2 moves each even with type disadvantage.

I wanted to ask you, what am I doing wrong. I am not into the IV stuff, so I don't breed, despite your amazing gesture to give an 6IV Ditto for a trade. Is it though the IV fault? Or do I somehow have weak pokemon due to bad management?

I would definitely recommend learning about IVs & EVs. I'm still on Umbra Moon, but my team is full of ideal IV/EV trained Pokemon & despite walking into most battles 7-10 levels above, they can still get their s**t pushed in sometimes.

 

[Deleted User]

I just wanted to say that I freaking love these kinds of Romhacks. I remember taking my DS flashcard and getting sucked into Pokemon Blaze Black & Volt White by Drayno, that game entirely changed my perspectives (and taste) on Pokemon, and having your hack for US/UM is exactly what I've been looking for. You're doing the lord's work.

 

[Heartcage]

Hi again!

I've been playing Supernova Sun for more than 2 weeks now and it is going very well so far.

I wanted to ask you, sometimes I think that the opponents are weirdly strong, even though I am most of the times +10 lvl from them. It has occured many times that I have the typer advantage, and with a Super effective 100-120 Power move I deal the same or less damage than the other pokemon. Even wild pokemons are sometimes very strong. It occured before in Po Town, when the opponent team had an Ampharos which despite 9 levels weaker, either had a ton of life or a ton of defense, because I used 7 moves to take it down bit by bit. Whereas it brought my team down with 2 moves each even with type disadvantage.

I wanted to ask you, what am I doing wrong. I am not into the IV stuff, so I don't breed, despite your amazing gesture to give an 6IV Ditto for a trade. Is it though the IV fault? Or do I somehow have weak pokemon due to bad management?

Trainer Pokémon in this hack are given better IVs and EVs over the original game. You're not inherently doing anything wrong. You're just playing the game normally. However, your Pokémon are relatively weak as a result, and you're overleveling to compensate. (This won't last you later into the game, either, because enemy trainers do max out.)

IVs aren't the bigger issue, though. It's Effort Values, which are gained from battle, and natures. Your best physical attacker may have a lot of defensive EVs or a nature that reduces attack. On the upside, it's not too difficult to correct the former with EV-reducing berries and easy access to training items.

 

[Dio Vento]

I would definitely recommend learning about IVs & EVs. I'm still on Umbra Moon, but my team is full of ideal IV/EV trained Pokemon & despite walking into most battles 7-10 levels above, they can still get their s**t pushed in sometimes.

This shouldn't be possible unless your team is like... Plusle, Dunsparce, etc.
Myself and my beta testers beat the game with non-optimized Pokemon and absolutely no overleveling.
Try implementing more strategy into your team-building and play, instead of overleveling to try to steamroll like in a default Pokemon game.

 

[GodsSon521]

This shouldn't be possible unless your team is like... Plusle, Dunsparce, etc.
Myself and my beta testers beat the game with non-optimized Pokemon and absolutely no overleveling.
Try implementing more strategy into your team-building and play, instead of overleveling to try to steamroll like in a default Pokemon game.

I've yet to actually lose a battle. I just meant a super effective or really strong moves can take someone out of commission (i.e. as much as I like Breloom, his defenses & speed are pretty meh). Sans good IVs & EVs, I imagine it'd be a tough time when the NPCs are beefed up like this.

 

[Dio Vento]

I've yet to actually lose a battle. I just meant a super effective or really strong moves can take someone out of commission (i.e. as much as I like Breloom, his defenses & speed are pretty meh). Sans good IVs & EVs, I imagine it'd be a tough time when the NPCs are beefed up like this.

Yes... the game is designed so that you can't sweep for free and win every battle without losing a pokemon...

 

[GodsSon521]

Yes... the game is designed so that you can't sweep for free and win every battle without losing a pokemon...

...I feel like something is being lost in translation here. My recommending EV training to Giagos was not a complaint.

 

[Lithobraker]

Hey. Nothing is concrete yet, and I made an account just for this, but would I be able to use this hack as a base for my own? Of course, I'd supply full credit if I did.
I love the look of it, but I'm used to playing through Pokemon with more extensive changes to the mons and moves themselves, like Blaze Black 2 and Volt White 2. So I'd like to do something similar with Ultra Moon- your item/wild changes would make all of that much easier.

 

[Dio Vento]

Hey. Nothing is concrete yet, and I made an account just for this, but would I be able to use this hack as a base for my own? Of course, I'd supply full credit if I did.
I love the look of it, but I'm used to playing through Pokemon with more extensive changes to the mons and moves themselves, like Blaze Black 2 and Volt White 2. So I'd like to do something similar with Ultra Moon- your item/wild changes would make all of that much easier.

I'm 100% not okay with that. Sorry, but I put a ton of work into the items, Trainers, and especially wild encounter tables and I definitely do not approve of people using them for their own projects. I understand I can't stop people from using my files, but I really don't want anyone releasing mods with my tables baked in. Someone did something similar with my ORAS hacks without permission (called it Meme Sapphire).

 

[Lithobraker]

I'm 100% not okay with that. Sorry, but I put a ton of work into the items, Trainers, and especially wild encounter tables and I definitely do not approve of people using them for their own projects. I understand I can't stop people from using my files, but I really don't want anyone releasing mods with my tables baked in. Someone did something similar with my ORAS hacks without permission (called it Meme Sapphire).

Oh, I understand completely. I'll respect your wishes, then.
Now I sort of feel bad for asking... I think I can do the work myself, though.

 

[Dio Vento]

Oh, I understand completely. I'll respect your wishes, then.
Now I sort of feel bad for asking... I think I can do the work myself, though.

Good luck with your hack! No need to feel bad. I just wanted to make it very clear that it's not a permission that's on the table; I wasn't just responding to you but anyone else who has a similar request.

 

[Lithobraker]

Good luck with your hack! No need to feel bad. I just wanted to make it very clear that it's not a permission that's on the table; I wasn't just responding to you but anyone else who has a similar request.

Thanks... Would you be able to tell me what tools I might need to make the hack?
I've already figured out how to extract the ROM, and my 3DS is all hardmodded up, but is it possible to edit totems and the like with the latest pk3DS? I don't see a totems button there, but I'd definitely like to change them if I can.
Thing is, I have no experience with editing 3DS Pokemon without using pk3DS.

 

[Dio Vento]

Thanks... Would you be able to tell me what tools I might need to make the hack?
I've already figured out how to extract the ROM, and my 3DS is all hardmodded up, but is it possible to edit totems and the like with the latest pk3DS? I don't see a totems button there, but I'd definitely like to change them if I can.
Thing is, I have no experience with editing 3DS Pokemon without using pk3DS.

PK3DS is the tool to use. Build the latest from source, don't use the pre-compiled "release". I did everything for Nova Sun / Umbra Moon / Supernova Sun / Penumbra Moon in PK3DS, except a few manual hex-edits and stuff like the banner. And PK3DS now supports the things I used manual hex-editing for, so it should really be all you need.

If you don't know how to build from source in Visual Studio, you can just download this hack: inside the pack in the Extra_Files/Tools folder, PK3DS is included (so people who want to randomize the game don't have to download PK3DS separately). You need the exe and the core.dll. I recommend grabbing Supernova Sun Lite Build if you're going to use it this way, it's the smallest file (and thus the fastest download)

 

[Lithobraker]

PK3DS is the tool to use. Build the latest from source, don't use the pre-compiled "release". I did everything for Nova Sun / Umbra Moon / Supernova Sun / Penumbra Moon in PK3DS, except a few manual hex-edits and stuff like the banner. And PK3DS now supports the things I used manual hex-editing for, so it should really be all you need.

If you don't know how to build from source in Visual Studio, you can just download this hack: inside the pack in the Extra_Files/Tools folder, PK3DS is included (so people who want to randomize the game don't have to download PK3DS separately). You need the exe and the core.dll.

Thanks a bunch! That's just about all I needed, but I really appreciate how helpful you've been.
And yeah, I did get the latest release.

 

[Lithobraker]

Oh, sorry for the double post, but I just had kind of an important thought. I haven't got much of any experience with editing the level curve. Any advice for how that will go?
I'm not really sure how to approach it...

 

[Dio Vento]

Oh, sorry for the double post, but I just had kind of an important thought. I haven't got much of any experience with editing the level curve. Any advice for how that will go?
I'm not really sure how to approach it...

I do all my Trainers in a spreadsheet before implementing them in the game files. This also helps me keep the order organized chronologically, since the game files have them in a somewhat chaotic order. It also lets me have an overview of Pokémon used, so I don't subconsciously spam certain species.

Then, I use the experience formula:

(details here)
to calculate the amount of EXP the player will gain from each battle. Remember, my hacks are balanced around the EXP share, which greatly increases the EXP return: I usually consider a 400% return, which means the player switches once against each opposing Pokémon. If not accounting for switching, it'll be 350% (Pokémon 1 gets 100%, 2-5 get 50% each of the total). I then multiply this by a coefficient that I consider to match the difficulty of the battle (in terms of expected player faints) and then the formula will add the EXP to a running total, which gives me a player's average level that adjusts dynamically as I put in more (and different) Pokémon. If you want grinding to be a thing, you can use the calculation without the coefficient.

If you're not as nerdy as I am, you can just design the Trainers in documents, and implement them in chunks. Say 10 at a time. Use a base level curve and adjust for kinks and play along the way, and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly and be able to approximate growth.

Do note that a Trainer's level is almost insignificant as long as it's not more than 5 levels away from the player. The biggest way to add or remove experience from a Trainer is to give them more or less Pokémon.

The spreadsheet I use is full of spaghetti formulas and contains sloppy links to documents on my PC, so I will not be releasing it.

 

[Lithobraker]

-snip-

Umm... would it be okay if I referenced the levels and mon amounts from your hack as a base for the curve? I'd still do all the teams myself, but puzzling that out manually sounds like a nightmare, and I'm no good with math, so that whole equation is kind of gibberish to me.

 

[Dio Vento]

Umm... would it be okay if I referenced the levels and mon amounts from your hack as a base for the curve? I'd still do all the teams myself, but puzzling that out manually sounds like a nightmare, and I'm no good with math, so that whole equation is kind of gibberish to me.

If you base your levels on mine, your curve will be pretty off-base if you add more or fewer Pokémon to trainer teams. You'll make a better project if you do your curve via testing. Also, you'd be locked into balancing to the EXP share, and I think you'd be better off not doing that, with the amount of messages I get from people who wish my hack wasn't balanced to the EXP share.
But here, this is my average level curve.

If you stick to using the boss fights as your base references, you should be okay. Just make sure to test everything so you don't end up with a limp or stark level curve.

 

[Lithobraker]

If you base your levels on mine, your curve will be pretty off-base if you add more or fewer Pokémon to trainer teams. You'll make a better project if you do your curve via testing. Also, you'd be locked into balancing to the EXP share, and I think you'd be better off not doing that, with the amount of messages I get from people who wish my hack wasn't balanced to the EXP share.
But here, this is my average level curve.View attachment 112360If you stick to using the boss fights as your base references, you should be okay. Just make sure to test everything so you don't end up with a limp or stark level curve.

Actually, that graph is incredibly helpful. And personally, I'd much prefer using the Exp share over not, so I'll reference that.
I know that following it to a T isn't a good idea. I'm still going to do some testing- I just don't want to have to play some parts of the game over and over to get the levels in line, I only wanted something I could base an EXP share-balanced curve off of.

 

[professorxavi]

Thanks for the work you put into this. I'll be starting a let's play with this soon, I'm excited to get in and get going.