Battles
How a turn works, who has a timer, and how damage is worked out.
Battles in TapIn Pokémon play by the rules of Gold and Silver. Each side has one active Pokémon; each turn both trainers choose an action, then the turn plays out on both screens at once.
The four commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| FIGHT | Use one of the active Pokémon's four moves. Each move has PP; at 0 PP it cannot be chosen, and a Pokémon with no PP left uses Struggle. |
| BAG | Use an item: medicine on any party member, a ball on a wild Pokémon, an X item on the active Pokémon. Closed in PvP and tournaments. |
| POKéMON | Switch the active Pokémon for another healthy party member. |
| RUN | Escape from a wild battle. In battles against trainers this becomes Forfeit. |
Turn order
- Switches, items and escape attempts happen first.
- Then moves, highest priority first (Quick Attack, Mach Punch and Extreme Speed go early; Vital Throw, Counter and Mirror Coat go late).
- Within the same priority, the faster Pokémon moves first. Speed ties are decided at random.
- End-of-turn effects follow: poison and burn damage, Leech Seed, Leftovers, weather damage, berries.
When a Pokémon faints, its trainer sends out the next one before the following turn.
The 10 second turn
Every battle between people has a 10 second turn timer: PvP battles, gym battles against a human leader and tournament matches. A ring counts down on the battle screen. If time runs out, the game picks a sensible move for you and the battle goes on, so a lost connection never freezes the other player.
Wild battles, gym battles against the gym's own team, legendary battles and Team Rocket have no timer.
Kinds of battle
| Battle | Timer | Items | Run | Catch | Experience | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wild | none | yes | yes | yes | yes | Catching |
| Legendary (event or flyover) | none | yes | yes | yes | yes | Flyovers |
| Team Rocket | none | yes | no | no | yes | Team Rocket |
| Gym, leader away | none | yes | no | no | yes | Gyms |
| Gym, leader online | 10 s | yes | no | no | yes | Gyms |
| PvP | 10 s | no | no | no | no | PvP |
| Tournament | 10 s | no | no | no | no | Tournaments |
HP, PP and status carry over after every battle except tournament matches, which run at level 50 on fully healed copies of your Pokémon.
Damage
Damage follows the Gold and Silver formula:
damage = floor( floor( floor(2 × Level / 5 + 2) × Power × A / D ) / 50 ) + 2A and D are the attacker's Attack and the target's Defense for physical moves, or Special Attack and Special Defense for special moves. In Gold and Silver the category comes from the move's type:
| Physical types | Special types |
|---|---|
| Normal, Fighting, Flying, Poison, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Steel | Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Psychic, Dragon, Dark |
The result is then multiplied by:
- Critical hit: ×2. See Stats and critical hits.
- Held item type boosters: ×1.1. See Held items.
- Weather: ×1.5 or ×0.5. See Weather.
- STAB (same-type attack bonus): ×1.5 when the move shares a type with the user.
- Type effectiveness: ×0, ×0.25, ×0.5, ×2 or ×4. See Type chart.
- Random factor: a whole number from 217 to 255, divided by 255.
A move that does not affect the target ("It doesn't affect...") deals no damage at all.
Experience
A defeated Pokémon gives experience to every party Pokémon that took part and is still standing, split between them. Trainer battles give 1.5× as much, and a Lucky Egg gives its holder 1.5× more. A Pokémon holding an Exp. Share gets half of the experience without battling. Growth rates (fast, medium fast, medium slow, slow) decide how much experience each level needs; they are on every Pokédex page.
When a Pokémon levels up it may learn a move. If it already knows four, the game asks which one to forget, or whether to give up the new move.
TapIn Pokémon is an unofficial fan project. Pokémon and all related names and artwork are trademarks and © of Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Legal