Part 63: Escape Factor 0
Mini Notes: Escape Factor 0See, while the factors default to 1 if the number goes negative, only the escape factor can actually do that, but if you can land it perfectly on 0, you can make it stay there and the Pokemon will have a 0% chance of fleeing. Since every Pokemon in the safari starts with an escape factor of 3, if you can lower it by 3 in some way, then you have a Pokemon that will not flee no matter how many balls you throw. Let's go over all you can do to affect the factors.
We see that if we throw a Pokeblock that a Pokemon is curious about (as in, has a nature that doesn't really care about that block's flavor), then its escape factor becomes 0. Now because of the Pokeblock feeders, we can manipulate what Pokemon appears and often times know which flavor of block it prefers.
So, start off with multiple Pokeblocks of only one flavour, Red, Green, Blue, etc, and put one of them into the Feeder. When you encounter a Pokemon, it has a good chance it'll like that flavour, so we can throw a different Pokeblock colour to the one in the feeder and see how it reacts. If it acts curious, its escape factor is 0 and you can start catching. If the Pokemon ignores the Pokeblock, then it dislikes the flavour and its escape rate doesn't change. In that case, you throw the same colour Pokeblock as the one in the feeder. The Pokemon will be enthralled and because this is the second Pokeblock we've thrown in battle, the escape rate only decreases by 3 instead of 5, so it's now got a factor of 0.
If the Pokemon is enthralled by the first Pokeblock you threw that was a different colour to the feeder Pokeblock, its escape factor becomes -2, so gets set to 1, which is pretty good, but we can still get it to 0 in that instance. Throw a Pokeblock that's the same colour as the one in the feeder. If it ignores the second Pokeblock, then throw the third colour Pokeblock that makes the Pokemon curious. Since this is the third Pokeblock thrown, the escape factor is only reduced by 1 in this case, so it becomes 0. If the Pokemon became curious from the second Pokeblock thrown, its escape factor is reduced by 2 and set to 1 again, and when you throw another Pokeblock it's curious about, its escape rate is only reduces by 1, making it 0.
With this strategy, no matter what Pokemon shows up, so long as you throw the blocks in the right order, you can make any of them 0% chance to flee, so long as they don't flee in the interim. And you have enough patience to make all these Pokeblocks.