Question about Time-Based Events

[drfsupercenter]

Alright, so this has been bugging me for some time now.

Scenario: You put Honey on a tree. You save your game, then turn off your DS and take out the cartridge. About 6 hours later, you put the game back in and turn on your DS. There is a Pokémon waiting for you to catch it on the tree.

So this time, your DS clock reads 1:00. You spread Honey on a tree and save the game. You turn off your DS, then change its clock to 7:00, save, and turn off. You then put your game back in and start it. However, there's no Pokémon there. You have to wait until your DS reads 13:00 for one to show up.

The same thing applies with berries. And I want to know: How does the game do it? I know it does not have an internal clock. If the game is turned off, how can it detect that your DS clock was changed? The same thing goes with migrating - though that I can see if it compared your clock against the internal clock of RSE.

Does the DS have some sort of method of telling the cartridge? I might try some fooling around on an emulator to see if I can trick it by changing my computer clock, when I know the computer won't tell the ROM I changed the clock illegally.

But does anyone actually know? I've been trying to figure it out for a while.

[Jiggy-Ninja]

I believe someone researched berry growth rate by messing with their computer clock while the game was running in an emulator.

Hm...other than that, I don't know. This same thing was just recently brought up in #pp-research.

[HottSushiz]

This was an always reoccurring thought, every time I grew a berry, or migrated Pokemon, I always assumed when you insert the cartridge into the DS, it somehow connects with the inbuilt clock.

[SomeGuy]

Its Clever thats for sure... I had the same question when I tried to cheat the game.

The cartrage cannot possibly have an internal clock, when running on an emulator or R4 ect, where would the clock be then?

I think its a lot simpler than that, I think that the DS reports time changes to the game. The cartrage then slaps down the user for trying to cheat.

In the case of honey trees, there is a timer value that counts down every minute, when in a certain range the tree appears active. When you save the game this value is saved, as well as the current time.

When the game is loaded the game probably asks the DS if the time has changed since loading:

if it hasn`t then it updates the minutes counter accordingly.

if it has then it doesn`t update, or resets the timer ect...

You can use this to your advantage, If you forget to check your honey trees and the pokemon is gone, change your date and the timer will be reset giving you another chance.

btw... If you can make hex changes to the save file its easy to cheat the timer and also change the pokemon to the one you want. You can`t determine sex or stats ect though.

[HottSushiz]

When i meant by inbuilt clock, i mean the DS's clock, like the game card somehow connects with the DS clock, and it uses some sort of method to monitor if you entered the DS settings, and modified the clock, maybe the DS notify s the game cartridge that you have modified the settings?

[drfsupercenter]

Does the DS really log if you change the clock?

I'm curious. Does anyone here use an emulator? Because obviously changing your computer clock wouldn't be reported the same way as changing your DS clock... so I want to see if you could make berries grow faster that way. Really, it's the only thing that makes sense, so I hope that's actually correct, or I'll be ripping my hair out! LOL

On a side note, am I the only one who was really mad that you can't change the clock for daylight savings time in RSE?

[AlbinoDrow]

I was upset when I couldnt update for DST on my Ruby and Emerald, though thankfully I didnt play them for long.

As for emulators on the PC, they read your PC time as the DS time, though even if I change the time and reload my berries will indeed grow faster. I also used this to keep my shaymin perminently sky form even while playing late at night.

I think the DS may keep a log. In Animal Crossing WW the game slaps you if you reset it, though doesnt seem to mind as far as time goes.

In DPPT the game slaps you for time change, though doesnt care about resetting.

Maybe the game itself keeps a bit of a log. In ACWW I'm guessing saving flags something so when you load the mole Resetii doesnt show, but if you turn off the game and thus do not gain the flag he will appear and annoy you.

In DPPT though, I dont know if it has an internal battery (playing on a retail cart). Someone with a flash cart should test and see if it may be a flag, or perhaps the game cart has a bit of a battery life and can tell time by itself (which is unlikely).

[xeomyr]

Does the DS really log if you change the clock?

I'm curious. Does anyone here use an emulator? Because obviously changing your computer clock wouldn't be reported the same way as changing your DS clock... so I want to see if you could make berries grow faster that way. Really, it's the only thing that makes sense, so I hope that's actually correct, or I'll be ripping my hair out! LOL

On a side note, am I the only one who was really mad that you can't change the clock for daylight savings time in RSE?

^^ yeah this is the great thing to use emulator for playing pokemon ,because when you change the date ... there is no log whatsoever reported into the game ...

so it can bypass the honey tree clock and many things ^^ ...

you can pour honey to 21 trees and save, exit ... setting the clock +6 hours and you will see all the honey trees shake :bidoof:

great isn't it .. you don't have to wait 6 hours to search for munchlax :grog:

anyway .. i've only tried it in no$gba ... i've not tried it in other emulators

[drfsupercenter]

In DPPT though, I dont know if it has an internal battery (playing on a retail cart). Someone with a flash cart should test and see if it may be a flag, or perhaps the game cart has a bit of a battery life and can tell time by itself (which is unlikely).

It doesn't. I play D/P/P on my Supercard and AceKard all the time... and the 6 hour thing still applies. And it still yells at you if you change the clock and try to migrate.

What do you mean "doesn't care about resetting"?

Anyway, I guess the DS would HAVE to log time changes. Because if emulators indeed let you mess with the game like that... I don't know how else it would work. I wonder if somebody could do an AR cheat for the game that makes it ignore the DS' log LOL