Alright, so let’s talk about this Pokémon GO evolution calculator I’ve been tinkering with. It feels like it’s been evolving more than some of my actual Pokémon, to be honest.
It all started, as these things often do, out of sheer frustration. You know the drill. You’re staring at your Pokémon storage, trying to figure out if evolving that particular Eevee is going to give you something decent, or if you’re just throwing away candies. I was spending way too much time guessing, especially during those Community Days when every second counts.
My Super Basic Beginnings
Initially, I wasn’t aiming for anything fancy. My first “calculator” was basically me, a notepad, and some scribbled notes on CP ranges. Super high-tech, I know. Then I graduated to a spreadsheet. That was a bit better. I could plug in some base CPs, maybe a multiplier I found online, and get a rough idea. But it was clunky. Every time the game updated or someone found more accurate data, I was back to square one, tweaking formulas in cells. It felt like I was constantly battling the spreadsheet itself.
I thought, “There has to be a better way. I can make something a bit more… dynamic.” That was the spark. I decided I’d try to build a proper little tool for myself.
Getting Down to the Nitty-Gritty
The first real step was figuring out the actual math. Pokémon GO’s CP calculations aren’t exactly straightforward, or at least, they weren’t to me at first. I spent a good while digging through forums and fan sites, trying to understand how CP multipliers worked for different Pokémon and their evolution stages. It was a bit of a headache, not gonna lie. Lots of conflicting info out there.
Once I had a semi-reliable set of multipliers, I started trying to code it. My first attempt was, well, functional. Barely. It was just a few input fields: select Pokémon, enter current CP, and hit “Evolve!”. It would then spit out an estimated CP range. Simple, right? But even that took a fair bit of trial and error. I remember one early version telling me a Weedle would evolve into a Pidgeot with god-like CP. Clearly, some wires were crossed.
- I had to get the base stats for each Pokémon.
- Then the specific evolution multipliers.
- And of course, the candy costs. Magikarp, man, that 400 candy grind… I wanted my calculator to remind me of the pain.
Adding More Layers (Because Why Not?)
Then came the IVs. Everyone in my local group was obsessed with IVs. “Is it a hundo?” “What are the stats?” So, naturally, I had to try and incorporate IVs into the calculator. This meant more input fields – Attack, Defense, Stamina. And then figuring out how those IVs actually influenced the final CP post-evolution. My code started to look like spaghetti at this point.
I also thought about other useful bits. Like, how much stardust and candy would it cost to power up a Pokémon to a certain level after evolution? This opened another can of worms. More data to find, more logic to implement. I even tried to add a feature to estimate the chances of getting a certain moveset, but that data changes so often, I mostly gave up on that for a while.
The “user interface,” if you could call it that, was still pretty terrible. Just plain HTML elements. But hey, it was my terrible interface, and it was slowly getting more useful, at least to me.
The “Evolving” Part
And that’s why I call it an “evolving” calculator. Every time I thought I was done, something new would come up. A game rebalance would change stats. New Pokémon would be released. Or I’d just think of another small feature that would be “nice to have.” Like showing the max CP for a perfect IV Pokémon at a certain trainer level. It never really felt finished.
There were plenty of times I almost just scrapped the whole thing. Debugging why a calculated CP was off by a few points could take hours. Sometimes I’d just stare at the screen, drink more coffee, and wonder why I was doing this to myself when I could just be out catching more Pokémon.
But, bit by bit, it got better. I refactored chunks of code when I learned a slightly less messy way to do things. I organized the Pokémon data a bit more logically. It was a slow, iterative process. Like leveling up a Pokémon one candy at a time.
Where It’s At Now
So, today, my little calculator is… pretty decent. It handles most of what I need. I can quickly check evolution CPs, factor in IVs, and get a rough idea of power-up costs. It’s still not the prettiest thing in the world, and I’m sure there are slicker, more professional tools out there. But this one is mine. I built it. I understand its quirks.
It’s funny, sometimes I still just eyeball evolutions when I’m in a rush. But the process of building this thing, of wrestling with the data and the code, taught me a lot. And hey, at least now when I do use it, I have a bit more confidence that I’m not just wasting those precious Pidgey candies. Or maybe I am. Who knows? It’s Pokémon GO, after all.
