Progression
Ancient Ember adds several overlapping progression systems on top of the standard Pokémon FireRed playthrough.
Battle Streak
Win consecutive battles without losing (whiteout) to build your streak.
| Streak | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Every 5 wins | Bonus shards: min(streak / 5, 10) (caps at 10 shards) |
| 10+ streak | Activates Streak Shield — a loss halves your streak instead of resetting it |
| Cap | 99 (hardcoded maximum) |
The streak counter is shown in the debug menu and tracked in SaveBlock2.
Death Penalty (Whiteout)
When all your Pokémon faint:
- Lose 10% of current Gear Shards (rounded down, minimum 0)
- Streak is reset to 0 if below 10
- Streak is halved if at 10 or above (Streak Shield)
- Radiant Shards are never lost
Milestones
One-time shard bonuses triggered at specific cumulative thresholds. Each milestone fires exactly once per save.
| Milestone | Trigger | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| First blood | Find 10 gear pieces total | +10 Gear Shards |
| Collector | Find 50 gear pieces total | +25 Gear Shards |
| Hoarder | Find 100 gear pieces total | +50 Gear Shards |
| Hot streak | Reach a 10-battle win streak | +15 Gear Shards |
| On fire | Reach a 25-battle win streak | +30 Gear Shards |
Paragon System
After finding your 100th gear piece, every 25th gear drop awards +1 Radiant Shard as a Paragon bonus.
Total gear found: 100+, 125+, 150+, 175+, 200+, ...
↕ ↕ ↕
Each threshold: +1 Radiant Shard
Difficulty Scaling
Trainer Levels
Trainers gain +1 level per badge you own. Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and the Champion scale by +2 levels per badge (approximately — exact multiplier is computed at battle start).
This prevents the game from becoming trivial with high-level gear.
Elite Wild Encounters
About 1-in-8 wild encounters spawns an elite encounter — a higher-level variant of the normal wild Pokémon with a guaranteed gear drop.
Gear Score
Each Pokémon has a Gear Score from 0–100 based on equipped gear quality and rarity:
| Score | Grade |
|---|---|
| 90–100 | S |
| 75–89 | A |
| 55–74 | B |
| 35–54 | C |
| 0–34 | D |
Gear Score and grade are shown on the Pokémon summary screen.
Party Gear Score (sum of all 6 Pokémon scores, max 600) is shown in the EMBER submenu.
Gym Leader & E4 Shard Bounties
Defeating a Gym Leader, Elite Four member, or the Champion for the first time gives a shard bounty:
| Milestone | Shard Reward |
|---|---|
| Gym Leader (×8 total) | ~10–15 each |
| Elite Four member (×4) | ~20 each |
| Champion | ~40 |
Exact values are set per-trainer in src/battle_main.c.
Well Rested Buff
After healing at any Pokémon Center:
- Next 3 battles gain +50% gear drop rate (1.5× multiplier)
- Counter is displayed in the debug menu
- Stacks multiplicatively with other drop bonuses
Daily Bonus
Once per play-hour, healing at a Pokémon Center gives +5 Gear Shards. The timer is tracked by lastDailyBonusHour in SaveBlock2.
First Blood
Once per play-hour, your first battle win is guaranteed to drop gear regardless of the base drop chance. Resets at the same play-hour boundary as Daily Bonus.