Catch 'Em Cord features: everything the Pokémon Discord bot does

Q: Is there a Safari Zone?

Yes. /safari is a free trip every day into a real Safari area from Kanto, Johto or Sinnoh, or into the Friend Safari, with one zone for every type.

Q: How do you get a mythical Pokémon?

Through a Special Research chain at /specialresearch. Mythicals never appear in the wild, and they cannot be traded or sold.

Q: What does a server admin have to do?

Run /config. It needs Manage Server, and the first run walks you through picking spawn channels and setting your timezone.

Catching

Wild Pokémon appear in your server's chat while people are talking. The busier the server, the more show up.

Name the Pokémon you can see and run /encounter <name> to face it.
The encounter is a battle screen: Fight, Bag, Switch, Run. Balls are thrown from the Bag.
Catching uses the games' own capture formula. Wearing a Pokémon down and putting it to sleep or paralysing it raises your odds.
18 kinds of Poké Ball, each with its rule from the games. A Quick Ball only works on the first turn, a Net Ball is for Water and Bug types, a Dusk Ball wants the night, a Timer Ball gets better the longer the fight runs.
An ordinary wild Pokémon never bolts just because you missed a throw. It can still leave by using a move that ends the encounter, the way an Abra teleports away.
/hint if you cannot place the silhouette.

The long version: how catching works.

A wild Snorlax on a spawn card, sitting on a forest route — A wild spawn, as it lands in chat

Battles on the real engine

Every battle runs on the Pokémon Showdown engine, the same simulator competitive players use. It drives wild encounters and player versus player alike.

Damage rolls, type effectiveness, abilities, held items, weather, PP, natures, EVs and IVs all work like the games.
/battle @user for singles or doubles. Doubles puts two Pokémon out per side.
Battle text is the games' own wording.
Moves are learned by levelling. You can teach a TM or pay to remind a Pokémon of a level up move it already qualifies for. There is no move tutor.
You choose the order of your own move buttons.
Stat changes show on the Pokémon's plate as the same multiplier Showdown uses, like ATK 2×.

A battle scene: Charizard uses Dragon Claw on a wild Dragonite, with HP bars and the dialogue box — A wild battle

The Trainer Circuit

/circuit is a battle campaign for a full team of six.

Five divisions: Rookie, Poké Ball, Great Ball, Ultra Ball and Master.
Six trainers in each one, five of them plus an Ace, and every battle is a full 6v6.
Each division has a level band you have to bring six Pokémon up to before you can enter.
Clear a division for its Emblem, which opens the next one. The Champion is at the top of Master.
Gym Leaders and Champions Mega Evolve too, once in every battle, so bring your best team.

The Trainer Circuit board for the Rookie Division: your six at the top and the six trainers below, three of them cleared — The Trainer Circuit board

The Hall

The Hall is the Circuit's daily challenge, open from /circuit.

Every trainer you have beaten on the Circuit moves into the Hall, along with real players' teams: the six that beat a division's Ace, exactly as they were when they won.
Three of them are in each day, and you get three Hall battles a day, win or lose.
Wins earn titles, from Baron all the way up to Grand Duke. Titles are just for showing off and change nothing in battle.
You only meet players' teams from divisions where you have beaten the Ace too, and never your own. You can keep your team out of other players' Halls from /notifications.

Mega Evolution

Seven Megas to start: Mega Venusaur, Mega Charizard X, Mega Blastoise, Mega Gengar, Mega Gyarados, Mega Gardevoir and Mega Lucario, with way more to come.

Every Mega's family has its own Mega Stone research: three short steps, then a battle with a trainer from the games who uses that Mega, or a wild Mega Pokémon that's out of control. Win with one of the family in your party and the stone goes straight to your bag.
The research starts the moment you catch one from the family. Your first stone brings the Key Stone with it.
You can only get each Mega Stone once. Evolving, hatching and trading will never give you one, and you still need the Pokémon that uses it.
Charizard has two stones, and each one has its own research.
In battle, press Mega Evolve in the FIGHT menu and pick a move. Once per battle, in wild battles, research battles, the Circuit and PvP. It changes back when the battle is over.
Wild Pokémon never Mega Evolve. /pokedex has a Mega list that shows the ones you have.

Which Pokémon

Generations 1 to 6, all 718 Pokémon, Kanto through Kalos. More generations are on the way.

Alternate forms are in: Unown's 28 letters, both Shellos and Gastrodon seas, all three Burmy and Wormadam cloaks, both Basculin stripes, all four Deerling and Sawsbuck coats, and Spinda's own spot pattern.
Kalos adds more: every Vivillon has its own wing pattern, every Flabébé its own flower color and every Pumpkaboo its own size. Furfrou can be trimmed for free from its /pokemon info card, and Aegislash switches formes in battle.
Item held formes too: Giratina, Shaymin, Deoxys, Rotom's appliances, all 17 Arceus plates, the Therian trio, Genesect's Drives and the Kyurem fusions.
Every Pokémon has an ability, IVs, a nature and a gender where it has one, the way the games do it.
/pokedex tracks what you have seen and caught, with a separate grid for forms and Megas. Every species also has its own page on this site.

Shinies

Every wild Pokémon has a shiny chance. It is the same chance for everyone and nothing you can buy changes it.
Shiny sprites are the games' own, and a shiny is marked on its card forever.
Your server has a shiny leaderboard.

A catch card for a shiny Eelektross in an Ultra Ball, with a star by its level, its IVs, nature and ability — A shiny catch

Legendaries and roamers

Legendary Pokémon turn up in the wild on their own schedule. One server at a time, no rotation, and the chance is the same for every legendary.
Seven of them roam: Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Latias, Latios, Mesprit and Cresselia. They bolt after a single failed throw, carry the damage you did, and come back to the same channel worn down.
Legendaries are never sold. You find them in the wild, and players can trade them with each other.

A catch card for Suicune, marked Legendary, with its IVs, nature and ability — A legendary catch

Mythicals and Special Research

Mythical Pokémon never appear in the wild. You earn them through Special Research.

/specialresearch is a chain of tasks that ends in a mythical. Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy, Victini, Deoxys, Shaymin and Keldeo have chains today. More are written and waiting.
Phione is the exception: it is bred from Manaphy at the Day Care.
A mythical cannot be traded, sold or released.

A Special Research chain called A Mythical Discovery, on stage 2 of 8, with a mythical Pokémon's silhouette and three tasks — Special Research, stage 2 of 8

Breeding

/daycare takes two compatible Pokémon and gives you an Egg.

Modern inheritance: a Destiny Knot passes more IVs, an Everstone passes a parent's nature, and a Power item locks one stat.
Egg Moves pass down from either parent.
Nine baby Pokémon need a parent holding the right incense: Azurill, Wynaut, Budew, Chingling, Bonsly, Mime Jr., Happiny, Munchlax and Mantyke.
A Pokémon with Flame Body or Magma Armor in your party halves the hatch time.

The Day Care: an Eevee holding an Everstone and a Ditto holding a Destiny Knot, with an Egg ready between them — An Egg ready at the Day Care

EVs, IVs and natures

EVs work like the games: capped at 252 per stat and 510 in total, and earned by the Pokémon that fought.
IVs are visible, per stat and as a percentage. You can sort your box by it.
The card shows which stats a Pokémon's nature moved.
Vitamins add EVs and six berries take them away again, so a spread is never a dead end. A Fresh-Start Mochi wipes every EV a Pokémon has at once.
A Power item held in battle adds 8 EVs in its stat every time that Pokémon earns them, the way the games do it.
An Ability Capsule swaps a Pokémon to its other regular Ability, and an Ability Patch switches it to its Hidden Ability or back. Both are at the Mart.
/pokemon info has an EV spread card.

An EV spread card: Garchomp beside a six-point stat hexagon, with the total bar full at 510 of 510 — The EV spread card

Trading and the market

/trade @user swaps Pokémon and ₽ in one deal, with both sides confirming.
/market is shared across every server that has the bot. A Pokémon listed in one server can be bought from another.
The market is for Pokémon. Items are bought and sold at the Mart.
You can only receive a Pokémon up to five levels above your own highest, so nobody can hand a new trainer a level 60.

A finished trade: Onix and Kadabra side by side, each tagged with the trainer it came from — A trade

Fishing

/fish casts a line. What bites is a wild encounter.
Three rods, bought at the shop: Old Rod, Good Rod and Super Rod. The better the rod, the better the odds of something rare.
You get a set number of casts a day, and a better rod gets more. The bite comes when it comes, and you have a few seconds to reel.

The Safari Zone

/safari is a free trip every day into a Safari Zone area from the games.

Pick from 17 areas: Kanto's four, Sinnoh's Great Marsh and Johto's twelve. Each holds the Pokémon that live there in the games.
No battling. You get a bag of Safari Balls and a set number of steps, and every turn is Ball, Bait, Rock or Run. Bait calms it down, a Rock makes it easier to catch and quicker to run.
It opens once you have caught 10 wild Pokémon of your own. One free trip a day, and the day resets at midnight UTC.
You can also buy more trips a day with ₽, plus one longer Expedition.
Pick Kalos for the Friend Safari: one zone for every type, 18 in all, each holding the Pokémon of that type from the games' Friend Safari. Some of what you catch there has its Hidden Ability.
Anything you catch goes straight to your box. A Pokémon new to your Pokédex pays a smaller ₽ bonus than it would in the wild.

Field Research and streaks

/research gives you three tasks at once, in Poké Ball, Great Ball and Ultra Ball tiers, each paying ₽. Clear all three for a bonus.
One reroll a day if a task doesn't suit you. A new slate arrives 12 hours after you finish the last one.
Your whole server works on one Server Challenge together each week. You are in it by playing. There is nothing to join.
/daily pays every day and adds a Rare Candy on every seventh day of your streak.
/vote every 12 hours pays ₽ and Great Balls, and ₽ is doubled at the weekend.
New trainers get First Steps, a short checklist that pays out as you go.

A Field Research slate: three tasks with progress bars, two complete, one paying out in coins — A Field Research slate

Setting it up in your server

/config needs Manage Server. First run walks you through it.
Choose which channels Pokémon spawn in, or leave it everywhere. You can also send every spawn to one channel instead.
Set your server's timezone. That is the clock the day and night Pokémon, the Dusk Ball and the Espeon and Umbreon split all read.
Turn level up announcements on, route them, or switch them off. Turn individual commands off, or limit them to certain channels.
/start, /help and /config can never be switched off.

Step by step: how to add it to your server.

The rest of it

Day and night on your server's clock, with Pokémon that only come out at one or the other.
Evolution by level, stone, friendship, time of day and trade, and you are always asked first.
Wild Pokémon can be carrying a held item, and Pickup finds things after a battle.
Leaderboards for Pokédex, shinies, legendaries, money and catches, with a weekly view, and a pinnable standings card.
A Trainer Card at /stats, with a privacy switch that takes you off every leaderboard and out of lookups.
Reminders you opt into at /notifications. Nothing is sent to you unless you ask for it.
/help explains how every part of the game works.

What is never for sale

Nothing that affects gameplay is for sale. Shinies are hunted, legendaries are found, mythicals are earned. If a server kid grinds harder than a server adult with a credit card, the kid wins.

Supporting the bot

Catch 'Em Cord is free and all of it stays free. If you want to help keep it running, you can support it.

A gold badge on your Trainer Card, and beside your name on the leaderboard.
Pick one of 10 colors for your Trainer Card, your catch cards and /pokemon.
Animated battles, with both Pokémon moving on the field.
Your Pokémon on its card, standing where you caught it.
A supporter role in the official Discord server.
Early looks at what I'm working on before it ships.

Nothing here changes how the game plays. No better catch odds, no extra spawns, no coins, no Pokémon. What supporters get is cosmetic.

Questions

Is Catch 'Em Cord free?

Yes. It is free to play and it stays free. Nothing that affects gameplay is sold.

Is it pay to win?

No. Nothing that affects gameplay is for sale. Shinies are hunted, legendaries are found, mythicals are earned. If a server kid grinds harder than a server adult with a credit card, the kid wins.

Are the battles real Pokémon battles?

Yes. Wild fights and player versus player both run on the Pokémon Showdown engine, so damage, abilities, held items, natures, EVs, IVs and PP all behave like the games.

How many Pokémon are in it?

Generations 1 to 6, all 718 of them, Kanto through Kalos, plus alternate forms and Mega Evolution.

Is there Mega Evolution?

Yes. Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Gengar, Gyarados, Gardevoir and Lucario can Mega Evolve. Each one has its own Mega Stone research, and finishing it puts the stone in your bag. Nothing sells a Mega Stone.

Is there a Safari Zone?

Yes. /safari is a free trip every day into a real Safari area from Kanto, Johto or Sinnoh, or into the Friend Safari, with one zone for every type.

Can you get shinies and legendaries?

Yes. Every wild Pokémon has a shiny chance, and legendaries appear in the wild. Seven of them roam your server and have to be chased down. None of it is for sale.

How do you get a mythical Pokémon?

Through a Special Research chain at /specialresearch. Mythicals never appear in the wild, and they cannot be traded or sold.

Can you trade with people in other servers?

Trades happen between two people in the same server. The market is shared across every server, so a Pokémon listed in one can be bought from another.

What does a server admin have to do?

Run /config. It needs Manage Server, and the first run walks you through picking spawn channels and setting your timezone.