RNG Advancing Guide

RNG advancing methods for getting favorable attributes on stickers and hunting static encounter bootlegs, among other things

Preface

This guide will be focusing on how to advance both item RNG and passive quest RNG to try and get good rolls on sticker attributes or for general static bootleg hunting. A video demonstrating and explaining it will be made soon, which will be linked in this guide once it's out.

Spoiler disclaimer: the Passive Quest RNG Advancing section contains spoilers geared towards late or postgame.

This is also part of an effort to share more stuff about this game to a wider audience and not just let it get trapped on the Discord.

Why Do This?

Let's say you're trying to get a Fair Fight with the compatible with any tape attribute. Fair Fight cannot be sold in shops, and so the only way to get one would be by leveling up Palangolin. If you do it the standard way (which is keep leveling past 5 stars), you could eventually get a Fair Fight sticker, but it's not exactly guaranteed to even get one, much less have the attributes you wanted. The Item RNG Advancing section will give you a better chance to get what you want by doing some savescumming and advancing the RNG at the cost of time and maybe some sanity.

Alternatively, if you want to hunt for bootlegs of static encounters, the Passive Quest RNG Advancing section outlines how you can come across more of them faster than just beating up a bunch of fusions and hoping one spawns. This is by far the fastest way to get through them, unless you can walk up to and defeat a fusion in less than 10 seconds. It's also useful if you want to meet the Traveling Merchant more, or if you're insane enough like some people on the Discord, force an encounter with Black Shuck.

Why Not to Do This

So imagine doing RNG manipulation, except you don't know when to do the thing so you try every single step of the way and hope you eventually get what you want. For item RNG advancing, this is a very time-consuming process and you're honestly better off just using the Sticker Attribute core mod[modworkshop.net] if you're on a platform that supports mods (like Steam).

For Passive Quest RNG Advancing, to maximize speed you only get one chance of recording, and if you fail it you have to continue advancing the RNG. You also obviously don't get as much Fused Material since you don't fight every single thing on the map.

Item RNG Advancing

The Item RNG is called whenever a new sticker has to be generated. On the other hand, a tapes' learnset is fixed for the first 5 stars and becomes random afterwards, so we will be advancing the item RNG and using Upgrapes to get what we want on a tape that learns the move pre-5 stars.

Finding a Suitable Species

Head over to the wiki to see which monster learns which move at a particular level, it must be within the first 5 stars and cannot be in the initial moveset.

For example, Palangolin gets Fair Fight at 2 stars, and we wanted to get one that's compatible with any tape.
Screenshot taken from the Cassette Beasts Wiki

Get a bootleg Palangolin to 1 star. It doesn't need to be a bootleg, but you have significantly better odds of generating uncommons and rares if using a bootleg.

Note that when working with bootlegs, the moves they learn within the first 5 stars may change (signature moves are usually not affected) but they are almost deterministic; it sometimes will depend on what stickers are already on the tape. Open the following spreadsheet, head over to the Moves List sheet and Ctrl+F for the move name:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kfEgg5XbawSrPKz92y7W2U97sqi27eN81fvPiT2f9uI

To match the results reported in the spreadsheet, start at 0 stars then peel off all the stickers on it, then upgrape up until just before the level where the move gets generated. In our example, that would be 1 star. You can also test it by turning autosave off and using Upgrapes to check what move you get.
Left: peel off all stickers at 0 stars, Right: use upgrape until just before 2 stars where we get Fair Fight

RNG Advancing Method

Save the game, then turn off autosave if you haven't already. Head over to Town Hall, where the vending machine is.

1. Use an Upgrape on the tape; it should generate the desired sticker but if it isn't the right attribute, reset.
   
2. Head over to the vending machine and buy 1 Elements sticker pack (choice doesn't matter but for convenience pick the first option). Afterwards, use an Upgrape, and reset if it's not what you want.
   
3. Buy 2 Elements sticker packs this time, then use Upgrape. Reset if it's not what you want.
   
4. Do the previous step but buy 3 packs instead, then try with 4, and so on until you've tried it with 5 Sticker packs, or however many you're willing to check.
   
5. If you still haven't gotten what you want, reset, head to Gramophone Cafe and rest twice to the next in-game day. Optionally save the game so you don't have to do this step again after resetting.
   
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until done.

  

Alternatively, if you're cheaping out on metal, skip steps 2-4, and only do step 1, then step 5, repeat. Depending on your menuing, this could be faster but you might skip over a lot of checks that could have been done since the vending machine advances the RNG while starting a new day sets it to a different value based on the save's random seed and the current in-game day.

If you have multiple of the same species you can also Upgrape those in any order. If you're using different species and trying different stickers at the same time (like say Fair Fight from Palangolin and Wonderful 7 from Allseer), try changing the order in which you use the Upgrape; depending on the moves this would either not have much of a difference or could result in different attributes.
The attributes will differ whenever you advance the RNG before using the Upgrape

Passive Quest RNG Advancing

Passive quests are the quests that can spawn all around the map. This includes Rogue Fusions, static encounters (Unidentified Signals), Travelling Merchant, Black Shuck. You can see them on the map once you've unlocked the Fusion Radar shortly after completing the captains' quest, but both the Travelling Merchant and Black Shuck aren't visible at all.

Spawning Mechanics

The game attempts to spawn a passive quest every 10 seconds, and a maximum of 12 can be present at any given time. If the spawning attempt fails, another attempt is made after the next 10 s cycle. This is a global timer and starts shortly after launching the game.

Advancing the RNG

For this, turn on the Speedrun timer. We will be using this to keep track of the time.

Static Bootleg Hunting

1. Open up your save file and wait for 2 minutes. While waiting, DO NOT open the Menu, as the spawn attempts will fail while on a menu.
   
2. Check the map for Unidentified Signals (hover over the tile so you can tell if it's a fusion or an unidentified signal), and visit each of these locations to check if they're bootlegs.
   
3. After checking, save the game, warp to Cafe (optional), then quit and reload. Go back to Step 1.

Note that the Miss Mimic encounter doesn't have the glitchy static effect, so you'll only know it's a bootleg in battle (it has to be the one in the fusion, since the solo Miss Mimic can't be a bootleg).
 

Travelling Merchant

For this, you'll want to be at Gramophone Cafe or at least in Harbourtown since we'll be collecting rumors for the travelling merchant.

1. Open up your save file and wait for 2 minutes. To be safe, wait for 2:10 just in case to compensate for the 10s global timer. While waiting, DO NOT open the Menu, as the spawn attempts will fail while on a menu.
   
2. Open the map and check if there are less than 12 total signals on the map (doesn't matter what type it is). If you see 12, save the game, quit and go back to step 1.
   
3. If there are less than 12 visible signals, at least one of them is either Travelling merchant or Black Shuck. Check for rumors in Cafe, Town Hall, and the east side of Harbourtown for rumors about a "quirky shirtless merchant" and locate him once you've gotten such a rumor. Save and quit if you don't get such a rumor, as it's not guaranteed to get a rumor about him even if he does spawn.

Black Shuck Hunting

This is actually a really bad idea since it can spawn at most locations and there are a total of 150 passive quest locations so you'll have to check almost every corner on the map. Like actually, you're better off just using the Black Shuck Changes mod[modworkshop.net] if you can, since Black Shuck actually shows on the map with that mod and you don't have to do this garbage.

However, if you insist on doing it this way or are on a platform that doesn't support mods, at least 2 people on the Discord got the encounter using this method (shoutouts to Albcat and cmvieira, as I shared this method on the Discord without actually testing it myself lol)

For this, start at Gramophone Cafe and make sure you turn off autosave, as while its spawning is seeded and that's what we're advancing, its actual encounter chance is purely random and you'll have to reset multiple times in hopes it aggros instead of vanishing. During the searching phase, you'll want to start during the daytime so you have plenty of time to look for it.

1. Open up your save file and wait for 2 minutes. To be safe, wait for 2:10 just in case to compensate for the 10s global timer. While waiting, DO NOT open the Menu, as the spawn attempts will fail while on a menu.
   
2. Open the map and check if there are less than 12 total signals on the map (doesn't matter what type it is). If you see 12, save the game, quit and go back to step 1.
   
3. If there are less than 12 visible signals, at least one of them is either Travelling merchant or Black Shuck.
   
4. Optional: Check for rumors in Cafe, Town Hall, and the east side of Harbourtown for rumors about a "quirky shirtless merchant". If there are only 11 signals and you get this rumor, reset since the missing signal will be the Travelling Merchant.
   
5. Check all spots in the map where a passive quest can spawn. There are a lot of them, and I mean a lot. Check the following subsection for more details.
   
6. If you do find Black Shuck, DO NOT SAVE as doing so will save the RNG advancement and you'll have to start at the beginning again.
   
7. Approach Black Shuck; if it disappears, reset, wait for at least 2:10 and visit it again. Due to the global timer, it can spawn at any time from the 1st spawn attempt to the 12th attempt, so open the map every 10 seconds or so to keep note of what has spawned (note that a spawn attempt will fail while the map or any menu is open), and if the count hasn't changed that might be when it spawns. Stay at Cafe when waiting, since it may fail to spawn if you're too close to the location.
   
8. Reset whenever it disappears, reload save, wait until it spawns, visit the location and approach it again. Keep doing this until a mini-cutscene plays and it decides to aggro on you.

As mentioned, there are 150 possible passive quest locations (well, 152, but 2 of them are reserved for flood fusions), and while the Black Shuck can't spawn in interiors or in "obscured" (hidden) places, you still have to methodically check almost every tile on the map.
Black: no passive quests can spawn in that chunk
Red / rectangular outline: 2 passive quests can spawn
Purple / rounded outline: 3+ passive quests can spawn

For full details of ALL 152 locations, I've documented every single one of them here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tkq9tOjWD6pkJ8kxD3nj03EDsD4YzbPmKNlmF5bQzIg

[pokemonsuper9]

Just used, took a couple hours but I have beaten Black Shuck (don't make the same mistake I did, make sure to have something with New Leaf on your team).

[Mr Grimm]

I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I am following the steps verbatim. I've been trying to trigger the fight for the last 3 hours, and Black Shuck didn't even appear ONCE. is it possible that the new update changed something?

[Venetica]

THANK YOU for this guide. I play on the Switch and was desperate for the chance to fight Black Shuck. I had seen it 4 times in my playthrough but it disappeared every time. Just understanding how the spawn points work was a huge help and I was finally able to trigger the battle.