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Battle Factory

The Battle Factory is one of seven facilities located in the Battle Frontier, accessible only in Emerald. The Frontier Brain here is Noland.

Modes

The Battle Factory has options for Single Battles and Double Battles.

The player can enter three Pokémon in Singles and three in Doubles.

Mechanics

Gimmick

Before every round of seven Trainers, the player will be provided a draft of six Pokémon, taken from the list used by all facilities. Note that Pokémon in the Low Tier Group 1 table will never be available for selection, and will never be used by enemy Trainers. Genders and abilities for these Pokémon are random. The player must select their Pokémon from the list of six. After every battle, the player will be given the option to trade one of their Pokémon for one Pokémon they just faced in the previous battle.

Swapping with the opponent frequently will allow the player to access Pokémon from higher tiers and with better IVs than normal in the draft they are given at the start of the round.

The player is also given some advance information about the team of the upcoming Trainer before they choose whether to swap a Pokémon, allowing the player to build their team according to what the next Trainer will have.

All Trainers faced also have their Pokémon generated randomly from a specific tier.

General

Mechanics that apply to every Facility are on the Battle Frontier page. Here are mechanics specific to the Battle Factory:

• Two Pokémon of the same species, or with the same held item, will almost never be offered in the player's draft. Seeing two of the same species (and possibly held item) if one of the player's draft picks is 'upgraded' to the same species or item as another draft pick, but the player will be forbidden from taking both Pokémon.
• Opposing Trainers will never use two Pokémon of the same species, or with the same held item.
• The first Trainer in a round will never use a Pokémon species that was offered in the player's draft. Subsequent Trainers will never use a species that was used by the previous Trainer, or one that is in the player's current team. The exception is the Frontier Brain Noland, who has a chance to use the same species as one of the player's Pokémon.
• There are two modes offered: Level 50 and Open Level (Level 100). Which mode is chosen determines where in the tier system (see the Pokémon list for more about the tiers) the player will start. All Pokémon the player can choose from or battle in a mode will be set to the level of that mode.
• Items cannot be used during battle.
• The player's Pokémon will be automatically healed after every battle.
• Battles are conducted in rounds of 7. The player can save between battles in a round, but will not be able to do anything except complete the rest of the round when they load the game. The player can do anything between rounds without it affecting their streak.
• Items used or swapped (via Trick, Thief, Covet, or Knock Off) during the battle will be given back to the Pokémon after the battle.

Resources

• This post has a lot of general information, including AI quirks and opposing Pokémon's speed stats for both Level 50 and Open Level modes
• Battle Factory Buddy by Dave Glorbus, an application that can help players identify what Pokémon they are likely to see based on the hints before each battle
• Battle Factory Guide by JoebertIII

Frontier Brain

The Frontier Brain, Noland, appears first after 20 battles and again after 41. After defeating him the second time, he will appear every 21 battles. He uses a random team that will be selected from a specific tier of Pokémon. His Pokémon have 15 IVs in his Silver Symbol battle and 31 in his Gold Symbol battle.

The tier of Pokémon that Noland can choose from depends on whether it is the first or second battle and the mode chosen (Level 50 or Open Level).

• In Level 50, in his Silver Symbol battle, Noland will use Set-2 Mid Tier Pokémon.
• In Level 50, in his Gold Symbol battle, Noland will use Set-3 High Tier Pokémon.
• In Open Level, in his Silver Symbol battle, Noland will use Set-3 High Tier Pokémon.
• In Open Level, in his Gold Symbol battle, Noland will use any High Tier and any Legend Tier Pokémon.

Trainers and Pokémon

The list of Trainers that can be encountered is located here. The list of Pokémon that can be encountered is located here.

The player's draft of six Pokémon at the beginning of a round, and all Trainers' Pokémon during the round, should have their IVs determined by the round, as shown in the following table. The last Trainer in every set of 7 battles has IVs corresponding to the next round's. The player can get Pokémon with higher IVs by swapping frequently, as discussed below.

All Pokémon with Return will have that move replaced with Frustration. Their friendship value is adjusted accordingly to make Frustration have maximum power.

I say 'should' above because there are two glitches that affect IVs:

1. All upgraded Pokémon offered to the player at the round starting at battle 50, and all non-upgraded Pokémon offered at the round starting at battle 57, will have random IVs.
2. A programming error causes the game to look at the player's current Battle Tower streak, instead of Battle Factory, to determine what IVs to give to enemy Trainers. This means that enemy Trainers' IVs can, for instance, always be kept at 3 so long as the player has no streak in the Battle Tower. Frontier Brain Noland is unaffected by this glitch.

Battle Points

In Singles, the player will receive 3 Points for winning the first round of seven battles, 3 for the second round, 4 for the third round, 4 for the fourth round, etc. to a maximum of 15 Points per round. An additional 10 Points are added every time the player faces and defeats Noland.

In Doubles, the player will receive 4 Points for winning the first round of seven battles, 4 for the second round, 5 for the third round, 5 for the fourth round, etc. to a maximum of 15 Points per round.

Swapping Mechanics

The amount of times the player swaps Pokémon with the opponent can affect the quality of the Pokémon they receive in the draft at the start of a round. This only applies to battles before 50; after that point, the player's Pokémon always have 31 IVs (except for the glitch discussed above) and any High or Legend Tier set can be chosen.

The number of Pokémon in a draft that will be 'upgraded' is dependent on the total number of swaps the player has made across their whole streak. An upgraded Pokémon will have IVs and a moveset that correspond to the following round of 7 battles instead of the current round (see the Pokémon page for details about tiers and the Battle Factory modes). The following table shows the number of swaps needed. Note that choosing Pokémon from the opening draft counts as a 'swap'. A maximum of 7 swaps (including the draft) can be made per round.

When the player's current tier of Pokémon is Set-4 High Tier (which will be battles 43-49 for Level 50 or 22-28 for Open Level), an upgraded Pokémon can come from any set in the High and Legend Tiers. In Level 50, however, Dragonite, Tyranitar, the Legendary Birds' 5th and 6th sets, and the Legendary Beasts' 5th and 6th sets will never appear.

Opponent Preview

The information the player receives about the opponent at the beginning of each battle has two components: the most common type used by the opponent's Pokémon, and a battle style description that indicates how many moves of a certain category they have.

If multiple types are represented on the opponent's team by the same number of Pokémon (including if each type is only represented one time), the information will be that the opponent has no type specialization.

The table below shows the categories that moves fall into. The "Required" column gives the number of moves that the opponent must have in order for the game to display the message.

• If the requirement is not met for any category, the message is that the Trainer's style "appears to be free-spirited and unrestrained".
• If the requirement is met for two categories, the message that appears is the one associated with the category with the highest number.
• If the requirement is met for three or more categories, the message is that the Trainer's style "appears to be flexibly adaptable to the situation".