Pokemon Scarlet And Violet: How To Make Encounter Power Sandwich (And What It Does)
While making sandwiches in "Pokémon Scarlet and Violet" isn't as engaging a mechanic as, say, the poffin-making minigame of "Ruby and Sapphire" — nor are the meal-sharing animations as graphically polished or heartwarming as those in "Sword and Shield" — the feature is definitely not one to be ignored. Beyond earning more friendship points with your Pokémon, sandwiches provide special Meal Powers that'll affect your in-game activities, including but not limited to picnicking, Tera raiding, and overworld exploration.
One of the most useful Meal Powers is the Encounter Power which, as its name implies, affects your overworld Pokémon encounters according to type. Different ingredient combinations result in different Encounter Powers that raise your chances of meeting certain types of Pokémon in the wild — and, as with all the other sandwich powers, it comes in three levels of effectiveness. Here's a breakdown of how to create Encounter Power sandwiches at your desired level, and how exactly Encounter Power works in-game.
How ingredients work in an Encounter Power sandwich
The basic gist of sandwich-making in "Scarlet and Violet" is that every ingredient has a set arrangement of points in three categories: Power, type, and taste. The final tally — excluding ingredients lost in the assembly process — decide the three Meal Powers of the resulting sandwich.
Power points are the most straightforward, as they simply add up to the final tally without any extra mechanics. For example, a hamburger adds 21 points to Encounter Power, 12 to Catching Power, and subtracts 3 from Raid Power. After all the ingredients' points have been tallied, the three highest Power scores will be added to the sandwich. A score of less than 100 will result in a level 1 power; less than 2000, a level 2 power; and over 2000, a level 3 power.
The secondary value — type — applies to the relevant powers, such as Encounter or Raid powers. Continuing with the example, a hamburger adds 18 Steel points on top of the Encounter and Catching Power points. The top three scores in the final tally of type points are assigned to the three Meal Powers in the same way: Less than 100 equals level 1 power, etc.
The final value, taste, is often the deciding factor in a sandwich's powers. Specific tastes will add a point bonus of 100 to their respective Power and are usually responsible for pushing power from level 1 to 2, as is the case with many beginner-to-mid-tier sandwich recipes given in-game.
Which ingredients add Encounter Power points?
While you don't need to memorize the point scores of each ingredient, it's important to understand the math that goes into every sandwich if you want to create specific Meal Powers. With 35 ingredients and 23 seasonings available to mix and match, it can be a little hard to figure out what to prioritize in order to get the Encounter power of the type and level you want.
A good general rule of thumb is to use high Encounter Power ingredients with points only in the type you want, then add salty ingredients with lower type scores to grab that 100+ taste bonus without overriding your desired type. Thankfully, every type in the game has one designated single-type ingredient that adds Catching 4, Raid -1, Encounter 7, and 6 type points across the board:
- Dragon: Avocado
- Rock: Bacon
- Bug: Cherry Tomatoes
- Water: Cucumber
- Poison: Green Bell Pepper
- Ground: Ham
- Ice: Klawf Stick
- Grass: Lettuce
- Psychic: Onion
- Fighting: Pickle
- Flying: Prosciutto
- Fire: Red Bell Pepper
- Ghost: Red Onion
- Dark: Smoked Filet
- Normal: Tofu
- Fairy: Tomato
- Electric: Yellow Bell Pepper
The only exception is that Steel is covered by the hamburger, which has much higher scores as described previously. While these ingredients aren't the be-all-end-all of Encounter Power sandwiches, they're good starting points to build a recipe around if you want to get a quick boost without relying on Salty Herba Mystica.
What do Encounter Power sandwiches really do?
On the surface, Encounter Power is a fairly simple power that just boosts the encounter rate of certain Pokémon types while exploring. However, the way it interacts with Mass Outbreaks offers some unique opportunities. For one, if the Encounter Power's type corresponds to that of the outbreak Pokémon, the meal power will increase the upper cap of concurrent on-screen Pokémon spawns. Because it doesn't increase the total number of Pokémon spawns over the course of the outbreak itself, this lets you grind through an outbreak much faster by virtue of having more critters onscreen at any given time.
Another effect has been discovered by a few players — apparently, having an Encounter Power active as your game clock goes over midnight and resets the Mass Outbreaks can help increase the likelihood that Pokémon of the Encounter Power's type will be chosen for that day's outbreak across the map. While this has yet to be proven by any in-game files or official sources, extensive testing from Austin John Plays — as well as testimonials from a few players — show that, at the very least, a level 2 Encounter Power does seem to have a noticeable effect on Mass Outbreak generation. Next time you're hunting down a specific Pokémon, it wouldn't hurt to try and pop a level 2 Encounter Power for that type and roll the Mass Outbreak dice a few times.