"Porygon: Its distribution is complicated, and it's not just your local shops."

#PokemonGO: Firstly I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who contributed data and opened dialogues via PM. Over the past 38 hours, it’s been quite overwhelming…ly awesome just how many people on the Road have gotten in touch.I’m currently working through a lot of information here, but I just wanted to share the following stats because I keep seeing posts along the lines of “I’ve found out which area Porygon spawns in, it’s This_Area™”So far, in regards to the data I’ve looked at, Porygon does appear to be able to spawn in just one mapped area (like the boundaries of a neighborhood), but there are also exceptions and factors that need to be considered.The BreakdownOf the Porygon spawns we have currently analysed, they have occurred in the following OSM land uses:Industrial: 30%Residential: 17%University: 16%Commercial: 9%Park: 5%Pedestrian Way (as an area, not line): 5% These often occur in plazas, around government buildings and in some large sports stadium areasCar Park: 4%Retail: 3%Note: Airports – there is a lot of evidence that Porygon spawns in and around airports, however many airports have limited spawn points and it’s a bit suspect to hang around recording spawn data for hours on end.Other special mentions: Sports Stadiums, Sports Complexes, Railways and Administrative Boundaries?!Important Considerations:Area CoverageResidential areas tend to cover significant amounts of the land in the places we are looking at here. When you compare the number of Porygon spawns that are occurring in some universities , it becomes clear that you are getting more bang for your pokecoins out of a university area when compared to residential areas.It’s Not Always the CaseMy most local university (A small, rural campus) is not spawning Porygon.At all.Speculation: Perhaps in addition to looking at area tags, there is also a RNG element, or there may be a certain requirement of size or multiple tags existing within a given space.Not every park is a nest, not every path has spawns and not every university is a Porygon biome?The Bump-On-To EffectSomeone please help me come up with a better name for thisWhen we look at the electric biome, it appears to be able to cluster along multiple cells and spread out.There is the possibility that a similar effect occurs with area based biome distributions (as opposed to cell based biome distributions, like the Electric Biome).An example of this is the suburb of Berala in Sydney, the suburb has an abnormal amount of Porygon spawns within the bounds of its marked residential area on OSM – it has an industrial area to its West, and is adjacent to a rail way track.Centennial Park in Sydney is another such case – it sits South East of a sports stadium in a large commercial area (Fox Studios) and large pedestrian way.Links to the Electric Biome:Around a quarter of electric biomes (heavy in Voltorb and Magnemite) we have looked at have a discernible Porygon presence, the others had little or no Porygon presence.It’s possible that:a) Niantic chose not to increase Porygon spawns across the board in electric biomes just like they turned down the tap on Clefairy spawns in some locations.b) There’s more than one kind of heavy electric biome and at least one kind doesn’t include Porygon in its grab bag.c) The electric biome just shares some map features with the Porygon Biome but not all, or alternatively, the map features that occur to trigger the electric biome often also often occur close to features that trigger Porygon’s biome. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2keX5Bx