"[Speed Raiding]Our weekly raid bus hit 13 raids in 3.5 hours."

#PokemonGO: Update: The very next day, a 5 hour RaidTX bus ride hit 21 raids in 5 hours. Same city, same weather. Congratulations! A wonderful bus runs many weekends. The Texas trainers in select cities know it as the RaidTX party bus. For 1 shift of 5 hours, 2 shifts of 4 hours, and 1 shift of a full day, trainers can get together and speed raid the current legendary fad. Today, it was Groudon, who was being actively hunted by some Austinites. A part of the proceeds from this bus went to a fundraiser for a prominent, early Level 40 Austin player, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Austin stands behind you. <3 Legendary Boss: GroudonWeather: Cloudy (Not Boosted)Start Time: 11:31amEnd Time: 2:58pm# of trainers: 50Team Composition: 29 Mystic (16+13), 11 Valor, 10 InstinctRaids: 13 -- 12 Legendary, 1 Non-Legendary Pace: 13 raids in 3.5 hours - on the higher side of the raid bus average. Again, outshone the very next day by an increase of 0.5 raids/hour, netting 21 raids in 5 hours. Table of Contents:Breakdown of folksEnvironment and backgroundData SpreadsheetStrategyStatsBest MomentsBest Personal MomentsPhoto AlbumAcknowledgements Breakdown of folks:The leader of the bus, who finds and plans the raidsThe driver of the bus, sometimes a friend or member of RaidTX.The DJ, who is playing Pokemon and non-Pokemon related music the entire time.The team leaders, who make sure their team is the same color, and helps them as needed.And everybody who signs up to make the bus a success.EnvironmentA 50-seat charter bus is rented, with chargers in every seat and free food and water. The driver knows the area well, and drives from raid to raid via the directions of the leader of the bus. These raid locations tend to stay in Central Austin, with the Texas Capitol as the center. Usually, trainers can stay on the bus to hit the raid, but occasionally they need to get off. Usually, the entire bus is evacuated within 1-2 minutes. The bus is sometimes rolling again before everyone has a chance to catch the boss, to make up for lost time (Darn these 45 minute bosses). The trainers are divided by team, so each can get more balls. Lucky eggs, as well as the new star piece, are beneficial in raking in lots of dust and XP each tour. The spreadsheet below shows that not once was there a period between each raid longer than 30 minutes. The following spreadsheet depicts the raid times and locations, as well as two volunteers' rewards. http://ift.tt/2A2I0Lp did not drive away during the raid, but we did drive away while catching, so we could try to squeeze in more off of the boosting items as well as get to more bosses in general. Still, ample time was given to attempt a few balls to catch the raid bosses before moving. Thank you Tina, our wonderful bus driver, for allowing us to concentrate. Additionally, no time was truly wasted, as refreshments were readily available, and hatches were usually well scheduled (I'll get to an exception that ended up being very entertaining later). There was an added benefit in that everybody of each team got to the raid at the same time, allowing for a prompt start of 10+ trainers. Mystic was split into 2 groups rather than 3 just so that the bus wouldn't have to wait for 3 groups to finish slower than the other 2. Stats:And now, for some stats. You can find a breakdown of 2 trainers' stats in the spreadsheet. These trainers were on different teams. I used their data to estimate how these stats may have stacked across the bus, as well as many Rare candies, Fast TMs, and Charge TMs were earned total. Please note that since the sample is so small, only the XP and stardust are, or even close to, guaranteed.XP Gained through the family (Not counting lucky eggs, with Ttar): 6,005,000 - enough to level up from 1 to level 35Dust Gained through the family (Not counting star pieces): 325,000 - enough to power up 2 raid bosses to L35)Legendary Catch Rate (hard to determine): 53%Non-Legendary Catch Rate: 98% (Everyone was tryharding the TTAR)Rare Candies: 1500 (Enough to power up 22 raid bosses to L30, or 11 raid bosses to L35, or 7 raid bosses to L39. Enough to catch 12 Larvitars in the wild and evolve them to TTAR)Fast TMs: 250 (What a lot of successful Iron Tail --> Bite conversions!)Charged TMs: 200 (What are the odds of using 200 charge TMs and switching between Stone Edge and Fire Blast? Spoiler alert: 1 in 1.61E60)An enjoyable experience: 99% - because I'm not here to know the details on this one Room for ImprovementFirst and biggest: We had to get off the bus 6 times, more than we would have liked. Still, it was nice to get fresh air, which kept the energy up. So maybe it wasn't terrible.Of course, it's impossible to predict when an egg will pop up at a gym. We ended up with a triple at our very last Groudon stop, but only one egg was hatched, and because we were running late getting back to base, it would take too long to wait out the other two. There was a stretch between Raid 3 and Raid 4 that took 26 minutes of driving. Had we waited 3 minutes for a closer egg between the two, we would have likely been able to hit that egg, Raid 4 (now 5), and the full triple. Imagine the extra rewards :DSpeaking of which, we ended up waiting 5 minutes for a hatch. Not to say this would have allowed us to complete the triple, but it would have helped. The already hatched raid at the triple had a healthy amount of time on it. Again, not terrible because the gym was caught in a frenzy, described more in best moments.At one point, a team leader got a phone call right before being able to share the code. Not that they could have helped it. They believed it would be over quick, so we decided to wait. Unfortunately, the result was the rest of the bus waiting on us. Best Moments:A trainer hit Level 40A trainer caught a 100 IV Groudon first ball. The lone hundo.A trainer leveled up from level 7 to level 17A wild Lapras spawned right after the raid. Other notable wild spawns include 3 Ralts and a Level 35 87% Gulpin.An intense 5 minute screaming skirmish goes down trying to gain gym control. Over 370 berries fed. The gym was and stayed blue.A trainer, trying to convince the bus to do an Absol: "Absol makes the heart grow fonder" (we never found one)When given the choice between wrapping up with Tyranitar or another Groudon, the majestic choir that is 50 people yelling "TTAR" arose.A trainer almost convinces the leader to do a magikarp raid.Twice, the bus drives by a gym, and the 5 empty slots are taken before the bus even finishes being completely in range, front to back.Two young trainers voice their excitement through team chants and banter. They were on two different teams, which was even cuter.Great personal experiences:Balls I used: 96, Curves: 96, Excellents: 81, Greats: 12, Nice: 0, off the money: 3Helping a trainer catch his first Groudon.Critical catching a Groudon.Pinapping the Ttar and getting it first throw.Hitting a catch rate of 69.2% Photo Album: http://ift.tt/2CoPrCx: RaidTX has been around for a while. Without the team of volunteers, none of this would be possible. I was inspired by How We Farm Perfect Legendaries written by u/ishr5913 and 40 Raids in a Day written by u/llee5354. When I read these threads, I knew I needed to shed light on the awesome way us Texans do it. Not to be left out are the contributions of the big guy himself, Phil, and his involvement in bringing RaidTX and Perfect League, as well as the Texas Rangers that bring the Third Saturday event to the Lone Star State.Again, thank you to Phil and the rest of the RaidTX crew for bringing the sense of cummunity up to Austin. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2DIZL4L