There is a lot of confusion about how Pokemon GO Spawn Points work. Today, we’re clearing up some of that confusion. Read more to understand how often, how rare and how long are Pokemon spawned. This article is made possible by someguylikeyou from /r/pokemongodev sub reddit and his amazing thread.
Pokemon GO Spawn Points
Spawn Points are places on the world map that generate Pokemon in set intervals. There are 6 types of Spawn Points, some are frequent, some are ultra rare. The main thing they all have in common is the fact they generate Pokemon every hour.
This fact has been researched, proven and documented by both TheSilphRoad and PokemonGoDev. So, a Pokemon GO spawn point generates a Pokemon every hour at a set number of minutes. For example, 10:23, 11:23, 12:23, 13:23 etc.
However, generating a Pokemon does not guarantee you can see it on the map. Wait, what? The Pokemon is generated but not yet visible? Yes Jimmy, exactly. Welcome to the magical world of TTH and adding variety to the game.
Pokemon GO TTH
TTH, or time_till_hidden_ms is a variable datamined from the app’s network traffic that describes the time until a Pokemon is hidden. Seems simple, right? The server sends TTH, the app displays a Pokemon and it’s visible until TTH is greater than zero.
However, the app receives TTH values from the server all the time and they are mostly invalid. The invalid TTH values are notifiers for spawn points to “hide” the Pokemon. Now, this brings up an interesting conclusion – the Pokemon are generated, but the spawn point is controlled by the server and it decides when to display the Pokemon.
Every Spawn Point operates in the same way:
- Generate a Pokemon at set minutes of every hour
- Receive TTH
- If TTH is valid, show the Pokemon until TTH is greater than zero
- If TTH is invalid, do nothing
- Wait
Types of Pokemon GO Spawn Points
So, up to this point, we know that Spawn Points generate a Pokemon every hour and keep it hidden until the server says differently. In order to promote variety and add randomness to Pokemon Spawn, Niantic created 6 types of Spawn Points:
- 1×15: Regular spawn points everybody knows, spawns a Pokemon for 15 min, valid TTH.
- 1×30: They spawn a Pokemon for 30 min, valid TTH only in the last 15 min.
- 1×45: They spawn a Pokemon for 45 min, valid TTH only in the last 15 min.
- 1×60: They spawn a Pokemon for 60 min, valid TTH at no point in time at all
- 2×15 (1x45h2): They seemingly spawn 2 Pokemon every hour for 15 min, thus the name. Actually it’s just one pokemon, that spawns for 45 min, but is hidden between 15 min and 30 min after spawn.
- 1x60h3: They spawn a Pokemon for 60 min, which is hidden between minute 30 and 45 after spawn, similar to a 2×15 point
Here’s a handy illustration explaining visually when the Pokemon are visible in regards to TTH and point type:
This creates interesting consequences. Most spawn point will spawn (display) Pokemon at around the same time. Implying, farming spawn points is plannable and schedulable. Every hour at the same minute the spawns will yield.
Now, there’s a catch: a huge portion of spawn points is 1×15. Here’s a quote from the original thread:
My stats from a german area (area of and around a city, so rural and urban mixed, ~650 km²):
[+] Spawn point count: 14187 [+] Type: 1x15, Count: 11695, Percentage: 82.43% [+] Type: 1x30, Count: 1303, Percentage: 9.18% [+] Type: 1x45, Count: 285, Percentage: 2.01% [+] Type: 1x60, Count: 204, Percentage: 1.44% [+] Type: 2x15, Count: 683, Percentage: 4.81% [+] Type: 1x60h3, Count: 17, Percentage: 0.12% [+] Type: UNDEF, Count: 0, Percentage: 0.0%
And the stats of c00ni from Australia:
[+] Spawn point count: 2324 [+] Type: 1x15, Count: 2081, Percentage: 89.54% [+] Type: 1x30, Count: 150, Percentage: 6.45% [+] Type: 1x45, Count: 13, Percentage: 0.56% [+] Type: 1x60, Count: 0, Percentage: 0.0% [+] Type: 2x15, Count: 80, Percentage: 3.44% [+] Type: 1x60h3, Count: 0, Percentage: 0.0% [+] Type: UNDEF, Count: 0, Percentage: 0.0%