#rip to any who were subjected to the gnarlier intermediate patches

[darkestrellar]

Andromeda used in regular battles: not a usual occurrence. Svern doesn't battle much for sport and if he does he's more likely to use other Pokémon.

If you see Svern relaying move orders to Andromeda as numbers, that's based on the index numbers of the moves (which I steal from Bulbapedia). I thought it'd be funny to do that.

Andromeda starts every battle by a precursory analysis of the opponent. This is inspired by Download; Download checks which of the opponent's defenses are stronger and boosts the offensive stat that will target the weaker one. Andromeda just expands on this a little. Then they adjust type via Conversion to one or a dual type which they deem appropriate. If they need to, they can adjust it again later. (This isn't strictly how Conversion or Conversion 2 work, but that's Svern's modded version of the move. So essentially, Andromeda can change type at will.)

Andromeda's base stats are the same as normal, but they can apply stat multipliers as they deem appropriate. It's either an extension of Download or an unlocked version of what Z-Conversion does.

Magic Coat can reflect incoming status moves and Recover restores HP. Theoretically there's the full-HP restore function that's ordinarily accessed through Z-Conversion 2 somewhere in there as well. Porygon-Z have access to a lot of stuff that's cool in theory but that ingame limitations can't adequately make use of.

(There's also the whole glitchy thing, which would limit a standard Porygon-Z evolved straight from the original Dubious Disc data [and one without additional patches applied].)

Anyway, why does Andromeda have these extra functionalities? Svern doesn't even care much about battling in his main verse. Andromeda doesn't access that stuff 90% of the time. It's because that's what happens when he's bored and wonders what he can get away with. Sometimes you just have an idea and you have to see if you can pull it off. If it's useful later that's a bonus.