Technologies

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: Best Way to Catch Shiny Pokemon

Catching shiny Pokemon is easier than ever in Scarlet and Violet… but still pretty hard

For eager Pokemon trainers, there are few things sweeter in life than encountering a shiny Pokemon. As fans have come to expect, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet feature shiny versions of the 400 critters featured in the games.But, as always, getting them isn’t easy.When Pokemon spawn in Scarlet and Violet, they have about a one in 4,000 chance of being shiny.

Those odds are no good. Thankfully, there are a few ways to make fortune smile upon you.

Two of them are only available in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s postgame, but one aspect can be harnessed from very early on.If you’re wanting to hunt shiny Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet, here’s what you need to know.

Pokemon outbreaks are key

Here’s the basic method of shiny hunting in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that you can do no matter how early in the game you are.

First, you need to look for Pokemon outbreaks. If you look on your overworld map, you’ll see icons of Pokemon scattered across Paldea. These denote an outbreak, where an area is swamped by the Pokemon in question. (Note that if you see a question mark on your map, it’s an outbreak of a Pokemon you’ve not encountered before.)

If you’re unsatisfied by the Pokemon on offer, you can rotate the selection by doing a dodgy move. Go into your Switch’s settings and change the date and time to be a day in the future. A new day brings new Pokemon outbreaks.

Say you’re after a Magneton, and you’ve found an outbreak in Glaseado Mountain. You now need to go about killing Magneton — lots of them. Press ZR to activate Let’s Go mode, at which point your lead Pokemon will come out of its ball, then seek and destroy. This is much more efficient than engaging Pokemon one by one in standard battles. Your odds of finding a shiny Pokemon go up once you kill 30 — and go up even more once you kill 60.

Make sure you keep a tally in your head, or your phone or computer. After you’ve downed 60 of a certain Pokemon, the odds of finding a shiny version of that Pokemon go from roughly one in 4,000 to just over one in 1,000.

Once you’ve killed 60, it’s shiny hunting time. Scope out the area for shinies. If there are none, setup a picnic and then pack the picnic up. Doing so resets the Pokemon in the area, giving you a new set of Pokemon in which a shiny may be lurking. Keep going until you find your prize.

It’s crucial to note that finding a shiny Pokemon often means closely inspecting it. There’s no shiny gleam around them in the open world, nor any sound or other stimuli that indicates their presence. It’s only once you initiate a battle with a shiny Pokemon that, during its opening battle animation, it’ll be shrouded in sparkles.

Shiny Elemental Boost	Sandwich Recipe
Shiny Normal Sandwich	1x Chorizo, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Fighting Sandwich	1x Pickle, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Fire Sandwich	1x Basil, 1xSweet Herba Mystica, 1x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Water Sandwich	1x Cucumber, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Poison Sandwich	1x Noodles 2x, Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Ground Sandwich	1x Ham, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Rock Sandwich	1x Jalapeno 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Psychic Sandwich	1x Onion, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Electric Sandwich	1x Yellow Bell Pepper, 1x Salty Herba Mystica, 1x Spicy Herba Mystica
Shiny Dark Sandwich	1x Smoked Filet, 1x Sweet Herba Mystica, 1x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Dragon Sandwich	1x Avocado, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Ice Sandwich	1x Klawf Stick, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Ghost Sandwich	1x Red Onion, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Steel Sandwich	1x Hamburger, 1x Salty Herba Mystica, 1x Sweet Herba Mystica
Shiny Fairy Sandwich	1x Tomato, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Bug Sandwich	1x Cherry Tomato, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Flying Sandwich	1x Proscuitto, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Grass Sandwich	1x Lettuce, 1x Salty Herba Mystica, 1x Sour Herba Mystica

This method works, and can be done early in the game. But your odds of finding a shiny Pokemon can dramatically rise once you beat the main storyline.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Tera Raids

If you’ve played Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for any length of time, you’ve surely participated in a few Tera Raids. These are key to hunting shiny Pokemon.Once you complete the games’ three main quests, you’ll gain access to five-star Tera Raids. In these boss encounters, you’ll take on level 75 Pokemon made even more powerful by their terastalized state, harnessing the chaotic crystal energy that flows throughout Paldea.

To maximize your odds of finding a shiny Pokémon, you need to collect Herba Mystica sandwich ingredients. Once you have the right combination, you can make sandwiches that boost your chances of finding a shiny Pokemon by 300%. To collect Herba Mystica ingredients, you need to compete five-star Tera Raids.

Unfortunately, Scarlet and Violet don’t exactly hand these out — I had to do about six of these high-level raids before I got my first Herba Mystica. Note that you can also receive Herba Mystica from six-star Tera Raids, which you unlock after beating all Paldea gym leaders for a second time and winning the Academy Ace Tournament, but your odds of getting them don’t seem higher. So it’s best to stick to the easier (but still hard) five-star Tera Raids.

To give yourself a good chance at succeeding in these five-star Tera Raids, you’ll want a crew of Pokemon around levels 80 to 90. Head to the Delibird Presents shops around Paldea and collect items designed to be held in battle. Especially helpful are the Choice Band and Choice Specs, which greatly enhance your attack and special attack, respectively, and the Metronome, which empowers a move if you do it several times in a row.

Once you’ve completed a few of these five-star Terra Raids, with luck you’ll collect some Herba Mystica. They come in several varieties — sweet, salty, spicy and so on. If you make a sandwich with the right combination of ingredients, you’ll boost your rate of encountering a shiny Pokemon by 300%. The catch is that each recipe correlates to an element of Pokemon. So for instance, I wanted to hunt for a shiny Magneton, which is an electric-type Pokemon. So I created a sandwich that boosts the likelyhood of finding a shiny electric Pokemon.

And to boost your odds of finding a shiny Pokemon even more, you can use the Shiny Charm item. But to get this, you have to first complete your Pokedex by catching all 400 Pokemon in Paldea. If you’ve caught all Scarlet and Violet’s Pokemon, speak to Jacq in your school’s biology lab to get the shiny Charm.

Outbreaks and sandwiches

Now it’s time to put it all together. Once you’ve found an outbreak and killed 60 of the same Pokemon, it’s time to shiny hunt in earnest. First, pause the game, go into options and disable autosave. Then, manually save your game. Finally, craft your sandwich using your precious Herba Mystica ingredients.

Sandwich buffs in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet only last 30 minutes. The reason you’re disabling autosave and then saving before making the sandwich is so that, if you don’t encounter a shiny Pokemon within 30 minutes, you can close your game and reboot it before you used your scarce Herba Mystica resources. If you fail, you can then reset it to after you’ve killed 60 Pokemon, meaning you won’t have to go through that laborious task again.

As you’ll see once you put your sandwich together, you’ll get a 3x buff for sparkle Pokemon of a certain type (see image above), depending on the recipe you used. Now it’s time to employ the same method above: Search the area for Pokemon, reboot the Pokemon in the area by setting up and closing down a picnic, wash, rinse and repeat until you find your shiny.

The hardest part is collecting Herba Mystica from the five-star Tera Raids. Once you’ve done that, you can usually find a shiny Pokemon around an hour if you follow this method. Good luck!

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Sept. 6

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 6.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword is extra-long, as usual on Saturdays. And a couple of the clues were stumpers! Need answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: U.S. prez who served four terms
Answer: FDR

4A clue: Hurry, in Shakespearean English
Answer: HIE

7A clue: Only country to have a musical instrument (the harp) as its national emblem
Answer: IRELAND

9A clue: Big name in rum
Answer: BACARDI

10A clue: She holds the record for most #1 Billboard hits by a female rapper (5)
Answer: CARDIB

11A clue: Ancient time-tracking device
Answer: SUNDIAL

12A clue: Ctrl-___-Del
Answer: ALT

13A clue: Opposite of SSW
Answer: NNE

14A clue: Used to be
Answer: WAS

15A clue: Jupiter or Saturn, primarily
Answer: GAS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Small lie
Answer: FIB

2D clue: Whom Count von Count of «Sesame Street» is a parody of
Answer: DRACULA

3D clue: Takes back, as testimony
Answer: RECANTS

4D clue: 1920s U.S. president
Answer: HARDING

5D clue: Home to the W.N.B.A.’s Fever
Answer: INDIANA

6D clue: Weed gummies
Answer: EDIBLES

8D clue: Cooking grease
Answer: LARD

11D clue: Observed
Answer: SAW

Technologies

Researchers Discover 18 Popular VPNs Are Connected: Why This Matters

All are owned by 3 separate groups but CNET’s recommended VPNs are not on the list

Virtual private networks are popular ways to keep your online activity private and hide your physical location from your internet service provider and apps. But it’s obviously important to choose a safe and secure VPN.

Three university researchers have discovered that 18 of the most widely used VPNs have shared infrastructures with serious security flaws that could expose customers’ browsing activity and leave their systems vulnerable to corrupted data. These VPNs are among the top 100 most popular on the Google Play Store, comprising more than 700 million downloads.

Read more: Best VPN Service for 2025: Our Top Picks in a Tight Race

The peer-reviewed study by the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium found that these VPNs, despite calling themselves independent businesses, are actually grouped into three separate families of companies.

None of CNET’s recommended VPNs — ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, Proton VPN and Mullvad — are on the list. (If you currently don’t have a VPN, here’s why you might want to start using one.)

According to the findings, these are the three groups that contain the 18 VPNs:

Family A: Turbo VPN, Turbo VPN Lite, VPN Monster, VPN Proxy Master, VPN Proxy Master Lite, Robot VPN, Snap VPN and SuperNet VPN
Family B: Global VPN, Inf VPN, Melon VPN, Super Z VPN, Touch VPN, VPN ProMaster, XY VPN and 3X VPN
Family C: X-VPN and Fast Potato VPN

Researchers determined that the VPNs in Family A are shared between three providers linked to Qihoo 360, a firm identified by the US Department of Defense as a Chinese military company. The VPNs in Family B use the same IP addresses from the same hosting company.

Know your VPN’s parent company

It’s a cautionary tale about why it’s important to know who’s behind the VPN you’re using, says CNET senior writer Attila Tomaschek.

«It’s also crucial to know what kinds of data the VPN provider is sharing with its parent company and affiliated entities,» Tomaschek said. «Some of these companies may even be compelled to log customer activity and share it with authorities, depending on the jurisdiction in which they operate.»

Despite the warnings, Tomaschek says it’s not so easy to figure out who controls your VPN. But he says there are measures that customers can take.

«Users can do a few things to help ensure the VPN they’re using is reputable,» Tomaschek says. «Check the privacy policy — specifically for terms like ‘logging,’ ‘data sharing’ or ‘data collection.’ A Google search of the provider can help determine whether the VPN has been involved in questionable activity. Read detailed, unbiased reviews from reputable sources. Be especially wary of signing on with a free VPN, even if it’s listed as a top choice in your app store.»

The PETS researchers examined the most downloaded VPNs on Android, looking for overlaps among business paperwork, web presence and codebase. After identifying code similarities, they were able to group the 18 VPNs into three groups. The study was initially spurred by VPN Pro’s own findings, «Who owns your VPN? 105 VPNs run by just 24 companies.»

CNET’s Tomaschek has advice for anyone who has been using one of these 18 VPNs.

«I’d recommend deleting it from your device immediately,» he said. «If you suspect that any sensitive personal data may have been compromised, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your credit report and look into services like dark web monitoring or identity theft protection.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Sept. 6, #348

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Sept. 6, No. 348.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition was a stumper. But if you play cards, the green group is a fun one for sure. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Racket time.

Green group hint: Ante up!

Blue group hint: NY signal-callers.

Purple group hint: Coach’s CV.