This is a QoL hack I made after years of playing the vanilla game, with a few little tweaks to hopefully make the game just a tiny bit harder. Hopefully it feels like the vanilla game would in most places. Your vanilla EoS save WILL work on this, so don't worry about needing to start over. Savestates won't carry over from vanilla due to the difference in ROMs, though.


Pokemon specific changes:
Made Episode 4's Team Charm suck less.

Buffed the Dark Crater Cresselia to curb its Reviver Seed addiction.

Changed a few of the worst abilities on pokemon, like swapping Gluttony for Keen Eye on Zigzagoon. Nothing has Run Away.

Aegis Cave no longer needs Unown Stones. Rejoice!

The Wingull line is now a pile of EXP, hunt them down for levelups.

Mystery Part/Secret Slab legendaries have increased spawnrates and recruit rates.

Gen 6+ type chart, Bronzong is no longer a pokemon with zero weaknesses.

Torkoal has been given Drought.

Mew has Levitate.

Hoppip can float over water and the like now.

Quite a few Pokemon have better stats




QoL:
Text speed greatly increased.

Trap Avoider, Status Checker, and Lava Evader are all default IQ skills.

Leader switching enabled, you switch like you do in Rescue Team

Press Start to manually take your teammate's turns. Not recommended for normal use, recommended for boss/monster houses

Hold L and hit A/B/X/Y for your attacks, no need to set a move anymore

Experience gets distributed to benched party members.

A few minor text edits

Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe/Marowak Dojo

The stutter whenever you take damage from weather is removed

Life Seeds give +4HP

Same type Gummis, "not very effective" Gummis, and Wonder Gummis all give more IQ



Dungeons:
Water in the Golden Chamber has been dried up. Now you aren't forced to bring a watermon or a hovermon to get the chests.

Nectars have been placed in a few dungeons to make the IQ grind a bit less painful.

There are 2 guaranteed Blue Gummis in Craggy Coast.

Sky Peak is shorter, with more common Secret Stairs. (not that they're that important for grinding anymore)

Dark Crater Pit is shorter, because let's be real at this point you just want to get to the postgame.

Darkrai's got a new set of minions this time. Don't forget about hitting Start for manual control, as these minions are quite a bit more threatening.

Bottomless Sea is cut in half because I couldn't guarantee Kyogre joins and because water dungeons are bland as hell.

Sky Stairway now has buried items to make diving deep into the dungeon more interesting and rewarding.

Aegis Cave have been shortened because it's Aegis Cave.

Shimmer Desert has been made slightly longer to be closer in length to the other 7 treasure dungeons.

Greater item spawns in Marine Resort to aid IQ grinding, there's more than just cash in the walls too.

98F of Zero Isle South and 99F of Destiny Tower have had their item spawnrates jacked up, and good loot added to make up for the lack of good rewards. There's a few extra rewards in 99F ZIS's treasure room, too.

A few surprises have been thrown into dungeons here and there.

Exp gain enabled in Zero Isle North/Center. Zero Isle North has also been lengthened, and both dungeons given decent buried items.


Other changes:
Reflect/Light Screen buff your entire party

Ember/Vine Whip/Water Gun have a 2 tile range

Dragon Pulse is ranged

Confusion/Psychic cut corners

Many moves have slightly improved PP/Accuracy


Male:
Poochyena*
Mareep*
Pikachu*
Wooper
Murkrow#
Gligar
Cyndaquil*
Zigzagoon
Riolu*
Chespin*
Hoppip
Cubone*
Spheal
Anorith
Mudkip*
Gible


Female:
Piplup*
Drifloon
Vulpix*
Ralts*
Totodile*
Sneasel
Skitty*
Azurill
Mew
Chikorita*
Jigglypuff
Oddish
Ledyba
Mareep* (yes, it's in both)
Minccino*
Smoochum

All starters marked with a * are Fully Featured. This means they have no missing animations. I hope to one day have all of the starters fully featured.
Starters marked with a # have some new (non-sleep) sprites, but have some missing sprites, mostly having to do with the stockade scene.


Almost entirely different starters for boys/girls, Chespin being a new addition to the game. Choose your starter after being asked if you're a boy/girl. All new starters given portraits. Portraits taken from http://sprites.pmdcollab.org/index.html#home

Chespin sprites done by https://www.deviantart.com/ubernooga and https://twitter.com/Ernmuffin

Minccino sprites done by Baronessfaron

Most new starters have been slightly buffed from their vanilla counterparts, usually in the form of slightly better levelups or replacing useless moves with more usable moves, often these are egg moves. This has the side effect of making the pokemon of these species stronger as a whole.
Run Away is removed from Poochyena and Zigzagoon, replaced with Intimidate and Keen Eye respectively. Skitty now has Scrappy instead of Normalize. Hoppip/Oddish now learn Sunny Day via levelup as it's not a TM in the game.
Mudkip and Chikorita are the only vanilla starters with moveset changes, now learning Earth Power in the early 40's and Energy Ball in the late 30's




Known issues

I picked a starter but reset the game before I picked the partner, and I wasn't able to get past the New Game screen to get into the quiz again without deleting the save with nothing on it on the SD card. This was done in TwilightMenu on a 3ds and it's not the first time TwilightMenu has caused problems with a game.

The Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe disappears during specific events in the cafe, like the announcement of Shaymin Village. The Rock will reappear.

Cannot switch leaders in Mt Travail when going to see Drowzee, when in Azurill's Nightmare, when taken to Spacial Rift by Palkia, and in Dark Crater with Cresselia's escort. Only applies for the story-based runs.

As these are custom starters, some animations are missing. Most notably, the Stockade scene in the future. These may be fixed in...the future.

A Zigzagoon can be found inside of the Spinda Cafe Kangaskhan Rock at some points in the story.

If you save at the Kangaskhan Rock in Spinda's Cafe and then turn off the game/go to Top Menu, when you reload you'll be in the guild bedroom.

If you throw a Doom Seed at an enemy and then KO it, later on in the dungeon it's possible for some wild pokemon to level up several times, complete with a message about it. This might have something to do with the shared exp patch. For this reason, Doom Seeds were removed from almost every dungeon in the game.



1.1 Changes

-Upped Nectar spawnrates in a few dungeons, some floors in said dungeons have guaranteed Nectars.

1.2 Changes
-Upped initial enemy spawns in Ice/Rock/Steel Aegis Cave, made the layout smaller, and guaranteed a Nectar to make forced reruns hurt a little less.

1.3 Changes
-Added a Kangaskhan Rock into Spinda's Cafe.
-Made Wobbuffet's text calling out the color of the card you picked a tiny bit shorter
-Removed the duplicate "(pokemon) of (Team)!" text box when you make drinks for a recruit, as well as Wobbuffet's "That's right!" text box that accompanies drink making
-Removed a little bit of text from Xatu, allowing for the chests to be opened slightly faster
-Swapped more bad abilities out for abilities that aren't actively hindering. Nothing should have Run Away anymore.

1.4 Changes
-Tweaked Dark Crater's floor layouts to be a bit less cancerous
-Darkrai's new minions show up in the cutscenes now
-Removed Double Team from Darkrai's levelup moveset
-Tweaked random mission rewards, generally the rewards should be better now
-Changed the Tier 4 town Kecleon Shops (post-graduation) to have better items overall. Removed throwing items from the T4 pool entirely
-Added a Kangaskhan Rock into the Marowak Dojo
-Further sped up drink making in the Cafe.
-Made Dragon Pulse a ranged attack as opposed to "foe in front, cuts corners" and put it in Ampharos's levelup/TM learnset.
-Gave Water Gun and Ember their modern ranges, now they'll hit up to 2 tiles away and cut corners
-Vine Whip now hits 2 tiles away like Quick Attack
-Gave Ice Beam a few more PP
-Gave Roar of Time 1 more PP because it's only 4PP normally

1.5 Changes
-Made Flash Cannon a ranged attack
-Reflect and Light Screen now affect the entire party when used
-Changed around the tilesets and music in Zero Isle North so the entire dungeon doesn't use the same tileset/music
-Made the final floors of Shimmer Desert have a less cancerous layout
-Guaranteed that the Secret Slab/Mystery Part legendaries will join you when KO'd
-Halved the cost of Keys and made vitamins a bit cheaper
-Changed a few item spawn chances in the Kecleon shop, vitamins are now for sale
-Tweaked a few mission rewards, no more Heal Seeds in 5* missions
-Zero Isle West's 39f now has plenty of items.


1.6 Changes
-IQ fixes are finally here!
-Trap Avoider now has an IQ requirement of -1 and every single IQ group gets it, meaning all recruited pokemon start with it. Finally, no more watching your team conga line onto a PP-Zero Trap!
-Lava Evader's required IQ is now -1, meaning all pokemon will have it. No more watching your pokemon walk/fly into lava!
-IQ Group C gains Collector and Multitalent
-In addition to Trap Avoider, IQ Group E now gets Multitalent, Quick Dodger, Quick Striker, and All-Terrain Hiker, giving the group a few decent skills to work with now. It loses House Avoider in return.
-Multitalent's required IQ is changed from 310 to 400.
-House Avoider's required IQ changed from 800(!) to 450. The skill remains worthless, however.

-Gave female Sneasel portraits so that the protag/partner Sneasel actually has portraits.
-Slightly nerfed Pelliper's exp yield.


1.7 Changes
-Changed the storage limit of every single rank to 1000. No more getting screwed over mid-plot because you hit the tiny 200 item limit for Silver Rank.
-Further sped up ticket drawings in the Recycle Shop
-Made Ginseng's random "Lucky!" buff more likely.
-Reduced the damage delay on Burn from 50 turns to 40, and Poison's was reduced from 20 turns to 16.
-Threw in a few more surprises in dungeons here and there.
-Some moves now have higher PP/Power/Accuracy.
-Changed Rock Climb to Rock type.

1.8 Changes
-The cure for insomnia is finally here! You and your partner will finally sleep as opposed to running in place all night. Their evolutions also have sleeping animations as well, so if this was the main reason you didn't want to evolve, evolve away! Ironically, adding this for everyone made me lose sleep.

-Removed Unown ? and ! from the game to make room for Walrein/Gligar's sleep animations.
-Added Rain Dance to the Horsea's line levelup moveset
-Added Reflect/Light Screen to Bronzong's levelup moveset
-Added Screech to Honchkrow's levelup moveset
-Nerfed Mew's starting HP so it doesn't have nearly 70 HP at level 5. Also gave Mew Confusion at Level 5.
-Gave Zigzagoon Helping Hand at Level 1. Removed Odor Sleuth from its moveset.
-Hoppip now starts with the Egg Move Confusion.
-Replaced Tail Whip with Double Kick in Cubone's learnset.
-Made Spheal learn Powder Snow in the 20's, as opposed to level 1.
-Gave Azurill the egg move Aqua Jet to start.
-Added the egg move Razor Leaf to Oddish's moveset

-Fixed the bug where your partner would die and never come back if they died before you unlocked the ability to recruit

-Removed Wonder Gummis from the post-graduation Kecleon Shop, as they were bugged to never actually cost any money despite what the price said.
-Replaced the Golden Mask at the Master* rank with a Wonder Gummi.

-Floors 75F and deeper in Zero Isle South now have a mission difficulty rating of 9*. Also changed the music around in the dungeon.


1.9 changes

-The hack finally has an official name! PMD: Project Orion!
-Chespin is here! The first post gen 4 Pokemon added, Chespin replaces Chimchar in the starter selection menu. Chespin is in IQ Group D, and has its Gen 6 learnset. Chespin will spawn normally in Tiny Meadow. Sadly, it will be unable to evolve for the time being, as no sprites exist for its evolutions as of yet.
-Removed the Wingull Bow, now it is the Chespin Scarf. With it in the bag, Chespin has a chance of restoring a bit of PP when attacked.

-Turned the Normal Spawn Delay from 36 turns to 33
-Turned Belly loss from entering walls down to 4 per turn, letting you hunt for buried items a bit longer before needing to eat another Apple.
-Life Seeds now give +4 max HP.
-The textboxes for taking damage from Hail/Sandstorm have been removed. This also removes the abrupt stop forced upon you while the game prints the textboxes, allowing for smoother movement in bad weather.
-The textboxes for taking damage from Burn/Poison are removed. This doesn't prevent the damage animation, but it lags a little less. This also lets you continue running through halls without having to hit the D-pad again after the "hurt" animation. Be careful about running on a floor when hit by Toxic!
-Tweaked the Zero Isle West 39F item spawns so that the "rewards" aren't just a few thousand Poke and a ton of Apples.
-Removed Doom Seeds from many dungeons.

-Buffed Comet Punch's accuracy/PP
-Scyther's line now learns Wide Slash via levelup in addition to via TM.
-Ember and Vine Whip now have 20PP, matching Water Gun's PP.
-Buffed Seed Bomb and Bullet Seed's PP slightly
-Confusion/Psychic now have the "in front; cuts corners" range.
-Teleport's PP changed from 7 to 20
-Wide Slash's PP changed from 10 to 13
-Made Swift a ranged attack
-Changed some text for edited moves to accurately reflect the changes made

-Removed Deoxys from Temporal Spire (not that you see it in normal gameplay), replaced with a rare spawnrate Rotom.
-Gave Kakuna the revolutionary ability to move. Also added Poison Sting as a Level 1 move and did the same for Metapod and Tackle.
-Buffed Beedrill and Butterfree's starting stats
-Buffed the Articuno/Rayquaza/Giratina boss fights
-Mew now has Levitate as a second ability
-Changed the movement of the Hoppip's line to Hovering, allowing them to cross water and the like. Also slightly buffed its starting HP and early levelups.
-Gave Torkoal the Drought ability
-Added Buizel and Mudkip to Serenity River
-Fixed female Hoppip's stats so that they're equal to male Hoppip's
-Since Sandstorm's constant delays have been fixed, readded Hippowdon to Dark Crater

-Status Checker now has a required IQ stat of -1, meaning all pokemon start with it. No more watching a fresh recruit try to Thunder Wave an already paralyzed foe.
-All Gummis now give a minimum of +3IQ. Normally, something like a White Gummi used on a Ghost type would only give +1 due to Normal types having "little" effect on Ghost, but now it'll give +3.
-Same-type Gummis (Like Blue on Water Types) now give +8IQ instead of +5.
-Supereffective Gummis (such as Red Gummis on a Grass Type) give +5IQ instead of +4
-Wonder Gummis now give a whopping +25IQ, up from their original +15.

-Further shortened Xatu's dialogue. It's not by much but it adds up!


1.10 changes
-Minccino is here! No evolution like Chespin yet, but it comes packing heat. With Technician and Skill Link as its abilities, there's a lot to like here. Minccino replaces Clefairy in the starter selection list. Should you choose to pick another starter, you can find a Minccino in the first 5 floors of Happy Outlook.
-Minccino also gets the exclusive item, Tidy Bow! With this, you'll take almost no damage from explosions.

-Added a few new sprites to some of the starters.

-Removed the "[pokemon] is sleeping!" text from dungeons. Hard to tell if this speeds up sleeping or not, but it helps remove clutter from the Message Log.
-Shortened the text for Chansey's Daycare and both Kecleon Shops.
-Added HM's as a rare shop spawn in Post-Graduation Kecleon Wares.

-Removed Doom Seeds from Ice Aegis Cave and Spacial Rift


-Almost every Pokemon gets one Tutor/older gen-exclusive move somewhere around level 40-60, unless all they could get were useless moves or moves they already learn. Some of these moves can be pretty powerful, so keep an eye out. In general, the more useful/deadly the move, the later it'll learn it. This also makes enemy Pokemon found later in the game that much more threatening.
-Also, Ho-oh is given Healing Wish as a nod to its lore. The same goes for Deoxys and Tri Attack.
-Most evolutionary lines learn the same new move across the entire line. Exceptions to this rule include the Eevee line.

-Added Energy Ball to the Vulpix line's TM learnset.
-Added Cut to Zangoose's HM learnset
-Tweaked a few movesets with absurdly late moves to have said moves show up earlier (for example, the entire Eevee line learns useful moves extremely late compared to other pokemon, Jolteon now gets Discharge at 46 instead of 78(!)

-Added Rain Dish as Surskit's second ability.
-Swapped Truant out for Unaware on Slakoth/Slaking
-Increased the base exp yield of the Unown that drop Stones.


-Tri Attack's PP has been lowered from 17 to 13. To compensate, it is now a ranged attack!
-Lowered Power Gem's PP to 13, while making it ranged.
-Increased Water Spout and Eruption's PP to 8 and made them hit all enemies within a 1-tile radius.
-Increased Doubleslap's PP to 14
-Made Magical Leaf a ranged attack

-Buffed Primal Dialga's defenses. Come prepared!
-Buffed the escort Cresselia's stats even more


1.11 changes
-Aegis Cave is DEAD! Well, mostly. You no longer need ANY Unown Stones to clear the stone markers. Gone are the days of beating up Unown praying they drop the letter you need. Consequently, this means there is no reason to visit ice/rock/steel Aegis Cave outside of easy Nectars, but I seriously do not care at this point because this dungeon can go to hell for all I care. To the one guy out there that liked vanilla Aegis Cave and calls this soulless, too bad.
-Boosted Pelliper's chest droprate