The Mango Method

This method is for the player who does not reset, does not freeze to bring out monsters for special events and does not have unlimited funds (ie. hardcore monster ranching). It takes into account failures, cheats, injuries, etc. The only assumption is at least having about 15,000g to start. Items in inventory are not necessary, though the Hero Badge and Lump of Ice can be useful. While this method won't work for your very first MR2 monster, it will work for your second. Looking over the other methods posted, this one is superior in that 1 - resets are not necessary, 2 - any rancher can do this for about 500 a month, and 3 - any monster can do this method unless it dislikes mangos (haven't seen one yet, but you never know).

This method was designed based on the research posted at Monster Rancher Metropolis and my own experience. Many thanks to those efforts that made this possible - Dark Pheonix, Lisa, etc.

Acronyms - LD light drill, HD hard drill, RT rest, GO mango, ML mint leaf, NO nuts oil, Li lifespan index*

Stage 1 - the first three months

Wk 1 - any item, LD (10,5) Li 20
Wk 2 - GO (0,5), LD (10,10) Li 30
Wk 3 - ML (10,5), RT (0,0) Li 0

Magic bananna the very first week on the farm as the any item. Milk for food. Scold for failures/cheats and skip to Wk 3.

Stage 2 - four months to six months

Wk 1 - any item, LD (10,5) Li 20
Wk 2 - GO (0,5), LD (10,10) Li 30
Wk 3 - GO (0,10), LD (10,15) Li 40
Wk 4 - ML (10,8), RT (0,3) Li 6

Milk for food. Scold for failures/cheats and skip to Wk 4.

Converting to stage 3

Wk 1 - any item, HD (15,12) Li 39
Wk 2 - GO (5,12), LD (15,17) Li 49
Wk 3 - ML (15,9), RT (0,4) Li 8

Food is any liked except potato or milk, meat neutral is ok if fish and cup jelly is not liked. Do not scold for failures/cheats during Wk 2 but do so on Wk 1 and skip to Wk 3. This conversion process only goes long enough to get the week 3 (rest) to line up with week 4 of the month so that you begin stage 3 at the beginning of the month.

Stage 3 - 7 months on

Wk 1 - any item, HD (15,12) Li 39
Wk 2 - GO (5,12), LD (15,17) Li 49
Wk 3 - GO (5,17), LD (15,22) Li 59
Wk 4 - ML (15,11), RT (0,6) Li 12

Food is any liked except potato or milk, meat neutral if fish and cup jelley is not liked.
Errantries after 1 year old.
Wk 1 failure/cheat - scold, substitute Wk 2 with ML/RT, Wk 3 with Any, HD, Wk 4 Any, RT
Wk 2 or 3 failure/cheat - ignore. Will likely have to give SS during Wk 1 of following cycle.
Errantries substitute Wk 3 with ML/RT and send on Wk 4. Upon its return give ML/RT and substitute Wk 1 of the next month with any/RT and Wk 2 with any/HD. Buy tablets the next month if you can afford.

Battle Cycle - Wk 2

Wk 1 - any item, HD (15,12) Li 39
Wk 2 - GO (5,12), Battle (42,0) Li 42
Wk 3 - NO (14,0), HD (29,12) Li 53
Wk 4 - ML (29,6), RT (0,0) Li 0
or
Wk 3 - NO (14,0), LD (24,5) Li 34
Wk 4 - GO (14,5), LD (24,10) Li 44
Wk 1 - NO (0,10), LD (10,15) Li 40

Battle Cycle - Wk 4

Wk 4 - GO (5,22), Battle (42,0) Li 42
Wk 1 - NO (14,0), LD (24,5) Li 34

Battle Cycle - Wk 3

Wk 3 - GO (5,17), Battle (42,0) Li 42
Wk 4 - GO (32,0), RT (0,0) Li 0

Battle Cycle - Wk 1

Wk 1 - any item, Battle (37,0) Li 37
Wk 2 - NO (9,0), LD (19,5) Li 29
Wk 3 - GO (9,5), HD (24,17) Li 58
Wk 4 - ML (24,9), RT (0,4) Li 8

Expeditions - afterwards

Wk 1 - NO (52,0), RT (19,0) Li 19
Wk 2 - GO (9,0), LD (19,5) Li 29
or
Wk 2 - NO (0,0), HD (15,12) Li 39

Notes

The any item should be a smoked snake if style drops from even to soft. Most monsters will only require 3 to 5 smoked snakes throughout their entire lives. After that, form can be manipulated using ML/candy as necessary or ignored and changed with cup jelly/meat. Finally, GO goes well in here even if not neccesary. During the first year, the extra mango will help with loyalty. If on a tight budget though, the slot can be left blank. This training method will have loyalty in the 90+ range after the first year, nature as best, and the trainer as liked, at least that is my experience with more than a dozen monsters.

Cheat/failures will be rare after the first year except on 3 star drills and hitting old age. Greats will be common, as will gifts if the monster type is into them. Monsters that request items I give if I can afford to and it will not adversely affect if I cannot. The magic bananna the very first week will either net you an extra week of life, or 5-10 loyalty, which helps at the beginning.

Bad natured monsters will be more costly, the any item will be sweet jelly if nature slips to neutral, and smoked snakes to bring style back to even after it cheats/fails and you can't scold. You will get significantly fewer greats and lose skill points to cheats/fails. Best bet is to let it go to best natured and then change it to bad just before you want to send it to errantry.

Light drill should be Skill at first. When hard drills start, then focus on your best stats first, with an eye on what this monster will be used for (cash cow, expedition, breed stock, or rank raising). By the time you hit your second growth, a first gen will have at least two scores near 700. You can use your prime stat building time to raise the tougher to raise skills. Avoid 3 star heavy drills and instead use your light drills or alternate heavy drills to raise above 700.

Errantries should be done after the first year and before your second growth visible on the feeding screen. If this is a breed stock monster, additional errantries can be done when stat growth drops off due to old age.

Gold peach should be given 1 year after the second growth and the silver peach should be six months after that.

The monthly food will take care of any excess stress. Milk during the first six months has neither been proven nor disproven to be necessary. Like everything else in this method, I erred on the side of caution. Assumption is that you will win all battles except on errantries. Otherwise you should never have joined that meet to begin with.

Variation - if you have the money and lump of ice.

Wk 1 - any item, HD (15,12) Li 39
Wk 2 - GO (5,12), HD (20,24) Li 68
Wk 3 - NO (0,24), LD (10,29) Li 68
Wk 4 - ML (10,15), RT (0,6) Li 12

* - see Lifespan: Effect of Stress and Fatigue under the FAQ Most Important Game Data section.

Ok just glancing over this method, I see a mistake that I see pretty ofton. Your calculating your LifeIndex wrong. "Fatigue + Stress*2 = Whatever the number" The answer to this is what you calculate at the end of each week.

Also, to some of your "Superior" reasons for this method. There are already methods in the Methods Section which you could raise a monster for about 500 a Month. Some methods posted also need no or less reseting, and basically all of the methods can be used on any monster regardless of like and dislike.

And just a question, Whats the Hero Badge for? The hero badge works a bit on moving your monster towards best nature, you know that right? But if other using this method don't know that and just get a Hero Badge in the Inventory, lets say training a Joker, that would be a bad thing, which would make this a bit type/etc. method.

But I'm not the one to actually say all this, but we basically have a full methods section to fit everyones needs already.

Forgive me if I missed anything that I criticized above. I'm just trying to help you understand some concepts in order so you can make a better one or fix this one, etc.

My Li number is calculated at the end of the week, so I don't understand your statement where you see it as wrong. As it is listed, the Li number is actually the number for the beginning of the next week. A formatting issue, but the numbers are correct. The only part of the Li number not calculated is the effect of food, which this method eliminates as a concern. If you look at the week four listings, you'll see that -6 stress will zero them out, which is likes fish, likes jelly cups or neutral meat. That is assuming worse case scenarios for rest.

I do not see a method in the current methods list that a) has no item requirements, b) cost less than 500g a month and c) does it without resets because of failures/cheats/undersireable results. There are two entries there that come close but they suffer from life span loss, require lump of ice, or have hidden costs to them.

Hero badge and lump of ice were mentioned as the only two inventory items that help this method. This method however, works without them. A bad or worse monster can be raised with this method, it just cost more to maintain the bad (200 for the intermittent sweet jellies and 600 for snakes necessary after cheats/failures). The only time lump of ice is calculated is under variation, where it is listed as a requirement. That variation is a stage a rancher can grow into after raising one or two monsters this way.

I included the 'superior' statement as it was listed as a requirement to post. It was not meant to imply the current methods up there were bad. This method fills a niche I can see in your current listings. How to raise a second monster. If you could point out which method(s) currently do the same thing this method does, I would appreciate it. I spent some time going through the current methods before deciding to post. My method will take a zuum or arrowhead from the market and support it for 2+ years on 15,000g before it needs to start earning money. I can't see that being done with any other method currently listed, at least not with similar stat gains and no life loss. During that time it should be able to reach the point of being able to dominate the E/D classes and become a cash cow for more advanced ranching.

I wrote this method for the new rancher that has raised one monster and has a small bit of seed money. I tried to include enough detail to satisfy your requirements to post section.

Ok, I do see how you indicated your LI and I'm sorry for my correction, as I said, I was only glancing over.

Ok, now the first method I see, would be AznBeasts method. Azn does'nt mention any item requirements, and does not even mention resets. Also battles early to gain more cash, and uses less than 500 G a month. I doubt there is any lifeloss, because in some of his example monster, just his first Gen Kato, lived to 8 yr 3 months, with stats to easily beat the M-4. If this is one of your "exception" methods, than I highly doubt that.

I'm not going to go look throough all the methods, just to tell you if there is any difference in yours and current ones. And since you have read the requirements for posting new methods, you should see that Lisa, was not looking for any more methods unless its one that REALLY stands out. I hav'nt really noticed anything really new that we have not already known. Although your method is a good method and makes good sense and no life loss, it just repeats(with minor changes) the other methods in the methods section, meaning, that you will gain the same results using this method than AznBeast's, or any other one in there.

Also, Forgive me for my mistake corrections in the previous post, I was only glancing over this method, which I usually do all new methods, because of the number we've been getting lately its hard to read the whole method, everytime.

Azn does mention resets. It's how he avoids stress. My method is evolutionary, not revolutionary. I can't force you to post it, I can only state that it will outperform the ones currently listed given similar restrictions (limited cash, no constant resets and no items). His examples are long lived because they were peached, otherwise they would have been about a year younger with appropriately lower stats. Still very good numbers (amazing for what we knew at the time), but this method would beat it.

Ok, but the competition beween methods is stupid. Yours might outperform the methods give in regulations, but I would rather use a method from the methods section, that has been proven to work. Anyone can just come up with a mehod and post it. A big part is the actualy results. And apperently with this method the monsters get peached also, which does'nt make Azn's method any differnt from yours in performance, except his would still work better because (since you said) he does mention resets. I doubt anyone would mind reseting a couple of times and failing a couple,(but there are some).

And as far as this method goes in beating Azn's method and any other method, some proof would be nice. Because I'm not actually going to use this method and anyone else for that matter if I see some kind of backup from someone else or test proof. ok, Azn's Kato lived to 8 years something, with Maxxed stats, and gained about 200,000 G. Now thats proof. Can you show/make some? I doubt this method would take to long to finish training a monster with it....

Fair enough. Give me through Sunday. I need to raise an expedition peach finder, and then I'll raise the same Kato twice. Once following Azn's and once following mine. Will take longer though because I'll document as much as possible. I'll post final results here, and can email the data elsewhere to save space. My current monsters aren't so impressive because I don't reset for stuff like injuries etc. and I've been testing for scolding effects.

Ok great Br. Just post your results here when your all through. I don't think you have to worry about a time limit of finish.....

Just an update, this is my peach finder
Mundo - Tyrant(Golem/Dragon) age 8yr 1mo
660 Life
999 Power
999 Intelligence
568 Skill
74 Speed
480 Defense
59 w 7 l 49 ko 8 gave up - purse 94,900
Slap, Charge, Heavy Slap, Punch, Kick
Notes - experimented with soft trainer style during the first 3 months (don't do it, cost me 1 year of training and many smoked snakes) and he received his gold peach very late in life. Went on 4 expeditions and won 2 of the final 4. Could have been 3, but I don't reset. He cost 40,000 before earning a total of 105,000. He wasn't raised to be a battler, just wanted to see how he could do after his 4th expedition.

And this monster was raised using this Method?

Yes. I used the variation listed at the bottom of the mango method once loyalty hit 90 at 2yr 2mo and went back to the normal part once I started doing battles. Had I been trying for numbers, it could have been better. By letting style slip to soft in the beginning as an experiment, I struggled with cheats/failures for 2 years instead of just within the first year. I also maxed intelligence and power by the time I decided to battle with him. A battler I would have had those numbers lower and instead concentrated on other areas, to take full advantage of post battle increments. Finally, his gold peach was earned during his first expedition, so when used only put him back into stage 6 and 7 growth, not gaining a full year of stage 5.

AznBeast - using his method
Kato/Kato age 8yr 5mo 3wk
Lif 437
Pow 162
Int 997
Ski 941
Spd 954
Def 665
150 W 3 L 129 KO 16 forfeits purse 197,250
Cost 6,370 before net earnings of 218,670
Reset 28 times (4 for battles)
3 of the final 4

AznBeast - Mangoed
Kato/Kato age 9yr 7mo 3wk
Lif 707
Pow 188
Int 999
Ski 989
Spd 999
Def 968
128 W 1 L 107 KO 17 forfeits purse 199,900
Cost 18,860 before net earnings of 167,300
Reset 6 times (2 for battles)
Won the final 4 7 times and HOF (and dies the next morning).

These were off the same saved file, and are a first gen off the Boy Krazy music cd.

Note both methods have a flaw concerning smoked snakes. Neither should be use them until loyalty is close to 50. I had to completely restart 4 times before figuring out how to make Azn's method work. AznBeast's method you have to wait until actually starting to fight to use them, so your first few battles/errantries are at loyalty 50 (frustrating but winable). Never use more than one smoked snake per month. The mango method benefits with his tip about not using them if loyalty is greater than 85. If he's still around he should take into account what we know now of fatigue/stress and try to improve his method. I discounted his method because it has item requirements (Lump of Ice) and uses resets (I consider it cheating, but not everyone does). Both examples were peached according to the methods.

At the heart of Azn's method is a strategy that could be worked into a killer first monster method. Hind sight being 20/20, I could have beat his earnings by starting the S battles a year sooner and dieing six months sooner. It would have cost me maybe 200 points in stats.

I limited my funds to give AznBeast's method a chance, considering how little his costs. I'm now going through and applying the mango method with out fund restrictions. Should be able to come close on maxing 5 stats.

One last addendum to the mango method - I don't normally do errantries or use the variation until loyalty is above 70.

Next to test out fish/cup jellies/meat during the first six months to see if I can reduce some of those initial mint leaves...

i will stipulate to the fact that the mango method works better than azn-beast's. azn beast's method was great for its time - jan, 2000. it is now on our board for historical purposes only.

interesting work you are doing all the same, bladerunner.

Yeah, Blade Runner, Nice work there, turns out we got a method that is not breed specific and others who don't like to reset can use this.....

Good work.

"You cannot have the Mango!"
(sorry.. after 8 days i finally couldn't hold it in any longer)

Impressive results! Good work, Bladerunner.

Ranchers running short on cash should give this a look.
(Incidentally, long ago I called the Mango the "Poor Man's Nuts Oil". I believe this is precisely why the Mango is in the game.)