Bug Catching Contest

TL;DR: To win first place, save before your entry and go for a Lv. 15 Butterfree / Beedrill / Venomoth (Modified), a Lv. 14 Scyther / Pinsir, or a no-damage-caught Lv. 16 Venonat. Quit as soon as you catch one and see if you’re the winner. Soft-reset if you're not.

Mechanics

• First-place prizes are now relevant to times of day. (specials.asm)
  • Morning - Dawn Stone*
  • Day - Sun Stone
  • Evening - Dusk Stone
  • Night - Moon Stone
• Encounters now include Venomoth and Yanma. (bug_contest_mons.asm)
• The scoring system has been slightly updated (contest.asm, described below) with the IV bonus more intuitive than bitwise calculations in vanilla.
• The opponents are the same as vanilla. Watch out for Cooltrainer Nick earning {349, 357, 368} points! (bug_contest_winners.asm)

* Here's an oversight: there are no Pokémon who require the Dawn Stone in Polished, unfortunately. The prize will change to resolve this in the upcoming 9-bit Pokémon-ID update.

Scoring

Score = BasePoints + Bonuses, where:

• BasePoints = 4 * MaxHP + Atk + Def + SpAtk + SpDef + Spe (actual stats; make sure to count the Base Stats buffs!)
• IV Bonus: +6 for each 8+ IV
• Remaining HP Bonus: + floor ( RemainingHP / 8 )
• Item Bonus: +1 for a held item

The highest score in Modified would be Venomoth's 411 (= 368 + 6*6 + floor(50/8) + 1).

Note: The Shiny bonus is currently absent but will be added in future.

List by Base Points (Modified)

#	Pokémon	Catch Rate	Encounter Chance	MaxLv	MaxLv HP	MaxLv BasePoints
49	Venomoth	75	5%	15	46–50	329–368
15	Beedrill	45	5%	15	44–49	317–359
12	Butterfree	45	5%	15	43–47	315–352
123	Scyther	45	5%	14	43–47	315–352
127	Pinsir	45	5%	14	42–46	313–350
48	Venonat	190	10%	16	45–50	281–325
193	Yanma	75	5%	14	42–46	282–318
11	Metapod	120	10%	18	46–51	263–310
46	Paras	190	10%	17	38–44	259–308
14	Kakuna	120	10%	18	44–49	258–304
10	Caterpie	255	15%	18	44–49	253–300
13	Weedle	255	15%	18	42–47	247–294

Trivia

• Vanilla's complicated DV bonus points was intended to let the then DV-related Shininess fully earn the DV bonus.