Editing Field map encounter mechanics (section)

=== Manipulating the encounter table ===

Things change and become manipulatable when walking is introduced. If an encounter check happens while Run is not being held,  danger increases by only ¼ as much as it would if run were held. For real-time runs, this effectively means that walking increases danger less per battle check than running, meaning that walking will result in a more shallow rate of danger increase than running.

This is the encounter table representation of KartSeven's steproute's Reactor 1 up to Guard Scorpion. Notice that it only gets a single encounter this time because it uses walking in two places to reduce the rate at which danger increases, once on the 1st field and once on the 4th field. Just enough walking is done so, when the battle checks that had previously resulted in battles occur, the current danger value is low enough to fail to meet the required danger for this encounter threshold to trigger, and so no encounter occurs.
[[File:Stepgraph 2.png|center|thumb]]
Also note that the path taken by this encounter table is significantly longer than the path in the first encounter table. Specifically, since there is walking on the 1st and 4th fields, more of the encounter table is expended on these fields than in the example without walking. Because walking is slower than running but encounter checks still happen at the same rate when either walking or running, four times as many encounter checks are expended per unit of distance while walking compared to running. Therefore, to cover the same distance, more encounter checks must be spent, which means expending more of the encounter table.

In this way, the encounter table can be thought of as a resource that can be expended, along with time, to reduce your danger value and potentially avoid encounters by walking. Whether it is beneficial to expend or to not expend parts of the encounter table through walking depends on various factors including the layout of the current and future parts of the encounter table, your current encounter formation state, and many other factors.