Pokémon Scarlet and Violet players have been given a great way to get a wealth of items in The Indigo Disk DLC by using the Item Printer—and we’re here to tell you how to upgrade it.
The Item Printer in The Indigo Disk provides a whole range of rewards, including evolution items, Milcery Sweets, and even provides the potential for an infinite amount of Master Balls. To access the best features, however, you need to spend BP to upgrade it.
We’re here to tell you exactly how to do that, ensuring that you have the best chance of getting the best rewards.
How to upgrade the Item Printer in The Indigo Disk
To upgrade the Item Printer from The Indigo Disk, you must first use it multiple times and then talk to the Science Club Member. The first upgrade requires you to craft at the device a total of 30 times and then spend 200 BP.
The second upgrade is more expensive, requiring 80 total prints and 500 BP. The final upgrade requires 1,000 BP and asks you to complete the main storyline of The Indigo Disk by capturing Terapagos. These upgrades are largely for efficiency reasons, though all but the last one unlock a rare event that occurs when printing.
The Item Printer is a part of the League Club Room and can trade Pokémon materials for randomly generated items. The quality of the randomized items varies wildly, from small money items to Ability Patches or evolution items like Protectors. You can purchase the Item Printer from the League Computer for 200 BP. This is an excellent idea for endgame item farming.
Once you have the machine in your League Club Room, speak to the Science Club Assistant to interact with it. Talk with her to do everything related to the machine, but especially to upgrade it. Once you’ve used the Machine a set number of times, she’ll tell you that the Machine is ready to be upgraded. Then, select “I want to improve it” when she asks you what you want to do. Simple, right?
What does upgrading the Item Printer do?
The Item Printer has four tiers of upgrades, representing Normal, Great, Ultra, and Master Ball. Each upgrade tier grants you a small event-based bonus as well as greater efficiency. The upgrades are as follows:
| Upgrade | Cost to Upgrade in BP | BP Cost Per Print | New Event |
| Normal | 200 BP (Purchased from Computer) | Five | None |
| Great | 200 BP | Four | Double Item Drops |
| Ultra | 500 BP | Three | Poké Ball Lotto |
| Master | 1,000 BP | Three | Rarely Prints Stellar Tera Shards |
In addition to the cost per upgrade, most upgrades require multiple printing sessions to acquire. The item pool does not seem to change with each upgrade, except for the very last stage, which adds a single item. It simply becomes more efficient to print each time—both in terms of the number of items required to print and the BP cost.
That said, even at the Normal level, the Item Printer’s item pool is amazing. Golden Bottlecaps and Ability Patches are fairly common, requiring little BP investment. So, upgrading this printer can make these jackpots feel a lot better. Once you’re done upgrading your environments, that is.
At the Great Ball upgrade level (the first upgrade), you have a very small chance to get doubled item drops. When this event occurs, the Machine will light up and your next batch of printing will be doubled. This happens very rarely but is possible at Great Ball and beyond. We recommend printing a full batch of 10 when this occurs since you could double something huge, like an Ability Patch or Golden Bottlecap.
The Poké Ball Lotto has a very rare chance of occurring at Ultra Ball rank. During this event, the machine will spit out Poké Balls instead of the normal item pool. This is usually a bit of a shame, but you also have a chance to obtain exceptionally rare Balls like the Master Ball. You can also get rarely-used options like Heavy and Beast Balls, which are nice as a novelty. Once again, print 10 so you can maximize your chances of getting a Master Ball.
These two events are exceptionally rare. The community has calculated that the odds are one percent and 0.1 percent per item made, respectively, so don’t expect Poké Balls to rain down from the heavens with every crank of the lever. As much as we’d like a storm of Master Balls, even 10 pulls will only grant a 10 percent chance to double items—and a one percent chance to get Poké Balls.
At Master Ball Rank, no event is added to the list. But it is possible to print Stellar Shards, meaning you can kit out whoever on your team will be useful for Tera Raids or as a fascinating multi-type sweeper. That said, the Shards are added to a vast pool of items, so don’t expect immediate piles of Stellar Shards for your efforts.
When should you start upgrading the Item Printer?
Put the Item Printer higher on your priority list than most other items. You’ll be spending thousands of BP on this, so it might be better to first improve biodiversity and even consider special coaches. The Item Printer remains devastatingly efficient at its lowest upgrade point, so it’s not really necessary to upgrade it all the way until later on.
Getting the Item Printer to Great Ball level costs only 350 BP, which is relatively easy to scrounge together. At that stage, you have a chance to get double items and have a discounted crafting process. This is likely the furthest you need to upgrade the Machine until you’ve improved your biodiversity and can catch several important Pokémon, like the starters from previous generations.
That said, getting the Item Printer to maximum efficiency—if you don’t count Stellar Shards as efficient—only costs around 1,170 BP. That’s a third of the cost of improving biodiversity for a single region, and you’ll get some of that cost back by printing amazing items. It’ll take a while before you’re able to afford this cost, and you’ll need to spend some Pokémon Materials to get there. But your reward is quite large and will let you easily farm items for the future. Thank Arceus for that.
