The Pokemon Go Stardust Blast event is returning

Niantic have announced that the Stardust Blast event is returning to Pokemon Go on October 3.

The event will take place from 1pm PDT (4pm EDT and 9pm BST) on October 3 to 1pm PDT (4pm EDT and 9pm BST) on October 10, meaning the bonuses will last for one whole week.

Those bonuses are unsurprisingly Stardust related and are as follows:

• 2× Hatch Stardust
• 2× Catch Stardust
• 2× Stardust from Team GO Rocket battles
• Guaranteed 2,000 Stardust from raids

All of the above bonuses can be increased by a further 50% when using a Star Piece.

The Star Piece will boost Stardust returns by 50% for 30 minutes…

Hatch Stardust

The amount of Hatch Stardust you can earn depends on the distance of the egg. A 2km egg will give you 400 to 800 Stardust, a 5km/7km offers between 800 to 1,600 and 10km can give 1,600 to 3,200.

• Read More: Niantic react to Pokemon Go’s changed spawn points

This means that based on stardust-per-kilometer-walked, the 2km eggs will give you the most Stardust — if you’re one of those hyper efficient Pokemon Go trainers.

Catch Stardust

Most trainers will know that you earn Stardust every time you catch a Pokemon. What some of you may not know though, is it varies based on the Pokemon’s evolution stage.

A base evolution will earn you 100 Stardust, a second evolution 300 and finally, a third evolution 500. These all increase by 25% if you catch the given Pokemon with a weather boost active.

Team Rocket and Raid Battles

Elsewhere, the Stardust Blast event will give you 2x Stardust for battling Team Rocket, which means you’ll get 1,000 Stardust just for going up against those pesky Grunts.

There is also what is essentially a 2x bonus for raid battles. Once again, you’ll get 2x the Stardust but instead of having to defeat the Raid Boss, the Stardust reward is guaranteed, win or lose. This means you’ll earn 2,000 Stardust just for competing against a Raid Boss.

Comparisons to 2018 event

The fact that this event is “returning” indicates that there was a Stardust Blast event previously in Pokemon Go. This took place from November 6 to November 13 last year.

Were you lucky enough to experience the 6x Stardust that was possible during the Cyndaquil Community Day?

The bonuses were similar with the 2x Hatch and Catch Stardust, but omitted the now featured Team Rocket and Raid Battles bonus. The former is a given of course, considering Team Rocket only started to appear in the summer of 2019.

An interesting fact about the 2018 Stardust Blast event was it overlapped with the November 2018 Community Day (headlined by Cyndaquil). The 2x Stardust bonus from that event could be stacked on top of the 2x bonus from the Stardust event.

• Read More: Datamine suggests Galarian forms coming soon to Pokemon Go

This meant that not only was there a 4x bonus by default for nearly all Stardust earning activities, but this could actually be increased to 6x Stardust with the use of a Star Piece.

We doubt Niantic will be that generous again though…