X:/SUIT/SYSTEM32/STARTUP.EXE

Thank you for using the MK005 Space Helmet.

Pre-included with this helmet is a manual detailing everything you need to get started and increase your odds of survival. Initializing...

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Hello!

This guide is here to assist you in your fight against the unknown and ensure you succeed with your mission. Please feel free to reference as needed, and good luck!

ㅤ
You do not need to remember everything. Focus on your mission. Do not fail.

First booting up the game will have you floating around aimlessly until space lightning electrocutes your suit and you're immediately in your first run. First lets get acquainted with the stats currently in our vision. In the bottom left, you can see how many enemies you've murdered, how many enemies make up the current horde, your current XP and how much is needed for your next level up, and your exact X and Y coordinates. Your coordinates are extremely accurate and tracked to precision. These may be of use in the future, but for right now you don't need to worry much about them.

The top of your screen shows how many blackholes you currently have. You start with 3 blackholes that can be used with spacebar. Using a blackhole will grant you temporary invulnerability as well as suck in nearby bullets and enemies. Bullets absorbed will be shot back out at the nearest enemy.

In the bottom right you'll see ANTILAG, which essentially turns off certain effects to save on your computer's resources. ANTILAG automatically increases if your FPS starts decreasing, though it can be manually set at the bottom of the pause menu. Lastly, the top right of your screen will denote how much time you've spent in your current run and the top left is your Mortality level. Mortality is a measure of how long you've stayed alive during hordes/boss battles and will begin increasing each time you enter a sector.

In each corner of your screen, you'll be given one of four sectors to choose from. The number below a sector icon is the distance you are from it. To select a sector, move in its general direction until its name pops up. The skulls above a sector's icon represent its general difficulty level and the creature inside a sector's icon is the enemy that sector adds to the spawn pool. Once selected, that enemy type will continue to spawn throughout your run.


Sectors with a red icon contain modifiers, which provide somewhat of a buff with a trade off. Modified sectors will also have an extra skull above it's icon. When selected, the modifier's rules will be listed below the sector's name. Below are two examples that you may encounter.

[SHRINKAGE ZONE]
In this sector, enemies will be much smaller and move faster than their normal sized counterparts. However, your weapons and bullets will also travel much faster than before.

An undying, horrific force patrols the area.
A ghostly force will spawn in this sector that will instantly kill enemies and you when touched. Be extremely cautious to prevent an accidental death; since it's already dead you can't kill it and most items are ineffective on it.

Your DEFAULT.suit comes equipped with the automated defense system CORE. CORE fires small bullets towards your mouse cursor that deals around 10 damage per hit. When an enemy is hit it will immediately drop XP as well as when it has been defeated. Simply float close to the XP and it'll automatically be added to your XP pool.

You have a pickup.radius that will occasionally be shown as a green circle around you, XP will need to be within that circle to be picked up. There is an option to have your pickup.radius shown at all times under the Options menu.

Your suit also has the ability to SNEAK by holding the Shift key. This will allow you to move slower through space and see your exact hitbox in your center mass.



Each level up you'll be given three different options to enhance the hardware on your suit. Hovering over an upgrade will give you the exact code it uses and will need to be deciphered to determine how it works. Below are a few examples of upgrades with a short explanation of how they work; selecting an upgrade will unlock it in your Collection where the stats and usage of each upgrade can be viewed. Leveling up will also pause the action, so you can take your time without worrying about getting hit.

Of note, leveling up does not increase your damage universally and your stats/weapon damage can only be increased by selecting a weapon or item from the upgrade menu or through drills, which we'll touch on later.

Energizing Battery
This simple yet effective upgrade will increasethe projectile speed of all your weapons by 10%, which includes your Core bullets.


Missile Pack
The Missile Pack will launch a missile towards the nearest enemy every 2 seconds. Once the missile hits, it will explode for 45 area of effect damage. Damage and the amount of missiles increase with each upgrade.


Injection
Investing in this odd syringe will increase your weapon size by 10% with each upgrade. This pairs well with weapons that don't increase their size with each upgrade or with weapons that surround you.


Eye2
Eye2 continuously fires a piercing laser in the direction of your mouse cursor and deals damage equal to how many time its been upgraded. The size of the laser will increase with every upgrade as well.




While selecting an upgrade you'll also notice the Body Report section to the right, this screen provides details on your current stats and your currently equipped upgrades.



The large body diagram shows the mechanical parts of your suit in blue and the remaining organic parts in red. Each upgrade will be equipped on your suit in one form or another and will be shown here as a hardware enhancement.



Below the Body Report is your System Status, which shows each of your central stats. Vitality is your max HP, Velocity is your movement speed, ATK Size is the size and scale of your weapons, Pickup is the size of your pickup.radius, Cooldown is the amount of time it takes each weapon to activate, and PROJ Speed is the speed of your weapons and their projectiles. Some of these can be modified with upgrades like Injection or Energizing Battery, though you'll find there are a variety of ways to affect these stats as you progress.



To the left of your Body Report are more in-depth stats such as the speed you're currently moving at, your chance to crit an enemy, chance to apply an elemental effect, and how many hits you've taken. Poison, Fire, Ice, and Shock chance start at 0% but can be increased with various upgrades, such as the Plague Mask, to add a chance for every weapon to inflict said status condition.


XP_MOD is the multiplier to every XP you pickup, for instance if your XP_MOD is 150% you'll receive 1.5 times the amount of XP picked up. At the moment Dodge, ADD_DMG, Drills, and Overdrive are not relevant but will be explained later.

The last stat and arguably the most important is your MAX items. You can infinitely stack each individual upgrade, however by default you are only able to have 12 different upgrades equipped at once during a run. Once you pick an upgrade, this limit will be shown next to your System Status as well as how many items you currently have, their DPS and their kill count (if applicable).

You can return to this screen at any time by holding TAB, which will slow everything down to a pause for you to review your stats.

There are 4 types of enemies you will always encounter in a run regardless of which sectors are chosen. These 4 all start in their basic forms but as you progress further into a run they will begin to change forms into slightly different versions with higher stats.

obj_enem_soul
Idle energy of the universe that's been given sentience for a single task: kill you. It starts with 100 HP and is moderately slow. These are your most basic enemy and shouldn't cause much trouble unless pushed into you by other faster creeps.


obj_enem_glove
Creeps controlled by a higher power, their most impressive stat is their move speed. Their low health pool of 30 makes them easier targets to kill but can easily overrun the unprepared. Take care of them quickly.


obj_enem_fish
These odd creatures stand out among the bunch and are quite dangerous. Their HP is moderately higher at 150 and will charge at you when close. If underestimated, they can take a bite out of you or shove creeps into you.


obj_enem_skull
One of the most dangerous normal enemies, their HP starts at 100 and they move moderately fast. The most frightening aspect about them is that they can split into two lesser skulls upon dying, prolonging the vengeful spirit's life for a bit longer.


Auto_Aim
You can enable auto_aim by pressing CTRL. This mode will auto-lock on to the nearest enemy and list their name and coordinates below them. If there are no enemies, the reticle will rotate around you and continue scanning until an enemy exists to target. While somewhat useful, auto-aim is NOT aimbot and erratic enemies can be difficult to hit in this mode. Auto_aim will also not lock-on to space junk.

While surviving onslaughts of enemies you may come across a variety of items, many of which have properties that are not immediately apparent. Items (excluding Space Junk) also do not despawn when off screen, just be sure not to lose track of them!

Floppy Disk
Collecting this item will immediately give you a level up, regardless of the amount of XP needed for your next level. Usually dropped by bosses, they can be found through other means discussed later.

Blackhole
Picking up one of these will add it to your pool of blackholes at the top of your screen. If you pick one up while carrying your max blackholes already, it will instead be used immediately.

XP Canister
These canisters spawn when more than 1500 XP is located in a small area to declutter your screen by collecting all the XP dropped near them. Once picked up, they'll reward you with every XP they've collected. These can also be turned off in the settings.

Chain Grenade
Small, red, and incredibly powerful, this grenade will provide you a small amount of invincibility and cause an explosion shortly after being picked up. This will destroy all enemies nearby and other creeps close to those destroyed in a chain reaction.

Magnet
Picking up a magnet will magnetize all XP towards you, regardless of range. Extremely useful for picking up large amounts of XP you may have left behind when fleeing a boss or hordes of enemies.

Reroll Dice
These dice give you +1 reroll to your next level up. Rerolls will persist if not used when leveling up, though rerolls gained through picking up this item will not be refreshed after defeating a boss. Use them wisely.

Space Junk
Space Junk comes in a variety of forms such as a small broken satellite or large space rocks. These floating pieces of junk usually contain a small amount of XP, but can contain any of the above items. Keep an eye out and destroy them for some extra loot!

After reaching 5 Mortality, you'll receive an Incoming Transmission message. Enemies will no longer spawn and you'll get a small moment of reprieve, I highly recommend leaving a few enemies alive, if possible, to gather up any stray XP or pickups you may want to collect. Destroying the last enemy in the horde will answer the transmission call.

Transmission received, unknown entity detected. Performing scan.

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Scan complete. Compiling details.


Name: Izu
Nickname: Gremlin

Rabbit that likes to "play" by engaging in space combat. Utilizes infinite blue bullets that deal 10% damage to suit.

Follows strict bullet patterns. Initially will encircle foes while throwing bullets before moving away and tossing volleys of bullets in circular patterns. Recommend maneuvering towards Gremlin to give more time to dodge upcoming attacks at this stage.

If the above isn't sufficient to kill adversary, Gremlin will summon purple bullets to surround themselves. Get in close and use SNEAK to dodge. Stay to the sides or below, as Gremlin will maneuver upwards after two revolutions and begin volleying bullets from above instead. If all attacks are unsuccessful, Gremlin will repeat from the beginning until foe perishes.

See below for examples.





After defeating a boss, they'll explode into large pools of XP and occasionally some items. You'll then be given 4 more sectors to choose from and continue on your mission. The first time you defeat a boss you'll also receive a USB stick. These will unlock a memory which can be viewed at the end of your run.

USB sticks will drop only the first time you defeat a boss if no other USB sticks have been dropped that run. If you manage to defeat more bosses for the first time in the same run, they will not drop their respective USB sticks. They will still be "collected" and can be viewed in the Loadout screen along with any you've already collected.

There are various types of bullets utilized by different enemies each with their own properties. Blue bullets fly in the pattern they are set to and are the most common type used. Purple bullets generally have a fade-in period and won't cause a hit immediately, though once fully faded in they will damage you. Green bullets stay on your screen for the duration of a fight. Orange bullets are slow at first but accelerate towards you if close. Shy away from Orange bullets or quickly maneuver past them.

X:/SUIT/SYSTEM32/CMD.EXE
Heartbeat Ping?
Pong.
Heartbeat Ping?
Pong.
Condition stabilized.

After beating a run or dying you'll be taken to the main menu. Here is where you can spend skill points accrued by collecting XP, check your Collection for Challenges, the bestiary, and weapons, or configure your next run.

Loadout
Here is where you'll be spending skill points earned through gained XP throughout a run. In the top right is your current XP bar which shows your current and total skill points. To purchase a perk, simply click on the perk you want and it'll become activated. Only perks that are connected to a currently owned perk can be purchased. To begin your perk tree, you will need to purchase the RGB Genetics perk in the middle of your screen.

Next to your XP bar in the top right are the numbers 1-4, these represent your loadout slots. These slots can be used if you don't wish to remove your current setup of perks in favor of trying new ones. It isn't apparent at first, but you do have a cap as to how many skill points you can accrue and you will NOT be able to gain all perks at once. Below is a list of a few highly recommended perks to get started.

Meal To Go
If you're having difficulty and getting hit a lot, this perk is a must-have. Each boss you defeat will drop 3 health pickups in addition to their normal loot. This also grants access to a health-focused perk tree that works to keep you alive and provide other uses for your HP besides living.

Remnants Of What Was
This perk allows statues to spawn in each sector you visit. Statues are powerful game changers that can modify how much XP you gain, your max items in a run, and much more. There are also some specific statues with special uses that are not immediately apparent...

Driller Enhancements
This lies just below the Remnants Of What Was perk and can be considered one of the most important perks in the game. Defeated bosses will drop a drill that generally has a powerful buff with a catch, for instance your XP_MOD will increase by 5% and your max HP will be decreased by 15.

Spaghettification
You may be tempted to hoard your blackholes for a "rainy day", but with this perk you'll be rolling in them! With this perk, each boss you defeat will drop a blackhole pickup. The perk tree this unlocks also focuses on buffing said blackholes and increasing their usefulness and versatility.

Reroll #1/Ban #1
Rerolls will have you spawn with 1 reroll die. This reroll can be used on items gained from upgrading and the previously mentioned drills. Using a reroll will shuffle all three weapons/drills and cannot be undone. Rerolls will refill after every boss battle but can also be found as a die pickup and used at statues for various buffs.
The associated perk tree offers even more rerolls but also introduces bans, which can be used to ban an item or weapon from showing up later in your run. Rerolls/Bans refill and stack after every boss defeated if not used. However, drills cannot be banned.

After reaching 25 skill points, your XP bar will be maxed out and you'll have the option to Prestige. Hold down left click on your XP bar to prestige into the next level, this will reset all your gained perks and skill points but will give you one extra point per prestige level and one per Overdrive level, which will be discussed later. You'll also gain +10% XP gained per prestige level permanently, though this only applies to your total XP at the end of a run and not your XP_MOD. You can peruse around the loadout screen for what other perk trees offer and experiment to find your best play style.

At the very bottom, you may notice an odd perk named Amnesia. Next to this perk will be where your collected USBs reside and can be used to replay any memories you collect. The perk itself, however, is no longer used and shies away from your cursor infinitely.


Collection
Here you can browse challenges to complete, your overall stats, upgrades, and enemies you've encountered. I would recommend not worrying about challenges yet, but after getting used to the game's mechanics and general gameplay loop they make for extra goals to strive for. This will also be your primary way of unlocking new items.

Under upgrades, you can check each upgrade you've equipped to see a general description of what it does and what each upgrade will entail, as well as your damage/kill count and how many times you've picked it. The Enemies section provides the exact HP/movement speed values for enemies. If an enemy has multiple forms, you will be able to see it here.

Daily/Monthly Run
A Daily and Monthly run will also become available to you, offering a chance to compete with others in various leaderboard stats within a set seed. Notably however, you are only able to have 30 perks equipped at once when attempting these runs. You are able to earn achievements and complete challenges in these modes, and there is an achievement associated with attempting a Monthly and completing a Daily run.

Beyond the few perks you have available to start with, there are many much more powerful perks at your disposal that can completely change the way you handle yourself in a run. Perks listed here are further down their respective perk trees and will list their requisite perk(s) before being able to acquire them.

Eating Green
Prerequisites: Meals To Go > Space Sticky Tape
Ranking among the most powerful of perks, Health Vials will now grant you 6 seconds of immortality when picked up. These can be stacked for even longer periods of immortality.

Echo Formation
Prerequisites: Remnants Of What Was
Each sector with a modifier will now spawn two statues instead of one. The sector icons will only show one statue; the second statue will be entirely random and cannot be predicted before moving into a sector.

Pickup Line
Prerequisites: Magnetosphere
A line will be drawn from your suit to all items and statues regardless of distance. In combination with Eating Green you won't ever lose track of any stray Health Vials, but it is also useful in seeking out statues that may have strayed off screen.

Gaiden
Prerequisites: Marathon
This perk increases your Dodge chance with each boss defeated Flawlessly, meaning taking no damage during their battle. Dodge is the percentage chance that when hit you will Dodge the attack and take no damage.

Nitrous
Prerequisites: Black Atomization > Plan and Execution > Overheat
Your ADD_DMG stat increases by 1 with this perk. This applies to all your weapons, and the only other way to increase your ADD_DMG is through the Liquidity: DAMAGE perk in this skill tree and Strength is Power in the Meal to Go perk tree.

During your first run you won't come across statues, but once you acquire the Remnants Of What Was perk you'll have access to many run-altering effects. Generally, statues will ask for something in a thought bubble to the left in exchange for an upgrade or item in the right thought bubble, though not all statues are clear. Experimenting with these different statues sounds scary, and it is, so compiled below are the details of a few you may want to look out for and their effects.

Statue of Trade
This strange-looking statue will take one blackhole in exchange for the item in the right thought bubble. The items will be cycled through randomly and this statue can be used repeatedly as long as you have the blackholes to spend. This is a great way to stack a few Floppy Disks or Health Vials and, when paired with the Eating Green perk, can be an easy source of temporary immortality.


Statue of Potential
Approaching this statue, an assortment of red skulls will encircle it. These red skulls signify that a statue will inflict curse on you if activated. This specific statue will increase your upgrade limit in a run by 1 (from 12 to 13) and can be used up to 3 times before disappearing, each use will increase your Curse.



Statue of Consequence
It may not be apparent what this statue is asking for in exchange for a floppy disc, but activating it will increase the next boss's HP by 10% and Damage by +10. These buffs will only apply to the upcoming boss, and subsequent bosses will not be affected. It's highly recommended you avoid this statue for the most part, as a single Floppy Disk is not worth the extra damage and HP the boss can inflict unless you're feeling extremely confident. Interestingly, it can only be used 4 times in one sector before floating off.

Your Curse stat (shown at the bottom of your screen once above 0%) will increase by 1% after interacting with any statue with red skulls surrounding it. Curse directly increases a boss's HP by your Curse percent (i.e. if you have 5% Curse all bosses you encounter will have 5% more HP). However, your Curse percent is also the percentage chance all 4 basic enemies will spawn as a cursed version of themselves. Cursed versions have vastly increased health, speed, and size and are exponentially harder to deal with. I recommend avoiding Curse altogether if possible, though we'll discuss these cursed enemies if you're brave or confident enough to accept these drawbacks.

Cursed Soul
No longer resembling their previous form, their increased health make them a worthy adversary. These, along with all 3 other cursed versions, should be dealt with immediately, as their higher health pool makes them noticeably more difficult to dispatch.

Cursed Glove
Its speed is drastically increased and will often shove through other enemies to get to you. This coupled with its increased size and much higher health pool make it an absolute force to be reckoned with. Consider upgrades that slow or halt enemies in their place to negate this speed boost.

Cursed Fish
The silliest but second most dangerous enemy thus far. Similarly to the above, their HP scales to be much higher than normal and their increased hitbox makes them a menace to dodge especially in groups of enemies. Their dash move has a much increased range; be on high alert and prepared to dodge or quickly use a blackhole.

Cursed Skull
Keeping in line with being the most dangerous basic enemy, the cursed version is absolutely no joke. Not only does it have increased HP like the rest, it retains the ability to split into lower-level skulls on death. These lower-level skulls CAN spawn as a cursed skull, quickly overrunning the unprepared.

Beat your first run? Not sure what to do or where to go next? This section's here to give you a few pointers to easily missable secrets, oddities, or general progression guidelines.


Movement
Your speed is 6 MPH under normal circumstances, however when moving diagonally your speed increases up to 12 MPH. This can grant you a quicker getaway and prevent you from being surrounded simply by moving diagonally instead of straight up and down/left and right.


Challenges
Completing challenges will net you a large amount of upgrades and weapons to choose from. Usually there's a challenge for stacking at least 8 of an item which can easily be done with Rerolls and Bans, though the more difficult challenges can unlock new Suits that allow you to start with different stats, weapons, and upgrades than your DEFAULT.suit. One that's relatively simple to unlock is the TANK.suit by taking 50+ hits and finishing a run. Use perks that involve buffing health vials to accomplish it easily.


Floppy Disks
As mentioned previously, Floppy Disks immediately level you up once collected. However, it is important to note that if you collect a floppy disk it will only provide you just enough XP to reach your next level up, meaning if your XP bar is 90% full and you collect a floppy disk it will instantly level you up with a fully depleted XP bar. Consider only collecting these right after leveling up to maximize their potential.


Statues and Chain Grenades
Statues can be blown up with a well-timed chain grenade if it goes off within a statue's radius, granting you a floppy disk and applying 0.25% curse. If you time it well, you can use a statue then blow it up before it floats away to get an extra buff. Be wary however, as some statues are best left alone unless you're well prepared...


Overdrive
Once you beat your first run you'll gain access to Overdrive. This allows you to select your Overdrive level which increases enemy HP, speed, and horde count in return for XP being worth 8% more. Each time you beat an Overdrive level the next will unlock.


Peril
This stat shows up next to your Mortality after defeating the final boss and functions as an extra difficulty increase. Peril boosts enemy speed and HP exponentially; be extremely weary if you choose to venture further.


There's more?
There are a select few foes that will challenge you only under specific circumstances or by performing certain actions. These adversaries can be much tougher than the usual and challenged more than once in a single run. Listed below are hints to finding each:

Yuki: A crossover with the game Gimmiko. They're fond of games of chance, and may not be so keen on those who destroy their favorite statue.

Umi: They don't show themselves unless a sector is modified. Umi is always hungry for blackholes, but only if they're left untouched. They really don't like it if somebody else tries stealing from them.

Ghost: The unkillable are not necessarily invincible. Perhaps healing your wounds isn't the only use for health vials...

Diver: The treasure they're looking for is hidden amongst the stars, using a chain grenade on an old computer will point you in the right direction.


Amnesia Perk
This perk used to allow you to re-watch memories but as of right now does not seem to affect anything gameplay-wise as you can re-watch memories via the red USB sticks floating around the perk. If you manage to acquire it, Cyl can be spun on the main menu for a fun effect.



Debug Mode
The developer console can be activated with TAB + F1, which activates Debug mode. This can be used to spawn enemies and bosses, give yourself near infinite invincibility time, change the game speed, and a variety of other powerful commands. Activating Debug mode will disable achievements during a run, and disabling it with TAB+F1 outside of a run will re-enable achievements. While active, this little cat will show up near your cursor to denote that you're in Debug mode or have activated it.


Distant
You can spawn this object using the 'create' command in debug mode; it doesn't appear to do anything and doesn't spawn naturally, perhaps a remnant of something that used to exist?

Thank you for reading this mini-manual included with your MK005 helmet. You're as prepared as you can be to face the aberration and hopefully survive this ordeal, good luck!

Picayune Dreams was a fascinating game to play, and I hope you enjoyed reading or have learned something new. Remember to eat your carrots!