Pulse Demon
Pulse Demon
Superiors: Bubblegum, Satan
Difficulty: Medium to Hard
Guides: No external guides
Access: Anywhere cables can be found
Duties: Feed off electricity, cause chaos, fry the captain
Departmental Head
Unknown
| Abductor • | Ash Walker • | Blob • | Changeling • | Contractor • | Construct • | Cultist • | Guardian • | Lavaland Elite • | Malfunctioning AI • | Mindflayer • | Morph • | Nuclear Agent • | Pulse Demon • | Revenant • | Revolutionary • | Shadow Demon • | Slaughter Demon • | Syndicate Researcher • | Terror Spider • | Traitor • | Vampire • | Wizard • | Xenomorph • | Zombie |
| Combat • | Death • | Hacking • | Traitor Items • | Agent Items • | Crafting • | High-Risk Items • | E-maggable objects • | C-maggable objects • | Martial Arts |
Pulse Demons are dangerous beings that live in the electrically charged atmosphere of brown dwarf stars. They source energy directly from electricity around them and will almost instantly die if that power source is taken away. Pulse demons can often be found sulking around engineering siphoning every last bit of power they have access to. It's highly advised to avoid stepping a pulse demon, as some of the energy it's using will be transferred to you, burning you to a crisp. Being shock immune will prevent this.
Spawning in as Pulse Demon
A Pulse Demon can be chosen to spawn in as a random moderate Midround event, or summoned by a Wizard. You spawn in a random powered cable in the maintenance area. "Demon" needs to be enabled in the Antagonists panel in order to get a chance to play as a Pulse Demon.
Hijacking The Party
As a Pulse Demon, your ultimate source of power is electricity drained from the station's powernet. It allows you to upgrade yourself, unlock and use new abilities, as well as get upgrades for them too. You may gain power from draining APCs, draining SMES units or getting idle excess charge from the cables you live in. You can increase your effectiveness in stealing charge with the Absorption upgrade, or your total capacity with the Capacity upgrade.
Being an abomination of pure charge grants you the ability to control certain machinery around the station, notably APCs. You can hijack an APC by being inside it for 30 seconds, though with the Speed upgrade that time decreases. Hijacking an APC lets you meddle with that area's machines and poke around their settings like if you were the station's AI, or use certain abilities that require for you to be inside an APC.
You can't get hurt by standard means, but can cause massive injuries by electrocuting people with yourself. Someone touching you without insulating clothing will be painfully zapped, while your only weaknesses are EMPs and lack of properly charged equipment to latch onto, like cables. Upgrades like Strength, Efficiency and Endurance can make it harder to die from just a few measly cut cables or EMPs.
Hiding under the floor might make your form invisible, but that doesn't mean you can't get spotted. You make plenty of noise and sparks moving around, and a large amount of charge can lead you to glow through the tiles like a shining light bulb.
Abilities
Below is a list of abilities that a Pulse Demon can unlock and use. The upgrade cost of each ability is equal to the upgrade cost * (the level of the spell * 1.5).
These can be unlocked/upgraded by Alt-Clicking their icons, with the amount of charge available.
| Ability | Unlock Cost | Initial Use Cost | Max level | Initial Cooldown | Initial Upgrade Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Demonic Whisper 
|
Automatically Unlocked | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Whisper sweet nothings into the ears of the crew, or convince them to pursue an Amish lifestyle. |
Cycle Camera View 
|
Automatically Unlocked | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Jump between cameras in your APC's area. Alt-Click to return to the area's APC. Must be inside a hijacked APC to use. |
Toggle Draining 
|
Automatically Unlocked | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | Toggle whether you drain charge from power sources. |
Toggle Self-Sustaining 
|
100kW | N/A | 4 | 20 seconds | 300kW | Toggle whether you can move out of cables or power sources. Upgrading allows you to move faster outside of cables. |
Cable Hop 
|
15kW | 5kW | 5 | 20 seconds | 75kW | Jump to another cable in view. Upgrading decreases your cooldown. |
Electromagnetic Tamper 
|
50kW | 20kW | 5 | 20 seconds | 200kW | Unlocks hidden programming in machines. Must be inside a hijacked APC to use. Upgrading decreases your cooldown. |
Electromagnetic Pulse 
|
50kW | 10kW | 5 | 20 seconds | 200kW | Creates an EMP where you click. Be careful not to use it on yourself! Must be inside a hijacked APC to use. Upgrading decreases your cooldown. |
Overload Machine 
|
300kW | 50kW | 5 | 20 seconds | 500kW | Overloads a machine, causing it to explode! Must be inside a hijacked APC to use. Upgrading decreases your cooldown. |
Remote Hijack 
|
15kW | 10kW | N/A | 3 seconds | N/A | Remotely hijacks an APC. |
Remote Drain 
|
5kW | 100W | 5 | 20 seconds | 100kW | Remotely drains a power source. Upgrading decreases your cooldown. |
Upgrades
These upgrades are purchased through a radial menu, a kW is worth 1000 units of power each
| Upgrade | Initial Cost | Cost multiplier | Upper limit | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Speed 
|
16.66kW | (100 / Your hijack time) * 20kW | Less than a second | Decreases the amount of time required to hijack an APC by 33%, cannot go lower than 1 second. |
Absorption 
|
15kW | Your max drain rate * 15kW | 500kW drain | Increases the amount of charge drained from a power source per cycle by 33%. |
Strength 
|
250kW | Your max health * 5kW | 200 Health | Increases the total amount of health you have by 33%. |
| Recovery File:Femto manipulator.gif |
150kW | Your max health * 50kW | 100 Health Regen | Increases the amount of health regenerated when powered per cycle by 33%. |
Endurance 
|
400kW | 100 / your health loss rate * 20kW | Less than 1 unit | Decreases the amount of health lost when unpowered per cycle by 33%. |
| Efficiency File:Quadultra micro laser.gif |
5kW | 100 / your power cost per health unit regenerated * 50kW | Less than 1 unit | Decreases the amount of power required to regenerate per cycle by 33%. |
| Capacity File:Quadratic capacitor.gif |
1kW | Your maximum current charge | Unlimited | Increases the total amount of charge you can have at once. Doubles each upgrade. |
Perpetual Pacemaker 
A heart glowing with immense energy obtained by killing a Pulse Demon. Eating it will make you glow yellow, let you charge any powercells you have in your inventory and shock people by laying on power cables.
Fighting Against the Electric Menace
Defeating a Pulse Demon is no easy feat and requires some quick thinking, as leaving them to their own devices will give them a chance to upgrade and ending up the station powerless. Thankfully, it’s obvious when one is around, as they let off a faint yellow glow under the floor and emit loud zapping noises.
- Wear protective clothing. A Pulse Demon's first line of defense is attempting to fry you, so be prepared for it by having insulated gloves on your person. If the demon is particularly zap-happy, more can be ordered from Cargo through the "Insulated Gloves Crate".
- Use EMPs to damage the demon. Chemists and Scientists can create EMP bombs using Uranium and Iron, while the Amoury has access to an Ion rifle that shoots EMP bolts. More Ion guns can be created at the Research and Development Lab.
- As an Engineer, make areas self-sustaining through the use of PACMAN generators by cutting them away from the main powernet.
Be aware that when a Pulse Demon dies, it will release a portion of it's charge as an EMP that can scale to very large proportions, so be sure to kill it in a relatively safe area!
Becoming Electro
Conquering the station's power is a thing every Pulse Demon dreams of, but not every one achieves it. You will need to carefully pick your fights and upgrades, as your resources of charge will be important in keeping yourself alive and the crew dead.
- Focus on upgrading your Capacity. Without enough of it, you won't be able to purchase most abilities and upgrades.
- Use SMES units as your sources of power. They have more energy to drain, and you drain it quicker than with an average APC.
- Hijack APCs of important areas to keep them under your rule. It allows you to use various disruptive abilities like Electromagnetic Pulse or Overload Machine to destroy valuable station assets.
- Take control of everything you can. You can go inside gun charging station to take control of guns and shoot their owners, inside cyborg rechargers to take control of cyborgs or even cell chargers to make power cells explode! Experiment for more fun interactions!