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Crimsonlands 1.9.8 Survival FAQ
Version 1.0
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===============
1.0) Preface
===============
This guide is principally devoted to the means of getting very
high scores in Crimson Lands survival mode. The information here is
not entirely useless for the game's quests, however the quests do
function quite differently from survival mode, so beware trying to
apply the advice given here outside of survival mode.
========================
1.1) TABLE OF CONTENTS
========================
1.0) Preface
1.1) Table of Contents
1.2) Copyright
2.0) Survival Mode Overview
2.1) Survival Mode Weapon Selection
2.2) Survival Mode Perk Selection
2.3) Bonus Management
2.4) Late Survival Mode Strategic Tips
2.5) Unusual Strategies
3.0) Bonus Information
3.1) Perk Information
3.2) Weapons of Note
3.3) Hidden Weapons
================
1.2) Copyright
================
Copyright 2004 Charlie Pilliod.
This document may be distributed in its unaltered form without prior
permission by the author so long as the distributor makes this document
freely available. Entities that require fees, registration, or significant
disclosure of personally identifiable information from viewers wishing to
read this document are explicitly denied the right to distribute it without
prior permission by the author.
Alterations which do not significantly impact the informational content of
this document, including but not limited to minor layout changes and HTML
formatting, may be freely made by anyone lawfully distributing it.
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.
Presumably you'll have worked your way through quest mode and
possibly hardcore quest mode before really going after a 5M+ survival
mode score. If you haven't finished the game's quests, you should certainly
do so in order to unlock the full selection of the game's perks and weapons.
Survival mode is an entirely different animal than quest mode, and
some of the weapons and tricks you picked up and thought would never let you
down will now be hampering you.
Quest mode battles consist of a series of prescripted spawns and events which
you can memorize and exploit. Your goal is generally to deal with each spawn
(or spawner) before the next one shows up. The monsters are by and large
fairly weak, so splash weapons like the rocket launcher and ion cannon are
good choices.
Survival mode is quite different. The only truly significant prescripted event
is the appearance of the aracnoids later on, which serves as a good signpost
that the game is about to start getting much harder. In general survival mode
consists of never ending hordes of increasingly powerful monsters, who grow in
strength as your level rises and soon render weapons like the ion cannon
useless. Your savior here will not be splash damage but a spread of piercing
shots. In other words, you are going to want a good shotgun style weapon and
the ability to keep the fire bullets bonus running as constantly as possible.
In rough order of popularity, the three generally accepted weapons for
survival scoring are the Plasma Shotgun, the Gauss Shotgun, and the
Jackhammer. The plasma shotgun is overall the best due to it's large
spread of bullets and lack of significant drawbacks. The gauss shotgun
is nice because it fires piercing shots all the time, but it is slow and
still needs fire bullets in the long run to help make up for it's
lower output of bullets. Finally there is the Jackhammer, which can
pump out a very respectable number of shots, but runs into issues
with reload times. Furthermore, the Jackhammer's individual shots are
actually fairly weak.
The later survival mode monsters are big enough that standing on
ground zero of a nuke won't bother them all that much. As they get
stronger, they also get faster and more numerous. Your only method of
damaging them significantly will be Fire Bullets, and if that bonus
runs out, you will have a very hard time killing monsters, which in
turn means you will have little chance of getting more bonuses to
stay alive with. The only way you can survive for very long over a
million points is through intelligent perk selection and bonus
management. The rest of what you need is a combination of good old
fashioned gaming skill and plenty of luck with the bonuses.
Every session of survival mode plays out differently, especially in terms of
what perks are actually offered to you each level. I'm not even going
to pretend there is any one way of approaching the matter of perk
selection, so you should only take the below ordering as a very broad
recommendation on the order perks should be taken.
Your weapon selection also makes a difference of course. The damage boosters
like Uranium Filled Bullets are a lot more desirable early on if you are using
the Jackhammer than if you are using the Gauss Shotgun, and you have to hold
off far longer on Regression Ammo if you are using the Jackhammer. The
following list assumes you are using the Plasma Shotgun, as that is more or
less the most solid of the survival mode weapons.
----------------------
Recommended Perk Order
----------------------
Long Distance Runner
Telekinetic
Ammo Maniac
My Favorite Weapon
Fastloader
Dodger
Bonus Magnet
Fastshot
Perk Expert
Bonus Economizer
Uranium Filled Bullets
Ninja
Thick Skinned
Regeneration
Barrel Greaser
Doctor
Perk Master
Regression Ammo
Unstoppable
Greater Regeneration
Bloody Mess
Reflex Boost
Hot Tempered
Poison Bullets
Veins of Poison
Toxic Avenger
Angry Reloader
Radioactive
Pyrokinetic
Lean Mean Exp Machine
Mr. Melee
Evil Eyes
Final Revenge
Plaguebearer
Stationary Reloader
Anxious Loader
Ion Gun Master
Monster Vision
Instant Winner
-------------
Harmful Perks
-------------
These perks are generally harmful. Some might have a few good
points, but for the average game they hurt more than they help and
should be avoided.
Alternate Weapon (unless you're trying for a splitter gun in the other slot)
Ammunition Within
Jinxed
Infernal Contract
Highlander
Sharpshooter
Fatal Lottery
---------------
Emergency Perks
---------------
These perks are only useful when faced with imminent death.
The key to high survival scores is to keep as many useful bonuses active as
possible. The critical bonus is of course Fire Bullets, since they permit you
to kill the tougher monsters and thus get more of the bonuses you need. Weapon
Power Up will of course help to double your ability to dish out damage, and
Reflex Boost offers critical thinking time during intense combat. Speed is as
useful as ever, giving you an edge over the increasingly rapidly moving
monsters.
Aside from the the above bonuses, to get far into the millions of points it is
crucial that you be able to keep Shield or Freeze bonuses running continually,
otherwise you will quickly be pulled down by the monster hordes. The trick is
to remember that shield bonuses won't appear when you have a shield running,
and that freeze bonuses won't appear when you have a freeze running. To
survive, you have to alternate these two bonuses and try to keep just one or
the other running at all times. If you have a shield running, don't collect a
freeze until the second the shield is about to end. Similarly, if a freeze is
running, don't collect a shield until the monsters are starting to thaw. Of
course, it is equally important not to wait so long before collecting a shield
or freeze that it disappears.
Double Experience may be last and least, but it remains just as critical as
the other bonuses for getting a high score. Double experience is what makes
the difference between a score of six million and a score of twelve million.
It won't help you blast things harder or live longer, excepting that it will
get you levels faster early on, but it just as important for a high score as
all the rest of the bonuses.
========================================
2.4) Late Survival Mode Strategic Tips
========================================
1. First off, learn to mentally and visually keep track of how long the
bonuses that have appeared have till they vanish. Timing your freeze/shield
collection is critical for high scoring. This can be tricky with reflex boosts
altering the flow of play, but is very important.
2. Shoot in the direction you are running away from. Hopefully you have My
Favorite Weapon by now, so collecting a blowtorch isn't an issue, but you now
instead have to worry about accidentally collecting shield and freeze at the
same time, which is more or less a death sentence, since you will have to then
try and generate and collect shield or freeze without either being on to keep
you alive.
3. Past 5M, if a freeze is available for collection and you have a shield on,
consider standing still briefly and allowing the monsters to collect around
you while you, then teleknise the freeze. This gives you a solid clump to fire
into, meaning you won't have to move your cursor off of viable targets to
teleknise bonuses. This tactic is particularly nice if a Shock Chain shows up,
and can give nukes a new lease on usefulness.
4. You might try using your large number of excess perks to take Alternate
Weapon and then try for a Splitter Gun by taking Random Weapon repeatedly.
This works best with the Gauss Shotgun, since there is a limit to how many
bullets can be flying around at once, and you'll still want a safe primary
weapon. This is a risky thing to attempt, due to the speed loss and the sheer
randomness of the Random Weapon perk, but is potentially a good way to get a
high score. Remember that you need to pause with F1 to safely check which
weapon you got, going back into the perk selection screen will hide your
status bar and your new weapon.
-------------------
Pulse Gun Berserker
-------------------
Method: Collect a Pulse Gun and take the angry reloader perk. Set your reload
key to something you can hold down constantly, mouse1 for example.
Result: You will unleash endless rings of plasma bullets. Combine with
perks that speed up reloading and Weapon Power Up for better results.
Concerns: You only emit the bullets in a preset star shaped pattern, so
you can't actually aim the streams you are unleashing except by moving around.
Take pretty much any reloading speedup perk and you will start hitting the
maximum number of projectiles allowed on the screen at once, which will cause
gaps in your streams. The projectiles do poor damage and don't work with Fire
Bullets, so it's hard to get a high score with this strategy.
Uses: You can get an ok score with this, but it's really only useful for the
amusement value, though you may be able to have some luck in Hardcore Quest
mode with it.
------------
Reaper Twins
------------
Method: Begin a two player game of Survival Mode. Set the controls for each
player so that they share the same keys for the same actions. For example,
make both fire on mouse1. Now, move both and push them against a corner
of the screen, so that they merge into each other and occupy the same space.
Result: As long as they occupy the same space, they will be able to each
collect bonuses when they run over them. You will effectively have a character
who fires twice as many bullets and gets double duration on many powerups.
Once you take the "unstoppable" perk, they will be inseparable.
Concerns: Fire Bullets and Shield are exclusive to one character, so they
will not have the doubled duration that most of the other bonuses have.
Telekinesis will only work for one character. If you run over freeze it will
still last twice as long, which makes it hard to time shield collection, so
consider telekinising it. Since you are in two player mode, the monsters will
come on twice as fast, giving you less time to find a good weapon to use.
Since two non-piercing bullets that hit a monster at the same time are both
absorbed, even if only one was needed to kill the monster, you lose some of
your potential firepower with non-piercing attacks. Since there is a limit to
how many bullets can exist at once, you may lose firepower to the limitations
of the engine. Some perks don't appear in Two Player mode, including random
weapon. This means that if you take My Favorite Weapon, you will be unable to
get a different one.
Uses: This is a popular method of beating some of the Hardcore Quests, and can
be lots of fun to fiddle around with in Survival Mode. Hi-scores are separate
for two player survival mode of course.
========================
3.0) Bonus Information
========================
500 PTS
-------
Gain 500 experience instantly. This doesn't seem to be influenced by any
experience enhancing bonuses or perks. A useful thing to grab early on, and
something to be ignored after around 50k points.
1000 PTS
--------
Gain 1000 experience instantly. This doesn't seem to be influenced by any
experience enhancing bonuses or perks. A useful thing to grab early on, and
something to be ignored after around 50k points.
Double Experience
-----------------
You earn double experience for all kills while this is running. This is
essential for scoring high.
Energizer
---------
A very rare bonus, Energizer is a cousin of the power pills in Pac-Man.
Energizer turns monsters blue for the duration, and if you run over them they
will disappear and you will gain some health back. This bonus is fun, but too
rare to bother including in an overall strategy.
Fireblast
----------
A ring of plasma bullets sprays out from this bonus when it is activated. Not
very powerful, but still a sometimes useful bonus. Is not enhanced by Fire
Bullets.
Fire Bullets
------------
Your clip is refreshed, and for every bullet that leaves your weapon, a Fire
Bullet will also be released and follow the same path. These bullets do large
amounts of damage and will pierce monsters like gauss shots. This bonus will
not drop while you are wielding many of the game's weapons, notably the sawed
off shotgun and the rocket launchers. Switching to or collecting the sawed off
shotgun with Fire Bullets already collected will enable it to shoot them
normally however. Fire Bullets are compatible with Hot Tempered and nukes,
but not with Angry Reloader.
Freeze
------
Every monster is encased in ice, including those which spawn during the Freeze
duration. The two immediately obvious effects are that they can't move and
can't hurt you, giving you time to blast them safely. There are a host of less
obvious things that happen when freeze is active however. Perhaps most
importantly, monsters continue spawning as usual just off the edge of the
screen you can view. This means that when the freeze ends any accrued nasties
immediately unfreeze and charge into the field en mass, which can be
overwhelming later on in survival mode. Monsters also will generally not show
a death animation from some effects until after the freeze has ended. These
include damage over time effects like poison or plague, and instant death
effects like Jinxed and Breathing Room. This is by far most visible if you
take Breathing Room while they are frozen. Monsters are also immune to the
Radioactive perk for the duration of the freeze. Since frozen monsters can't
attack, Mr. Melee won't work on them, and they won't be poisoned by Poison
Veins or Toxic avenger. They can still be poisoned by poison bullets however,
and pyrokenetic works normally. Additional freeze bonuses won't appear while
one is currently activated.
MediKit
-------
Heals you a bit, about 10% of your maximum health. A critical method of
healing when you don't have regeneration.
Nuke
----
Setting off a nuke does a blast of damage to everything nearby,
inflicting more on the monsters closest to it. Nukes also release a
few secondary projectiles, which can be enhanced by Fire Bullets.
Nukes stop doing appreciable damage after a certain point in survival
mode.
Reflex Boost
------------
Your clip is refreshed, and time slows down a great deal, permitting
you to consider your actions more carefully. Your ammo is frozen at
it's current level while this is active, usually meaning full
capacity, but taking My Favorite Weapon will leave you at two less than a
full clip when this bonus ends. This bonus is particularly helpful
for the Jackhammer when combined with Regression Ammo. Since you aren't
using ammo, angry reloader will of course not work unless you reload manually.
Shield
------
You are immune to attacks for the duration of this bonus. Additional
shield bonuses won't appear while you have one already active.
Shock Chain
-----------
Unleashes a ricocheting ion bolt that bounces among monsters and does both
direct damage to what it hits and splash damage to everything nearby.
Since it bounces between monsters, this is the only splash damage attack that
actually gets significantly better as the game progresses. It is unknown but
suspected that Ion Gun Master will boost this bolt's power.
Speed
-----
Doubles your run speed. This still won't save you if you're lugging
a Mean Minigun around, but is all in all a very helpful bonus when
combined with Long Distance Runner, and possibly Reflex Boost to
prevent you from accidentally charging into some thing's gullet.
Weapon Power Up
---------------
Your clip is refreshed and for the duration of this bonus you attack
and reload at double the normal rate.
=======================
3.1) Perk Information
=======================
Alternate Weapon
----------------
Permanently lowers your run speed somewhat, and allows you to carry
two weapons at once, which you can switch between by hitting your
reload button. Initially you start out with a pistol in the secondary
slot, which you can then use to try for a better weapon. Swapping
between guns is fairly quick, and the game does keep separate track
of your ammo supply for each weapon. Sadly, there are few useful
combinations of weapons to actually make this perk worth it, and the
run speed reduction is extremely nasty.
Ammo Maniac
-----------
This gives your weapons a 20% larger clip size, rounded up, and also
reloads it. Technically it gives you a new weapon of the exact same
type but with the larger clip, which is why this bugs with My
Favorite Weapon. Take this perk BEFORE My Favorite Weapon, or the
ammo bonus will be overwritten. A nice perk, especially for weapons
with long reload times.
Ammunition Within
-----------------
You can fire your weapon even while you are reloading, but every
shot fired while your clip is empty causes you to lose health.
This perk is inferior to Regression Ammo since it can kill you.
Death Clock will protect you from the damage this perk causes.
Angry Reloader
--------------
Every time you reload your weapon, you emit a circle of fairly weak
plasma projectiles. One interesting strategy with this perk involves manually
reloading constantly with the Pulse Gun. For normal gameplay this can be a
nice help against smaller monsters, but normally isn't a huge help in the
long run. Does not benefit from Fire Bullets.
Anxious Loader
--------------
You can speed your reload time by hitting your fire button rapidly.
A decent perk if you have a turbo control or a twitchy trigger
finger. I don't have as much energy for rampant clicking as I did in
my younger years, so I don't take it.
Bandage
-------
Heals you to full in the current version, however it does seem to
take a second to work, so it may not always save you in time.
Barrel Greaser
--------------
Your shots travel faster and do more damage. This perk does NOT
extend the range of flamethrowers and blow torches. A decent perk,
assuming your shots aren't killing in one hit.
Bloody Mess
-----------
Grants you 30% more exp for kills, and helps coat the ground with a
nice thick layer of red. Obviously a great perk for getting high
scores and making your levels come faster, but since your point gain
only starts to really come fast late in the game you can afford to
put this off for a fairly long time if more tempting perks are
available.
Bonus Economizer
----------------
Kicks up the duration of any bonuses collected by 50%. A nice perk
in general, and absolutely critical for late survival mode.
Bonus Magnet
------------
Bonuses get dropped more often by monsters. A nice perk in general,
and absolutely critical for late survival mode.
Breathing Room
---------------
Kills every monster on the screen and cuts your health to 1/3 of
what it was. When they die, the monsters effected give no experience
and will not drop any powerups. This perk should be taken as a last
ditch effort to survive before resorting to Death Clock or Grim Deal.
Death Clock
-----------
Fills your health to 100%, makes you almost invulnerable, and
inflicts damage equal to 3.333% of your maximum health to you per second.
When this is active, Bandage and MediKits stop showing up, Regeneration/
Greater Regeneration stop working, and Internal Ammo will no longer harm you.
This perk lets you keep fighting when death is inevitable, and is good up to
around 7M, when grim deal becomes more effective for eking out a higher score.
Death Clock has two flaws: Splitter Gun shots will still hurt you if you
don't have a shield on, and Jinxed can continue to sap off health at random
intervals.
Doctor
------
You can see the health bar of any monster you target, and you gain a
small damage bonus. An acceptable but not critical perk.
Dodger
------
You have a chance of avoiding attacks instead of automatically
taking damage. Very helpful, especially as the game progresses.
Evil Eyes
---------
Any monster you target stops moving and is unable to attack till you
stop targeting it. Fairly worthless since it only works on such a
tiny area and stops doing anything once you target something else.
Fastloader
----------
Cuts down your reloading time significantly. A good perk overall,
this is obviously very important for weapons with long reload times.
A less obvious benefit is that it will help reduce losses from the
Regression Bullets and Internal Ammo perks.
Fatal Lottery
-------------
You either die or get 10k exp. Worse than useless.
Final Revenge
-------------
Your death will set off a nuke centered on your corpse. Fairly
useless since nukes become less and less effective as the game
progresses.
Greater Regeneration
--------------------
Requires Regeneration. You heal at a modest rate whenever wounded.
Much nicer than basic regeneration.
Grim Deal
---------
Adds 18% to your score and instantly kills you. Over a certain
score, about 7M, this becomes more valuable than Death Clock for
getting a high score.
Highlander
----------
You become immune to normal damage, but every hit has a 10% chance
of killing you instantly. On the whole this is worse than useless.
The only time it has any merit at all is in the highly unlikely event
that you are almost dead and can't get Death Clock, Bandage,
Breathing Room, or Grim Deal, and also can not reach a shield or
freeze.
Hot Tempered
------------
You periodically emit a ring of fiery projectiles. Since they are
boosted by the fire bullets bonus, it is generally better than angry
reloader.
Infernal Contract
-----------------
The description states that it drops your life to almost nothing and
gives you three extra perks. What it actually does is give you three
extra levels, but not the experience that would normally go with
them. So in order to level again, you still need to earn all the
missing experience. All in all a bad trade off.
Instant Winner
--------------
Gives you 2500 experience points. This perk is obviously worthless
in terms of what it gives, but can be valuable as a harmless perk to
take when the only other perks available would kill or damage your
ability to fight. This perk can be taken more than once.
Ion Gun Master
--------------
Increases the damage of ion weapons and the radius of their shocks.
This perk is of course a big boost for ion weapons, making it
potentially very useful in quest mode.
Jinxed
------
Every few seconds this perk will usually kill a random monster, but
it can also sometimes damage you for about 5% of your health. You do
get the experience for anything that dies because of this perk.
Probably the best of the harmful perks, but still a harmful perk.
Lean Mean Exp Machine
---------------------
You automatically gain about 20 exp per second. Essentially useless.
Long Distance Runner
--------------------
Enables you are able to reach a much higher top running speed. Since
it vastly improves your ability to avoid the endless hordes of
monsters, this is almost without argument the best perk in the game.
Monster Vision
--------------
All monsters take on a bright yellow aura. This helps you fight the
invisible monsters in Hidden Evil and is other wise pretty useless.
Mr. Melee
---------
You gain the ability to do melee damage just like the monsters you
are fighting. Sadly you don't do very much at all, attack fairly
slowly, and it won't work unless the monsters are close enough to
chew on your face. A nearly useless perk.
My Favorite Weapon
------------------
Adds 2 to your weapon's clip capacity (but does NOT refill your
current clip), and stops random weapons from being dropped as
bonuses. Once you have the weapon(s) you want this perk is a huge
huge help, since it makes sure you don't have to worry about
accidentally collecting a blowtorch or equally useless weapon. You
should take this perk AFTER Ammo Maniac due to a bug that causes the
ammo bonus to be overwritten.
Ninja
-----
Requires dodger. A souped up version of dodger, this is a big help
for the later parts of survival mode.
Perk Expert
-----------
Expands the list of perk choices shown when you level from 5 to 6.
Since there's nothing stopping the game from offering you five
wretchedly awful "perks", Perk Expert can help prevent disastrous
choices being forced on you, particularly later on when you've weeded
out many of the best perks.
Perk Master
-----------
Requires Perk Expert. Adds to perk Expert, giving you a total of
seven perk choices when taking a level.
Plaguebearer
------------
Weak monsters that touch you will contract a contagious plague that
they can spread to other monsters. This plague surrounds them with a
black aura and does damage about as fast as veins of poison. This
perk stops doing anything after a certain number of monsters have
died of the plague, and also won't have any effect at all on the
monsters that start showing up roughly in the midpoint of survival
mode.
Poison Bullets
--------------
Your shots have something like a 1 in 6 chance of poisoning anything
they hit. Not an especially powerful perk.
Pyrokinetic
-----------
Aiming at monsters does damage, about a pistol shot's worth every
other second. Not extremely useful.
Pyromaniac
----------
Adds a damage bonus to your fire based weapons, by which it probably only
means flamethrowers and blowtorches, not Fire Bullets, Pyrokinetic,
Hot Tempered or Fireblast. This perk will normally only show up if you are
wielding a flamethrower or blowtorch.
Radioactive
-----------
You glow slightly and monsters that come close start taking damage.
This perk is strong enough that if you stand still, the earlier
survival mode monsters die faster than they can reach you to attack.
As the game progresses, the perk rapidly approaches uselessness due
to the high hit points of end game monsters.
Random Weapon
-------------
As the description says, this perk grants you a random weapon. You
can take this perk multiple times. Random Weapon can give you a shot
in the dark of surviving if you accidentally pick up a blowtorch or
similarly useless weapon. This perk can also be paired with alternate
weapon to try and generate a shotgun/splitter gun combo late in
survival mode, but it's an iffy thing to attempt.
Reflex Boosted
------------
Slows the game speed down by 10%, giving you more time to think
about your actions. A helpful perk for those of us who can't react as
fast as their computers.
Regeneration
------------
You slowly but steadily gain back health when wounded. I'd say this
is a decent but not critical perk which is sometimes overrated.
Regression Bullets
------------------
You can fire your weapon even while you are reloading, but every
shot fired while your clip is empty causes you to lose experience.
This perk is absolutely 100% critical for getting high scores in
survival mode. I usually take it around the time the arachnoids start
showing up, as around then the experience starts coming in faster
than I could be losing it due to the effects of the perk. Of course,
the faster your weapon fires, the more this perk will penalize you
for continual fire.
Sharpshooter
------------
Slows your fire rate and gives you 0% recoil. Plus a laser sight.
Perhaps it might be worth taking on the quests where monsters spawn
in lines around you, if those quests weren't extremely easy. All in
all a worse than useless perk.
Stationary Reloader
-------------------
The description claims that this perk cuts reload times down to 1/3
normal, but it seems a little buggy to me, sometimes allowing
constant fire while constantly making the reload noise, and sometimes
messing up normal reloads.
Telekinetic
----------
You can activate bonuses just by targeting them for about a second.
This lets you safely collect critical powerups like Fire Bullets and
Shields from the middle of even the thickest hordes of monsters.
Being able to trigger Nukes and Freezes at a distance is also nice.
One of the most important perks in the game.
Thick Skinned
-------------
You lose 1/3 of your current health and gain 33% damage resistance.
An important perk to have by the later parts of survival mode.
Toxic Avenger
-------------
Requires Veins of Poison. A souped up version of Veins of Poison,
this is one of the many low priority but not entirely worthless perks.
Unstoppable
-----------
Your movement is uninterrupted by the attacks of monsters. This perk
becomes increasingly critical as the game goes on and you
occasionally find yourself forced to run through packs of fast
monsters in order to reach an open space.
Uranium Filled Bullets
----------------------
Adds a damage bonus to all your shots. A very helpful perk if your
weapon can't kill the monsters you are fighting with only one shot.
Veins of Poison
---------------
Monsters that attack you become poisoned and steadily lose health
until they die. Better than Mr. Melee, but certainly a low priority
perk.
======================
3.2) Weapons of Note
======================
Most of the game's weapons are just too mediocre for me to bother
with going over here, but some do have a few interesting points worth
mentioning.
Blowtorch
---------
Perhaps not the worst weapon in the game, (both of the best known
secret weapons are arguably less effective) but terrible enough that
it's the canonical example of what happens to people who forget to
take the My Favorite Weapon perk. High damage at a pathetic range,
this is a weapon only used by those looking for a stiff challenge.
Gauss Shotgun
-------------
Probably the second best weapon in the game. Firing a spread of
piercing shots, it innately has some of the nicer benefits of Fire
Bullets, but a relatively low ability to pump out shots when compared
to either the Jackhammer or the Plasma Shotgun. The Gauss Shotgun
fires some of the strongest shots in the game, but eventually even it
stops being able to hurt the survival mode monsters. This gun is also
very good for ripping out spawners in quest mode.
Ion Cannon
----------
Slowly fires shots that hit for strong damage and then hit
everything nearby with a secondary blast. This is not effective in
later survival mode because the secondary attack becomes ineffective
as the monsters get stronger and stronger, it won't make enough of a
dent even when they are in thick clumps around you when
shielded/death clocked. On the other hand this is probably the best
weapon in the game for hardcore quest mode.
Ion Shotgun
-----------
The only ion weapon that comes close to being good for survival
mode, since it gets both the ion splash damage and the shotgun style
spread of shots that is so critical for maximizing fire bullets.
Ultimately its fairly weak shots and slow fire rate put it fourth or
fifth down the line of good weapons.
Jackhammer
----------
A rapidly firing shotgun that spits out bullets like there's no
tomorrow, this is a quite fun weapon that is severely hampered by
it's three second reload time and relatively weak individual shots.
Using Regression Bullets to counteract the slow reload is a little
risky, if you aren't careful it will chew through a huge amount of
experience. Reflex Boosts are a must with this weapon. I'd rate it
as the third best weapon for a survival game.
Pistol
------
In most cases the weapon you start out with. It's quite weak, but
every time you kill a monster with a pistol shot, there is large chance
that a random weapon will appear as long as no other weapon is on the
screen.
Plasma Shotgun
--------------
More or less the best weapon for survival mode due to it's huge
spread of many fairly strong shots that are greatly enhanced by fire
bullets. Aside from those features this is a fairly bread and butter
weapon, without any exceptional drawbacks.
Pulse Gun
---------
A weak gun with a high fire rate, this mediocre weapon only sees use
because it fires fast, has an extremely fast reload time, and can exploit
angry reloader better than any other weapon. Make your reload button a
keyboard key and hold it down and you will release endless hordes of angry
reloader fire rings.
Splitter Gun
------------
Unlocked by winning quest 5.10 on hardcore mode. Fires a strong
bullet that splits into two more shots when it hits a monster,
following a Y shaped pattern. These in turn will also split into two
more bullets if they hit another monster. In this manner the entire
screen can wind up swarmed by shots. Sadly, these shots can hit you
just as easily as the monsters, which makes this weapon useless
unless you have a shield on. In theory the splitter gun can be used
to achieve high scores if you can swap to it late in the game when
even fire bullet enhanced attacks stop doing much damage, but this is
a difficult ploy to pull off, since Death Clock won't protect you
from splitter gun shots, and you'll need to use a different gun whenever your
shield drops.
Blade Gun
---------
To get the blade gun, start survival mode and kill three monsters so
that their corpses fall roughly into a fairly small triangle. Then
stand in the middle of the triangle and allow monsters to take you
down to roughly 1/6 or so of your health. Then run away without
firing. If you do this correctly, you will immediately be equipped
with the Blade Gun, which is a spectacularly awful weapon, more or
less a pathetic version of the Gauss Gun with an eons long reload
time and slowly moving shots that pierce weak monsters. I can state
without exaggeration that the flamethrower is a better weapon.
Shrinkifier Gun
---------------
To get the shrinkifier gun, simply start survival mode and don't
attack or get hit for 65 seconds. This weapon shrinks monsters,
killing them on the third or fourth hit. Shrinking does nothing to
hamper their attacks or speed, though running into tiny monsters will
kill them after they take a chunk out of your face. An interesting
but terrible weapon.
