Arena Blaster
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 Sprite | |
| Visitor No. | 1 |
|---|---|
| Favourite Drink | Coffee |
| Gameplay Trait | Active Items replace Bombs |
| Unlock Condition | Complete Floor 7 |
Arena Blaster features unique gameplay, being unable to use bombs, but instead gaining access to an array of special active items. Its default weapon is the Peashooter. It is one of two ships that was previously added in the Monolith: Relics of the Past DLC, the other being Skully. Both are now included with the base version of Star of Providence.
Story
Arena Blaster is the 1st Visitor of the Facility. A developer has stated that, canonically, Arena Blaster didn't make it any further than the Maintenance System before being destroyed.
Gameplay
Arena Blaster is unable to use bombs, but gains access to special active items instead. A room containing a random active item, similar to those in which you find weapons, can be found on floors 1, 3, and 5 of the Facility. The necessity to create this room causes the layouts of those floors in a given seed to be very different for Arena Blaster compared to other characters. Active items can also be found in most places that you could find a bomb, but bomb pickups in room layouts will just be replaced with coffee.
Since they are unable to use bombs, Arena Blaster is able to expend charges to break walls in order to access shortcuts and secrets, making finding secrets trivial for Arena Blaster in comparison to its peers. The inability to use bombs also means some cartridges are removed or replaced. While Arena Blaster cannot use bombs conventionally to open shortcuts or secret rooms, using the Unstable Catalyst active item will do so as if you used a bomb, using no extra active charges.
Active items can serve a wide variety of different purposes, ranging from purely utility to purely combat. Note that all attacking actives will scale with the player's damage stat like weapons.
Charges
The player gains 1 charge per room of enemies cleared and 3 charges for collecting coffee, to a maximum of 6 charges. If you pick up coffee at full charge, you will Salvage the drink. You can also get the Capacity Upgrade to expand the limit to 12 charges. Upon picking up a new active item, the player's charge is set to 6 if it was less than 6 charge, but is not lowered if it was higher than 6 charge.
Active Items
| Name | Icon | Cost | Text in-game | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Runestone | 
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On use, the player becomes invincible for 8 seconds. This is indicated by a colorful glow around the ship that will start flashing when time is almost up. | ||
| Blazing Wreath | 
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For 10 seconds after use, a red sparkle effect will follow the player, indicating that you won't take damage on contact with enemies. The effect will start flashing when time is almost up. The burst of flames goes in the direction of your dash, so to hit enemies with it, get close and then dash through them. | ||
| Capital Investment | 
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This can only be used in a room with a blue shovel icon, which will appear on some walls that could connect to a room, but don't. On use, will excavate a Shop run by a poorly-faked cardboard Bloke. It works the same as any other Bloke shop. While this active item can be found in or taken into Temple, it cannot generate shops there. | ||
| Cleanup Crew | 
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On use, summons 5 friendly Wiseguys that will follow the player for a while shooting at enemies. They're functionally identical to the one obtained from the Contract cartridge, except that they're temporary and will leave after approximately 8-10 seconds, one by one. Two cleanup crews can be summoned in quick succession if you have Capacity. | ||
| Cracked Blade | 
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The item gives a 5% damage boost each time it's used, and has a chance to break on use once the player's damage percent exceeds 120%. | ||
| Crystallized Light | 
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On use, the player's ship fires a burst of blue streaks upward and beyond the top of the room/arena from their location, which soon after travel back down slowly all across the room/arena, damaging enemies they hit. | ||
| Delivery Drone | 
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On use, rerolls and restocks items in the shop that the player is currently in, changing the items that weren't bought into different ones, and restocking empty spaces with new items. This can restock stores that have already been bought out, with Bloke having left. Restocking a shop removes the discount applied by the Plug cartridge, though it can be reapplied by hacking the shop again. | ||
| Demolition Charge | 
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On use, shoots a bullet in the direction that the player is aiming that sticks to terrain and enemies. After a short while, it explodes, dealing great damage to the enemies near it and destroying any tiles within the blast that are not at the edges of the room. | ||
| Demon's Claw | 
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On use, shoots a fiery orb that, upon hitting a wall, will spread fire along the wall that will shoot out bullets to damage enemies. These bullets scale with the player's damage. If the initial orb hits an enemy instead of a wall, it will deal some damage to the enemy and then vanish before triggering its primary effect. The Demon enemy and Ordinator boss have a similar attack. | ||
| Excavation Kit | 
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Creates shortcuts in adjacent empty spaces on the map; works the same as Excavation Bombs, but without the normal functionality of a bomb. | ||
| Focusing Lens | 
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On use, fires a massive laser in the direction that the player is aiming, similarly to how a Laser Bomb functions. | ||
| Glacial Shard | 
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Upon use, the ceiling of the current room is covered with icicles which can fall and damage enemies the same as normal icicles can. While you hold this active item, you will not take damage from icicles, player-generated or otherwise. | ||
| Golden Gun | 
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A single use active item that, on use, shoots a very strong bullet in the direction the player is aiming. This bullet does 1250 base damage. With a high enough damage stat, you are able to one-shot bosses with this active item. Once used, it is removed from the active item pool, and thus cannot be found again. | ||
| Grim Idol | 
|
Creates a cursed weapon upon use. If you spawn a cursed weapon near another cursed weapon, you are able to pick one up and then the other before the pickup animation finishes, being provided the reward for as many cursed weapons as you picked up, while only having to deal with the final one that you picked up. | ||
| Haunted Blaster | 
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Upon use, fires a bullet that phases through walls and, upon killing an enemy, turns towards the nearest enemy. This bullet infinitely pierces, and can turn towards new enemies an infinite amount of times. | ||
| Hellfire Barrage | 
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On use, the screen is filled with many explosions one after another, which deal damage to enemies and clear bullets. | ||
| Hunter Array | 
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Fires 4 fully charged homing phasing Railgun shots; one where you're aiming, one from your back, and two from the sides. | ||
| King's Ransom | 
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Fires a fast-moving bullet where the player is aiming. Enemies killed by this bullet drop 2x as much debris, though the effect is weaker on mini-bosses (1.5x) and bosses (1.25x). | ||
| Mini Weapon Trove | 
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Creates a random weapon with 2 random keywords and is destroyed upon use. | ||
| Petri Dish | 
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Only appears if the Swarmer Pack is toggled on in Kleines' shop. On use, spawns a circle of 12 friendly swarmers. | ||
| Prototype Genocide | 
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On use, fires an outward cone of explosions from where the player is facing, similarly to the Genocide unique. It can still be used if you have no spare HP parts, but your max HP will be reduced and your HP parts will be set to 3. | ||
| Pulse Reflector | 
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On use, causes bullets near the player to be reflected and deal minor damage to any enemies they hit. | ||
| Repair Nanites | 
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On use, gives you 1 HP as if you got a 1 HP pickup. | ||
| Resonating Crystal | 
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On use, generates a shield. Can't be used if the player already has a shield. | ||
| Scanner 2.0 | 
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On use, reveals every room on the floor. | ||
| Scrambler | 
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On use, changes the keywords of all weapons in the current room, without changing the weapon types. Does not affect Unique weapons. Does not affect the choice of keywords from keyword stones. Does not affect the weapon you are holding, if any. | ||
| Stormheart | 
|
On use, a thunderhead appears at your location and there will be lightning between you and the thunderhead. If you spawn more than one, lightning will be formed between you and all of the thunderheads. These thunderheads have a limited lifespan and will disappear after several seconds. If an enemy touches a thunderhead, it will disappear and deal a bit of damage to the enemy that touched it. | ||
| Supply Drop | 
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On use, spawns a random crate. | ||
| Tome of Cryomancy | 
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On use, freezes all enemies on the screen in place, and also damages them. Enemies get unfrozen quickly, but will still be slowed. | ||
| Tome of Electromancy | 
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On use, fires in the direction the player is aiming, and then upon hitting a wall or enemy, explodes around and above where the shot landed. | ||
| Tome of Enigmancy | 
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On use, activates a random Tome effect. Keeps track of your progress with Tome of the Abyss. | ||
| Tome of Geomancy | 
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On use, a hollow 5x5 wall of destructible blocks is summoned around the player. | ||
| Tome of Pyromancy | 
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On use, summons telegraphed explosions in random locations around the room that deal a lot of damage to enemies, but can hurt the player. | ||
| Tome of Sight | 
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On use, creates a ring around the player that makes bullets move slower, which can make them easier or harder to evade. | ||
| Tome of the Abyss | 
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Killing enemies while this is active contributes to a damage boost that the player will have whenever it's active. If found early and used well, this can reach quite high numbers. There is no hard cap to the damage boost this can provide. | ||
| Unstable Catalyst | 
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Clears the screen of bullets, opens shortcuts and secret rooms, and damages all enemies in the room. Note that on Intense and Sudden Death, despite this acting like a bomb, it does not lower your multiplier upon use when there are enemies in the room. | ||
| Voltaic Thruster | 
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On use, causes the player to do a dash that acts like Blink, creating a laser between the points you teleport from and to. You are able to teleport through breakable blocks with this, as well as through corners of certain solid terrain. | ||
| Warped Teleporter | 
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On use, teleports you to a random room that you have not yet entered. Can be used during combat, but not during boss fights. Can be used to enter vaults without using a key. Note that you cannot manually teleport to a room unless you have a path of cleared rooms leading to it from your current room. |
Unique Items
There are a few items unique to Arena Blaster that don't appear for any other ships:
- Upgrades
Capacity - "Your maximum charge is doubled"
- Cartridges
Power Core - "Regain all active charges on entering a new floor"
Transfusion - "Recover charge when damaged"
Excluded Items
Since Arena Blaster doesn't have bombs, it loses access to bomb-related items, listed below:
- Upgrades
Autobomb
Extra Pow
- Cartridges
Battery
Firecracker
Golden Star
Hammer
Pickaxe
Victory Sign
- Shrine Deals
- "Gain 6 power bombs, but lose a max bomb"
- "Gain HP for all your bombs"
Notes
- Ancient Runestone's invincibility visuals mimic those seen with Crimson Lotus.
- The Holy Rod enemy has a similar attack to the Crystallized Light active.
- The Demon enemy and Ordinator boss have a similar attack to the Demon's Claw active.
- Golden Gun's high damage, along with the fact that all damage dealt by actives scales with the player's damage stat, can kill many bosses in one hit with a sufficiently high damage stat. One of note is that with 360% damage, you can one-shot Chaos God's core with Golden Gun, completely skipping the rest of the fight.
- Tome of Abyss is able to reach and surpass 150% bonus damage, and likely is able to reach at least 200% damage with good, fast performance and a decent seed.
- A certain oversight with Voltaic Thruster allows you to get to places you otherwise wouldn't be able to without it, being able to teleport into empty spaces beyond the corners of solid tiles.
- Voltaic Thruster is developer PureQuestion's favorite active item.
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