Pulse demons are strange beings made out of pure electricity that can only move and travel along wires, and automatically go inside power machinery to drain them, along with hijacking APCs to control room machinery. They are completely intangible, not being made of any normal state of matter, and can pass through anything with a cable leading through it, this also has the advantage of making all attacks and bullets just pass through you. You are, however, weak to two things: EMPs, which knock your health down fast, and running out of power on a cable or machinery, causing you to slowly die.
Hijacking Move inside any power machinery or APC to hijack it. There is a delay of 30 seconds at first for this to complete while you are in it, it's important you don't leave at all. NOTE: Use your “Toggle Draining” spell to turn power draining on or off so that you don't leave your newly hijacked room without power! Once inside, ALL machinery in the area you control in your view can be attacked, with most attacked machinery doing the same thing as an AI or cyborg would, but with some fun exceptions, the most significant listed below:
Cyborg recharging stations - Moves you inside them, if a borg is also inside, displays a glaring obvious warning to them about being hijacked and uses your takeover timer. If the borg leaves in time, nothing happens and the takeover is aborted, but if not, you go inside the cyborg (MoMMIs can be infected too) and are able to use their targeting and speech systems in tandem with them. This can be used to do malicious actions or stay stuff for them, but the borg can easily correct what you just did and fight against everything you try to do. Rechargers - Moves you inside the gun after a hijack delay, allowing you to fire it while inside, making people think the person wielding them is shooting them. Holopads and Comms - Lets you directly communicate with the crew. APCs - Lets you change APC configurations if unlocked. Security cameras - Moves you inside them, allowing view from them while also gaining any advantages like x-ray vision while inside. Advantages go away when leaving them. This is not an exhaustive list, try every single item in the game for more fun ways to control them. Some may surprise you!
Power Your can siphon power from machinery, turning it into usable power and charge capacity, with your charge capacity being equal to the highest amount of power you accumulated at any one point. You can only suck as much power for max charge purposes as the maximum amount of charge the SMES or APC unit had. For example: You start sucking power from a SMES unit that has 400KW stored, you can raise your storage capacity up to that 400KW and no further but can recharge up to that 400KW with no restrictions by siphoning from any cell charger, APC, SMES unit, etc. You can then use this accumulated power to acquire new skills, such as emagging or cable hopping, or upgrade your capabilities, such as faster power absorbing or increased max health.
Abilities Name Description Cost Cablehop.png Cable Hop Allows you to jump from one cable to another. One of your most coveted abilities, allows you to escape being cut off from the powernet and dying with ease. Also causes a trail of lightning to hit the cable you land on, shocking anyone in the way. You can cablehop out of machinery. 10,000W Emagtamper.png Electromagnetic Tamper Invokes emag functionality on anything targeted in a hijacked area. Same functionality as the item applies. 200,000W Electromagnetic Pulse Creates an EMP on the tile of an item clicked, affecting everything on it, either draining power or activating EMP functionality. 150,000W Overload Machine Functions the exact same as the malfunctioning AI equivalent, except used in hijacked areas. Now you can make the crew even more worried over a non-existent malf AI! 300,000W Remotehijack.png Remote Hijack Allows remote compromising of any APC, bypassing the need to be in it. Still requires standing still to use. 100,000W Remotedrain.png Remote Drain Allows remote draining of any power source, for multitasking if inside an APC or to avoid being EMP'd while inside of one. 50,000W Leavecable.png Self-Sustaining Charge Allows leaving cables for brief periods of time with slower moving speed and health drained until returning to a powered cable. Upgrading this increases the off-cable speed. 500,000W Upgrades Name Description Initial Cost Upgrade Cost Faster Takeover Reduces time required to take over an APC by 1.5x 33,333W 10,000W * (100 / Takeover Time) Faster Power Absorbing Increases watts absorbed from SMEs by 1.5x 10,000W Absorb Rate * 10 Slower Health Drain Slows health drained per tick by 1.5x 200,000W 10,000W * (100 / Health Drain Rate) Faster Health Regeneration Increases health regenerated from power per tick by 1.5x 50,000W Health Regen Rate * 10000w Increased Max Health Increases maximum health by 1.5x 50,000W Max Health * 10000w Lower Power per Regen Drains 1.5x less power per tick to regenerate health 10,000W Tips and Notes Do not engage people outside of maintenance or on covered tiles! This should be obvious enough, but it gives them too much room to escape and you have no means of attacking back. If possible, purchase the cable hop ability or upgrade your survivability on no power as soon as possible, in case you get caught by anyone with wire cutters near your cables. Don't even bother trying to fight people wearing insulated gloves, they're immune to your shocks. Hack some more out of the way APCs in lower traffic areas at first if possible. Your initial takeover time is really slow at 30 seconds, so avoid places full of people like the plague, such as the bar or medbay. You can move across perpendicular wires, even if they're not directly connected (Wires are ||| and have no cable connecting them directly). You can unlock APCs with Alt+Click and change their settings covertly. Shut down critical areas such as medical or security to further disrupt the station. You can enter power machinery, up to and including radiation collectors and supermatter shards or crystals. Pulse demons absorb 10x the charge a cell in an APC has, meaning a roundstart 3K APC cell will give you 30K charge. You are still visible and vulnerable while on an APC. You glow brighter the more power you have, you spawn with the relative brightness of a cheap lighter. At 400k or more you glow with the intensity of a flashlight. Fighting Back as Crew Most importantly, stay off of their active wires and place floor tiles over them! Their attack packs quite a punch and can hit anyone they bump into, husking you easily eventually or even instantly depending on how much power is in the grid. Insulated gloves, somehow, miraculously block all of this, with all other glove resistance to shocks applying. Pulse demons are constantly glowing with a dim yellow light, regardless of the wire they're on. They're outright visible if the wire they're on is not covered. As expected, they are very vulnerable to EMPs. EMP grenades, ion weaponry or chemical EMP reactions will make short work of all but the most robust of pulse demons. An unupgraded demon outside a wire or on a wire without electricity will die in 20 seconds. Try to corral them into maintenance and clip some wires. If you're desperate, you can completely shut down the power grid by clipping the main wire from engineering. If pulse demons do have cable hop and can leave cables, don't leave any in their line of sight to jump to. They can be pulled and pushed across wires if they're visible, but can only be pushed/pulled outside a wire if they had the self-sustaining charge ability enabled. Flashbangs do NOT stun them, but they do blind and deafen them temporarily. A Pulse Demon with blast an EMP on death, with a cap at 1 million charge for a (20,25) EMP. Make sure to reinforce vital consoles with plasma screens and keep crew with mechanical parts away from a dying demon.