User:Silverhawkes/Flash charging with Mixmaster

	The subject of this article is obsolete and no longer present in the game.
	Information presented here may no longer apply to the current game. It is retained primarily for historical interest.

This page details the effects of flashing on Overcharged Mixmaster or Celestial Orbitgun. It's important to note that the content of this page applies to both the basic and charge attack. However, it is much easier to flash the charge attack than the basic attack due to the longer animation. As such, it is the preferred way to replicate this bug.

For simplicity, "Mixmaster" will refer to both handguns in this page.

Flashing a Mixmaster bullet

Lumber despawning via flashed charge

Retrode entering limbo instead of despawning

It was mentioned in the main article for flashing that when an attack is flashed, the second attack occurs instantly. This glosses over the fact that all associated effects with the second attack also happen instantly; any status inflicted expires instantly – e.g. causing thaw damage with Freeze weapons – as well as causing "death" animations (hereafter referred to as despawn animation) to be skipped, in a sense. This applies more generally to exploration entities as well. For example, timed explosive blocks detonate instantly when hit by a flashed attack. The same cannot be said, however, for flashed Mixmaster attacks.

When flashed, Mixmaster's attack doesn't simply get duplicated – its exact behavior is not precisely known, but observations suggest that it teleports instantly to a corner towards the direction of aim, no matter how far, even if there are obstacles along the way. [1] Corners can be made by level geometry, blocks, entities, and even other monsters. On top of this odd behavior, objects hit by the charge behaves strangely as well. They do not skip their despawn animation, should the charge deplete their HP.

Repeated attempts have shown that monsters hit by (and dying to) a flashed Mixmaster attack get stuck in the death animation; it plays as normal, but is stopped at the end. The monster then takes a while to despawn, taking upwards to 30 minutes in one case; I settled on calling this status being in limbo. In this state, the monster is impervious to damage and any (status) effect. However, any passive effects – such as Alpha Wolver's attack boost or Silkwing's passive healing – will persist until the monster despawns for good. Monsters in limbo are considered to be still alive by the game, hence, respawn pads will not spawn more monsters while its associated monster is in limbo (effectively disabling the pads), and monster doors will stay closed until the monster leaves limbo (most likely hindering progress).

Monsters will eventually exit the limbo state, and this is always accompanied by bullet explosions at the initial location. The monster will invisibly replay its despawn animation before finally despawning for good, dropping whatever it would have dropped initially; note that this can cause a slight delay between bullet explosion and loot appearance.

List of known effects on monsters

Lumber in limbo; note that only its shadow is visible

Retrode in limbo maintaining constant speed and direction

The following list documents interactions with monsters in the limbo state.

• Most monsters play the despawn animation to the end and turn invisible, leaving behind a shadow – which is not visible under Low graphics setting – unless the monster completely disappears together with the shadow as part of the despawn animation; e.g. Deadnaughts. This shadow blocks paths and any action that displaces monsters under normal conditions would also displace this monster (e.g. shield bumping, weapon knockback).
  • Trojans stay visible and do not turn to statue while in limbo.
• Some monsters do not turn invisible. However, they react strangely to knockback; moving far less than normal, as well as keeping a constant speed and direction unless knockback is reapplied. Moreover, simply walking against the monster is capable of displacing it. The following are monsters known to behave this way:
  • Scuttlebots
  • Shufflebots
  • Retrodes
  • Zombies
  • Silkwings
  • Greavers
• There are some interesting exceptions for monsters that don't fall under the previous two categories.
  • Wheel launchers stay visible, tangible, and immovable. Hence, it is possible to completely (but temporarily) block progress through Firestorm Citadel.
  • Similarly, shankles (and probably wisps) are also visible, tangible, and immovable.
  • Lost souls despawn, and once all existing lost souls despawn, no more will respawn – presumably until the bug wears off. [2]
  • Howlitzers fall under the first category, but most of the time they do not enter limbo – dying and spawning a Howlitzer head as usual. When they do enter limbo though, they still spawn a head after the bug wears off.
• As mentioned earlier, status cannot be applied to a monster in limbo. Any status applied beforehand would expire as normal.
  • Catalyzer tags are considered status effects. Hence, they will expire 30 seconds after they are applied even if the monster enters limbo. They are still capable of exploding, though.
• Monsters in limbo are still capable of inducing Frenzied Firestorm bonuses.

List of known effects on other entities

The following list documents how exploration entities respond to a flashed Mixmaster attack.

• Explosive blocks and timed explosive blocks detonate on despawn, so a flashed Mixmaster attack will effectively disable them temporarily – attacks will no longer detonate them.
  • No testing has been done yet, but it is likely safe to assume that super explosive blocks, timed super explosive blocks, and vortex blocks behave the same way.
• Ghost blocks behave as normal; it seems like they don't simply despawn, both themselves and neighboring blocks.
• Treasure boxes and loot-yielding breakables disappear and drop their loot much later on.
• Toggle switches, timed switches, as well as levers, become visually glitched – seemingly irresponsive to attacks. If they toggle gates, this will also affect the gates, allowing knights to pass through raised gates and be blocked by lowered gates.
  • One-way switches (ones that change irreversibly) behave almost similarly; visually the switch looks activated (together with its associated gate), but it actually is not – most likely preventing progress. The bug must wear off first before the switch becomes truly activated.
• Explosive rockets (as seen in Ironclaw Munitions Factory) disappear and detonate shortly afterwards.
• Monster cages and swarm spheres behave very oddly when hit by a flashed Mixmaster attack. The following have been observed:
  • A monster spawns as usual.
  • Two monsters spawn from one spawner.
  • A monster spawns already in the limbo state. Sometimes this monster is intangible, other times it's tangible (prevents knights from moving through it) yet immovable.
    • This has been observed only once: when the glitch wore off, the monster appeared, played its despawn animation and entered limbo. Things proceeded as expected afterwards.
• Echo blocks return the damage. However, mercy invincibility received from taking damage takes much longer to wear off. Status received from the attack might also last much longer, without actually taking effect.
  • Dying to this will prevent movement – Emergency Revive animation plays but the knight will still be downed. Control is returned when the effect wears off.
  • Presumably, using a Spark of Life will play the animation but delay its effect until the bug wears off.

Acknowledgements

This article was motivated by Noxiousnarwhal's video on this bug, as seen here.

Notes

This article is partially obsolete following the 2019-08-07 update; see notes on standard flashing.