Picayune Dreams – Flawless Achievement Walkthrough Guide

Finally completed my Flawless achievement, so I’m here to give a general idea of how I went about it and complete the challenge.

How to Obtain Flawless Achievement

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As far as difficulty go, ironically, Overdrive 5 felt a lot easier than Overdrive 0. That 200% XP modifier more than makes up for the increased horde, HP, and enemy speed. It’s the difference between getting rammed into by a fish (screw them) and sitting in the middle of the screen firing more missiles than a whole season of mecha anime.

Loadout

Any HP-related skill is obviously useless, we’re on a no-hit run. Anything else around the first skill is good. Spaghettification for black hole supplies, Salt the Wound for damage along with Battery Lick (stun is THE BEST elemental effect, hands down. Even 1% makes a huge difference.) , Black Atomization, Remnant of What Was and Drill Injection (for those juicy Crit drills or extra black holes), Magnetosphere, Reroll #1 (in case your first pickups aren’t that strong), and Marathon (movement speed will be important.)

From Marathon

Gaiden: Decent, but not mandatory. Technically you SHOULDN’T rely on Gaiden to do the job for you since you’re not supported to get hit in the first place, but it could potentially save you.

Exponential Expedition: Extremely good. That’s movespeed we don’t have to stress over with Overcharged Engines, and it’ll come in extremely handy when fleeing from some bosses or other enemies.

Confidence: A no-brainer. We’re on a no-hit run, of course we’ll pick up something that takes advantage of it. Also makes some boss attacks absolutely trivial (you can run circles around Biker and make him cry.)

Bullet Time: Useful if you’re scared of certain patterns or if things are getting a bit too hectic for your taste. Remember that while it slows things down, the amount of movespeed you lose is greater than the general slowdown on enemies. Useful on some patterns, but it can work against you if you rely on it too much as a crutch.

From Magnetosphere

Exponential Experience: Pickup Radius becomes invaluable later on when there’s too many enemies for you to navigate around to get the XP. Not a replacement for a good ol’ Crown, but if you can’t get to drop it, this’ll be a safe bet.

Experienced Handler: Not mandatory by any means, but getting to pick up bombs and blackholes from afar has come in quite handy. Careful not to accidentally waste any blackhole pickups this way, though.

Shocking Result: Another no-brainer. Guaranteed upgrade at the start and every boss? Of course.

Fifth Generation Network: Instantly destroys debris. Not necessary by any means, but that means less to worry about wasting bullets on and actually killing enemies while getting more items and XP effortlessly.

Connect Call: A pickup so good it’s a night and day difference. Getting to suck up all the XP on the map means we don’t have to worry about picking everything up before the boss start and we can focus all of our attention on enemies.

From Black Atomization

Backwards, Fast & Reversal Core: Since we’re playing on Overdrive 5, the extra firepower will come in handy early game, and scale up if we pick up CORE upgrades.

Stack Overflow: YES. It’s simply free kills.

Skull Crushing Distance: More firepower. Not the most powerful but the extra damage never hurts.

Hunting Season: Of course. Bosses killed faster, run completed faster.

Nitrous: Don’t need to explain, it’s more firepower.

Feeling Lucky: Another no-brainer. Even 1% of CRIT is a world of difference, especially on some weapons that can do a disgusting amount of damage.

Rainbowsplosion: Guaranteed horde wipe when you kill a sparkly elite.

Dumb Luck: No need to explain that one. Crits for 5 seconds after killing an elite, on top of Rainbowsplosion, means you simply clear the screen for free.

Critsplosion: Free AoE damage everytime you crit, which helps with hordes.

Weapons

Flamethrower – Simply the best weapon IMO. Guaranteed Fire status and high damage means it melts whatever you point this thing at. Combined with Battery Lick and other potential electric upgrades like the Eel, you can get a potentially disgusting combo of having enemies frozen in place and getting hit extra hard.

Slime Spike – Excellent crowd control. Combine that with Projectile Size and Speed, and this’ll not only deal decent damage but also keep enemies at bay with its decent knockback.

Angel Wings – Not the most damaging weapon, but clearly the MVP in my build. This thing, with enough upgrades, can keep hordes at bay on its own. Combine it with CD% and you can just go make coffee while Cyl takes out the trash.

Ultrabuster – Weirdly enough it looks like it takes advantage of the CORE upgrades I mentioned earlier, but it’s still a decent weapon thatdoesn’t try to do anything fancy besides being a reliable pea shooter.

CORE – To take advantage of the CORE upgrades above, and it’s a decent weapon on its own. With enough upgrades, it can hit a lot of enemies.

Chain Belt – Another solid pick, seems useless at first because of its extremely small range but it can quickly size up with enough Injection upgrades as well as its own upgrades. After a while, with Slime Spike, you make a wall of death.

Plasma Lamp – While I like the snow globe better, it’s still a decent pick that can freeze whatever it hits. And we like enemies that don’t move.

Leg Saw – Excellent horde-clearing weapon, taking good advantage of Weapon Size% and able to go through everything on the screen.

Eye2 An amazing weapon that goes through anything it hits. I feel like it works great with elemental damage, capable of triggering it through a bunch of enemies.

Passives: Digiwatch for CD%, Injection for Weapon Size, and Battery for Weapon Speed. All of these can quickly make up for the weaknesses of some weapon (Chain Belt’s poor range, Flamethrower relatively slow projectiles, ect.) and make it a lot safer for you.

Other Honorable Mentions

• Pleoxenic Crown: Makes it easier to pick XP and items. No need to explain it further than that.
• Missile Rack: Excellent AoE weapon, scales greatly with weapon size.
• Hunter’s Bow: The recent changes have made it a bit better at boss killing, and the guaranteed poison is sure to trigger Salt the Wound, which means 10% more damage.
• Overcharged Engine: Move speed is the difference between sweating and making a joke out of bosses. Enougn Movespeed can completely trivialize some of them.
• Electric Eel: Did I mention Stun is the best elemental effect?

General Gameplay Tips

Don’t rely too much on autoaim! While having to focus only on dodging is fine, it can work against you. Around mid-game (mortality 5-10) you’ll often find yourself completely surrounded. Instead of letting autoaim brainlessly fire at the closest enemy and let them close in on you, carve yourself a path! Fire forward and move away from them. You’ve got upgrades and Connect Call to get that XP later. TL:DR; play like a coward. We’re here to not get hit, not getting a medal of bravery, folks.

Don’t be greedy with black holes! While they’re necessary against bosses (especially Picayune’s wall of death), using one is better than restarting a run. Not to mention you can rather easily find some in floating debris, or left over by sparkling elites.

Pick your routes well. You’ll want to avoid Modified areas when possible, and pick your battles. Remember that enemy types are added to the pool of spawned enemies, so pick those you know you can deal with. Anything with high movespeed are the biggest threat, so avoid thing like Whiskers, Warpers, or Wibblers.

On that same note: be careful with statues! Some might raise your curse. Sure, a Berserk or XP statue may be nice, but that might also mean you’ll have to stare straight at a Curseformed fish. And fishes are the BANE of your existence. Whenever possible, do not raise your curse to avoid Curseformed enemies! Don’t blow up any statues either, that raises your Curse too.

Speaking of fish: prioritize them when possible. Due to their extremely high movespeed when dashing, they can completely ruin your run when one of them decides to dash out of a horde and right into your face if you’ve let them come too close. Don’t trust any fish you find, no matter how funny it looks.

That’s about it for how I managed to get the Flawless achievement. It’s not easy by any means, but it’s doable if you keep those things in mind.