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The Tubinaut is an Orbinaut-class Badnik created by Dr. Eggman. It makes its sole appearance in Sonic Mania.
Overview[]
The Tubinaut is an orange-coloured, sphere-shaped Badnik with cartoonish blue eyes. Orbiting its body are three small orange spheres that each sport a different coloured light: one magenta, one neon-green and one cyan. When these orbs begin gravitating around the Tubinaut at high speed, they generate an energy barrier around it.
Appearing in Studiopolis Zone, Tubinauts can be found moving back and forth slowly. When the player character enters their range, the Tubinauts' satellites will begin moving more rapidly, generating an energy shield once they've reached maximum rotation speed. While this barrier is active, the player cannot strike the Tubinaut. As long as the Tubinaut still has all three orbs, its barrier will damage the player on contact.
When the Tubinaut's orbs slow down, its barrier will drop and it will become vulnerable to attack. However, its orbs will protect it from direct hits. Hitting a Tubinaut's satellite will destroy it, but it can still generate a shield even with two satellites, though this weakened barrier will merely repel the player without damaging them. Once two satellites have been destroyed, the Tubinaut can no longer generate a barrier, although its last orb will continue to rotate around it slowly until it is also destroyed. Once all of its orbs are gone, the Tubinaut will be completely defenceless and can be destroyed with any attack. With each satellite it loses, the Tubinaut's facial expression changes, becoming more worried. When it has lost all of its orbs, its eyes close as it becomes resigned to its fate.