no helicopter event?

[Makaveli]

After surviving for 7 days and 21 hours , my longest playthrough , I took the proper measures to not stay in my base and go far away from it and stack with water/food , but the helicopter event never happened so far. Can I go back to my base and continue playing normally or should I wait a bit more? Is it possible for the event to never happen?

[Micahmunch]

if you're not playing a custom game where you've turned it off, i'd say give it 2 more days to see if it comes around or not. in my playthroughs the chopper arrives just around day 8 or 9.

[Shurenai]

IT's a bit RNG, tbh, It can happen pretty much any time, even as much as nearly a month into the save, iirc. Your best bet would be to find a radio with the Automated Emergency Broadcast frequency and use it hourly until you get a garbled message along the lines of "...bleh...blah...Permiter breach... bleh.."; That means the helicopter is coming sometime in the next 1-24 hours and is your warning to pack up your go bag and book it.

[Kaldrak]

From what I know of the helicopter event, is it's only really bad if it spots you outside and follows you around forever. If you stay inside it will just fly over you and do a few passes and leave. Will bring zombies to the area, yeah, but might also lead them away.

I'm not sure the advice of 'hey go run around while the helicopter follows you everywhere for hours' is really the best, unless you're way out in the country with a car or something and you can outdrive or outrun anything that's out there.

[Eekhoorn]

I have seen helicopters as late as day 11.
You can check the EBS radio for <air activity>.

Sometimes it makes two passes, sometimes three.

Hiding doesn't work (they'll still find you). That's true for me at least.

Usually I flee to the farm near Muldraugh and wait it out, but I've had times where even there I was swarmed.

When I attract a boatload of Zs, I look for a large open field (Muldraugh farm or train station) to keep an overview of what's happening.

The worst I had was a late in the evening helicopter event where I had to drive around all night through loads of Zs. They were all over the place :)

The best I had was no Zs at all while staying at the farm.

[Animalman]

Hiding does work but it’s still drawing zom to the area with the sweep. In fact it’s worse if it doesn’t see you because at least if it sees you you can control where it goes and have a general idea of where zom are going by the time it scoots off

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Eekhoorn:

I have seen helicopters as late as day 11.
You can check the EBS radio for <air activity>.

Sometimes it makes two passes, sometimes three.

Hiding doesn't work (they'll still find you). That's true for me at least.

Usually I flee to the farm near Muldraugh and wait it out, but I've had times where even there I was swarmed.

When I attract a boatload of Zs, I look for a large open field (Muldraugh farm or train station) to keep an overview of what's happening.

The worst I had was a late in the evening helicopter event where I had to drive around all night through loads of Zs. They were all over the place :)

The best I had was no Zs at all while staying at the farm.

Sometimes 8 hours straight:D

[Kaldrak]

Originally posted by Animalman:

Hiding does work but it’s still drawing zom to the area with the sweep. In fact it’s worse if it doesn’t see you because at least if it sees you you can control where it goes and have a general idea of where zom are going by the time it scoots off

If it spots you it stays for a freaking long time, drawing every zed for miles to be right on top of you. It's measurably worse than if it just flies over the area a few times. I just assume they're going to be around wherever I'm hiding when it does this.

[Kara]

Why is there even a heli that does this? That's so weird.

[Animalman]

I think it’s done for purely for immersion

It’s not that big a deal in any of my games and has only been the direct death of me when I first started playing. Nowadays it doesn’t bother me. Look especially if you play with zed triggering house alarms. You’ll notice it’s not really a big deal.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Kara:

Why is there even a heli that does this? That's so weird.

First it is prolly some reporters. Later it is likely the army. You can hear them talking over the Emergency broadcast every now and then. Like when there is a house alarm somewhere, or you go by car, you can hear a report about in this and that sector activity...vehicle activity or something similar.

[Hunter-Killer]

I just started a new test world to try some mods and the helicopter spawned like almost instantly on the first day. I don't know if any mods causing it or the base game has a chance of spawning the heli on 1st day but it was weird.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by LINKUP - Hunter:

I just started a new test world to try some mods and the helicopter spawned like almost instantly on the first day. I don't know if any mods causing it or the base game has a chance of spawning the heli on 1st day but it was weird.

It has, my worst was on day 2, and the latest on day 21.

[Kara]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by Kara:

Why is there even a heli that does this? That's so weird.

First it is prolly some reporters. Later it is likely the army. You can hear them talking over the Emergency broadcast every now and then. Like when there is a house alarm somewhere, or you go by car, you can hear a report about in this and that sector activity...vehicle activity or something similar.

I always wished there was someway to interact with these seemingly interactable events. I vaguely remember them talking about adding npcs like two years ago...They could at least have a challenge mode to escape instead of just kiting a huge wave of zombies. =[

[Major]

stupid win condition idea. If you have zombie respawn off. Kill all the zombies on the map before day 21 (or however long it takes for the infection to actually breach containment) with achievement "I am become death" or something like that. with a cutscene after you sleep the next time that there's a driving through the country possibly to come get you and them burning the bodies en mass.

[Kaldrak]

Originally posted by Major:

stupid win condition idea. If you have zombie respawn off. Kill all the zombies on the map before day 21 (or however long it takes for the infection to actually breach containment) with achievement "I am become death" or something like that. with a cutscene after you sleep the next time that there's a driving through the country possibly to come get you and them burning the bodies en mass.

That seems nigh impossible. You'd need dozens of players sweeping the map with it set to 24 hour days in order to find all the zeds. And even then you'd probably still miss some.