Helicopter event

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

How often does the heli show up when on sometimes? Does it come more than once in a month?

[TromaVille Citizen]

One time as far as I know. My current run it showed up on day 6.

[txulak]

Only once, it will show up between the day 2 and 8 of the game (5-7 most probable)

My advise, find a car and pick a temporary base while you loot all what you can (tools, food, medical supplies, etc.) Load everything in the car and don't forget the gas.
Hide when the helicopter appears and when it has gone just take the car and get the hell out of there to your "permanent" base, because the helicopter brought enormous hordes of zombies wherever you are.

[The cursed Jäger]

If you set it to "Sometimes" in the sandbox settings, it may visit it you several times a month. By default it will only come once.

[Akil]

Originally posted by The cursed Jäger:

If you set it to "Sometimes" in the sandbox settings, it may visit it you several times a month. By default it will only come once.

^
This

[Shady Allie]

the "sometimes" setting will net you every few weeks. Not on same day ever. it wont be exactly on 14th day after the first chopper, though it can be.

The radio will be be your warning on the day it will arrive.

find your emergency broadcast channel and tune into it daily at the top of the hour...and this will be by default 9am (as that is when server day started, unless you changed that in settings), so 9 am is the NEW day for a server calculations for chopper it seems. i havent tested that thoroughly, but it seems like listen at 8am to radio, no chopper warning, then at 9am it might say AIR ACTIVITY.

so know when your server day hour start was set, and you only really need to tune in just before that hour. it will only arrive once on the air activity detected day, but at a random time that day. So be prepared, it might be in the next 10 minutes when the day rolls over, or maybe that evening. be diligent and ready.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by txulak:

Only once, it will show up between the day 2 and 8 of the game (5-7 most probable)

My advise, find a car and pick a temporary base while you loot all what you can (tools, food, medical supplies, etc.) Load everything in the car and don't forget the gas.
Hide when the helicopter appears and when it has gone just take the car and get the hell out of there to your "permanent" base, because the helicopter brought enormous hordes of zombies wherever you are.

I had a weirdly underwhelming heli event during my CDDA run, was able to kill all the zombies pulled to me with my spears. I was "only" in the little farmhouse north of where you start, so not terribly far from zombie hotzones.

probably helps that i'd been rather aggressively killing zombies on the route to the lake, which is where most of the nearby zeds *would* have been

[hardy_conrad]

One time on the road to LV I had that random gunshot event and huge swarms started pouring out of everywhere all at once. Another time, same location, the heli turned up and it was a damp squib.

Helis are most fun on active mutliplayer servers though, because they automatically appear the day after any new player signs in.

Question about helicopters though. Are they inspired or derived from any specific zombie movie? Because I was watching an old George Romero thing where a helicopter was pretty important and it got me wondering.

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

Originally posted by Shady Allie:

the "sometimes" setting will net you every few weeks. Not on same day ever. it wont be exactly on 14th day after the first chopper, though it can be.

The radio will be be your warning on the day it will arrive.

find your emergency broadcast channel and tune into it daily at the top of the hour...and this will be by default 9am (as that is when server day started, unless you changed that in settings), so 9 am is the NEW day for a server calculations for chopper it seems. i havent tested that thoroughly, but it seems like listen at 8am to radio, no chopper warning, then at 9am it might say AIR ACTIVITY.

so know when your server day hour start was set, and you only really need to tune in just before that hour. it will only arrive once on the air activity detected day, but at a random time that day. So be prepared, it might be in the next 10 minutes when the day rolls over, or maybe that evening. be diligent and ready.

Have you ever tested it? I'd love to try it in a new playthrough with my current group to keep things interesting since we have do initial infection but the total lack of information to how often the helicopter can show up with 'sometimes' chosen kinda sucks. I'm just not sure if it's RNG based, if theres a set cooldown then it randomly shows, or if its like x amount of days/weeks. Myself, i love the idea of multiple helicopters showing up and buzzing around within a whole playthrough instead of just one

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

One time on the road to LV I had that random gunshot event and huge swarms started pouring out of everywhere all at once. Another time, same location, the heli turned up and it was a damp squib.

Helis are most fun on active mutliplayer servers though, because they automatically appear the day after any new player signs in.

Question about helicopters though. Are they inspired or derived from any specific zombie movie? Because I was watching an old George Romero thing where a helicopter was pretty important and it got me wondering.

that's wild dude, havent played on a public server but me and my buddies would love to be apart of a huge community at somepoint. We're still relatively new, me being the most experienced so far but ya having pvp in the mix i can only imagine makes the game feel incredible

[Armagenesis]

I recall that "sometimes" means that helicopter event will happen every 9 days and "often" means 6 days. But for some reason I can't find the link to it.

If you change your setting mid-game, either using mod or changing your file manually, the count down will happen from the moment the setting is changed.

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

I recall that "sometimes" means that helicopter event will happen every 9 days and "often" means 6 days. But for some reason I can't find the link to it.

If you change your setting mid-game, either using mod or changing your file manually, the count down will happen from the moment the setting is changed.

wow that's some great info!! I can't find anything for it online, if you do find it lmk please. Even if the cooldown is 9 days, i'm still curious if that would be 9 days then it'll show up at some time after or if it's a hard set number. I did not realize you can change the settings mid play!!

[hardy_conrad]

Yeah for a while I was on a super active server and helicopter events were constantly happening, like every two three days. Eventually the host went kind of bonkers unfortunately (sprinters! high population! minimal loot! no safehouses unless you build them an hour away from town! etc etc) but it was fun while it lasted, heh.

[Armagenesis]

Originally posted by Sunburnt.Nipple:

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

I recall that "sometimes" means that helicopter event will happen every 9 days and "often" means 6 days. But for some reason I can't find the link to it.

If you change your setting mid-game, either using mod or changing your file manually, the count down will happen from the moment the setting is changed.

wow that's some great info!! I can't find anything for it online, if you do find it lmk please. Even if the cooldown is 9 days, i'm still curious if that would be 9 days then it'll show up at some time after or if it's a hard set number. I did not realize you can change the settings mid play!!

Changing sandbox setting on an existing save requires the methods I mentioned above, but you also need to be careful with it.

Changing world-related setting like loot rarity or gas pumps' volume can lead to some undesired game-breaking weird things.

Or at least that's what I experienced.

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

Yeah for a while I was on a super active server and helicopter events were constantly happening, like every two three days. Eventually the host went kind of bonkers unfortunately (sprinters! high population! minimal loot! no safehouses unless you build them an hour away from town! etc etc) but it was fun while it lasted, heh.

That's wild. See that many heli's would drive me nuts lol. I'm content with one every week and a half to 3 weeks. I think that would be my thing. I want more meta events, in my current save im holed up in the warehouses south of scenic grove north west of riverside & it's such a safe space that even when you hear meta events not much is to fear and my group of 4 has dwindled the Z pop quite a bit. We recently did a big run to westpoint for the gunstore which nearly ended the playthrough since the Z count was incredibly high. Lol noob died to fire after we all screamed get out of the house lol didnt listen.

[Sunburnt.Nipple]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Originally posted by Sunburnt.Nipple:

wow that's some great info!! I can't find anything for it online, if you do find it lmk please. Even if the cooldown is 9 days, i'm still curious if that would be 9 days then it'll show up at some time after or if it's a hard set number. I did not realize you can change the settings mid play!!

Changing sandbox setting on an existing save requires the methods I mentioned above, but you also need to be careful with it.

Changing world-related setting like loot rarity or gas pumps' volume can lead to some undesired game-breaking weird things.

Or at least that's what I experienced.

See that's what i fear, im not new to games that require set files to not be changed. rimworld, xcom etc. so ive been cautious with adding more mods/changing settings but tweaking the heli setting shouldnt do too much. i would think at least.