Helicopter sighting mechanics

[thekaj]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I didn't see it going back to December.  Last night I was relaxing in the rec room on the second floor of the Rosewood FD, waiting for the evening episode of Life and Living to come on.  At around 1600, I heard the helicopter.  Perfect!  I had already been inside for about an hour and all the windows had sheets over them.  I continued to read and wait for the show.  But an hour went by and I could still hear the chopper overhead.  Probably not a good thing.  At 1750, I heard glass breaking downstairs over the continued sound of the chopper.  Yup, time to go!  It was a harrowing experience, as I was already tired, and the chopper followed me until 2100, so a full 5 hours of the stupid thing overhead.  But after an uncomfortable night's sleep in the chair in the projector room of the drive-in, and dodging a couple hordes on the way back, I made it back to the deserted station.

 

But how is it that the helicopter spotted me?  As I said, I had been inside for well over an hour prior to hearing it.   The second floor has 4 windows in front, and all of them were covered.  I did have the lights on, and I discovered that my exit window was open.  But the TV was on low (and not broadcasting anything), and I was sitting reading several squares away from the window.  

[getstoopid]

I too got the feeling that staying out of sight doesn't help at all...this damn thing "just knows"

[vek]

44 minutes ago, getstoopid said:

this damn thing "just knows"

Yes, that's right.
This has always been the case, and it is unlikely to change.

[Laker]

The helicopter is just a general event.  It's going to happen no matter what you do.  I think you can turn it off in  the settings if you want.  

[playlessNamer]

My rule is just to run away as fast and as far you can from any area you like. Far away from home asap.

Meanwhile i disable the event at all because after it the streets are ugly clumped. It just makes all zombies stuck together in big balls everywhere for many days.

 

Its nothing more to me than a run far away and with a stressfull way back home and the streets are ugly after it. Dont need it, not really a feature i am missing.

[getstoopid]

I usually use it to clear the surrounding of my homebase. However it just breaks the immersion somewhat that it always knows exactly where you are.

[ZombieHunter]

The helicopter didn't actually "spot" you. Basically it is hovering nearby trying to spot you. 

That constant noise being in the area kept zombies flooding into the area.

 

You are right though the Helicopter mechanic does need a more practical change

[InnerEthos]

Many helicopters are equipped with thermal cameras. The technology was progressed far enough by the 1990's so as to be integrating into the civilian market, so says Wikipedia. 
 

Would not be unreasonable to assume a curious and perhaps desperate helicopter pilot would have a thermal camera being used to find survivors. Wonder what happens to make the guy finally go away...

[Ridick]

 

 

 

Honestly I don't understand why you guys are even playing with it turned on, it is more of a meme than a proper gameplay feature. I did rather the devs spent their time in other much more interesting proposals that are in the table than trying to polish this.

[CannedRat]

Not bad when a helicopter has about 2 hours max flight time.... including travel to and from their "safe landing" area. 

 

Its a pretty crude mechanic and it lasts a stupid length of time and spawns a stupid amount of zombies for a tiny town.  I suspect it was origionally intended to be a base ending mechanism in some older design iteration and has just never been cleaned up.

 

Totally ruined my MP base and made the area unlivable as our characters were just starting out and had little supplies stashed.  Its going to take a massive amount of work and risk to get Rosewood back to how it was before the "event".  So the option is to just start again in another town. Lucky we had just sorted a vehicle and some fuel.  But for a small town, where did that many zeds suddenly come from? The prison? 

 

So now we have to start another base, climb the resource hump, climb the skill hump, get enough guns and ammo and finally come back... but why would we?  By the time we have sorted out enough resources and skill to launch a viable raid, we don't need to come back.  Just sniping around the edges of  large spread out mobs of zombies is suicide for low level characters, its just not viable.   Hit and run just burns up resources. So it's just done. Let it go.

 

There is no way to "recover" from a helicopter event either.  You can't just wait for the zombies to wander away, because they just don't wander fast or far enough. If you are short of resources, you can't bunker down long enough... so its just time to leave with what little you can carry and if you need to run a long distance... that will be just the shirt on your back. 

 

That being said, I like that it bumped us out of our comfortable base and into the harsh and unforgiving world.... surviving is suddenly a challenge again.