Patrol Helicopter

The Patrol Helicopter is an event that occurs every 2-4 hours. It is controlled by an NPC and has a large portion of health. It shoots any player that has more than 2 pieces of clothing a ranged weapon in their toolbar. When the Patrol Helicopter spawns, it comes from a random direction and approaches the island. It patrols the rad towns with a M249 before leaving the island. To take down the Patrol Helicopter, you need a ranged weapon (preferably L96 with HV ammo) to get its attention. If you hit the Patrol Helicopter, it will leave its path and come towards you. You must show up in order for the Patrol Helicopter to not leave after 30 seconds. There are 2 weak points for the Patrol Helicopter, the main blades and the tail. If both are destroyed, the Patrol Helicopter will be destroyed, ignoring its actual health. Having a base with Vertical Metal Embrasures and a bed is recommended so you can respawn whenever you die. You should keep in mind of the Patrol Helicopter shooting rockets or incendiary rockets at you, when it turns backwards and go a little bit further from your base and comes back. That's when you should run away, as the Metal Embrasures cannot protect you from the explosions. If the Patrol Helicopter is taken down, it will fall to the ground while spinning and explode. It will be on fire for a while, including the loot crates and the body of the Patrol Helicopter (you cannot take out the smoking fire with water buckets). The loot crates will extinguish first and then the body of Patrol Helicopter. Keep in mind that people can see where the crash site is located (debris field icon on the map), you may get countered while waiting for the fire to extinguish. After the body extinguishes too (mining the body doesn't play a burning sound), you can get high quality metal, metal fragments and charcoal.

HP	10000
Main Rotor HP	900
Tail Rotor HP	500

Drops
Salvaging
Tips

Crate	Amount
Helicopter Crate	4

	Resources	Time	Condition Loss
Jackhammer	×800 ×1,500 ×70	10–32 sec	15 %
Bone Club	×391 ×751 ×36	3 min 8 sec – 13 min 48 sec	×5
Pickaxe	×800 ×1,500 ×70	1 min 30 sec – 4 min 16 sec	43 %
Rock	×398 ×750 ×35	3 min 44 sec – 12 min 50 sec	×2
Salvaged Hammer	×600 ×1,125 ×53	1 min 7 sec – 3 min 21 sec	21 %
Salvaged Icepick	×800 ×1,500 ×70	46 sec – 2 min 12 sec	8 %
Stone Pickaxe	×623 ×1,167 ×55	1 min 21 sec – 4 min	90 %

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Reejerey 136 pts. 6 years ago

The 2 biggest things to be aware of with the Patrol Helicopter is how it behaves when it is going to rocket and how important shooting the rotors is. With this awareness, you can down the Patrol Helicopter with as little as one mag from an Assault Rifle (if your aim is perfect) in just a couple of rocket passes as a solo player. As a larger group it should be no problem to down the Patrol Helicopter in seconds as long as you shoot out the rotors.
When the Patrol Helicopter rockets it will chose a target then fly away at high speed. On the Patrol Helicopter's return it fires rockets. If you move to the opposite side of the base from where the Patrol Helicopter is rocketing, you'll avoid the splash. This means you can use as small as a 3-4 high stone 3x3 to take the Patrol Helicopter down (possibly smaller, but then you're getting risky)
The rotors have about 1/7th of the health of the main body, and can theoretically be destroyed with 28 rounds from an Assault Rifle, the main body takes 200 rounds. The m249 and the Bolt Action Rifle are both do more damage and are more ammo efficient but the m249 is hard to acquire and the bolt is a little slow, meaning more rockets. Once you do get an m249 it becomes much easier to down the Patrol Helicopter, as the sustained fire can really tear up the rotors.
Also, a tip for not getting wrecked by the machine gun. It fires in bursts. Bait a burst and note where the Patrol Helicopter is moving to, then pop out from cover at a good shooting point for that spot. You'll avoid a lot of bullet damage this way.
Hopefully these tips help, and happy rusting!

magnum1601 36 pts. 6 years ago

the chopper can sometimes bug and stay and patrol the place for 15 to 30 min witch it did to me and my friend on a dome run. just keep that in mind.

Hazmad 104 pts. 6 years ago

Metal Vertical embrasure Metal Embrasures are great for ducking behind when fighting a helicopter. They are NOT great for protecting yourself against any type of rockets though.
Tool Cupboard Have a friend place a TC and authorize on it for you, then leave the area. This will prevent the helicopter from using high explosive rockets by tricking it into thinking you're in someone else's base.
Auto Turret Keep an auto turret handy to deploy near the crash site to keep people from stealing the loot. You can pick it back up when you're done by using a building hammer.
High Quality Metal Long after the fires go out, the helicopter fuselage will cool down enough to mine with a pickaxe. This is an excellent way to score 50-75 High Quality Metal and even a CCTV camera if you're super lucky.

ＬＯＬＲＥＫＴ 121 pts. 3 years ago

You can take down the heli with 1 highwall only or in caves u dont always need a tower to take it down

Anti &dagger; 356 pts. 2 years ago

Watch out for them yoka bois

Nikolai 66 pts. 4 years ago

If you are near some monuments like Junkyard, regardless of what you have in your toolbar or how much clothing you are wearing, you will be targeted by the Patrol Helicopter. Keep this in mind when visiting monuments while it's patrolling the island.

Knifepoint 1 pts. 3 years ago

@#asdf nope, unless you have a weapon in hotbar and/or more than 2 pieces of gear equipped.

swag monke 6 pts. year ago

Never saw anyone add this but when attack helicopter is taken down and the crates are extinguished, it takes 5 minutes to be able to salvage it with a tool. I got a crate stuck in its tail and I felt I had to share this.

Dozy 6 pts. 3 months ago

sometimes when the heli getting hit it deploys some red stuff looking like the flare and then it just ignores the player who hit it. happened to me twice.