WARDOGS: How to Get a Parachute from the Equipment Vendor

A parachute in WARDOGS is a purchased item, not a default part of your kit. It lives in the Traversal slot, it is bought fresh each life, and it only does anything if you are already falling when you use it. The Basic Parachute is the cheap one, and for most helicopter inserts it is the only one you need.

Quick answer: Walk to the Equipment Vendor NPC inside the safe zone, open the shop, select the Gear tab, click Traversal, then buy the Basic Parachute for $100 — or $50 if you still have the new recruit discount, which expires at level 5.

Buy the Basic Parachute at the Equipment Vendor

Head to the Equipment Vendor inside the safe zone. The vendor is flagged on the minimap in the bottom-left corner with a gun icon, so follow that marker rather than wandering the compound.

Player walking through the WARDOGS safe zone toward the vendor station with fists equipped — Approaching the vendor station inside the safe zone. Image: BULKHEAD

Interact with the NPC to open the “EQUIPMENT VENDOR” menu. It opens on the Overview screen, which shows your current loadout slots and your cash balance in the corner.

Equipment Vendor Overview screen in WARDOGS with the Primary Weapon slot highlighted — The Equipment Vendor Overview screen, with loadout slots listed down the page. Image: BULKHEAD

Switch to the GEAR tab, then pick TRAVERSAL from the category list. Gear also holds Helmet, Camouflage and Backpack, so the parachutes are easy to miss if you stop scrolling early.

Select BASIC PARACHUTE and hit PURCHASE. The item card lists its weight at 2.5kg and spells out the limits: single use, must be manually deployed, cannot be controlled, reduces fall damage when deployed.

You will know it worked when the money is deducted from your balance and the chute shows up in your Traversal slot on the Overview screen. Back out of the menu and you can walk off into the safe zone with it packed.

Player leaving the vendor and walking through grass in the WARDOGS safe zone — Leaving the vendor menu and heading back out through the safe zone. Image: BULKHEAD

Note: the vendor applies a “NEW RECRUIT DISCOUNT -50%” that expires at level 5, which is why the Basic Parachute rings up at $50 on a brand new account and $100 afterwards.

Basic Parachute stats and limits

The spec sheet is short. The canopy bleeds height, holds whatever heading you point it at, and keeps you from splattering. It does not glide, it does not flare, and it is gone the moment you use it.

Property	Basic Parachute
Price per life	$100 ($50 with recruit discount)
Weight	2.5 kg
Inventory space	3×2 block
Uses	Single use
Deployment	Manual only
Steering	None
Effect	Reduces fall damage when deployed

Because it is single use, it disappears whether you land under it or collapse it early. Buying another one means a return trip to the vendor.

Deploying and cutting the canopy mid-air

The chute never opens by itself, and the prompt is contextual. Standing on a rooftop will not offer it. You have to actually be airborne and falling before the option to Deploy Parachute appears, at which point the canopy opens exactly where you asked for it.

While you are hanging under it, a second prompt lets you Cut Parachute. That collapses the canopy and drops you the rest of the way, which is how you stop being a slow-moving target. Cutting still spends the item, so treat it as a decision about the remainder of the fall rather than a way to save the pack.

Timing matters more than anything else with the Basic canopy. Pull early enough to shed speed, late enough that you are not dangling in the open for half a minute. Since you cannot steer, aim the jump at a wide open field rather than a rooftop or treeline.

Fix a missing Deploy Parachute keybind

There is a known trap here. Deploy Parachute has no entry in the in-game controls menu, so if something overwrites the default bind, you cannot restore it from settings. Rebinding the helicopter collective to Spacebar is the usual cause, and the result is a chute that never opens no matter how many times you press the key you expect.

WARDOGS Mouse - Vehicle settings screen with Rotary Vehicle Mouse Control highlighted — The Mouse – Vehicle settings page, where rotary vehicle controls are configured. Image: BULKHEAD

Close the game and open the config file for your account. Press Windows + R and enter %LOCALAPPDATA% to jump straight into the folder tree.

Open the settings file in a text editor.

C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Local\Wardogs\Saved\Config\WindowsClient\GameUserSettings.ini

Find the line containing DeployParachute and delete it, then save. With no entry present, the game falls back to the default parachute bind the next time it loads.

Relaunch and check the on-screen prompt while seated in an aircraft. WARDOGS is still in active development, so controls can shift between builds of the public WARDOGS release on Steam — worth a glance at the keybindings list after any update.

Basic Parachute vs Sport Parachute

The Traversal category stocks a second canopy. The Sport Parachute is gated behind WARDOGS LVL 35 in the vendor listing and costs considerably more, both to unlock and to rebuy each life. The difference is not safety, it is control.

	Basic	Sport
Price per life	$100	$1,000
Unlock cost	None listed	$25,000
Level requirement	None	WARDOGS LVL 35
Weight	2.5 kg	9 kg
Glide / steering	No	Yes
Flare on landing	No	Yes, drains stamina
Turn rate	Faster	Slower

Sport converts altitude into distance, reaching roughly 22 m/s forward and 30 m/s downward, and its flare pulls against the descent to shave off speed before touchdown. That flare spends stamina at about 50 a second while regaining only 30, so holding it too long leaves you with nothing and the ground still approaching.

Nine kilograms is roughly a rifle’s worth of carry weight, which is the real cost. Take Basic when the helicopter is dropping you over open ground. Take Sport only when the landing zone is genuinely hostile and you need to steer away from it.

When carrying a parachute is worth the slot

A chute is only useful if you are getting high off the ground. Helicopter HUDs show an AGL readout, and the rule of thumb is simple: jumping from around 5m is survivable without a canopy, while 10m and above is lethal. Anything higher than that, in an MH-6, UH-1Y, Havoc or AH-6, is chute territory.

Buying one does not conjure a helicopter. Someone on the team still has to fly, so the purchase makes sense when you already have a seat or a pilot has called a pickup. On a Humvee or Ural life, the 2.5kg is mostly dead weight in the Traversal slot.

Player with fists raised facing two enemies in a muddy yard in WARDOGS — A landing is only half the job — expect contact shortly after you touch down. Image: BULKHEAD

Once you are down, move into cover rather than standing in the open watching the helicopter leave. The canopy protects the loadout you paid for, and that is the end of what it does for you.