The short version
A Tulip Snake latches onto your helmet and flies you around. It is not trying to kill you, it is trying to carry you.
The danger is not the snake. It is where the flight puts you down.
What a Tulip Snake is
Tulip Snakes, also called Flower Snakes, are daytime outdoor entities.
After spawning they roam the way Manticoils do, and they occasionally fly from one area to another. When one finds an employee, it makes repeated quick attempts to pounce until it latches onto the helmet.
They are not hostile in the ordinary sense. Nothing here is trying to eat you.
What happens once one latches
With a single snake attached, you gain controlled flight that behaves much like a jetpack.
That is genuinely useful, and it is the reason players sometimes stop avoiding them. A free ride across the surface is worth something when the ship is far and your stamina is gone.
How the stack works
Up to five Tulip Snakes can carry the same employee at once.
Each one adds around 3 pounds of weight, so a full stack of five puts roughly 16 pounds on you.
Once more than one has latched on, you are randomly forced into the sky for about ten seconds at a time, then dropped back to the ground.
That forced launch is the real hazard. You are not piloting those ten seconds, and you do not choose where the fall happens.
What it costs you
Three things get worse while a snake is on your head.
Vision. When it is not trying to fly off with you, it gazes down at you and blocks a small part of your view.
Weight. Every snake is carry weight you are spending on a ride instead of on scrap.
Attention. You can hear the snake chirping, which makes it harder to hear the audio cues that matter outdoors.
Getting them off
Wave a shovel, stop sign or yield sign around and every snake currently on you dies at once.
Do it while standing somewhere you are willing to land. Killing the snakes ends the flight immediately, and the fall is not gentled by anything.
If you are over water, over a pit, or above a spot you did not walk to, ride it out instead and land on your own terms.
Is flying worth it?
Sometimes, and the test is simple.
Take the ride when the ground route is long, when you are empty-handed, and when you can see where you will come down.
Skip it when you are carrying a full load, when the quota clock is tight, or when the flight path crosses somewhere you have not mapped.
A crew that treats Tulip Snakes as free transport eventually gets dropped somewhere it cannot walk back from.
Flying with a crew
A teammate can remove every snake attached to you with one swing of a shovel or sign, and that changes the calculus.
If someone is watching, the ride gets much safer: they can knock the stack off the moment the flight stops being useful, and they can see where you are being carried better than you can.
Call it out before you launch, not during. Once you are in the air, the ten-second forced flight is not the time to explain where you are going.
The other crew consideration is the clock. Daytime is when these are active, and daytime is also when you should be looting rather than sightseeing over the map.
Mistakes that get people killed
- Letting the stack build. Two or more snakes means you lose control of when you fly and where you land.
- Killing them mid-air. You fall the instant they die, so remove them over ground you chose.
- Flying while overloaded. The weight adds up and the landing does not care how much you are carrying.
- Assuming daytime means safe. They are a daytime entity, which is exactly when crews are outdoors carrying scrap.
- Treating the flight as free. It costs vision, weight and control, and it puts you somewhere you did not walk to.
Related guides
- Monsters database — every entity with its location.
- How to beat Manticoil — the other flying daytime entity.
- Best scrap tier list — what your remaining weight should carry.