WELL.

I'm not really sure how or why but my sixth playthrough of Chernobyl Freeplay was, all things considered, a smashing success. I made it a whole five in-game days with only a handful of issues, which were saves getting corrupted and your usual SoC jank. In every case reloading an older save and playing from there worked flawlessly. Adding those choppers back in seems to have worked wonders.

A few more tweaks and I believe the mod will be ready for release.