Pickups

“

Click to listen

— The Sniper

”

Pickups are objects that are spawned or dropped in various locations across most maps. These usually consist of varying forms of Health, Ammo and Metal. A player must walk into them to collect them, and will only pick them up if they are not at full Health, Ammo or Metal. Any regular item pick-up used in this way will disappear, and will respawn after ten seconds with a distinct sound effect.

In addition, the Heavy's Sandvich can also be considered a pick-up item, in the sense that a Heavy can drop his Sandvich for his teammates or enemies to use. It can recover as much health as a medium-sized health kit. When a Heavy is at full health, he can pick up a health kit to instantly recharge his Sandvich if it has been depleted.

The Scout may also drop small health packs whenever they receive a kill or assist with the Candy Cane. Health pickups, excluding the Sandvich, and Ammo/Metal pickups do not restore a set amount of health or ammo/metal; instead they restore a percentage of the maximum health or ammo/metal of a class.

Pickups cannot be retrieved if an Engineer builds a teleporter on the pickup spawn point. Other engineering buildings, such as Sentry Guns and Dispensers, allow friendly players to pass but block enemy movement, so they can be used to prevent opponents from taking pickups. However, such buildings also block the builder from claiming them.

Special pickups

Some pickups are exclusive to certain conditions, such as events or game modes.

Event pickups

During the annual Halloween events, two more pickup items are introduced. Exclusive to the event versions of Harvest and Mann Manor are Halloween pumpkins which are spawned when players are killed. These Halloween pumpkins grant a 3-4 second Crit boost when picked up. Picking up 20 of them will also complete the Candy Coroner achievement, unlocking the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask. During the Scream Fortress event it was possible to find another unique pickup, the Haunted Halloween Gift. Successfully claiming this gift awards the finder a random Halloween Mask.

During Scream Fortress 2014 on Carnival of Carnage, one of the Bumper Car minigames involves collecting toy ducks on a track. Smashing into enemy players makes golden "bonus ducks" fly out of the smashed player. The team that collects the specified number of ducks first wins.

Further, basic pickups such as health and ammo have their own Halloween variants and birthday mode variants. The change in appearance is merely cosmetic and does not alter the items' benefits. The Halloween variants can be found in Harvest Event and in Mann Manor, while the birthday variants appear on all maps when birthday mode is activated. Additionally, birthday mode variants are available for those players who equip Pyrovision with the proper goggles or any other item that enables it.

During the Australian Christmas 2011 event, Christmas gift pickups are dropped upon the death of a player. The pickups appear as a small gift box and function similarly to the Halloween pumpkins, however, they do not grant the player additional critical hits. Collecting three of the Christmas gifts will grant the player the Gift Grab achievement.

During the End of the Line Update event, killing players occasionally yields rubber duck pickups. The Duck Journal can keep track of these ducks, and also increases the amount of ducks dropped.

Game mode pickups

In Medieval mode, medium health pickups appear as hambones.

In Mann vs. Machine, destroying a robot will make it drop a pile of cash that can be collected and used to buy upgrades at any Upgrade Station. All collected cash is shared between team members. Additionally, Scouts possess the innate ability to have a larger cash collect range and gain health from it.

Associated weapons

v • d • e List of weapons related to pickups
Scout	Melee			On kill: A small health pack is dropped.
Scout	Melee	Candy Cane		On kill: A small health pack is dropped.
Pyro	Melee			+50% health from packs on wearer.
Pyro	Melee	Back Scratcher		+50% health from packs on wearer.
Demoman	Melee			Ammo boxes collected give Charge.
Demoman	Melee	Persian Persuader		Ammo boxes collected give Charge.
Heavy	Secondary			With secondary fire, throws it for another player to restore 50% health.
		Sandvich	Buffalo Steak Sandvich

		Robo-Sandvich	Festive Sandvich
				With secondary fire, throws it for another player to restore 20.5% health.
		Dalokohs Bar	Fishcake

		Second Banana
Engineer	Melee			20% less metal from Dispensers and Pickups.
Engineer	Melee	Eureka Effect		20% less metal from Dispensers and Pickups.
Spy	PDA 2			No cloak meter from ammo boxes when invisible -35% cloak meter from ammo boxes
Spy	PDA 2	Cloak and Dagger

T-1000000
Collect 1,000,000 credits in your career.

Wage Against the Machine
Earn a credit bonus at the end of a wave.

Scout

Dodgers 1, Giants 0
Kill an enemy Heavy and take his Sandvich.

Heavy

Redistribution of Health
Heal 1000 damage with med-kits in a single life.

Konspicuous Konsumption
Eat 100 sandviches.

Update history

February 19, 2008 Patch

Dropped weapons now replenish half of your max ammo when picked up

August 19, 2008 Patch

The Sandvich was added to the game.

December 11, 2008 Patch

Spies will be able to recharge their Cloak by picking up ammo off of the ground or visiting health cabinets.

February 25, 2009 Patch

Players with full health can now pick up dropped Sandviches.

September 15, 2009 Patch

Alt-fire on the Sandvich now drops Sandviches.
- A single Sandvich can be dropped at a time. Dropping the Sandvich removes it from the Heavy.
- A Heavy can regain his Sandvich by collecting a healthkit while already being at full health.
- Eating a Sandvich using the taunt method now heals a Heavy to full health.
- Dropped Sandviches heal 50% of the collector's health.

October 14, 2009 Patch

Added 1/2 Bonus Point for healing a teammate with a dropped Sandvich.
Fixed being able to eat your Sandvich (via taunt) and drop it in the same frame.
Fixed thrown Sandvich traveling through players before being activated.
Fixed Sandviches sometimes spawning inside walls, or being thrown through thin walls.

October 29, 2009 Patch