DayZoey

So I just recently had a thought while discussing some essentials and non-essentials with some friends of mine for a zombie apocalypse and wanna know what didn't occur until the subject of handling food with poo covered hands? (From lack of toilet paper after pooing) Secondary infection. It was by far the biggest killer due to fevers, liquid bowels and violent shivering that tired the body out for a nice and tidy one-two-three knock-out for most soldiers during the medieval era of combat that was a slow and miserable way to die. This has me thinking; we're in a zombie apocalypse so modern medicine and house-hold supplies aren't readily available unless looted from a store. This combined with all the promised makeshift weapons and actual weapons designed for combat whose wounds go untreated for too long would make for a slew of different diseases one could catch simply by scraping their elbow on a rusty nail or shooting someone with an arrow that had recently been used to kill a zombie or had been recovered from the dirt. Just a few of the problems and relative solutions that I can come up with... Bacterial infection: results in a fever that gets progressively worse if left untreated for too long, though not communicable among other survivors, it would make running, climbing or even getting up a task too difficult to carry on for very long. Within a few hours of game time, treatable with hydrogen peroxide, Iodine or Alcohol. After a few hours, antibiotics and heavy fluid consumption are required (whilst under effect of the fever, hydration meter drains twice as fast). If left for more than seven or eight hours in game, cold sweat makes the body temperature of the player raise to dangerous levels and character's pooping animation is replaced by diarrhea and water meter drains three times as fast and gets progressively worse unless treated with antibiotics or water/health drain becomes too rapid for a player to keep up with and they die. Tetnus/Rust infection: I'm not sure what the effects of Tetnus is but I do know that it can be severely deadly if not treated within a certain time frame, take away our hospitals where it can be treated when past that window and it becomes especially dangerous. Obviously can be caught by swimming/drinking very unsanitary water or by being struck with a rusty cleaving weapon. The common cold: Not really a big one because they are rarely deadly. Extremely communicable and unless proper precautions are taken, can develop to pneumonia which is very capable of killing someone if not cared for properly. Initial symptoms would of course be a cough and maybe the water meter drains at an accelerated rate of 120%. Easy enough to care for, if cough syrup/drops are used then the communicable nature of the disease is more or less eliminated (though can pass through food/drink if handled by infected character) despite cough medication. If proper clothing is worn (warm clothes, infected survivor is kept dry and has proper rest or inactivity to keep stress on the body to a minimum) then the disease will take care of itself. However, poorly clothed and cared for survivors that don't take the proper steps to manage their symptoms would develop a whooping cough that starts by decreasing the distance they can run before being out of breath in half and progressively gets worse. Also being forced in to coughing fits (also coughing could give away position to zombies) which they can only move at a walking pace while suffering, possibly even throwing up (draining food meter to 0) due to violent nature of the coughs and dehydration gets much worse. The only real cure for this is proper care, rest and food/drink. Just some ideas :3

Yeah but if Rocket is serious about making the game harder, water and food will be much harder to come by. I danno if he's going that in depth but if you poop without toilet paper and without wiping with -something-, you get horribad rashes between your buttcheeks. So that could be another factor, toilet paper will be mountain money in DayZ. Though tetnus shots are incredibly common, you can buy them at a pharmacy so there's no reason to think that raiding a grocery store wouldn't have a really high chance of finding tetnus shots and such. I also find the rarity of Antibiotics as it is baloney, antibiotics are probably the most common drug out there next to cold medicine and they've been mass produced ever since someone figured out how to make them. I think that's why the human population has reached such a high, people aren't dying off from fevers due to bacterial infections anymore. Not in the droves that they used to. And yeah, if Rocket makes the game harder to survive in I sincerely the amount of deathmatching going on will be cut down substantially. I still don't understand why people play DayZ to deathmatch, I really don't. Arma 2 works just fine as a military game to shoot people in and if not, there's tons of other shooters out there that you can accomplish the exact same thing in but spend not even a third of the time gathering the equipment to do it.

Just because I don't agree with your point doesn't mean I didn't get it. You said yourself in the first post that you want sniper rifles to be nerfed to be made less effective than they are in favour of more rapid fire weapons (LMGs, ARs, etc) with broken optics that basically render the weapon useless. I disagree. Right now finding anything is a lottery system as it would be in a real zombie apocalypse, maybe there's more LMGs lying around because they were the first ones to get bitten? Or there was a mutiny and the snipers ended up getting shot. Who knows? Personally I would hate to have a LMG as a weapon in a zombie apocalypse, they are heavy and cumbersome and are designed to be fired from a mounted or prone position and they make volumes of more noise than an Assault Rifle or better yet a submachine gun would. If I've got hundreds of slobbering hungry cannibals chasing me, I wouldn't want something that would weigh me down and be difficult to fire accurately on the move, I would prefer an assault rifle or a submachine gun, both of which are meant to be fired by a person on the move. An assault rifle having a more general purpose to combat as it can fire at long ranges and be useful in close quarters combat and a submachine gun specifically designed to be smaller, lighter and more mobile for close quarters combat.

That's nice, the setting is already dark and gritty as it is. It doesn't need to give potentially sociopathic players an outlet for their gore fantasies to wank to while they play DayZ. The number of these threads that have sprouted up (mostly due to peoples' lack of ability to use the search function and partly due to the morbid fascination people have with the concept) is enough to both make me lose a bit of faith in people and at the same time make me glad that I only leave my house for work, food and hanging out with friends.

You're assuming that I have only gotten in to fights with schoolyard punks like you, your assumption could not be anymore incorrect. So wait... I state my disagreement and my opinion plainly (in that I believe this is a terrible idea for DayZ and why) without sugar coating it, you decide to insult me on my opinion and suddenly when I return fire I'm a troll? Hah... hahahahah yeah... I keep coming back here because it's entertaining to watch someone absolutely fail at reading comprehension and then insult me for not reading their post properly. Hello Kettle, this is my friend the Pot. I have explained, for numerous reasons why I believe this is a terrible idea and because I think you're a big boy capable of going back a page when you're feeling less full of yourself that you can read them for yourself again. Other people have also stated why this is not a good idea (Ping/Lag and other such internet connection related issues that come with an opposed QTE) and you seem to have just ignored them. So you're not here to have a discussion about your thread and ready to debate the merits of it, you're here to get internet butt pats from people who like being yanked from their game by some random button mashing contest quick time event that they had the rotten luck of being dragged in to by another player mashing the initiate key as they ran around a city. I certainly hope the continued internet butt pats you get makes your knob feel nice and big because those pills you buy online don't work, have a good day sir.

Yes yes and more yes. Suggestions like this remind me of the books of Skyrim (like the one about the red eagle or something and then you actually got to fight the Draugr version of this person and take his sword) that made the game that much more engaging and exciting to be in. Well done sir!

This is something definitely worth looking in to with the stand alone if they make maps larger than 25km otherwise a crew in a helicopter could just raid an entire server in a matter of a couple of hours and leave nothing for anyone else fairly quickly. Though I support anything that brings more authenticity to the game so +1 :D

Well that's nice and all but this isn't Middle Earth and women aren't dwarves :P The only beard I'm capable of growing is down below and that's just nasty so I don't do it xD

As far as rarity of certain guns goes, yeah it something that needs to be worked on. In a soviet state like Chernarus AK variants of weapons would certainly be more popular. If we get more maps in the western part of the world then NATO weapons would certainly become way more common than say Chernarus. Honestly if they make a map in Canada I will be happy (as long as that map is cold as hell all the time and everyone gets around on dogsleds. Also everyone ends their sentences with "eh" on these servers. Ehl Oh Ehl.) with the game. I agree with the AS50, an anti material rifle that to my knowledge is only used by the U.S Navy S.E.A.Ls, though coming across one shouldn't be impossible (maybe a unit got wiped out by zombies or bandits caught on the unawares, who knows? They are deployed all over the world if American braggotry is to be believed) That being said, I really do find it a bit annoying that you're complaining about balance of guns in a game in terms of their stopping power and ability to kill accurately. No offense dude but it's folks like you complaining about imbalance of weapons that ruin a lot of games by complaining to devs en masse that one gun is OP and needs to be nerfed. Putting that aside though, I will respectfuly say: Guns are not designed to be balanced or fair, they are designed to give the one holding them an upper hand over the other party that means to kill them. When you go to war you go home sitting in a plane/ship or you go home in a box. There is no middle ground. Survival in this game is a war in of itself that you're not only fighting other people who mean you harm but also your own bodily needs and invisible killers (ie: disease) as well as zombies in this particular case. Nobody ever went in to a design facility for Colt, Smith and Wesson or Kalashnikov (or whatever company makes AKs) and thought "Hey, I wonder if this is too powerful... unfair to the other side, ya know?". The only questions that I believe come up in such designs are "Will it kill a person better?" and "How else is it better than what we already have?"

I support this idea (though admit it has been suggested a number of times, though I support your actual thinking about it rather than just coughing it up on to the forums and expect to be rolling in teh beanz) and think it's certainly a good step in the right direction that isn't far off from the current system of filling things. I suggest that we add the ability to empty magazines similarly to how you did, though incorporate the use of the ammo box idea in to it. Got a left over mag with three rounds in it? Empty those in to the box where you're storing your ammo currently, viola, you have three extra bullets to use elsewhere that aren't taking up space. This would also give way to the communal "potluck" idea in sharing ammunition. You empty the last twelve rounds of a magazine you don't need, your buddy can take eight of those twelve and make a full magazine. Certainly supports more teamwork and I'm all for anything that makes teamwork a more viable option to survival rather than just killing everyone you see for fun/supplies.

For the love of God people, do you even bother using the search function before you vomit another one of these threads out? This has been suggested (rather demanded by first person Call of Duty hard-ons) at least a dozen times, it will be suggested at least a dozen more if you people don't bloody search before you make a new topic about it. It has been posted, repeatedly, that there shouldn't be 3rd person in the game and there have been replies, repeatedly to both sides of the argument. Some of these redundant topics are getting silly, if you don't like third person (or feel it gives some imaginary advantage to those of us who prefer third person) then join a server that has it disabled. Stop trying to screw up the game for those of us who play from a different perspective, don't knock my gameplay and I won't knock yours. I could go on for paragraphs at a time how being in first person is unrealistic, unauthentic and completely stupid for a game like this but I already have, repeatedly. Drop the topic and accept that not everybody gets hard in the pants when they play Call of Duty/Battlefield 3/Whatever FPS is out now and popular like you.

Honestly I'm on the fence about this one... I'm against it because it forces me to interact with players I don't know in order to convey/receive information about other players which could easily be used to set up an ambush and be abused (as the bait of the trap would be completely innocent of the crime) to sucker people like me or new folks in to dying again. It would also make people that I interacted with think I'm a bandit because I shoot people that are hostile towards me or that have the chance of seeing me and/or killing me. I'm sort of for it also because it does help bring players together and help players like me shed our attitude of Kill on Sight because you don't know them and make talking to other players more useful, though I think potential bandits should be seen as more dangerous as you interact with them because people who murder other people tend to be traumatized if they were the least bit sane before they did, if not they have quite a few verbal/bodily cues that something isn't quite clicking upstairs. The introduction of a morality before character creation would be pretty good actually, something that is optional at first but as you murder more and more people, your morality is more or less forced to one of a less sane person to start as you keep playing/dying because clearly you're not interested in being a good person. You were dangerous to society before the apocalypse started and now you're running amok with no rules. I think sitting down with people and talking to them (via user interface like you suggested) would be helpful if it helped you determine what kind of person they are. Example being... David comes across three survivors over the span of a game. One named Sasha, one named Michael and the third named Evan. When he spoke with Sasha over the time he spent he got "Sasha looks troubled, perhaps even guilty of something and has trouble meeting your eye when she speaks. A bit quiet but with possibly good intent" while the time he spent with Michael he got "Michael seems eerily cheerful in light of everything happening, with a song in his heart and a skip in his step. You notice something a bit strange in his eyes, the way he looks at you from time to time is a bit disturbing..." whilst spending time with Michael he got "Evan speaks steadily and with the occasional smile though he seems a bit troubled, the way he seems a bit on edge does seem normal though keeping an eye out and possibly ready to help at a moment's notice with his friendly gaze". Sasha would be a survivor like me, someone who kills people when she has to but doesn't enjoy it and seems guilty over doing it. Someone who started with good morality and means well but is becoming the very monster she attempts to survive against in such a hostile environment. Evan is one who has either started with good or bad morality but has shaped up to be more of a paragon of the apocalypse, helping others and only killing when he had to in order to survive. Someone who you could depend on not putting a bullet in the back of your skull the second he got the chance. Michael, obviously from his description is someone who has started with bad morality over many lives of decreasing that morality by continuously killing his way around simply because he couldn't survive any other way or because he found joy in doing so, a true sociopath that anyone could shoot without too guilty a conscience or loss to their own morality. The kicker being that you as a player wouldn't be able to see how you behave when inspected/talked to by other players, unless you had a friend telling you what you were like when you were spoken to but maybe over time with enough inspections your friend wouldn't really "notice it" getting more of a regular text when interacting with them so people couldn't just abuse the morality system to dupe other players. A bit overtly complex I know but there really is no easy way of introducing morality to a game of any sort.

Eh I'm sorry but I can't say I support this idea in the slightest. Though I do think it is a touch bit silly to not have a jump feature in the game what it does is cripple the ability of the retard FPS Quake players that hop around like bunny-rabbits after having snorted an entire eight ball. People actually have to coordinate and think about their movements in gun fights rather than just "lololololololololol *hop hop hop hop*". High ground is something that is advantageous against a sentient human being, this is true. You have a better field of view, you are less visible to those below you and of course they have to go through considerable effort to get to you. Not the same can be said about zombies with no sense of self preservation that barrel at you at top speed, going to high ground like a ceiling is basically a self written death sentence and I believe it should stay that way. Not to mention I'd really like it if this game didn't become CoD multiplayer where I gotta worry about being privy to every glitched spot every douche sniper could possibly find within the city that I would have to check as I came in. Windows and ledges are enough for me, thanks.

Considering the life expectancy of a character at this point in time (I suspect it will either get much higher with the game being harder to play and forcing bandits to be less of bored dickwads or get much lower as people die from starvation/disease much more frequently) I actually think adapting to running should be something that -could- be done in a reasonably short amount of time. Obviously getting used to it by running for ten minutes to half an hour would be really silly I think maybe once the character has ran for say a cumulative of two hours they have that "peak" where they can sustain a run for much longer with less stamina consumption. Perhaps every two hours cumulative ran would increase in tiers how fast they can run. Of course, the same number of hours spent in game not running would be working against you. Drive around for two hours, you get bumped down a tier in your running ability. Eating poorly could also speed up the timer as well (since your body consumes protein before it consumes fat when it is starving, our bodies are weird like that) so eating properly and going for a run every now and then instead of driving would be considered useful though again, not made to tedious and too much like Sims 3 that we constantly have to maintain it for some silly reason.

I'm not sure which part of the hormonal imbalanced part of the world you come from but as a rule of genetics, women don't grow beards >.> It's one of the gender defining features that we've grown to accept and breed with, barring a few exceptions (like women who have hormone imbalance issues) that women are generally lacking facial hair. We do grow under arm hair, arm hair and leg hair (pubic hair too but this isn't really the game for that kinda thing :P) but I haven't met any women so far that go weeks without shaving their face and have a beard of any kind. Some grow hair above their upper lip but it's pretty thin, less than even peach fuzz. Though I do support the idea of general unkempt survivor looks and put forth the following idea: Let's get grubby! Both men and women both should get dirt and muck and grime and so on and so forth on their faces and clothing alike as time goes by without any means of bathing, being unclean also raises your chance of contracting all sorts of nasty bacteria related diseases (which would work quite nicely with the new disease system coming out) so you would be at more risk for developing sickness the longer you went without bathing in a river, maybe even rubbing yourself down with a few wetnaps would help in between baths or something of the like. It would encourage players to maintain a distance from the people who look like they slept under a newspaper before the zombie apocalypse.

I don't get the morbid fascination people seem to have with cannibalism in the game... I really don't. Why would you want to simulate eating another person after killing them (assuming it was you who killed them)? As the wiki link above provides, cannibalism isn't something that can be maintained for really any length of time and through large amounts of consumption due to the recycling of hormones and fluids through the human being's digestive system, serious neurological and physiological damage can happen very quickly. Cannibalism is something that is resorted to as a desperate hungry person's means of survival and there are documented cases of humans eating humans in the last 100 years because they needed to survive. It isn't something that is done regularly anymore nor is it something that is done without serious emotional damage. Only a true sociopath or psychopath would be capable of eating human flesh without being driven mad by guilt. As the previous poster mentioned it wouldn't be a viable solution in game either because of long term symptoms including uncontrollable muscle spasms which would really cripple anyone's ability to do anything that required steady hands (ie: aiming a gun/crossbow/bow/whatever) so not many people would end up doing it anyway. Seriously guys... We've had at least a dozen cannibalism suggestion threads in the month and change I've been registered for this site. Please just, enough already x_x

I think with vehicles being a more viable idea in the stand alone this is certainly an excellent idea, making running from place to place like a marathon athlete does seem kinda unrealistic though I support it with the mod given that it would take -hours- to really do anything from one town to another on foot. Walking along the road with nothing but scenery porn to look at as you go? Eh, I'll pass on that. That being said, since vehicles are supposedly going to be a bit easier to repair in the stand alone I don't think this is a terribad idea. If there were more cities and more buildings to explore within cities to find supplies to fix cars and become more mobile then getting from one city to another wouldn't be all that hard. Though if the map Chernarus stays as it is and doesn't add anymore buildings to cities and small towns to explore and root around for supplies in then honestly... I can't say I support this idea, the prime reason I feel being able to run forever in DayZ is that there's nothing to do otherwise unless you can get from one town to another within a few minutes with a really fast jaunt.

Wait so you want it to have close quarters struggle for youtube content? Go watch UFC on Youtube then if you want to watch two grown men flopping around on the ground like sweaty, greased up fish all over each other. There is just about nothing "DayZ" about having a quick time event script regardless of how much movement the two avatars make. I'm sorry for having come in and shot down your idea for DayZ but it is a first/third person survival game. I don't see anything wrong with the melee system as it is (aside from being unable to defend yourself with bare fists) and really only threw out the lock-on melee system as a way to contribute to the concept you had come up with that didn't turn the game in to Splinter Cell Double Agent multiplayer. Maybe you like the little quick time events in first person shooters that string you along like a handicapped person being pulled on by a piece of twine attached to a hook through their nose but I do not. It would completely break immersion for me in game to be playing a survival game only to be ramped in to a Call of Duty/Battlefield 3 lame ass quick time event because I bumped in to someone running around mashing the "initiate" key. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a fist fight before but let me enlighten you: Nothing aside from other people being in the way or being backed up against a wall stops you from running from one. The only reason for remaining in a fist fight is because you choose to be there (fight versus flight, fight winning out) or because someone is grabbing at your shirt or other garment of clothing, which wouldn't stop you if you had half a brain because you could just clock them in the face (they have no ability to dodge due to the fact that they're latched on to a part of you) or use other means to escape (headbutting their nose usually gets someone to let go). So I reiterate: Quick time events in DayZ is terrible, should not be included because this isn't Battlefield 3 campaign mode and you should be more gracious of people rejecting what you feel is a gold nugget for an idea. This is the internet, get used to it champ. Not everything you crap out is going to be a priceless gem. edit: spelling error, my bad

Yeah I'm sorry but I believe this is a terrible idea. Quick Time Events in DayZ? Get enough of those in modern gaming as it is where it doesn't belong, it doesn't need to be here too. I think a better idea rather than QTE would be to have more of an Unchartered or GTA4 approach to melee combat, you get close to someone and you can "Lock on" (meaning your camera follows them) while you attempt to punch their face in. They could in turn punch back, back off and run away or if they have a gun, shoot you in the face for bringing fists to a gun fight. In the event that you have two players with rifles or one player with a rifle without ammunition though, it would certainly be interesting to see them using their weapons to block and club with. QTE events in a survival game though? Hell no. I would not touch this game with some one else's ten foot pole even if they were the one holding it if it had quick time events. If you've ever played Splinter Cell Conviction versus you'd know how much QTE PVP events blows goats.

Yeah I'm not really certain there should be a humanity system to begin with because none of it really helps. I've only been shot and killed by someone with a bandit skin maybe twice. All my other player related deaths were done by people who either have the starter skin or a ghillie suit. Neither of which pertains to their level of humanity. I'm not saying remove the humanity system because it tells you something about the player before you meet them or because I play as a female skin and therefore it's a toss up on my humanity level or because it's unrealistic. I'm saying remove it because it's a completely redundant mechanic of the game that really does nothing for anyone. I've been killed by enough people in starter skins to know that if I see someone else that I don't know, I shoot them unless there isn't a chance they've seen me already or are going to because I don't know them and I can't trust them. Undoubtedly if females were capable of having alternate skins, mine would be a bandit by now multiple times over because I don't take any chances when it comes to people I don't know. I've told new players that are my friends repeatedly when they say they are gonna arm people to defend themselves if they need it "Give someone a gun in this game, they'll put a bullet in your face" because this game has become less about surviving for most and more about getting as many murders as they can before they get killed themselves. IE: It's a Deathmatch game for those who are bored with surviving and a survival game for those who still have fun surviving only with more dickheads running around with assault rifles to worry about as time goes on.

Remember the Five D's of Dodgeball -Dodge -Duck -Dip -Dive -Dodge

Female players should have the option of stripping down naked and saying very loudly "I hope nothing ruins this risky skinny dip I'm about to make followed by a lovely nude picnic" and then be chased screaming, breast flailing through the forest by a horde of cannibal zombies. Dies Irae should play with intense gun fights with a flock of pigeons flying from behind objects around the winner. Walking away from vehicles slowly that are destroyed should have them explode violently with no damage to the player. Players should be able to cock their guns when aiming at another player and deliver an awesome one liner like "Your luck just ran out" or "Whose got the beans now?" Gun fights should include appropriate bullet time/slow motion sequences for shots that hit from impossible distances or impossible circumstances.

So before people start jumping down my throat about how much of a fail I am, let me first say that I didn't actually Alt F4 but a couple friends of mine did in the following anecdote... We're all in Chernarus, I'm rummaging around the North West Airfield while my friends/buddies are getting their stuff together to come get me so we can start doing supply runs to some towns/cities and whatnot. I was just trapped in a bunker and vigorously gunning down zombies as they came shambling through the door way. Having survived this small ordeal, I proceeded to actually loot the darn place I was in. Boom! "Get down on the ground or you're dead! Get down on the fucking ground or you're fucking dead!" was all I was getting over direct chat by some person with a mic. Realizing suddenly by looking around for a few seconds I was not in the North West airfield anymore, a bit disoriented I realized that I had been teleported by a scripter/hacker/whatever they're calling themselves these days and for whatever reason these retards didn't feel the need to immediately kill me and all my friends. Instead they wanted to play some sort of power play game or something, run and you die or do what they say and probably die. Well what else is there to do? I hit prone as they told me to and in doing so I realized I wasn't actually in combat. So I aborted and disconnected from the server before they had a chance to shoot me. Later though over mumble I discovered a couple of my friends had just skipped that process and alt F4'd out of the game and had I been in combat, I probably would have done the same. So here's a question: In the event that something like this happens, is Alt F4ing considered an acceptable way of dealing with the sort of people who break the game (hackers/scripters/etc etc etc)?

I can honestly sympathize with your plight, this is something that occurred to me at some point in my experience with the game. I started playing the way I usually play post apocalyptic games (like Fallout and such) with the attitude of a paragon, I will help anybody and everybody that I can and I will only shoot to defend myself. What I hadn't realized are three things... 1. Some people hunt other players for sport because they're bored 2. Some people go to extreme lengths to trick and eventually kill someone for their gear 3. Some people exactly just like me have become so jaded by the first two things that they've given up on trying to be friendly and getting it spat back in their face in the form of bullets. It wasn't long before my paragon's attitude quickly shifted to my Survivor's attitude where I came up with my motto (The Survivor's credo in my signature) because I can't be arsed to take the risk required to be friendly to someone first, if someone is friendly towards me initially I still remain apprehensive and ready to attack should they be going through some elaborate bullshit to get my gear from me. I found my group of friends in DayZ by simply playing on a server regularly and the server admin asked me if I was friendly or not. Hesitantly I told him I was friendly and we had some nice chats and talks. Over time this grew to a cautious friendship and eventually got to the point where I share a camp with him and his friends now (my friends) and we all work together towards the common goal of surviving DayZ's many challenges.

I'm with Dreygar on his last post: The ground vehicle controls are way too lurchy and unresponsive, I can't even name the number of times I've smashed in to something that I shouldn't have because I've driven cars and one ton trucks in real life and I keep expecting the vehicles in a "realistic simulator" (Arma 2) to respond in a similar fashion. Right now it's like trying to drive a shopping cart downhill with bricks duct taped to the sides of it in random and incoherent places. Everyone being able to fly helicopters isn't unrealistic in the slightest, helicopters generally have the equivalent of a car owner's manual (that big phonebook with a picture of your car on it in the glove box you never read) somewhere in the event that the person responsible for flying the helicopter is incapacitated and/or incapable of flying the machine that outlines the basics of getting the helicopter off the ground and safely landing it as well as what to do in the event that shit turns sideways. Or for people who know how to fly a helicopter properly but aren't familiar with the model/specifications of the machine they are getting in to. So it's safe to assume that everyone who jumps in to a chopper grabs said manual, gives it a quick once over and then you're good to fly the machine.