uhlan

Long ago, but not so far away, I was involved with the WWI flight sim Red Baron 3D. I joined a squadron (clan) that was modeled on an Austro-Hungarian fighter company (a fliegerkompagnie or flik). When choosing a name for myself is selected one that tied my doing Civil War reenacting as a cavalryman, to being in the Flik - the early fliers often came from the cavalry, but Dragoon was already taken so I chose Uhlan. An Uhlan is a lancer, a cavalryman that uses the lance as well as the sabre.

In game, what's called a hatchet is an axe - there's a bit of difference there. A hatchet's the size of a hammer, while an axe is used to fell trees. A hatchet would be perfect for chopping up dead-fall, but an ax makes wood piles. Yeah, there's the idea of saws, etc, but I was trying to start small :)

It's not a big thing, but it's always stuck me as odd that you have to be a lumberjack to make a camp fire. I've made a great many campfires as a Civil War reenactor for 35+ years, and not once have I chopped down a tree. We ALWAYS use dead-fall, the stuff already on the ground. For one thing, green wood is much harder to get to burn. Consider also that you're in the wild, trying to avoid zeds and usually other players, but you have to boil some water and cook some meat - you're gonna make no more fire than you absolutely need to do the job - you're not going to build a bloody signal fire. I'd like to see it become more difficult to start a fire outdoors when it's raining. Matches are easier to find, (maybe add lighters too?), but work like a magazine, ie you have but so many matches, maybe 25. Going in water can cost you your matches. You don't chop trees to get a wood pile, you pick up Dead Fall, so you don't need a hatchet. Dead Fall is different than a Wood Pile from choping trees for lumber as in Epoch - though Wood Pile can be burned too. It should burn BIGGER and more visibly than Dead Fall and require more matches (2 or 3).

The problem with "not getting hit" is that zombies don't have to be near you to hit you. I do think they hit too hard and do too much damage, it's not like they're big cats or bears - they're just unarmed, very hungry, people. Hitting souldn't cause infection, per-se, BITING should cause infection. Biting requires them to have hold of you for a few seconds so they can chomp down. I think getting hit should have a low chance of infection (they do have dirty hands) and getting grabbed, or hit while not moving, or hower the engine could handle it, should have the higher chance of infection; like 25-40% For instance, replace the leg breaking with being bit. And they are still too perceptive. When I'm not moving and agro a zombie 100 meters away, that's too perceptive.

Having experienced 7.7.1, I have to say if you're alone, and no ones been through a loot spot in some time, the odds are very very good you'll find crap and a little less good you'll find nothing. That's is anything spawns at all. In fact, in small structures, doorways, etc - there will likely be a zombie parked there. If you use some ruse to lure him out (since you're completely unarmed) and he goes for it, you'll likely have agroed the entire town (they talk to eachother now ye know). If you get inside, hoping for that ax to defend yourself with, you'll get cans or nothing, or a rotor which is always handy to a new spawn with a patrol pack. I have noticed hitting places like barracks in a group of two or more seems to increase the loot value. I sat near the south barracks at NWAF for a week, checking every night and the best weapon that appeared was an M4A4CCO with a couple of AKs and shotguns. The first night someone went in with me an L85, M16A4 ACOG, DMR, SVD, both 5.52 and 7.62 ammo boxes, range finders, and a GPS appeared. I get the distinct impression the modders are against solo play.

Sneaking into a town at night, carefully trying to get into the store, hoping to find a map. Peering over the roadblock in 3rd person and not making a move, when the zombie standing still, two blocks away agros on me and in a flash the whole town's zeds are after me. When I finally get into the store after half an hour of loosing these guys in the woods, there's nothing there but 2 tin cans and no one's been in there since the last restart. Ok, crap loot spawns I can handle, though other mods (2017) went that route and the I'm sure the 6 people that still play them love it. Tougher zeds I can deal with; higher infection chances, that's cool too. The zeds allegedly have poor sight ESPECIALLY at night, but they apparently now can hear a dog whistle 2 km away and detect your heartbeat through concrete walls two stories up. If it becomes impossible to survive in this "survival" game, especially when you first spawn with nothing - what's the point - why bother?

As a cavalryman, I would love the chance to mount a charge across the fields of Chernerus with my clan on horseback, machetes held high, pistols blazing - like Cossacks!

The pump I envisioned is mounted on a length of pipe that goes into the tank being pumped from, and a length of hose for the discharge (I had such an item on my farm). It's easy to expand such a concept to the point of rediculous, but I was hoping we could get a fueling system that fit the game and made some sence in "real-world" terms without making it a major project for the modders. Immersion in the game world (or any bit of fiction) requires that it gets you to suspend your disbelife - auto-fueling as implemented by most private servers now, I don't think does that - it's too much like getting gas in New Jersey.

There's no "auto fueling" in public servers, but I'd like to suggest something to add it that would be "realistic" and take into account the lack of electricity in a zombie appocolypse. ;) First, a new object: the hand-crank fuel pump. To get fuel from a tank into a vehicle or Jerry can you have to have one. Having one, you can fuel directly into a vehicle/aircraft within a set range. You can still use Jerry cans to fuel, but you'd need the pump to refil the can. Having the pump, (maybe on the toolbelt?) allows you to basically "auto-fuel."

Chernarus is peppered with deer-stands, but there are no deer. Could the goats be replaced with a deer model and made to use the rabbit movement? If they could spawn in pairs or maybe even three to five at a time - that would be something. Imagine driving along and 3 or 4 deer run across the road. :)

I want horses that gallop, trot, and walk. To "repair" a horse requires a saddle and bridle. The saddle has a few slots; maybe 16 or 20. They refuel by grazing on grass or at hay bales or stacks., and need water (not sea water) You'd find them out in fields like cows and sheep and would have to catch one and saddle it to ride it. Maybe to catch it you'd need an apple :) or the bridle in your immediate inventory to represent lassoing it. (catching a horse can be easy or hell depending on the horse but there's no need to get into all that in DayZ) Don't need to shoot from a horse - a caught farm horse wouldn't stand still for gunfire off his back to be of any use. It would be great to wield the hatchet as there's no swords in DayZ :) There would need to be some mechanism to picket them when "parked" tied to a tree, fence, post, or they might wander off with any gear you have on them. Horses should be able to jump waist high fences, hedges, and walls when approached at a trot or gallop automatically, without needing a key-press. I want to form a company of cavalry! http://mainecav.org

I'm new to DayZ. I happened on it while looking for something else on YouTube. Watching videos by SideStrafe, Squirrel, Frankie, and JackFrags I couldn't wait to get involved. I've been plugging away for a couple of dayz now, usually with the same result; getting cocky and them overwhelmed by zombies. I've run into some oddities. Some fellow appeared in front of me, shot a bunch of zombies, dropped a cardboard box that had to be a TARDIS as it was full of more than any box could have held. Then vanished. Another fella shot at me in the woods, dropped dead and told me to take what I wanted from the carcass. Another fellow dropped from the sky in a Littlebird and took me to Stary Sobor and some decent loot. More recently a fellow ran up to me in a building and shot me dead though I was completely unarmed. Despite that last, and those nasty zombies, ARMA2/DayZ is simply amazing and I often just have to stop and look at the scenery; such as that attached. I hope to link up with some folks in the future and if you run across Uhlan running through the woods with his ax, please don't shoot. :)