Saethkept

I've also noticed on 1.7.5.1 and up crash sites that some of the rarer weapons tend to spawn a few meters out from the helicopter itself. In tall grass that makes it really hard to find them, and some of the newer camo weapons really blend in.

Lol ^^ hard won experience ... :ph34r:

Offer them a fully repaired vehicle as a sort of truce. Arrange to leave it by the side of a well traveled road ... say the eastern coastal highway. Tell them, that as a bonus, because you really just want to coexist and be left alone, you will throw in the main rotor for a helicopter. That way, they have to pick it all up before server restart ... along with the satchel charge(s) you've planted beneath that car. Flavor the deal with bear traps and hand grenades for taste. With luck, you'll even up the odds just a bit.

If a server owner spawns vehicles that the DayZ or mod version does not allow or has banned, sometimes they still show up on radar, even though you can't see them in game. Also, it seems that certain buildings sometimes show up on radar.

What I am highly interested in is re-skinning the zombies to look the part rather than like the infected from 28 days.

No, he would not have had to get into the heli to repair it. All it takes on DayZ.st is a right click on the admin CP map on the desired vehicle, and a click on "repair and refuel".

Or you have to fight a giant marshmallow man spawned by an ice capades garbed diva goddess ....^^^ Admins are players just like anyone else who sometimes happen to abuse the overpowered tools provided by their hosting company. Likely, he repaired your helicopter in the admin panel just to fool with you. Move on and put it behind you as valuable experience.

I like the feel of public servers which is more official like and I suppose ... traditional. For now however I have been burnt too many times by hackers while the admins were in game - sometimes while playing with an admin. Of course, admins cannot prevent all or even most hacking and that is no fault of theirs. I guess the hacking deaths gave me a bitter taste that has yet to go away. At present I admin and mod a private server, and while sometimes it feels like I am hiding from the main stream DayZ crowd, it gives me a rare opportunity to explore and get to know all available maps, and to meet some really good fellow DayZ players. Essentially, I would not mind administrating for a public hive server, but from what I have seen and heard, it is a 24/7 job and I like to play as much as tinker with features and code. Then again, running a private server is non stop activity as well ... fiddling with code hooks, anti-cheat software, reading logs, etc.

I would disagree that Namalsk is always kill on sight all the time. Months ago I was at my camp near the Sebjan Warehouse (on a 30/50 server) when I received a distress call from guy who said he was trapped in the barracks at A2. I had never been to A2, knew nothing about the bunker, but anyway. I had a black SUV. I hopped in and drove over there. Turned out the guy had never played on Namalsk before. He had no food/water, a broken leg and two bloodsuckers waiting outside. Of course I was certain it was a trap, but he turned out to be a legit greenhorn. We ended up hopping in teamspeak and playing together a number of times. On topic; The face of DayZ can readily, easily appear to be cast by only bloodthirsty killer types. I had been pushed toward that belief once, but unlike another online zombie game, DayZ is much friendlier overall. Good people are out there, you just have to be willing to take a risk to find them. Of course, I admit that sometimes I am in no mood to play silly games with would be betrayer types and so rather than an olive branch I extend to them a couple of subsonic 9mm rounds to the kneecap. Overall, friends are often waiting to be made in game, and not everyone is a craven backstabber.

The basics Msta (check for truck and tree stand) Dolina (Check for truck and water) The Factory (steal a jerry from the tractor, loot the factory for auto parts) If none of the above pans out The store in Polana Check the Gaz and for auto parts in Gorka On to my reliable UAZ spawn in Altar From there, who knows?

Hmmm... going homeless in Elektro? Sounds interesting. I call the trunk of the GAZ that spawns in the shed just east of town.

Well ... you could auto hover around the map, but people would laugh at you (especially lifelong friends). Or, trial and error works good enough, but finding and repairing helicopters often enough to do this is tough. Couple of tips for helicopter flight: - Stay in auto hover until you are fifty meters up. - Aim nose slightly down (auto hover off) and hold 'Q' (to gain speed quickly) - Generally, altitude = available speed and/or acceleration. - To slow down without the auto hover roller coaster ride, nose up 'S'. This will cause you to gain some altitude. - To speed up, nose down 'W' (you will loose altitude). - I find it easier to fly in first person (gently tap the direction keys for smoother - less frightening movement) - Make sure you use free look in while flying, which allows you to use the WASDQZ keys for direction and speed, and your mouse to look around. - If you accidentally turn off the helicopter's engine while flying (don't panic) just hit 'Q'! - Practice, practice and practice until you can fly treetop level at full speed, or follow a road a few meters above surface. - Fly low and fast to avoid enemy fire. The higher up you are, the more time an enemy has to shoot at you. That's about all I can think of.

I also would recommend you to Namalsk ... if you can survive for a few weeks on Namalsk without friends, vehicles, assists from other players, you can pretty much survive anything DayZ has left to throw at you. I cut my DayZ teeth there and still love it. It's small (around seven by seven km total) but seems much larger on foot. There's cold weather that will kill you without antibiotics, heatpacks or winter clothing. A new enemy, the bloodsucker (from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) hunts the empty, cold spaces, and storms of radiation or energy or something occur almost hourly, forcing you to shelter in a building, get out of your vehicle or land your helicopter. You will also find weapons on Namalsk that spawn normally on no other map. For sheer size and number of places to explore, I recommend Taviana. With many large cities, subway stations, a nuclear power plant and more, it's an amazing map for the explorer. Tavi also has a great diversity of terrain and plenty of opportunity for armed water sports and dogfights over the Baltic Sea. Which Tavi version is best? 1.5.1 has zombies that will mess you up fast and can die only by a shot to the head - sometimes two. It also has many custom weapons and vehicles, but is a bit buggy. Taviana.com has better loot spawns and is less buggy, but currently only runs on the old 1.7.4.4 code. Get out there and survive!

Two ways to view broadly this discussion and the weapons it well, discusses. In that cold, barren, no saves allowed world which we call "real" (no, Earth not Chernarus), one could find an attack helicopter, a main battle tank, an ICBM or even yes, an anti-materiel rifle. So theoretically, during a hypothetical apocalypse zombie involved or no, survivors might just combat one another with the aforementioned ridiculous weapon systems. Does that mean said weapon systems ought to exist in the fictional dominions of DayZ? Hmmm ... if striving for absolute realism were the goal, then why not? However, and this is for all you half inch bullet sniper gun fanatics out there; in an ultra realistic sim, you'd be fortunate to with one of these massive caliber rifles, hit a stationary target beyond 200 or 300 meters. You'd have to train yourselves tto improve your hit probability at range and of course factor in and adapt to climatic conditions, etc. Realism cuts both ways. I say remove the "laser" guns from the game. That or make carrying and using them extremely difficult ... as it is in the world real.

I'd like a biting animation, rather than the 'eating stew with a spoon' when your down that we have now. That, and zombies that can only be completely destroyed with explosive ammo or grenades, etc. But ... that will not come to pass. Braaaaaaaaaains!

From Chernarus, Balota and Elektro - going north there exist definite routes frequently traveled ... think of them as bus or caravan routes with towns, ponds, and other points of interest near them as bus stops or highway exits. Many DayZ players gear up and go north either on foot in whatever non-shoe leather conveyance they happen to find and repair or steal. Many DayZ players ALT/TAB out of the game on the fly to consult loot maps of Chernarus, and if there is anything interesting along their way or nearby, then they just might stop there or "get off" an exit on their northbound journey. You don't want to pitch camp along these highways. Then you must factor in long range player killers (snipers), up close ambush killers, and decoy players who station themselves in the vicinity of the above mentioned places, hoping to draw in newer types like yourself with distress calls. Also, all along the starting points of those northbound routes to the NW Airfield and Stary Sobor, snipers will post themselves in order to harass players just geared up in Cherno or Elektro. Heck, I think some players live to find tents and vehicles. I've had some success north and southeast of Black Lake. Just also keep in mind that if there's a vehicle spawn point nearby, someone will trek through your slice of tent pitched heaven to get there ...

@Op I both agree and disagree. From where I hail, just about every eleven year old boy is trained from said age to zero a Tasco 3-9X optical sight attached to either a .30-30 lever action, a .25-06, .270 or .30-06 bolt action rifle, for good accuracy (hitting a whitetail deer's heart or spine) at 100 - 300 yards. Where I agree with you, is in the extreme difficulty of accurate fire at targets at extreme range. Even with modern tech and custom loads/rifles, one must be somewhat well trained and gifted to achieve that. For the make believe worlds of DayZ, I am fine with "just anyone" accurately shooting me down at up to 400 yards. As far as the anti-materiel rifles and specialist sniper rifles are concerned; no thank you.

If you are playing on Taviana.eu and encounter a hero, it's likely that you can trust them as gaining additional humanity is darn tough. However, I suppose some sadistic server owner could adjust his own humanity in order to give himself hero ... but I digress. To sum up, "trust" is not "skin" deep in DayZ.

It's the ancient agrument in DayZ and similar games, although DayZ is rather unique. Take heart. Some try to enforce a death match experience in the game for other players, while others seemingly like yourself OP are more into the zombie survival and PvE. Best bet I think is to always plan for and expect the worst behavior from other players while sticking to your own code of in game ethics. Don't let others make you into a KoS killer, but always be ready to defend yourself. You can be a mostly good guy all of the time, just be prepared to die often for it. Also, as someone else mentioned, there are other ways and places to gear up. Go to ground in the forest; become a denizen of wooded hollows and hidden valleys. Learn by watching others from cover, and a play style that suits you well will emerge on its own.

@the OP For me, the .50 rifles are "situational" and utility tools for specific situations. Of course, if you do not have one at hand, it is hard to suit the situation. At any rate, I voted 'no' all around. I think that I used an M107 once, and it was for popping shots at an unexpected Apache Gunship some server admin had 'brought in' to deal with hackers. He crashed it on his own soon after. For ranged and medium engagements, I will take an SA_58 ACOG on a vanilla server, or an L86 LSW on a server with custom loot spawns. Either suits both situations adequately, and both make for excellent counter sniper weapons. Most of the time these days, for up close and scary I will pack a shotgun and plenty of pellet ammo.

Also, pine trees are vehicle magnets.

Right after I began playing DayZ a few months back, I realized that paranoia was a constant mindset of the game rather than a feature. The hills, the trees, the water in the sea ... all have eyes. Then I realized that most of time I am all alone. This game has enthralled me for far, far longer than any game I've ever played. I am stil waiting for the boredom meter to hit "absolute" or the point where I walk away. For the most part that meter has yet to bugde up a notch. Now the paranoia meter ...

I am still learning the language of the logs, but I think this may be a mistaken ban for a known bug. Hopefully someone more skilled at reading them will get back to you. Here is the only link I could find for you: http://dayz.burningsilicon.net/index.php?p=/discussion/119/anti-hax-ban-appeal-mp-event-handler-exception/p1 Your best bet is to find out if that server has a forum or website, and it it does, to get in contact with its owner/admin.

Were you playing on the official hive or a private server?

I also run a private hive. In my opinion, rewarding a player with any type of in game object at all is not cool ... it just promotes favoritism and breeds feelings of animosity amongst everyone. DayZ - to me - is all about earning your survival all alone on your own, or working as a team to make it. Even though I have seen what is behind the DayZ code "curtain" I still want to earn that map, that compass or that hatchet ... rather than giving it to myself out of a drop down box in a pop up window. An Idea I am mulling over for my server is something like a medieval feudal system where players can claim a no loot building or piece of ground that does not border a road or new player spawn point, and then basically saying "ok, here is your land" now it's up to you to defend it."