Dagwood

Improvised leather backpack is the biggest you should need (same number of slots as the taloon interesting enough). The ammo box is unnecessary if you're truly going for the minimalist approach. One six-stack of rags plus alcohol tincture in the bottom of your pack should suffice for bandages. Your medkit should only contain 1X morphine, 1X saline bag, 1X IV starter kit, and 1X blood bag if you have O- blood like my tune. I also carry antibiotics in my pack just for shits and giggles (epinephrine would be the more practical alternative to antibiotics). A sidearm of your choice with one extra mag (2 total) and a loose stack of the corresponding ammunition should be plenty for a backup. Binocs, map and compass are also nice pieces to carry for exploration and scouting purposes. With a vest and 6-10 slots of pant and shirt space, you'll have plenty of room for your removable optics, mags, and other accessories associated with your primary rifle setup. I also carry a woodcutters axe, matches and machete for hunting and cooking purposes.

In the later days of the mod, elektro and Cherno still hosted the majority of a server's population. The other two common hotspots were the NWAF and stary military camp (two highest yield military areas of the map). With the addition of several new military bases, I think increasing the server population will be necessary to prevent the map from being too sparsely populated.

M4 all day. Forgiving bullet trajectory (less bullet drop) coupled with various optics and a high rate of fire make the M4 the most versatile weapon in the game. And the recent shortage of ammunition has made me play the game like I used to during the mod. The recent revision of the attachment mechanic has made my stock M4 into a effective all-arounder.

If you want to find players in the west at the military bases, join low pop servers. If you want to loot them uncontested, do so on high pop servers. Not a perfect rule without exceptions, but definitely the trend. Full servers are concentrated near the spawn points. Allows squads to respawn and regroup quickly to get back into the fight. Increased player count will help, but I think varying levels of difficulty from location to location will be what drives player movement around the map (small villages being easier and cities being more dangerous).

She's a witch she's a witch, she turned me into a newt!

Hardcore: Anybody got a CZ75 with mags lying around? I'd be willing to negotiate for a trade

Found 2 AK 101 mags in one balota loot run with my buddies the other day. And I don't hate you. Just pity. Like I pity players that need to hack to get enjoyment out of a game.

Hate to be that guy but... Server hopping karma can be a biotch :)

I think ideally we should die as fresh spawns more often than we are able to gear up and get to a point where we are self sufficient. We should die from zombies, starvation, infection, hypothermia, AND other players. Currently, the only consistent threat is other players this must and will change

This may have been discussed here already, but I would be interested to hear some other perspectives. I normally play hardcore, but before class this morning I decided to hop onto a regular server and fuck around in berezino. I helped some fresh spawns out, and we headed off toward the police station (muggers alley). While looting the pub down the street, I found a painted CZ527 sitting in the last room on the top floor. Upon picking it up, a hail of AK fire wizzes by me through the window to the north. Long story short, a pair of identical players toting fully loaded M4s charged up the stairs and gunned us all down. I'm only assuming they were duped M4s because of the context. I know that I would never risk a gun as rare as an M4 to kill fresh spawns in betezino... My question is, how common is it to encounter players with fully loaded M4s these days? I have one on hardcore and I am afraid to lose it. I would think that anyone with a legitimately acquired M4 would be more careful with it...

I was legitimately surprised that my character didn't wipe after the first update. I think the map would be far more explored if characters were wiped after every update. Kind of off topic, but still something to think about...

Autorun? Roll of quarters or...?

Well it depends on what you are trying to accomplish playing dayz. Are you here for the adrenaline pumping firefights? The socializing/player interaction? Roleplaying? Exploring? Collecting the rarest/best equipment? The dayzdb map is a double edged sword. On one hand, it can very quickly teach you where to go to get the gear you want. On the other, it will basically remove any excitement or challenge that comes from getting lost and then finding your way. If you're in it for the pvp, by all means use the online map. But if you want a more "immersive" experience, I suggest you collect the map fragments in game and use those to find your way. Not looking up roadsign names online and having to orient yourself with the topographical map on game can actually teach you a good life skill (land navigation). But above all, mix it up to keep things fresh. Repeating the same effective looting route over and over again is boring and will teach you very little in the long run.

Accidental double post. Damn phone.

Dayz aftermath had the best base building of any dayz mod I played. To break into other player's bases you had to smash through the gates with consumable sledge hammers. If you were willing to layer enough walls and gates, your base was protected while you logged out as it could take hours to bust down all of the gates if they even had enough sledgehammers.

Found 2 AK101 mags looting balota with my buddies tonight. No server hopping required. You server hoppers should be able to find 5.56 rounds easy enough

HARDCORE: I've got an FNX with pristine RDS and flashlight that I wouldn't mind trading away. I also have a CZ527 mag (don't know how rare these are) that I'm willing to part with. The only things I'm looking for are an ACOG scope (derp) and a combat knife.

When I first started playing the mod early in 2013, the average lifespan was about 15 minutes. You spawned without a weapon or a makarov (I can't remember) and you would get ravaged by zombies over and over. At this point, there were no melee weapons so until you found another gun, you were lucky if you spawned in with 8 bullets to fend off the undead. The zombies being broken is a shitty way to increase the difficulty, but get used to it and try to adapt. Eventually (fingers crossed) the zombies will be so numerous that spawning over and over again until you get somewhat geared will be the norm. IMO, dying over and over again is better than running around hour after hour with impunity because the zombies are 0 threat.

Can people please specify whether they are on regular or hardcore...

So what do you suggest I do when I have an sks and I see another guy walking off with the AKM I want? Let him go and get eaten by zombies?

Next time just be a batman medic working from the shadows. Stalk a KOSer in berezino and when he goes down.... strike! Hit him with a bandage, a saline bag, maybe some morphine, and an epi pen if you're feeling daring. Just be sure to whisper sweet nothings into his ear the whole time.

You can't handle the infected with a Mosin or sks? I find that hard to believe. And even if that was the case, you're still in direct competition with other survivors for the same supples. You've failed to refute my point.

The lighthouse east of kamenka and the castle west of Altar. Both have great ambience for a first date or rest stop during a long trek.

Socializing is not to be done at military bases. You're likely armed and in direct competition with other players that are there for loot. While I agree that mindless KOSing hurts this game, it's still a part of the game that must be taken into account: especially at military compounds.

The problem is that a lot of "death match" players do their looting on nearly empty servers. So while we're looting the west on full servers and finding nobody and the rest of the server population is in berezino, the exact opposite is occurring on the hundreds of low population servers: military bases are being looted while the towns in the north east (deathmatch arena) are empty. I hate to say it, but this trend will likely persist unless we go to a private hive structure. Or the hive is broken up into geographically segregated "shards". This would give players only a few dozen servers to hop around on instead of the limitless supply they have now.