mercules

Shooting the lock doesn't break the door "Open" it breaks the lock so you can then force the door open with a small amount of force.

Yes the things he mentioned will be valuable but in societies barter tends to go away fairly quick and be replaced by a currency system of some sort. Nearly all currency systems utilize a rare and/or hard to duplicate object as a place holder of value for the items you have and can barter.. AKA little 1oz gold bars since it isn't good for anything else but is rare enough people can't just duplicate it. Gold has value in a modern world for the electrical properties and even more because it has a low reaction with other elements making it ideal for certain uses but in a less electronic age it's primary use is it being rare and so good for turning into a currency medium. Gold won't be of any use alone but eventually someone will set up a trade system and will need something other than barter and will probably turn to gold as the medium just like people did in the past. Why do you need currency, because a farmer with a field full of perishable food can't barter it for a car? Why not? Because the person he might barter it too won't be able to eat the volume of food that equates the value of a working car before it spoils. He might barter for that amount if he knows he can trade it for lesser things he needs instead later, but not knowing that he won't make that trade. So it is good for everyone to have a medium that is worth X bushels of food, or 5 Stanag clips, or a Gerry can worth of fuel. 2 Gold bars will buy you a shotgun and one more gold bar will get you ammo for it and you got those selling several bushels of food to the store which will sell individual baskets for Silver bars.

I guess I don't see the point of playing a game designed to finally have a fairly cool and accurate day/night aspect and then skipping half the game because it's "too hard" when the game was designed specifically to be hard. It's a simulation game. In a zombie apocalypse would you have to deal with extremely dark conditions and bumbling into zombies under those conditions? Yes. Would you need to hunker down or use light sources to allow yourself to see knowing those same light sources might make you a traget? Yes. Would you have to weigh the increased stealth that night offers you for sneaking into a zombie infested area with the increased risk of not seeing something yourself? Yes. It's not unfun it's actually MORE fun. There is a lot of give and take. Zombies don't agro as easily, but at the same time you can sometimes run face to face with them if you missed one because of a shadow. Blue Chemlights let you see immediately around you and don't give your position away unless they are REALLY close but don't let you see things all that far away either. Flares and campfires can make excellent distractions and mislead even players into watching the wrong area. You are literally missing half the game.

Typically I walk but if I can find a bicycle that is awesome. The thing is quiet and easy to hide and there is no need to follow roads because you don't need fuel and it goes fairly well off road. It doesn't go very fast uphill, but the downhill travel more than makes up for it (often with very thrilling and scary results). Other things I like: ATVs: good offroad and can carry a good deal of gear. Small enough to go all over the place. You need to take some care driving them, but if you respect them they won't flip on you (too often). You can carry spare parts, gerry cans, and gear on this thing which makes it really handy if you are alone or with a single friend. They can be hidden fairly well because they are often dark colored. The issue is you will typically find one untouched and very broken(because people are afraid of them) or someone got the guts to drive it to their camp then pulled the wheels off it and use it as a tent for storage. Motorcycles: Good offroad and can carry a few repairs and couple gerry cans. Dangerous to drive downhill or to hit a zombie with, but otherwise fairly nice. Small enough to hide and go pretty far on a tank of gas. I don't expect these to be there when I log back in and are always surprised when they are. SUV: This is travelling in style. I swear people fight over these. Built in GPS and FAST. That is the main advantage, this thing is fast and quiet and I will never hesitate to try and find one of these if I see one go past. I will try and figure out where it might have gone even though I know I won't keep it long. Little Bird: Almost small enough to hide. It's agile enough you can actually tuck it under some of the shed roofs in out of the way areas and hope people don't see it. Probably won't stick around too long but there is always hope. Shank's Mare, however, is my primary mode of transportation.

Shotguns are not that bad especially with Pellets in close range situations, you can spin and fire even without crosshairs and usually at least clip your target if not put most of your shot into them. Bet they were set to have someone on overwatch with the sniper while the others went into the town. M14 to take down players and the pistol & SD Rifle to zombie clear for them both. I'll bet you the silenced pistol was on the guy with the sniper so he could quietly take out zombies if he needed to for position or because his shot attracted some.

Sorry to hear that you are missing out on such a wonder feature and fun time.

Yep, the one sitting next to my bed and other one in my car are primarily for their typical use of lighting up the dark. However; I also like the fact that it can double as a weapon if needed; can be used lethally or non-lethally, unlike the machete and axe I used to always have in my Jeep; and takes care of two roles in emergency gear for me. If I picked up a window cracker cap it would take care of 3 roles but I don't go out on the ice much anymore and I don't drive the twisty narrow roads between two lakes like I did when I was living out on one of them.

Yes, all people should start with Vanilla and then branch out to other mods if they wish. I agree there. Gold in Epoch is simply a trade medium. Meal Chits in certain situations would work just as well where one chit that can't be duplicated easily(probably made of a rare metal or some such nonsense;) ) would be the equivalent of one meal. You can hate Epoch all you like but it adds another dimension to game play. Once you have gathered everything you need to survive you don't go, "What's next? Hmmmm.. shoot bambies on the coast I guess." You go, "Okay I need cinderblocks and for that I'll need a vehicle. So next up is some wheels." and then "I need a place to store my cinderblocks so I'll get a safe... holy crap are they expensive... I'll need to loot a tons of things to get that much." Then, "Okay I have a vehicle and safe, now I can loot building materials. I best roam the map and see if there are any supply drops and hit any helicopters I find along the way. Guess I'll head in the general direction of the factory." Epoch gets people utilizing more of the map instead of Coast, NWAF, NEAF, Stary. Gathering supplies, looking for a good spot to build something, and more get people moving. Helicopters do not spawn in X locations and cars do not either so you have to actually search for them.

You lost me right here. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE some of those weapons they make me drool. They problem is that I eventually realized they ruined the game. ACR G33 SD had me running around popping zombies left and right and there was a version that was SD with a grenade launcher. Some smoke and HE I didn't even carry a pistol anymore to make room for grenades. Now I could kill zombies with one silent shot to the body, do significant damage to other players either scoped in or using a Holo sight, AND really rock the house with HE grenades launched from it if things went south. They guns were awesome, but too awesome for this type of game.

Yes! One of the scariest moments I've had in Epoch was when a bunch of friendly survivors were warily trading goods at Klen and a plane started circling it. Then we heard the helicopter and here came a Little Bird loaded down with bandits who started hopping out and shooting. We scattered to the winds my partner and I going one way, one of the guys getting gunned down, and the other racing off in another direction while we covered him a bit from the edge of the woods and then ran.

Would you all stop being twits? EPOCH DOES NOT HAVE SAFE ZONES! Now some idiots have set up Epoch servers with safe zones but vanilla Epoch does not have them. This is like saying 1.8 sucks because some people have servers with tanks on them.

Since you need the TLDR version for a couple paragraphs.. The larger Maglights make effective clubs, so effective that in certain locations where improvised weapons are discouraged they are on that list. However I can still buy one at a gas station, farm store, convenience store, or camping store. Thus they are common civilian improvised weapons.

Oddly enough it isn't black and white but there are all these yellows from the moonlight, then blue/red/green glowsticks, and hot red from flares. Campires and burning barrels cast a nice orange glow. In a non-urban area that doesn't have a ton of light pollution scattering off smog or cloud cover, yeah it is. A cloudy moonless night can have a Lux of .0001 and without clouds we get about .002. While the human eye can detect light that is that low it can't reasonably use it to define shapes especially when it is a general light level from airglow like that. Mesopic vision kicks in about .02 and that is where we are using rods and cones and more reasonably create a sense of what is around us and make out shapes forms and movement.

This is the truth. We typically make a run for a chopper with two of us with 2 in inventory and 2 more in the backpack, quickly fill up the chopper then fly it to near a fuel supply where we can more quickly fuel it as a team. Having one cover and two running back and forth with 3 jerry cans in the main inventory seems to work best.

Was this the doctor by any chance?

Ehem... You are not allowed to carry the larger ones in some locations because they are considered weapons. The, "Not a Dagger, not a dirk." law in California makes it illegal to carry a SCREWDRIVER in your pocket because it is "A ridged object greater in length than 6" with a tapered/sharp point, or cutting edge." Most places you can wander around with one no questions asked but in some locations they have made them illegal because they have made anything that could be used as a bonafide weapon illegal... like screwdrivers, box cutters, baseball bats, metal pipe/conduit... There are a few locations in the U.S. where they have heavy gang activity and the gangs will use items that are not specifically weapons. Because of that laws have been passed so that the police can confiscate them from the gang-bangers and wanna-bees.

The flashlight is a solid tube of anodized aluminum, you know that stuff they make baseball bats out of. A 6 D-cell version is about 3.5 pounds. An Asp Baton of comparable size weight about half that which means it will move faster but deliver about the same amount of damage and that is a professional striking weapon. Officers sometimes carry this light instead of an Asp Baton. That is 20" or so of aircraft grade aluminum that weighs more than the typical baseball bat which is about 3 pounds.

The manner in which you wrote can be easily misunderstood. This is why they teach English and have Writing courses in school. "Don't like this." This is how bad actors portray those who do not speak English well or are dumb. I mean it is an Imperative Sentence where the subject is implied, but it is still poor English. I get what you are saying in the last sentence but the implication was that the Mag-lite is the implied subject, much like "I" in the first sentence where you left the implied subject out. I get that you are not talking about the maglite "exclusively" but you are still lumping it into the category of "Military/Police Gear" which it is not. It is civilian gear that the police happen to also use... like shoes, leather belts, hats, belt loops, zip-ties, and... do I have to go on?

Apparently you don't understand what a mag-lite is. The 4 D-Cell to 6 D-Cell is often used by law enforcement as an alternate to a baton. In some locations you can be fined for carrying larger thant he 2 D-Cell ones because they make such good clubs.

So you are saying you don't play DayZ then huh?

So you think you can breach a door with a gun faster than reaching out and turning the handle? <_<

I agree that we shouldn't spawn with it, I believe I stated that, I was only pointing out that it is not military gear which your post makes it sound like you think it is.

It's actually a pretty good system. It's a mod by itself but Epoch uses it. It adds weight to an item so even if you could fit 4 helicopter Main Rotors in your backpack you couldn't get very far with them. It slows down the "dash-n-loot" a bit when dealing with things like car parts or even guns if you cram three into your backpack. You can very quickly find yourself panting and then your heart hammering, and then eventually so exhausted you pass out. If zombies are chasing you at the time... well.. we know what happens next. Once you're exhausted you can't aim easily as your gun constantly sways and so most people will pause and catch their breath so they can fire back if they need to since they know they can't run forever.

Bandits gain the mystical ability to shoot whomever the want and not lose their bandit status. Heroes can't even shoot a survivor who opens fire on them and is a bad shot or they will lose humanity. That is why they get advantages because they have a huge disadvantage right there.

While I like spawning in with no weapons you can buy a large maglight at a GAS STATION around these parts. Not military gear. ;)