Whyherro123

Guys, the water doesn't have to be freezing, or even cold. The process works because water conducts heat easier than air. Your sweat is basically body-temperature, and cools you down through the same exact process. I have a friend that developed hypothermia in a New England summer. He took a shower at dusk and went back outside while still kinda-damp. It was 75-ish degrees F outside, which while cool for summertime is still rather warm. Within a few minutes, he started to shiver.

Firearms with bayonets technically are polearms, and bayonets, not musket fire, were the major killers on the battlefield after artillery and disease. The bullet only really susperseded the bayonet in the 1860s, when rifling was made widespread with rifled caplock muskets. Until then, most battles were decided by artillery and the bayonet.

Pretty much. A Pristine Rifle firing Pristine Ammo from a Pristine Magazine should be like butter. Not that it should be completely free from jams/malfunctions (firing an assault rifle filly-cyclic can jam it, regardless of the cleanliness of the mechanism. It is just how the thing works. The more moving parts, and the faster they have to move, the more that can "go wrong"), but the chances of a malfunction happening when you have all Pristine components should be very low. Conversely, actually finding "Pristine" firearm components (the firearm, the magazine, and the bullets) should be rather difficult. Finding one should be a "Fuck yeah!" moment, not a "meh, another AKM magazine" moment. Want to make sure your components are clean? Field-strip the thing, clean it out, oil it, and prevent water and mud from getting in the works. Soldiers carried condoms to protect the mechanisms of their rifles from water and dust. Instead of throwing your rifle on the floor of a tent, why not put it in a locker or on a rack (after cleaning it, of course). Finally, a jammed firearm isn't the end of the world. The main malfunctions I would like to see would be fixed by either 1) working the charging handle/bolt or 2) replacing the magazine. Both of those actions take about 1.2 seconds in-game

That is... an excellent way to kill yourself through hypothermia, guys. When you are "overheating", what is happening is that you are transferring body heat from the interior of your body (your "core", aka your internal vital organs) to the skin, in an effort to cool off the vital through raditational heat exchange. AKA, you have a lot of hot blood right at the skin (which is why your skin will look flushed when you are hot). This is why we sweat, to cool down at a slow, measured pace. Dump a whole lot of water on the skin, and while you will definitely cool off, you will also probably send yourself into shock. You will suddenly lose a whole bunch of heat from the skin, and as a result of "diffusion", the now-cool skin (and the blood at the skin) will draw heat from deeper within the body. You will basically force your body into hypothermia and shock. This is why, when someone has hypothermia, you warm them up slowly, and when someone has heatstroke (aka the "I am overheating" in-game), you cool them down slowly. You don't just throw them into a hot/cold shower, or a body of water. That will kill them. Bad idea, -1

Although I wouldn't want a halberd (seriously?), there is essentially no reason to not include some sort of polearm. I am preferential to spears in general, as they are 1) easy to make (take sturdy stick, sharpen one end. Or, take a knife blade from any knife, lash to the end of sturdy stick). 2) easy to use ( Spears were, in one form or another, the main combat weapon of infantry, from the Paleolithic up to the 1800s) and 3) effective. You can kill small game, you can kill large game, and you can kill people with a spear thrust to the torso. Of course, a spear, just like literally every other melee weapon, will lose to a firearm. Melee weapons are ambush weapons, and if some assault-rifle wielding baddie gets ganked by a bambi with a knife-spear, he should probably take stock on how he plays the game. We have (had?) bayonets in the game, why can't we make good use of them? I would also love to see some sort of sling implemented as well. Another "survival" weapon that is easy to make. It takes more practice to use than a spear or even a bow, but ammunition is everywhere (and already in-game. The "small stones" would be perfect) and getting a fist-sized stone to the chest will put you out of commission pretty quickly.

What, exactly, do you consider "close range"? A "standard" 12G 00 buck shell can easily kill a deer-sized (read: a person) target out to 30-40 meters (read: 100 - 130 feet). Factor in the different chokes available, and you could get that even farther. Shit, this guy makes a lethal buckshot kill on a deer-sized target at 80 fucking yards. And, even if a buckshot pellet doesn't turn your liver into a fine paste, getting buckshot punched through your intestines and limbs will 1) hurt like HELL (send you into shock) 2) knock you out and 3) pretty much guarantee a death due to infection.

The lack of "shotgun love" upsets me as well. Outside of blackpowder muskets and bows, shotguns are my "favorite" weapon in real life, and used to be my go-to weapon in Day Z. I would willingly forgo an Assault rifle + magazines for a MP133 with shells. My clanmates would make fun of me, until we got to a city and my shotgun would roflstomp enemies into the dirt. I would regularly get kills with buckshot on moving targets at 30 meters, several patches ago. MP-133 (usually full-sized. I liked having an additional 2 shells in the magazine, over the "handiness" of the fun-size version) as a primary, with a sawed-off as a secondary. Anything within 30 meters could get turned into paste by 8 blasts of awesomesauce. I could outshoot assault rifles with the damn thing! Now, you have zero reason to pick them up, even removing the proliferation of other firearms from the equation. They just .... aren't "good" enough to be worth the space. Like what you post above, players can just literally laugh off 12G buckshot to the torso. 12G buckshot is essentially the go-to self-defense round for "close quarters" (read: within 20-30 meters) basically the world over. A "standard" 12G buckshot shell has 9 buckshot balls approximately equal to 9mm rounds. There is no way you should be able to survive that, much less with zero advanced medical care. Of course, players are goddamn Terminators in this game, and would complain to High-Heaven if they actually, you know, suffered realistic wounds (get shot? Die. Get stabbed? Probably die. Blood loss doesn't stop instantly. Don't keep a wound clean for an "authentic" period of time? Infection, you are probably going to die. ETC) from any weapon in this game, so I doubt it will ever happen. I just want slugs :(

In my opinion, all firearms should be prone to failure, depending first on "condition" (read: cleanliness, giving you a reason to actually pick up those cleaning kits, or to just field-strip it and wipe the bits down with an oily rag), and then on mechanism. After that, the mechanism of firing would determine how likely a firearm is to jam, going from "least likely" to "more likely" (not "most likely", just "more") - Manual action: Break-open shotguns and rifles -User action: lever action rifles, bolt action rifles, pump shotgun - Semi Auto -Fully Auto And then, depending on how complex the devs want to make it, they could add in magazines and such, to give different "reasons" for malfunctions. Leave that AKM magazine loaded for a week? It "goes down in condition" due to spring wear and fails to feed properly. Take it out and try a new magazine. Don't clean your rifle regularly? A round fails to eject due to dirty mechanism. Work the charging handle and try again. Slog through mud and water, fail to clean the rifle after that, AND dump a magazine on full-auto? Woo boy. Would definitely make combat more interesting than the current "sprint up and spray" thing there is going on. Asides, it wouldn't be "too" bad. You would either have to work the charging handle/bolt or switch magazines. Unless you course, you absolutely fucked the firearm, in which the only thing you could do is field-strip it. A rather dicey thing to do when under fire :D

Exactly. Some of the firearms in the game are just ..... I don't know why they were added. At least shotguns in real life are versatile. You can have birdshot, buckshot, slugs. flares, beanbags, various "homemade" ( wax slugs, etc) slugs, etc. Plus, shotguns are easy to hand-load, and can be loaded up with blackpowder. A single-shot 7.62x39mm rifle is ..... not so useful.

No, it was just that getting captured, handcuffed, tortured (usually beaten and force-fed everything under the sun, all while under a veritable torrent of brain-vomit verbal abuse, of the lowest of calibers, if you catch my drift), and inevitably killed, got old real fast. And, doing the same to others got old even faster, if that is possible. It got to the point where, soon after getting captured, my friends would log out, even (especially, even) if it would kill them. Why suffer through a couple minutes of abuse, to give some shithead some schadenfreude? No, they would log out specifically to deny the asswipes the pleasure. They were going to die anyways, why bother? To prove my point: I have been playing the Standalone since it was EA-released, and have been "captured" many times (usually through my own free will, as interaction other than "BANG BANG -Assault rifle shaped erection-" is ..... rare). Take a guess as to how many times I've survived. Not just been left with gear, but lived through the experience? Once. I was a Bambi in Berezino, starting pants, some rags, and a can of spaghetti. I was held up in the western part of town, stripped, and so on and so forth. I usually try to insert some humor into these situations ( " I am not that kind of girl", " Momma said never to put out on the first date" " Please be gentle, this is my first time", and various innudeno-laden things. I usually get murdered before I can say a full sentence). This time, the players laughed, removed my pants, handcuffed me, and left my open beans at the end of the street. Every other time I was held up, I usually just got a couple of cursewords ("Get rekt bitch") and a bullet to the back of the head. The game hasn't really changed all that much since 2013, in my opinion. What else is there to do, other than fuck with other players? Build a camp? Sure ...... for what? Stash guns? For what? Build a farm? Why? Stash trucks? Why? The "survival" elements of the game are seemingly geared towards killing other players, and you don't really have much incentive to survive for long asides from gear, which you use to kill other players, in order to take their gear/prevent them from getting better gear. An ouroboros of asswipery, burn-out, and disillusionment. I even tried RP servers. I got killed more often then not, but at least they had an "RP" reason: -spawns on beach, sees players- Me: "Hey guys, whats going on?" Them: Look out, its a carrier! Me: "No guys, I just spawned. Look , I just want to search this town for food" Them: He is being aggressive! Me: " Oh fuck off -gets axe to the head" Of course, this was all before "whitelisting", so I might have a better time now. But, I am just feeling very burnt out on Day Z in general. Believe me or not, but but the whole purpose of playing is for those "moments" when shit hit's the fan." is your opinion, and I can only run around and kill other players mindlessly for a limited amount of time.

I don't really understand how this works, really. The "zombies" aren't actually "zombies", but people with a degenerative disease. All humans, even those with deveopmental disorders, are basically intrinsically able to tell when something "humanlike" is not "human". And, even besides this, humans smell. We totally do. Covering yourself with blood and guts and dirt won't stop flakes of skin from falling off and getting caught in wind. Humans, believe me or not, can smell that. And pheromones and shit.

1) You know how to fly a helicopter. Nice. What about the (random number) other people in your base that don't? Where are you going to get a tanker of fuel? What if those helicopter parts aren't for the make and model you have? Don't you have 1,000,000+ other, probably-more-useful things you can be doing, instead of fiddling around with a helicopter? "Survival", even when you have a village with other people, a steady source of food, etc, is very time intensive. Gardens have to be weeded, walls have to be patrolled, tools have to be maintained. If you are the single person in a settlement where their only task is "fix that helicopter".... that helicopter better be gold-plated and have an automatic shitter, not just "I might be able to fly it..... maybe". "Division of labor" and all that. If your current labor isn't useful, or "useful enough", then you effectively aren't contributing. The world needs ditch-diggers. 2) SO, you've got some "helicopter parts" at a nearby airfield. They just magically happen to be the right ones. Now, you yourself said that you don't know how to repair a helicopter, and let us assume that no-one else in your base does either. However, you finagle the parts into place, fill it up (what kind of fuel do helicopters take, anyway?), and take off. However, one part is 1mm out of place/ 1 N too stressed, etc, and breaks. That is rough to find that out going 200mph, 60 feet in the air. With a truck, if something goes wrong, you can generally stop safely. Not so in a helicopter. Oh, and parts for trucks and cars are definitely going to be more common. If a piston-ring in your engine breaks, yank a new one from another truck. Need a new axle? Same. Etc etc etc Plus, the rate of people that know how to repair/maintain a truck/car is definitely higher than someone that knows how to do the same for a helicopter. Hell, I don't know anything about cars, but I can generally diagnose what might be wrong with my truck. Even if I can't, I have literally 6 or 7 mechanics in a 3 mile radius around me that all specialize in various bits of vehicle maintenance. That is probably 100 specialists, not just someone that knows their way around an engine. 3) I have no problems with there being ground-based vehicles (although I would be livid if there was something like an APC added), due to the fact that there is a reasonable chance that some survivor was a mechanic before the world went to shit. The chances are not so high that there was a helicopter mechanic/pilot (if you know how to fly, why are you still in Chernarus?!) among survivors, in a random sample. 4) I don't want the in-game characters to be "Navy SEALS". I want them to freak out, to not know how to reload a weapon perfectly (fumble magazines, jam firearms), to have firearms jam when fired on full-auto, to have to clean the firearms, etc. Right now, every one is a "soldier", and I don't like that. 5) In all seriousness, "Survival skills" are not that hard to learn, and the basics are known and half-remembered by just about everyone. The main function of "survival training", other than practice, is to implant training in the head so, when you actually need it, you react on instinct and muscle memory, instead of having to "think about it", realizing the gravity of the situation, and freaking out. Also, there are probably infinite+ more guides for survival skills, like plant ID guides, animal guides, etc than there are for helicopter maintenance manuals. Besides, yet again, the skills are not that difficult. I taught myself how to field-dress and process animal carcasses after reading about it in the SAS Survival Guide. With 5 paragraphs of 12pt font, a single diagram, and some trial and error, I was able to dress a deer and turn it onto various cuts of meat. I dunno, I guess I just am tired of arguing this same point, over and over and over again. I just find it infinitely more "realistic", "authentic" even, that someone can figure out which plants are safe to eat, how to start a fire with no matches, how to cut meat off an animal, etc, especially if their life was on the line, than I would someone magically being able to repair, maintain and fly a complicated, physics-heavy piece of machinery. As for the RPG...... what do you think someone will be able to do to a vehicle that a regular 7.62-54mm round won't be able to handle, much less a .50BMG (if they don't include the most common HMG caliber in the world, even only as a static emplacement, I will be confused)? Multiple layers of sheet steel? Both rounds will punch through. Sandbags around the drivers seat? Put some rounds into the engine block. Just drop a tree across the road ahead of a truck, or drag some Jersey Barriers across. Make some spike-strips with nails and blocks of wood. You don't need an RPG to "kill" a vehicle in the game, even a "heavily-armored" one.

Don't think in current game-terms, especially when it comes to "infected". They are still due for a major revamp.

I totally have to disagree with that (not with you). It has definitely been a couple of months, several weeks after society shat the bed. Take a look at Berezino sometime. The overgrowth is consistent with "waste" (that is, plants that grow in marginal soils, aka shitty, compacted soils often found in cities, like in abandoned lots and such) plants after a single growing season. The grass is high, but not that high, if you know what I mean. Same thing with weeds and such, piles of leaves, etc.

Not really, because realistically, the "natural" supply of food (plants, animals, etc) wouldn't respawn. Once you gather/hunt it, it wouldn't come back, not for another year or so. So, as a freshspawn, you could gather some acorns and pick some cattail , but once you die and come back to the area, the food won't be there again. Just to touch on the point I made above: most "natural" sources of food aren't just ready to eat straight off the bat. Berries, fruit, yeah (but see below), but the "really good" (that is, the stuff that will keep you alive and give you actual energy, not just fructose and water), like cattail rhizomes, acorns, tree cambium (basically, anything with starch), requires processing. Acorns in particular take time and effort to make them edible (drying, powdering, multiple soakings), and cattail and other rhizomes require roasting on a fire. Tree cambium, goldenrod, and other "alternative flours" require pounding to separate the actual grain from the chaff. And, if the devs wanted to be even slightly "realistic", stuffing yourself full of berries and fruit would make you shit yourself, possibly horrendously. Berries, when eaten in any "reasonably large" amount (like the amount in-game that will fill you up), or any watery fruit (like apples), serve as potent diuretic, due to the amount of water they contain. I had a kid in my WS class eat about 3 handfuls of ripe blueberries at once, and have to spend an -ahem- "decent amount of time" in the latrine later on that day. I believe it was described as "ass-piss", to be crude. Diarrhea in a survival situation will kill you. I avoid berries as a matter of course, unless I am adding them to another food (pemmican), or drying them for storage (which, of course, removes all the water). Finally, I have wanted actual "nutrition" to be in the game for some time, as I feel that it would greatly expand the "survival" aspects of the game. Eat nothing but canned food? Enjoy nutritional deficiencies! Eat nothing but berries and apples? Enjoy nutritional deficiencies (on top of diarrhea)! Eat nothing but red meat? Enjoy nutritional deficiencies! This would "guide" the player into eating a more varied diet (assuming they actually care about depressed immune systems and various weaknesses, of course), and therefore, prompt them to move around the map. It would also prompt them to plant things other than pumpkins and zucchini in gardens. To me, a "survival" game involves actual choices. Possibly difficult ones, made with a little bit of fear, but the ability to make a choice is significant. Being able to see edible plants (a lot of them, with regards to cattail) waving in the breeze, and NOT being able to eat them because "easy sources of food are not present in a survival game" is, quite frankly, bullshit. " Do I take the time and effort to pick and process these cattails, and stay safe in doing so, or do I walk to the nearest town to see if I can find some canned food, which is dangerous but fast"? Finally, "realism" and "authenticity" is EVERYTHING to me. I want the game to be as realistic as possible, to the point where I believe that the majority of mechanics in this game should be changed, as they are "too arcadey" for a game that trumpets itself as an "anti-game". I am not against RPG's per se, I just don't see an actual use for them. I am against helicopters, however, for the "realism" reason. Can you fly a helicopter? Do you know how to fix one? If you don't, will you have the time and resources to learn in a world where: 1) those resources (fuel, parts, etc) are in limited supply, and 2) you have to work so hard already to survive? (Hint: gardening and gathering and hunting takes a LOT of work and time, the in-game mechanics are less-than-bare-bones). Finally, what does a helicopter do for you that a regular truck, or even a motorbike, can't do, while using fewer resources and "effort"? Sure, helicopters can fly over rough terrain and land anywhere, but an off-road motorbike can travel over the same terrain, almost as fast, be hidden much easier, and be ridden by anyone that can ride a damn bike. While being quieter and more versatile. LOGISTICS

Where, exactly, has that been stated?

I did. Still makes me nauseous after 5 minutes of running around.

You see, the "reality" of the situation is: there would be plenty of food for you to find in South Zagoria. Cannibalism would be 100% unnecessary. During the time of year Day Z takes place in, the forests and fields are bursting with food, both plant and animal. Rabbits are stupidly-easy to trap, or to just kill with a thrown stick. There would be acorns, various berries, hell, I've seen enough cattail plants to feed an army! But, you know, basically none of the above are implemented. Cattails and oak trees are in-game, but the survival uses of them are not yet available. Yet, we are getting a helicopter and RPG :rolleyes: Disappointing.

^ Yeah, I can't really see anything good coming from that idea..... "yeah, FUCK EVERYONE that wants to play this game!!!!!" Rather like cannibalism. Still irritated that was added.

Humans are actually quite good at running (more like jogging, really) long distances. It was, and still is, a viable hunting tactic, to just literally run animals down, until they couldn't run anymore , because they got exhausted or overheated. It is called "persistence/endurance hunting". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursorial_hunting While many animals are faster than humans in the short term, few animals can move faster than we can long-term, over miles and hours. Our bidpedal method of locomotion, coupled with our ability to sweat and breath deeply while jogging, let us keep a steady pace for a long time. Most animals can't run fast for long periods of time without getting exhausted (example: Cheetah, although that might be an extreme case), and even if they could, they would overheat, because most animals either 1) don't sweat very effectively, or 2) cool off by panting, which can't be done while sprinting. One of the few animals that can practice endurance hunting alongside humans are wolves, and their descendants, dogs. Take a guess as to why they were some of the first domesticated animals? :D On top of being intelligent enough to learn hunting tactics with humans, they could keep up with us over long distances, and both parties were made more "effective" for it. Oh, and the "infected" can't ambush right now because their AI is so simplistic, it isn't even funny. Isn't the "zombie AI" being/going to be worked on further? If so, let them actually use "tactics" like ambushing and "gang-tactics". I would pay to be jumped on by a "zed" from an alleyway......... That came out wrong. I would like it if they could actually be dangerous in that fashion, instead of the current "DERPSCREAMCHARGE" thing they have/had going on. Oh, and "most" diseases can't go across species very well. That is why it was a big deal when Avian and Swine Flu were around, because they actually did manage to cross the species-gap while remaining even slightly virulent. Most diseases, when they cross species, usually amounts to little more than a sniffle and some flu-like symptoms (Granted, that statement is what I gleaned from a Undergraduate Immunology course, so take it with a grain of salt)

1) Reeds (that is, the actual reed-shafts) make for great arrow-shafts, can be bundled together for use as shelter material or sleeping mats. I am making arrows in RL that have Phragmite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites) reed shafts, and am making a sleeping mat out of the same material. You can also use the fiberous leaves for cordage. I have also made cordage out of the inner bark of many tree species, but haven't used small tree roots yet. They do work good for that purpose, though, especially thin cedar roots. Hell, you can (and I have) make bowstring-worthy cord out of twisted grass! The fact that there has never been a "natural" source of rope/cordage in the game is really ..... irritating. I hold the opinion that literally everything you need to survive should be "craftable" with things you find in the wilderness, and that if you don't want to have to ever go into a town, you shouldn't have to. Right now, that isn't true: you need either rope or cloth to make a bow, which is the tool you need to be able to craft other tools. Should it be hard? Of course. Should it be possible? Of course. Is it? Nope. 2) I never understand why players want there to be "no food" on the coastline, in an effort to push people inland. In reality, human settlements and movements followed the coasts for a reason: that tended to be where the food was (or, at least, where the most food was), on top of weather being moderated by the nearby ocean. There should be plenty of food available on the coasts, and "other things" as well. "Survivalists" have a saying; "there is no coastline on Earth where you cannot find garbage". Periwinkles, clams, mussels, all are edible (if not exactly filling), 99% of seaweed you find washed up on beaches are edible (if extremely salty), small minnows off the beach, larger fish off-shore farther out, and the garbage. A plastic bottle washed up on the beach can hold water, or be made into a trap. Some "sea-glass" can be broken to form a sharp edge (like the "stone knife" already in game, except even easier to make). A garbage bag can be rinsed off and used as an impromptu raincoat, or as shelter-siding. All of the above has been done by me in real life. And the "swamps" that can be found along the coast in spots? Even more food. Estuaries, coastal swamps and salt-marshes in real life are "hotspots" of biodiversity, and are STUFFED with animal life; seabirds, rodents, fish of all sizes, shellfish, etc. Sure, almost all of the above food would be "not very filling", so you would require more food to be full (and by proxy, spend more time getting food), but realistically it should be there. 3) Quicksand and bogs. Meh. Like Biohaze said, there are no real places on the map where there would be quicksand, and the mud in bogs and swamps would be less "OH GOD IM SINKING", and more " Goddamnit, my boot is stuck again". I do have to disagree about the rivers, though. If you look at a topographical map of Chernarus+, you will notice that the Svetlojarsk/Novo/ Severograd line should really be along a major river system, instead of the dinky little piss-stream that is there in-game.

Pretty much. The deer that survived would be the smart ones, or the ones already far away from human centers.

1) Where are you finding "3 cans of food in every house"? While food is indeed plentiful (too plentiful), I didn't think it was that plentiful... 2) I am basing "my lore" both on how the real world works, and what little we know about the in-game world. The second bit amounts to "zombies are still living people", and "it has been, at most, less than 2 years since society shat the bed". That second bit, in turn, is based on the fact that gasoline and medications are still effective. 3) Plenty of people hunted in Day Z, especially in the earlier patches when 1) there were actual animals and 2) canned food wasn't fucking everywhere

If you want to examine the "apocalypse" realistically? In all seriousness, no. If the "background lore" (of which there is actually very little) pays any attention at all to realism/authenticity, then it is far more likely that civilization collapsed over a period of weeks, if not months, instead of the "classical zombie apocalypse" timeframe of "overnight". Very few diseases in real life have a 100% mortality rate, and those that do tend to be buttfuckingly obvious. Such as it probably was in Day Z. Sure, people did get sick and "reanimate" from the "zombie disease" (remember: as per the devs, the "zombies" in-game are still living people, and as such, require food, water, shelter, etc), but more people probably just straight-up died from it. And, there are some pretty isolated villages in South Zagoria. It is eminently possible that the people living in these isolated villages never even got exposed to the "zombie disease", and instead got killed as a result of some other disease, an accident, or bandits. This becomes even more likely when you realize that South Zagoria was heavily quarantined. Or, even those who got the disease (and either "reanimated", or just straight-up died), probably didn't die right away. Even if they only remained alive for a couple of days, those are days when they needed to eat, needed to take medication, and needed to keep warm. This included all of the other people who remained isolated from the initial outbreak, only to die from any other source. So, they had two choices: 1) go to town, and look for stuff there. Anyone who has lived through a natural disaster or even through some nasty weather can tell you what happens to stores when there is "trouble"; 1) the shelves get stripped clean and 2) the employees don't come in 2) go to the woods. In actuality, there is plenty of food available in the fields and woods of South Zagoria. Plants, animals, etc " So, mom is sick, and we need food. I can walk an hour to the nearest village (no gas for the car), that I know has been stripped clean, or I can grab Grandads old rifle and see what I can shoot". When there is no law-and-order, and the stores have been emptied, it means it is now open season, and SCREW the limit. Anything that is stupid enough to be shot goes into the pot, young animals, female animals, etc. Hell, kill more than one, who knows when the stores will be open again? Any idiot with a rifle (and there are A LOT of firearms in South Zagoria....) can go out and kill as many animals as they feel like. This kills off the population very quickly. Oh, and don't forget; the larger the animal, the longer gestation tends to take. Rabbits can grow their population quickly (hence the term "breeding like rabbits") in basically a month, but deer and other animals tend to take longer, a couple of months at least. So, couple the facts that their population just got massacred, and the now-low population density, and you end up with the remaining deer having a more difficult time reproducing (more space "in between" individuals, fewer individuals of reproductive age, etc). Really, I would expect there to be fewer deer after an "apocalypse" compared to before it. Not permanently, but a year or so, until more deer get born and others migrate in from outside the region. Oh, and just because there aren't predators in-game (YET) doesn't mean they "technically" don't exist. Remember: the "infected" are still living human beings, and as such, require food, water, shelter and sleep. We don't see them do these things in-game, but that doesn't mean they don't "do them". Oh, and the most likely predator we should find in Day Z? Not wolves or bears. A feral, rapidly-undomesticated dog! A wolf in all but name, and (unluckily for them, and for us), lacking the intelligence of wolves to be afraid of humans.

I have made my love for blackpowder firearms well known in these forums :P In 'reality", a blackpowder muzzleloading firearm is "more sustainable" in the long term than a metallic-cartridge breechloader. Fewer moving parts to break, easier maintenance, and easier logistics of ammunition. A flintlock is in actuality "more sustainable" than a caplock, due to the fact that percussion caps are a PITA to make, and require 1) some decent chemistry and 2) some not-so-pleasant chemicals. All blackpowder needs is potassium nitrate (aka that white-powder-stuff you can find in the soil of any animal enclosure), charcoal, and sulfur. Of those, sulfur is the only limited reagent, and there would be several sources of sulfur available, even "post- apocalypse". And there are even different formulas for blackpowder that don't even use sulfur. Oh, and the "inaccuracy" of blackpowder firearms, even smoothbores, is drastically overstated. Are they as accurate as modern firearms? Hell no, but a US Civil War era caplock musket can be accurate out to (and possibly past) 400 yards, and a smoothbore Revolutionary War musket can be accurate out to/past 100 yards, so long as it is loaded "right". The inaccuracy of a smoothbore musket was a result of the loading procedures of the armies of the time (use ammunition much smaller than the inside diameter of the barrel, slam the ball down onto the powder, etc) At 30 or so meters, the only measurable difference between a smokeless powder-propelled bullet and a blackpowder-propelled bullet(don't forget, the revolver above is rifled, and fires a Minie projectile, so it can essentially be "as accurate" as a modern pistol in that regard) is that the blackpowder bullet will be travelling slower. At longer ranges, yes, blackpowder projectiles will "drop off" sooner than a smokeless projectile, but they are still perfectly viable so long as you are practiced with the firearm. But, yes, I agree with you that rifles and shotguns should be far, FAR, more common than pistols. Rifles and shotguns are multi-functional, while pistols can only really be used for self-defense.