Whyherro123

Really? "THE MOST survival mechanics"? Let us list them: -Water: not even an issue. There are safe drinking wells in every town (which are only 5 minutes apart, by the way), and water in the wilderness is perfectly safe until you are already fucked up -Food: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Canned food is everywhere, animals are dumber than bricks, and I cannot even forage for the OVERWHELMING supply of food that I can see in the game world. Oh, and the foraging mechanics for stuff that is already there? Utter shite. I can see apples bobbing on a branch, but somehow I "can't find anything". -Exposure: The game is apparently set in mid-to-late Autumn, and yet you can run around in your skivies with no issue. It doesn't get cold at night, it doesn't get chilly during the day, and every day is sunny and beautiful. Where is the rain, where is the wind, where is the early-morning frost? Temperature-management is NON-EXISTENT. There is no need to take shelter from anything, and no reason to make shelter except for storing equipment. -Diseases: effectively a non-issue. I have yet to get an infected wound, and you can only catch Cholera when you are already about dead. And, even if you do get sick, taking some miraculously-still-effective medications will clear it up in no time, as opposed to taking time to work + not being a guaranteed cure, as in a somewhat realistic fashion. When we inject epinephrine, why don't we get nauseous (vomit up our stomach contents, losing "hunger and thirst"), or get weak and shaky (aim with weapons jitter around), or difficulty breathing (aka can't run)? When we inject morphine, why does it MAGICALLY heal broken limbs, as opposed to acting as a strong pain-reliever, and have a chance to give us blurred vision, dizzyness, nausea, shakiness, the chance to faint/fall unconscious, or shortness of breath? -Medical system: Whatever the issue is, you use a dirty rag. Knife to the arm? Dirty rag. Bullet to the gut? Dirty rag. Why would I use any other method, when strapping a bit of ragged cloth around my wound causes it to magically disappear? Yes, the bleeding (might) stop, but I still can get infected, I am still suffering from shock, and I might have some internal bleeding going on. A bullet to the gut should be lethal. Not instantly, but over time. Don't want to play as a "walking casualty"? Easy: Don't get fucking shot. Either avoid unnecessary combat, or use proper tactics to ensure the chances of you getting wounded are as low as possible. Failing that, commit suicide. If I got gut-shot in a DayZ-situation, I would be opening my wrists quickly. Nothing like spending a week or so in slowly-increasing agony to make you want to take an easier-way-out. Wounds should become infected, unless you take the time to clean them and re-bandage them regularly, over a period of time. That knife to the arm? Takes a week of real-world time to heal. The only thing you can do for it is to : 1) keep it clean and bandaged, and 2) eat, drink and rest well, to promote healing. Sprained ankle? Wrap it up and take it easy, or, better yet, don't fucking run everywhere. -Movement and running: I know that I couldn't sprint for several kilometers over time in real life, much less with multiple kilograms on my back. Move quickly aka "double time", sure, but not running/jogging. We can literally sprint for eternity. There is no stamina system, and the increased metabolic consumption as a result is basically unnoticeable, especially with the glut of food available. -Supplies: guns, ammunition, etc are everywhere, a gift from the PVP-gods from Valhalla-on-high. Not that I have any particular issues with PvP, but there is no real reason to use any other weapon when you can just pick up a firearm and 100+ bullets every couple of feet in EVERY major city. No-one uses the bow, no-one uses the crossbow. In my perfect Day Z, ammunition would either 1) Not respawn (preferred), or 2) respawn at a VERY low rate. What would this mean? It would mean you actually have to conserve your ammunition, hold people up (with empty/nearly empty firearms) as opposed to just shooting them, fight with melee (cannot wait for bayonets), or, actually, you know, start to rebuild industry (and therefore, society) a little bit at a time. Imagine: you and your clan set up camp in a little complex overlooking a road. You see survivors travelling along the road every day. So, you go down there and start charging a toll to pass through. Some of the people ask if they can set up farms along the road, in return for protection. You get some of the food in return. You agree, and start patrolling the farms, as well as charging for the toll. Over time, some traders want to start meeting near your complex once per week, as it is the "safest" part of the map. You agree, in return for 1) either charging for an entry fee/a minor cut of the profits and 2) some of your guys being contracted out for security. This would net you both a tidy little profit, and gather people from far around to see how awesome you are. You soon start to recruit new members, as the glut of people coming in needs more "guns on the walls", and some of the new people are interested. After some time, some of the traders want to set up permanent residence in your compound, where they can manufacture things for you and the surrounding villages. You agree, and a bullet-loader, an alcohol-distiller, and a mechanic set up shop inside your compound. In return, you levy a minor tax for entering your compound, as well as for the actual products made. NOTE: these would be extremely minor, so if a gallon of moonshine "sold" for 100 "X", you would get 5"X" for every gallon sold, and charged 2 "X" for every person to enter the gate, it would probably help to, or cover entirely, security costs. What does all of that equal? Neo-feudalism, aka probably the most-likely form of government and society that would form after a TSC-situation.

Considering how having a full can of food shoved into my pants pocket will be awkward, heavy, and make it difficult to run, no, I won't be keeping any "beens" in my pocket. Instead, I would keep "beens" in my backpack, like any other human being. The Devs REALLY need to change up the "inventory space" mechanic. The only space on my person that I could feasibly stick a can of food would be the knee-pockets on my cargos. My jeans wouldn't fit a can of food.

The utter lack of survival-related mechanics and developments in a supposedly-"survival" game.

Cannot give enough beans. Let us face it, folks: without safe drinking water being a concern, Day Z will effectively never be a survival game. If you don't have to worry about water, everything else becomes less "concerning", for lack of a better term. Have to forage for food in the wilds? Whatever, I can do this for weeks, I've got plenty of water! Friend has an infection? Whatever, give him plenty of fluids. No need to boil/filter here! ETC ETC

1) We don't know that the US and Russia were also overwhelmed. The only thing we do know is that the CDF is gone, and society in South Zagoria collapsed. For all we know (and this is my personal canon, based on what we see in-game), things could be just peachy-keen in the rest of Chernarus, and South Zagoria is under quarantine by US, RU, and UN forces. (If you want a better, more in-depth explanation of my theory, PM me) 2) Even if the disease was particularly virulent, plenty of people could have survived via "quarantining" themselves, essentially by scrambling to the hills and preventing exposure. This happened during the Black Death in Europe: small villages off the beaten path literally didn't know there was an apocalypse-level plague going around until after it blew over, and people from outside the community came in and wondered why they didn't get hit. This doesn't mean they are immune, they just had the foresight to get out of dodge before they got sick. So now, when they start to move around/through the emptied cities, for supplies and to see "what's what", they stand the possibility of exposure. 3) Project Zomboid does this very well. In that game, you most definitely are NOT immune to the "zombie disease", and it makes the game atmosphere SO MUCH BETTER for it. Yeah, sure, you can take one one zombie mano-a-mano pretty easily, and come off on top with no/little damage 99% of the time. However, more than one zombie instantly changes "meh" to " HOLY COCKBISQUITS GOTTA GTFO". While you fight one, the other zombie(s) are busy smacking you from the side, and you stand a pretty good chance of getting infected. Once you get infected, you might as well go out in a blaze of glory. By making zombies actually dangerous, the game actually feels scary, like the end of the world. Sure, you can grow food and build up a base, but once a couple of zombies finds your base, you might want to move. (Basebuilding makes noise, by the way) Oh, and while firearms are great at killing zombies, they also cause them to swarm from a wide area. You better have an escape plan, or preferably, more than one, before you start shooting. I've seen swarms of about (I actually lost count, and was too busy freaking out to be more accurate) 100 zombies coming for me after firing, and the more I shot, the more came. I ended up burning down a whole subdivision with Molotov cocktails trying to kill the horde. Worked, but holy shit, that was the scariest thing I've ever seen in a game. They just.wouldn't.stop.

Canonically, the players are immune to the "zombie disease" (which, in my opinion, is a "cop-out" if there ever was one). However, like any other human being/animal that doesn't wash and gets covered in bodily fluids, waste, and dirt, they are extremely likely to be hosts to a whole slew of diseases and parasites. Get scratched by an "infected", better keep that wound clean, or you are bound to develop a nasty blood infection that probably won't be cured by some pansy tetracycline tabs. Spend too long around them , or loot through one of their "dens" (I am assuming that they are eating, drinking, and sleeping "off-screen", as it were, considering how they are still alive, with all that implies), and you could develop a case of fleas that give you a nasty skin aliment. Etc etc.

1) Your lack of sentence structure makes it 1: difficult to actually understand what point you are attempting to get across, and 2: sometimes physically painful to read, especially the run-on sentences. 2) What, exactly, makes the environment suddenly so much of a threat? Again, Nature isn't TRYING to kill you: your death is just a result of natural processes that would happen if you were there or not. Hot and cold temperatures: this is little more than clothing and food.water-intake management. If it is hot, I need less clothing, a hat, and to drink more water. If it is cold, I need more clothing, more food, more water and I need to drink more water. Storms: Go inside a building, dumbass. On the map, you are probably never more than 5 minutes away from a building. Inside, the wind, cold, and wet can do nothing to harm you Diseases: you have a point here. However, the diseases should be realistic, not hyped up to provide artificial challenge. Hunger: Believe me, there is PLENTY of food available in the wilds of Chernarus, we just can't access it yet. Take a look at any body of water in the game. You will see some reed-like plants. Those plants are cattails, aka "God's gift to man" in a survival situation. Easy to get, full of starch, and useful for other things. Boom; hunger solved Finally, no. If I have a base with electricity, insulated buildings (which aren't hard to make, even by hand), and plenty of food, water and a warm fire, I am not going to give one single fuck about the environment. Staying there should be relatively easy, getting there should be relatively hard. I want realism, NOT "artificial difficulty". "The Long Dark" had artificial difficulty, and I am rapidly becoming disillusioned with the game as a result. "Realism" is all the difficulty we need.

In and of itself, nature isn't "out to get you". It isn't even antagonistic, because "nature" isn't sentient. It is just a collection of forces that will work on the planet, regardless of what you try to do. This is something I try to teach my wilderness survival classes: that you aren't going to "fight Mother Nature". If you do, you are going to lose, very very badly. Think of a grain of sand before a flood. Instead, you have to try to "live WITH nature" instead of trying to fight it. And, no, I am not referring to some hippie-mystical-Native American mumbo-jumbo, here. (Protip: in actuality, Native Americans did just as much harm to the environment as the Europeans did. New England today is 2-3 times more heavily forested than it was in the 1600s.) You eat what is provided, you use what you can get.

Oh Jesus... I can't take you even the slightest bit seriously.

^ I don't even know what that means.

Not necessarily, but he shouldn't brag about killing some dude back and forth, getting his gear, then logging when he hears another dude -possibly- close by. It is "combat-logging" if you log out when you hear shots, and want to avoid contact. The OP did both. There is NEVER a point in-game when you can't sprint the 30 seconds it takes to get to the woods, and log there.

Tell me, why should the FNX be the "best" handgun? I absolutely HATE when people rate the in-game guns in "tiers"

So..... you combat-logged? Real impressive.

--Just for shits and giggles-- Or, you know: you could scale it up, and make some full-blown artillery pretty easily. 3lber cannon: load with a 3lb scrap-metal-cast cannon ball and 1/4 lbs of blackpowder, to DESTROY (seriously, the following video made me happy. A cannonball just NOPES its way through an entire car) vehicles and buildings out to 400 yards, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsql5Wv0TiE, or, load with a wooden sabot and a fuckton of musket balls, for some canister-shot anti-personnel goodness (effectively turns the cannon into a gigantic shotgun) A 3lber cannon would weigh about 400-500 lbs, meaning you could drag it behind a vehicle pretty easily, or even wheel it up onto some earthworks somewhere. Or, for a more "personal touch", make a "swivel-gun", aka a baby-cannon that you could mount on the back of a truck. Or, if you REALLY want to kill something dead, use chain-shot. Stuff a bunch of chains down the muzzle, turn the roadside to blood and shredded EVERYTHING.

With the proper tactics, and some knowledge/skill in skirmishing: Blaze, all day every day. Even without the scope. Gorgeous iron sights, powerful, flat-shooting round, rapid follow-up AND fast reloading. The Blaze has everything you need. Plus, it doesn't come "off target" when you prime the second round, so you can 1) see where the first round lands, and 2) make a deadly-accurate follow-up id necessary.

No thank you. I 1) see no real use, 2) can't see even a large clan wasting the time to find, repair and maintain the aircraft, as well as maintain the facilities for it. Useless.

Goats, mainly. Meat, milk, hide and hair (wool-ish). Don't really need any other animals, other than a dog. Keep some goats in a pen in your clans base, you won't regret it.

Rifled muskets came about in the 1850s. And matchlocks, from the 1500s/1600s? Totally had sights. You can see them here (https://youtu.be/X1WwQkeDuXs?t=24), here ( ), here ( ), and here ( ). They look to be a "standard" rear notch/ front post or ball.

-Ahem- "Brown Bess" muskets had sights. They had a rear notch sight, and the bayonet stud was used as the front post. I am imagining every other nations flintlock muskets were the same. Flintlocks were used as hunting weapons. What use is a hunting weapon if it has no sights?

Are you..... actually using "Deadliest Warrior" as backup for your points? Firstly: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh JESUS. That show is the most poorly-researched faux-machismo-laden crock of shit I've ever seen. Don't listen to their "experts". Secondly: You are still referring to "Line Infantry" tactics, which showed up as late as the US Civil War. On the battlefield, soldiers wouldn't be having duels with muskets, or even shootouts like modern troops. They would stand in big formations and blast at each other.Which, coincidentally, was one of the reasons why fatality rates were so high. The "standard firearm" for both sides of the conflict was a "rifled musket" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifled_musket), which while a "musket" and "rifled musket" are related, the usage of them are not the same. With "Line Infantry" tactics, a musket is effective out to 50 meters. With a "rifled musket", add about 150-250 yards, with more power, accuracy, and flatter trajectory. So, Line regiments in the Civil War were lining up 50-100 yards away from each other, with firearms that can easily reach out to 300 yards no problem. A .58 Minie ball will (and did) blow off limbs, and there are battlefields where there are trees that were cut down with rifle fire. When used in "Line Infantry" style, yes, smoothbore muskets are indeed inaccurate. However, this is due to the loading process, not any particular deficiency of the firearm. With Line Infantry, "rate of fire" was literally the only thing they cared about, and therefore, reloading as fast as possible was the intended result of the "drill" process; 1) The soldier would use an "undersized" ball, to allow it to slip past fouling in the barrel. For example, the "Brown Bess" British musket was .75 caliber. Line Infantry would use .69 caliber balls. This increased the "windage", or the gap, between the sides of the musket ball and the barrel. This is important. 2) After dumping the powder from the paper cartridge down the barrel, the solider would crumple the paper, shove it in the barrel, and use it as a wad for the ball (to sit over the powder). This doesn't do anything about the windage between the ball and the barrel, unlike a patch. 3) After starting the ball down the barrel, the soldier would literally slam the ramrod down onto the ball+powder, to ensure it is seated. They would also bounce the ramrod off the top of the load, just to be sure. This would randomly compress the powder charge under the ball. 4) On firing, the ball, due to both the windage between the ball and the barrel, and the randomly-compressed powder charge, would literally bounce down the barrel as the charge burns. This means it would essentially leave the barrel in a random "cone" after firing. 5) Plus, Line Infantry tactics did not include actual accuracy. Soliders would literally level their firearms at the horizon, and pull the trigger. Not aim at the enemy, but level with the horizon. Some units wouldn't even look at the enemy, but instead look at their officers. This is due to the fuckhuge clouds of smoke blackpowder creates. With 50+ guys all aiming in the same general direction, "artillery-style", you don't really need accuracy. On the other hand, when loaded "properly": 1) Use a tight-fitting ball. For example, with a .75 Brown Bess, skirmishers and sharpshooters would usually use a .71 caliber ball. This lessens windage between the ball and the barrel. 2) Use a tight-fitting patch. The "patch" is any material that fits AROUND the ball, between the ball and the barrel. Depending on the size of the ball, you could use paper (thin), cloth (middle), or even leather (thick). Using the proper-fitting patch completely eliminates any windage. 3) Don't "bounce" the ball onto the powder, or the ramrod off the ball. Instead, you gently push the whole ball+ patch down onto the powder, and make a mark on the ramrod so you know it is seated all the way. This way, everything stays nice and even. , and braced on something like a wall, a tree, etc, a smoothbore musket is capable of reaching out to 100, even 150 meters. Which is what the Colonial militia did, in the Revolutionary War. However, while you can win a skirmish that way, you can't win a battle, or even a war. So, what do you think 99.9% of the literature about smoothbore musket accuracy and performance was about? Line Infantry, not "sharpshooters". Of course, the different methods of loading resulted in different firing speeds. Line Infantry, when well-trained, could get a shot off every 15-20 seconds, with some "crack" Redcoat units being able to crank out a shot every 10 seconds or so, for short periods. On the other hand, the "more accurate" method was much slower, with a shot roughly every 60 seconds, or even longer if you don't know what you are doing. Case in point: at my local Boy Scout camp, we have a guy that does Blackpowder for the kids. When I was down there last, I shot a smoothbore musket reproduction, for the very first time on that firearm. Using the "fast" method of loading, I was able to get reliable groups in the 8,9, and 10-ring on a 75 yard target. Of course, I was braced on a table, but it shows that a musket doesn't just fart out rounds. With a proper-fitting ball and patch, I am confident I could nail a 100 yard target easily, and even farther with some practice.

That isn't how it works. The devs need to fix that, and make medication actually work how it, you know, works in real life. Charcoal tabs make you vomit. That is it. They make you vomit up whatever toxins are in your system, and neutralize whatever remain, due to the carbon bonding with everything (carbon is a little hussy like that). Antibiotics treat bacterial infections. They won't do much to food poisoning from eating raw meat.

Ah, I see you fail to do your own research into the matter. Blackpowder muzzleloaders are NOTORIOUSLY inaccurate when used in the fashion of LINE INFANTRY. They would use an undersized ball (leading to windage between the ball and the barrel), slam the ball down onto the powder (which would also lead to the ball being unevenly seated onto the powder, making it bounce down the barrel), and literally not even aim at the enemy when firing. All this so they could load in 10 seconds, and throw as much lead at the enemy as possible. This would lead LINE INFANTRY to have horrible accuracy at 50 meters or so, and is directly why 99% of people think blackpowder muskets are horribly inaccurate. Most of the reports we have on musket behavior come directly from military sources, not civilian hunting reports. Remember: in the US colonies, a musket was primarily a hunting weapon. Tell me: do you think someone would use a hunting weapon that cannot make reliably-accurate shots past 50 meters? (which is spitting-distance for a deer) No, muskets were plenty accurate, when used in the right way. Use a tight-fitting bullet, with a tight patch, and you can (so long as you know the firearm, and have some skill) reliably make tight groupings on a target 100, even 150 meters away. There are plenty of videos on the Youtube where people do just that. And those shots are with unrifled barrels! With proper rifling, you can reach out to 200, 250, even 300 meters! With a .50 to .71 caliber bullet, nonetheless. Whatever it touches is dead, or going to die in a few seconds. That leaves a BIG hole. Not so for arrows. As for "gameplay balance", I believe that gameplay should be balanced by sticking to realism as much as possible. Yeah, of course there should be modern bullets and firearms. However, there should also be a much more limited supply than there is (Alpha, and all that), and when you run out of the "modern stuff", what are you gonna do? Synthesize new ones out of condensed hopes and dreams? No, you improvise, and use bayonets, bows, or hopefully, realize that you could make a functional and effective firearm out of some stuff you probably are gonna have anyways (if you are an effective survivor). More on "balance"; I would also love to see a more realistic medical system, instead of "slap a dirty rag on it and sit down a spell". Getting injured should be a big deal. Remember, we don't have advanced medicine, and no real doctors, either. Every would should have the possibility to become infected, if it doesn't kill you outright from shock. More realistic gear-carrying (actually have to take off your backpack if you want to look through it, etc), more realistic movement speeds and stamina, more realistic temperature management, more realistic food and nutrition, more realistic hunting and foraging, all that. It all balances itself out, that way

"Do they spawn at Guard houses?", he asks.

You can make a blackpowder muzzleloader with a length of pipe and a hot piece of wire (seriously, that is literally what a cannon is). The above process is to make it "pretty", and make it seem more familiar as a firearm. As for bows, I have stated before, in numerous threads, that the "improvised bow" in Day Z would most emphatically not effectively work as a viable weapon in real life. That just ... is not how you make an effective bow, coming from someone who has made numerous bows before. Whenever I see the bow-making process, and how effective it is, I am flabbergasted and shake my head. It literally only works due to developer ignorance/not-giving-a-shit to the whole process. Same thing with making arrows. Arrow-making takes time and skill. It has taken me an hour and a half to make a single arrow, from beginning (stick, feathers, and arrowhead), to finished product (first, you have to make sure it is the right length. Then, the right weight. Then, the right amount of flexibility. Then, you have to straighten it, which in and of itself is a process. Then, nocking, fletching, and testing.). In an hour, I could (and have) crank out 30 musket balls. As for the whole "makes a lot of noise and smoke" thing .... yeah, and? Take your shot, then go hide behind a tree or in a bush. Wait for the enemy to move up, then nail them again. "Stick and move". Or, make a spike-bayonet to stick on the front end. No zombies will trouble you. If you can turn a barrel, you can turn a spike bayonet. Finally, the firearms will last a long time, but the ammunition most emphatically will not. Almost everything that is required to make new bullets, or reload spent ones, essentially requires international trade, as well as some pretty hefty chemistry knowledge. Where, for example, are you going to be getting your smokeless powder? The stores will only last for so long...... Nitoglycerin, one of the many compounds that goes into smokeless powder, requires concentrated sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Where are you going to get those? Who are you going to make the powder? Do they know how? I don't know of anyone that makes their own smokeless powder. On the other hand, I know of plenty of people who make their own blackpowder. It is a much simpler process. Or, for modern cartridges, where are you going to get the primers? Again, stockpiles will only last for so long without international trade.... Where are you going to get the lead styphenate, which itself is made of a chemical reaction of other, hard-to get chemicals. Can you locate these chemicals in Chernarus? Again, who is going to be synthesizing these chemicals? Or, brass for cartridges? You can only use "stepped" (don't know the technical term" brass cartridges a few times, until the brass gets too weak. Straight-walled cases can be reused many more times, but none of the "military/military surplus" firearms use straight-walled cases. Do you know when to retire a cartridge, or the right mixture of brass to use to make more? Do you know how to make brass? Or, bullets, the bit that goes "pew", for those who don't know what actually goes into a cartridge ( I know you know, Chaingunfighter). Using soft lead, or even lead made from wheel-weights (which is harder), leads to "leading" in the barrel, which can range from "annoying" to "deadly", which is why modern firearms use "jacketed" bullets. Do you know how to jacket bullets? Which materials to use? You don't "machine" new ammunition, you synthesize it, out of chemicals that, in all senses of realism, probably don't really exist in Chernarus. Most of the worlds mercury (for primers and other industrial processes) comes from China nowadays, which might as well be on the far side of the moon from Chernarus for all the good it does. Remember, if something can't be found in Chernarus, it effectively does not exist, post-apocalypse, once the local supply is used up. "Logistics" are FUCKED. Oil-based fuels, solvents, and fertilizers? Gone. Synthesized medicines? Gone. Electrical parts? Gone. "New" vehicle parts? Gone. Until supply lines open up and trade starts with regions outside, we aren't getting anything new. The only place in Chernarus that probably would have the materials to make new bullets, primers, cases and smokeless powder would be Chernarusk Zbrojovka, the regional/national firearms company. And, since there is no facility of said company in South Zagoria, all those materials and such are useless. So, so long as the supply of cases, bullets, powder and primers lasts, you can have "modern" bullets. What happens, however, when those supplies run out? "The Road" happens. "Mad Max" happens. Where you are lucky to have a gun, much less bullets for that gun, because the knowledge has been lost. Also, no, we wouldn't be kicked back to the Stone Age. A liquid-fuel-powered generator can be converted to run off of wind-power, or water power, or hell, even moonshine if it is diesel. So long as you can make the thing spin, you're good to go. So, we have electricity, even if only a little, and that gives us lights, heat, and power for machines (while those supplies last, of course. I don't know about you, but I can't make a lightbulb in my basement) There also would be "law and order", in the form of local militas (which we can assume already happened, in the form of clans and such). They would have guns and ammunition, but again, what happens once those bullets run out? Finally, the "apocalypse" IS BAD< if only just because international trade is now interrupted, on top of there being both a whole slew of disease outbreaks, famine, and "totally-not-zombies" breaking down your door.. Case in point: mid 50's, mid-central Africa. The locals were given a bunch of tractors to help them with farming. They loved it.... until the fuel, and parts for the tractors ran out. Hundreds of thousands of people died from starvation, or diseases caused from malnutrition. No apocalypse, just the supply-lines being broken for a few months. They couldn't maintain the "lifestyle" (amount of food, quality of food, goods they could buy due to money from crops sold, etc) they were accustomed to, or could support outside of local manufacturing capabilities, and they died due to it. Of course "the bullets running out" would never happen in Day Z, because this is a game where bullets magically spawn from thin air, as opposed to actually relying on real-world logic and logistics. I, for one, would love (LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE) it if there were a game mode down the line where things just didn't respawn. Once you fired a bullet, ate a can of food, used a dose of medication, that would be it. It wouldn't be coming back, next server reset. That would mean 1) you would have to actually conserve your supply of "modern" things, and 2) find some way to either make more of the "modern" things (which would be difficult, due to the lack of international trade. I am not seeing many peach trees around Chernarus, for example.), or find a more "sustainable" alternative. Reload those straight-walled cases with blackpowder, which you make from the materials you can find in your base. Use an alcohol-powered generator, using booze you distill from food you grow. Use bread-mold (aka penicillin) for antibiotics instead of the more effective "modern stuff', which is in short supply these days. TL:DR: I can make everything I need to shoot a blackpowder muzzleloader with things I have in my backyard/house. Bullets, powder, patches, even the actual firearm, if I am pressed enough. Quite simply, in fact. Can't quite do the same for "modern" bullets, or firearms. EDIT: I reread my above NOVEL, and I realize I kinda-sorta sound like one of those "Prepper" kooks. I am not, not really, I just take the Boy Scout Motto seriously ( Be Prepared). This extends to my lifestyle: I rarely eat meat I don't hunt, I eat food from local farms (which, asides from being MUCH better for the environment, tastes good and is better for me than something shipped across the country), and use tools that I've either made myself ( a bow, a spear, a set of bolas, various traps), or can be made from materials that can be located "nearby" (leather, wool, wood, not plastic or rubber). Not that I believe that something "apocalypse-y" like Day Z is going to happen, but it is ... better to be safe than sorry?

Blackpowder musket: AKA the most sustainable firearm you are gonna get! No hard-to-make primers, no spent brass, no smokeless (aka hard to make) powder. -Firearm: Take a length of steel pipe and wrap it solidly in metal wire. This is to reinforce the pipe against the pressure of the explosion. (Black powder has relatively low pressures, so the wire might not even be necessary depending on the strength of the pipe. Cap one end (preferably, weld it shut), and drill a hole near this end (this is your "touch hole", aka how you ignite the gunpowder. Form a stock from some boards, and "attach" the stock to the barrel with some metal banding. (this will allow you to remove the barrel for cleaning). Beneath the "touch hole", weld a small metal pan with a rotating cover. This is where you put the "priming powder" aka the powder that sets off the main charge.. Take a length of metal and form it into a "trigger and lock", so that when you pull the trigger, the lock rotates and brings the match to the pan. Take a length of rope, and soak it in a solution of potassium nitrate. This will make the rope extremely slow-burning, and serve as your match. -Powder": Every couple of months, dig underneath your animal pen to find some whitish, powdery stuff. This is potassium nitrate. Make some charcoal from some form of softwood, and grind it up fine. Finally, locate a source of sulfur, either straight sulfur (easily available from any gardening supply store), some fertilizer (I am assuming the in-game fertilizer is sulfur-based, as the name and logo is literally a fire-breathing dragon), or just scrape down some match heads. You could also use finely-powdered rust, at reduced effectiveness. Mix these three ingredients in a 75% potassium nitrate/15% charcoal/10% sulfur ratio. After they are well mixed, mix them with some urine, and sieve it through a window screen. Boom (hahaha), you just made gunpowder. -Bullets: Take the wheel-weights off of wrecked vehicles, and melt them down into balls for shooting with. So long as the size is consistent, it doesn't really matter what size they are: a tight enough "patch" will make it more than accurate enough -"Patches": these are things that go over the gunpowder and under the bullet, to make sure there is a tight fit between the ball and the barrel (aka accuracy). You could use paper or cloth or leather (all, of course, are of different thicknesses, which means you could use smaller balls and get the same accuracy, but larger balls will do more damage). Using loose powder, you could get off 1 shot per minute. Or, you could make a "paper cartridge", and make the reloading process MUCH faster, at the expense of accuracy. This would let you get between three and 4 shots off in a minute. And, believe me or not, but a smoothbore musket can shoot tight groups out to 100 yards easily, and even further if you are skilled and know the firearm. The whole "muskets are stupid inaccurate" myth was true, in a sense, but only when used militarily. As a hunting weapon, they were quite good, to the point where Native Americans threw out bows in return for muskets. Now, you might be asking yourself: why the hell would I want to use a (500 for a matchlock musket, 300 for a flintlock) hundreds-year-old firearm, when we have modern firearms right here? I will respond with SUSTAINABILITY. Yes, yes, right now there is a glut of ammunition of all types, to the point where you can wander around with hundreds of bullets jingling, but what happens later down the line? Realistically, Chernarus would run out of (quality. Who knows how many caustic acid-producing Soviet surplus ammo there is stockpiled?) actual "modern" bullets relatively quickly. Everything that goes into a "modern" bullet (smokeless powder, primers, brass, etc) essentially requires international trade, something that rather obviously isn't happening in a zombie apocalypse. So, there would be local stockpiles of both bullets, and the materials to make more bullets, but inevitably (realistically) they would run out. Using a blackpowder firearm essentially removes you from that shortage. For the "survivalist", not relying on something from town is a gigantic blessing. You can literally make every part of the firearm, and it is infinitely easier than learning how to use a bow/crossbow/primitive ranged weapon. Plenty of people (and not just in the US, either) today use blackpowder muzzleloaders for hunting, shooting, and recreational use. Anything on the North American continent can be killed with one of these, from a rabbit to a bear. ( I told you how to build a matchlock because they require less springs and such to make, compared to a flintlock. However, a flintlock could also be improvised relatively easily, say, with the striker from a lighter?)