Whyherro123

If anything, blood loss should be faster and more severe. In this video, a deer gets an obsidian-tipped arrow to the chest ( about 2: 45 in) from about 20 meters away. About 30 seconds later (and only about 50 meters), the deer died from blood loss. https://youtu.be/1VCYlg9w7dE?t=160 Right now, in-game, unless the weapon has a high "shock" value, you can essentially tank blood loss like no big deal.

I own one. Love it. But I would much prefer to build one of the above in anything other than summer.

SO, what would we need to construct these shelters? In the bare-bones-minimum, nothing, asides from willing hands and ready backs. Both of these can be made without rope, an axe/hatchet, a saw, knife, whatever. Just lean sticks up against each other and make sure they are strong. In my class, a shelter was only strong enough if it could support your weight on it. This is so in order to support the weight of insulation material and of snow/rainfall, etc However, having some tools and materials could make building these faster and easier. Knife: Used to cut notches in sticks, and to cut bark off (dead) trees for waterproofing. In all seriousness, I don't really use my knife for shelterbuilding all that much Axe/Hatchet: In almost all instances, I prefer a hatchet over an axe, if just for weight alone. If I need to fell a tree, I use my saw. If I need to cut wood, I use my saw. I only use the hatchet for splitting the wood. Plus, the hatchet can fit into my pack, or under my belt, so if I need it, I will have it, as opposed to a heavy axe I leave back at camp. Saw: IMO, probably the most important tool for shelterbuilding and wood-processing. Using a saw, I can cut down trees faster than with an axe, with less effort, and cut them into smaller pieces. A good saw also is smaller and weighs less than an axe. You can also carry replacement blades (far more) very easily. You use the saw to cut the cross-members to length. I prefer bowsaws (or, for the more technical minded, "buck saws", as they can be easily improvised in the field, to the point where you can just carry the blade and make a handle when you need it. I really, like this one, as it folds up nice and looks good. Plus, it is cheap and easy to make. Improvising a bowsaw handle: Rope/Cordage: In my opinion, having a supply of rope or cordage is almost necessary in a survival situation, as the uses for it is almost uncountable. I am actually really disappointed the devs haven't included a way to make cordage in-game yet. ( "Guts", to me, don't count. I would use those for other things. To me, using intestines to tie something together is a waste of good material. Use sinew or 2-ply cordage for that) It is possible to make reasonably-strong cordage from any plant material using the 2-ply-twist method. Grass and Yucca are my favorite, and are actually pretty strong, to the point where, if you make it 1/2 inch thick, I have serious trouble breaking it. You would use cordage to lash the beams to the uprights, and the cross-members to the beams, for added security.

I remember playing MW2 in 3PP. It was pretty awesome, actually.

Pretty much my philosophy as well. Unless you went out looking for that A-frame shelter, AND knew what to look for, who could honestly tell me they would spot the A-frame set back in the woods? Opposed to a bright-blue tent?

Repeater/ Revolver combo: uses the same ammunition, so no worries about logistics. .357 is a known killer. Requires no magazines. Iron sites on both weapons are effective. Best yet: you don't have to go to military locations to find ammo! Most combat in Day Z takes place around 50 meters or less, which the Magnum is good at. Unless you are the "designated sniper" for a group, you have no need to be shooting beyond 200-300 meters, which the Repeater can handle quite nicely. For the average survivor, the Repeater/Revolver is all the gun they need. Equally adept at killing players, zombies, and animals.

Ah.... there are totally desktop PCs to be found in Chernarus.

I think the FAR more important question to ask is not "what year did the apocalypse happen in?", but instead ", how long has it been since the collapse?". Beleive it or not, there is a signifigant difference between the collapse of society happening a week ago, 6 months ago, or 2 years ago. Namely, what man-made things (particularly, fuels and medicines) would be viable. I think, based on the fact that there is both gasoline in pumps, and that said gasoline still works, the collapse of society was relatively recent, meaning only a couple of months.

Yes, and? Modern American schools often have books and other things from the early-to-mid 1980s hanging around. Still in use. Which says a lot about the state of American public education, but still. Not all that signifigant.

As a related aside, I really hope we eventually can make baskets and containers from birch bark. They are very useful things; lightweight, relatively tough, waterproof. Hell, I am working on two right now, for the exact purpose I explained above. Ray Mears (probably one of the "best" bushcrafters around today, in my opinion) uses modern glue in two of the above videos, but you can (and he does, in the second) make glue in the bush by mixing crushed charcoal and melted pine resin together. Charcoal, obviously, comes from fires, an pine resin can be found on pine trees, which are in-game. Quite simple to make, extremely useful, and effective.

Or, you know, you could heat up rocks in the fire, then drop them into the birchbark bowl to boil it. Lets you reuse the bowl effectively indefinitely (the bowl does not get damaged by the heat in any way using this method, as opposed to the above, where the bowl will get destroyed very quickly), and saves you both time and effort. Hell, the guy who made all three videos linked to recommends boiling using rocks as opposed to boiling on coals, for the reasons I explained above. I don't understand everyone fascination with roasting meat on a fire. It is the most inefficient means of cooking meat, both in regards to the loss of caloric energy due to cooking, as well as the time and effort it takes to cook the meat. You also don't need to cook the meat on a stick or in a bowl to roast it; just throw it on a hot rock next to the fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnY8Bx0Hn1I Boiling is faster, safer (the meat is guaranteed to be perfectly cooked), as well as more "efficient" (you can effectively get all the nutrition from the meat by drinking the broth made from boiling it.) I almost never roast any meat I get when in the bush; I boil it with some bones and wild foragables into a soup/stew-type deal.

Sometimes the people on this forum make me wonder. Person using a rifle on a rested bench vs standing upright. Duhhhhhhhhhh Now, if we could just get weapon resting, like in Arma 3, I would be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyC8yqYj3_M

If there was a bayonet mounted on it, or if you could smash people in the face with the butt, then I would gladly charge up to people into CQC

Ah, "digging sticks" are as old as agriculture itself, if not older, and are effective so long as they are used right. You won't be digging any ditches with it, but it can make a hole in the dirt for planting seeds, or for levering a plant out of the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digging_stick

I like to think that the "disease" that causes zombification is not, in fact, worldwide, but instead localized to Chernarus. The area around Chernarus is being quarantined by NATO/ RF forces, and regularly patrolled via helicopter by NATO/RF Special Forces, which is why we find "awesome" firearms in helicopter crashes. Every so often, the helicopters would fly over Chernarus to scope out the progression of the disease, and when all the "infected" (both the zombies and the players, as the outside forces wouldn't know we were immune) are dead, regular ground forces would move in to make sure the area was clear of infected. That, at least, explains the burning/smoking helicopters, as well as giving some background lore.

I also hate how they mixed up the berries coloration. See those little star-shaped things on the bottoms of the berries? Those markings indicate what is known as a "king berry", usually a member of the blueberry family, and almost (99.999% of the time), perfectly safe to eat, as well as being tasty. The "Day Z Standalone Wiki" calls these berries "sambucus" (http://dayz-standalone.wikia.com/wiki/Berries), which is to say, elderberries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambucus). Now, in real life, elderberries look ...... kinda like blueberries, if you squint and have never seen a blueberry/blueberry before. These are elderberries These are blueberries Now, boys and girls, which berries look the most like the in-game version? I'll wait. Yeah, these berries really need to be changed. The red ones should make you sick.

That is just the thing: the environment Day Z takes place in is abundant with wild food, both plant and animal. There is no reason we should starve to death, unless we are physically unable to go out and forage for food. This thing is: foraging takes time and effort, during which you aren't really competing against other players. Some people might find the foraging process boring, while others, like myself, find it awesome. Safe drinking water, on the other hand, should be a serious issue. Remember: just because the water is clear and running, doesn't mean it is safe to drink. There is plenty of water available in Chernarus, it just has to be boiled or filtered, preferably both, before drinking. Having a well with safe water in every town (and having every town be 5 minutes apart) kind of removes that aspect of survival. If I had my way, 95% of the wells in Chernarus would be removed, broken, or otherwise unusable, to promote people actually boiling/filtering/purifying their water. Plenty of food, but no water. And I disagree with you as to foraging being "entry-level". 1) you don't need a gun to hunt, you can trap small game, fish, or make a bow, and 2) I would forage as I traveled. AS you follow that deer, mark down where you see groups of edible plants, to go get them later. etc

God forbid

I want there to be as "realistic" blood as possible: no massive blood explosions, no gory trails, etc. A puff of vapor (not necessarily blood, but dust, etc) from an exit wound. Some blood on the ground by a resting corpse. Blood trails in grass that you actually have to look for, not a stream. No dismemberment, slit jugulars that spray blood, rivulets of blood running down a body, etc. Understatment, not Overstatement.

What?! WHAT?! That is, in no way, shape or form, an Ash Tree! That is a Birch tree, as you can tell by the clearly-distinctive bark! Birch and Ash are two completely different species! With different survival uses! And they don't even look remotely similar! There is almost no way in hell someone could confuse a birch and an ash tree, even if they couldn't identify each. I hope this is just a bug, and they don't have some derp that knows nothing about forestry labeling random tree species as things they are not......

And then they die a very painful death as their kidneys shut down. Misidentifying mushrooms happen all the time, even among experts, as the differences between "safe" mushrooms and "deadly" mushrooms can be, and often are, very minor indeed. And we have already touched on the fact that eating mushrooms doesn't provide enough, well, anything to survive. They have barely any calories, no water, no carbohydrates. Only space to fill your stomach, which means that by gathering and eating mushrooms, you are essentially shooting yourself in the foot, causing your body to starve faster through the processes of mastication and digestion. The digestion of food in and of itself requires energy, so whatever you eat has to provide more energy than it takes to digest, preferably more by an order of magnitude. Mushrooms do not do that. Also, your point is false: if they are hungry and they spot a "familiar" mushroom, why haven't they stopped to eat any of the other, more viable, tasty, and available forageables? These things don't exist in a vacuum. You are never going to come across a point in the environment of Chernarus where there isn't edible plants, more so than edible mushrooms. And yes, as someone trained in Wilderness Survival and Bushcraft, several of the "survival ideas" of the devs seem suspect, according to my experience. This being one of them.

There is also this guy, called a "pump drill", which can be used to start a fire in the same way as a bow drill or a hand drill, but with much less effort, as well as ... drill holes in things. However, it takes a little bit more work and time to make as opposed to a bow drill, but the effectiveness seems to be well worth it. It would assumedly make tool-making and general crafting much easier, as you can now drill holes without electricity. As an aside, I am working to make one of these, with slate as the counterweight. Drilling the hole in the slate is the most difficult thing, and only really requires a steady hand and about an hour of work. Not that difficult or time-consuming for something so useful.

I keep about 30-40 feet of duct tape in my kit at all times. Just pull out the cardboard in the middle and crush the roll. The only thing you can't really use duct tape for is bandages: the wound has to be able to breathe, and duct tape prevents vapor movement.

If you come across a patch of woodland where the only "plant" that you can find growing are mushrooms, which is basically statistically impossible in the type of forest Day Z takes place in, you could either 1) kick apart some stumps/rotten wood for grubs and other insects, which would actually be far better for you than most other food sources, or 2) follow the terrain down until you hit water, where you could find a plethora of other, safer and more accessible foragables. I have three different survival guides in front of me, 2 military and 1 civilian, and all three essentially state: don't bother eating mushrooms. Even the edible ones are barely worth the time and energy it takes to gather them. Only the "civilian" guide touches on mushrooms in any capacity, and even then, mushrooms are used as garnishes or add-ons to other foods, and the whole "mushroom section" of the guide focuses more on alternate uses of mushrooms (chaga from birch trees, tinderbox fungi, etc), than on actually edible mushrooms. They just aren't worth it