Whyherro123

Ahh...not quite. If the string stretches too much, then there is less potential energy being transferred to the arrow (it is instead being transferred to the string), and if the string doesn't stretch enough, then it can damage the limb tips. You want a bowstring that stretches a little bit. Remember, the power of the bow comes from the compression of the limbs, not the string stretching. http://www.africanarcher.com/bowstrings1.html Rope works as an expedient string, but it is really too elastic (stretchy), especially synthetic kernmantle-type rope (which is the rope in-game). Also, you can totally make a self-bow (carved from a single piece of wood) from literally any type of wood around the world. You just have to change the dimensions of the limbs and the length of the stave in order for it to be the most effective. Yew was just preferred because it had different colored heartwood and sapwood, making the bow-making process easier, as well as standing up to compression well. (ie, being powerful) You can make an "adequate" bow from pine if you know what you are doing. Also, you can increase the power of a bow (by making the stretching of the back/compression of the face more difficult) by either cable-backing the back, or by layering sinew on the back before it dried, from nock to nock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable-backed_bow By layering sinew on the back of the bow, from nock to nock, you essentially make a composite bow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_bow). This sinew stores more energy than just wood alone (make it harder to bend), adding power to the shot. This is because sinew shrinks as it dries and has natural glues, "shortening" the back of the bow. However, if the sinew gets wet, it relaxes and lets go of the wood.

ALL melee weapons should be buffed. Using a melee weapon should be difficult, but if you manage to connect, whatever you hit should die, or have broken bones/internal bleeding/serious stab wounds at the least. It is pitiful how weak certain weapons like hammers, knives, wrenches, etc are. If I hit you in the shoulder with a carpenters hammer, it should be broken at the least. If I stab you in the gut with a kitchen knife, you should have severe internal bleeding, which some rags would not fix. If I crack you in the chest with a giant monkey wrench, there go your ribs.....get the picture? Alongside this, there should be a developed "pain and shock" mechanic, where you fall unconcious/get dizzy ( severely blurred screen), throw up (lose a lot of water), etc, because it is realistic. Right now, characters can tank 20+ slashes from a machete or a knife with little to no problems, besides a grey-scale screen and slight blurryness. (Really, bladed weapons should stab, rather than slash.) However, with this increased (realistic) damage, there should also be an added sense of inertia and momentum, especially with the larger weapons, like axes, monkey wrenches, lengths of pipe (hypothetical). Right now, larger weapons swing way too damn fast, and way too easy. Axes, monkey wrenches, etc are very unbalanced, with a lot of weight located towards the "business end", making recovering from a swing, even one that connects, difficult and time consuming. Two-handed weapons should be an all-out shock weapon, slow to swing and recover, but if you connect, they are gonna feel it. Thusly, two-handed weapons would be better off suited for ambushes, or single targets, as it might take too long to recover from even a successful swing to deal with the other Infected coming up behind you. On the other hand, light one-handed weapons, like knives, small wrenches, carpenters hammers, etc, should be a lot faster to swing and recover from, but not so "all out" with regards to damage. Now, I am not saying that getting hit/hitting something with a hammer or a knife wouldn't kill, far from it, but just not so devastatingly "balls-out" compared to a melee weapon. For example, a sledgehammer to the ribs would crush the ribs, deflate the lung, and probably damage the spine (not to mention internal bleeding), while a carpenters hammer to the same location would break the ribs and cause internal bleeding. However, that carpenters hammer would be ready to swing again almost immediately, while you would have to overcome the swing of the sledge before you can swing it again. Also, literally everything that can be done to players, should be able to be done to zombies. Broken limbs, concussions, bleeding out, handcuffing, etc

So, let us examine the actual population density of this figure, shall we? Assuming that infected will be located around the entire map (preferable), rather than concentrated in cities (which makes surviving them trivial) Chernarus: 225 square kilometers, including water, so let us assume that there is about 200 square kilometers of territory available. This was also the old map, so let us use instead the new Chernarus Plus map, and assume that there is now 225 square kilometers of available land area. So, now we do some simple math. 5000 infected / 225 square kilometers = approx. 22 infected per square kilometer, assuming they are all spread out in equal numbers. This means that, in the entirety of the Chernogorsk metropolitan area, there could be 11 sq km x 22 infected = 242 infected. So.... don't fire a rifle in Cherno?

Pretty much. I am against KoS, I am not against PvP. Hell, I died in a little mix-up last night, no biggie. All KoS perpetuates is more KoS. This is detrimental to the game.

Oh GOD Do some actual research into the matter, please, and you will realize that the West was not all that wild. Most of the people settling in the West were either Veterans of the US Civil War, or their families. They knew how to use a gun, and usually didn't take much shit from bandits and the like. Each town had their own (organized) judicial system, and region-wide law and order was usually enforced by large companies, usually the railroads that towns were built on, because they found that war, banditry, and general lawlessness was bad for business. In places where the local government was inefficient, the people instead formed commitiies and the like to make sure the laws were enforced and crime was down. http://mises.org/library/not-so-wild-wild-west

Do you want a cookie or a medal?

The thing is, based on the available environmental evidence, there really wouldn't be a lack of food, at least, not "natural" food. Autumn in a "temperate deciduous forest" is pretty much a solid breadbasket when it comes to wild forageables. Only thing is, you actually have to be able to identify edible plants, and how to prepare them. Maybe include a book about it? Realistically, no-one would be starving in Day Z so long as they wanted to work for it. Thing is, people don't want to actually have to work for their own survival. They just want to do the "pew pew" in Berezino.

Actually, Christopher McCandless died of regular old starvation. That whole bit about eating "moldy seeds" was effectively made up by John Krakauer, all based upon (really low quality) pictoral evidence of Christopher holding a bag of (apparently, according to Krakauer) "moldy" seeds. Autopsy evidence found no evidence of poisoning.

They are not made from rotting flesh. They are literally humans infected with some-unknown disease, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies. I, for one, hope that eventually everything that can be done to a player can be done to a "zombie". Want to escape from a zombie? Break their legs. Stab a "zombie" then get beaten to death? The next player to come alone might find two corpses, as the "zombie" bled to death. etc etc etc

In reality, the "types" (yes, there are different types of axes) of axes we find in-game would be really shitty at cutting down trees. Notice how they are called "splitting axes"? They have a wedge-shaped head made to separate the wood fibers. A "hewing axe" or "limbing axe" has a concave edge, very thin, made to cut the fibers. You can cut down a tree with a splitting axe, but it is hard work, and your back, shoulders, arms and hands will hate you. Either use a hewing axe, or, more preferably, use a saw. Saws cut more wood with less energy expenditure than any axe. Saws like the above are lightweight, compact, and easy to repair (remove nut from blade, take broken blade off, put new blade on, tighten nut) so long as there are spare blades, which, as the above style of folding saws are very common, not rare at all. In reality, hatchets really suck at preparing wood for a fire. They are small and lightweight, yes, but these are points against them, unlike points for the saw. They are too small and too light to effectively split wood, so the user has to use more strength (ie, their own energy) to split a smaller amount of wood, slower than a full-sized axe. Point being: for a specific task, use the tool that was designed for it. Use saws to prepare wood, and splitting axes to split it for burning. And, really, survival fires don't have to be that big, so the splitting axes are really just extraneous weight. I like how we can now build fires just using sticks, instead of having to cut down trees. Maybe the "split wood fires" would burn longer than "stick" fires, giving us a reason to split some wood if we are setting up a permanent camp?

Actually the rates of homicide and violent assault in the US are the lowest they have been in 25 years, says my source. https://www.quandl.com/c/society/us-violent-crime And, once the SHTF, there totally would be a police/legal force. Armed militias would enforce community-enacted laws. Armed militias for community defense and peace-keeping would probably form right after the communities themselves, which themselves would form almost as soon as it were practical to do so (read: almost immediately after the SHTF) You people apparently do not understand the basic human desire (physiological need, really), for stability, companionship, and safety. Would there be bandits, murderers and killers? Of course, never said there wouldn't. However, they would also get pushed out to the fringes of post-apocalyptic society relatively quickly, and eventually be wiped out, either due to a lack of supplies due to not having trustworthy trading partners, or the villages they raid getting sick of their shit and gathering a militia to kill them off.

1) Canned food will not be there forever. I do believe that once farming, hunting and foraging get fleshed out more, canned food spawns will be drastically cut back. Farming will (eventually) take much monger than the literal-5 minutes it takes to grow crops, animals will be much harder to hunt, etc etc etc. 2) I did not use the "worst possible outcome". I used a "standard" outcome, because getting shot ruins equipment. Aim for the chest, and everything stored on the torso will get destroyed. Shoot someone in the chest with a shotgun, which affects a wider area than a single bullet, and more stuff has a higher chance of getting damaged/destroyed. And, headshots? Really? Very few people in this game have aim good enough to reliably make headshots, even without counting dizziness from dehydration (blurred screen), shivering (from cold, or from sickness), and sway from running up to the other person. And, for what it is worth, the "worst possible outcome" would result in you getting your shit wrecked by the other guy, and getting killed.

You do realize that is exactly what the devs are planning on doing, right? Literally?

I play Project Zomboid, and it actually agrees with our points. You can fight zeds, maybe two or three, with no difficulty. Any more than that and you are fucked. And this is just hand-to-hand. Firing a gun? Forget it.

How are they "constantly" adding in more food sources? Are you referring to farming? Because that is going to be drastically changed over time. Are you talking about hunting, where the animals stay perfectly calm, even when you get 10 feet away from you? Because that is going to be drastically changed over time. Are you talking about the massive amount of canned goods that spawn? Because that is going to be drastically changed over time. I fail to see how killing another player gives you greater potential when the world is difficult to survive in. If anything, it is a resources in/resources out measure. So, you are starving and you see another player. He has a rainjacket on, a pair of jeans, and a small backpack. You run up with a shotgun and miss the first shot. He stabs you in the thigh with a knife. You then blast him in the chest, killing him. all of the stuff in his backpack is ruined, as well as his rainjacket, making whatever he had irrelevant. He has a waterbottle in a pocket, which you take. So, let us measure what we've gotten from this: -spent: -2 shotgun shells, from 4 originially -wounded -----the wound becomes infected, because you have no sterile bandages or antibiotics. You die a painful, fever-filled death -recieved: -bottle of water That....seems like an awesome trade! /sarcasm You are forgetting that when loot spawns are cut back, the chances of other people having the stuff you need becomes lower, not higher. And shooting them, or whacking them with an axe, will only destroy whatever you murdered them for. Want someone's stuff? Hold them up for it.

I acknowledged my own hypocrisy with regards to 3PP, but at least having a wider field of vision give me the ability to react realistically when a bugged-out zombie jumps me from behind while making no noise. Besides, I switch to 1PP in order to actually fight. Only when I am actually running around do I use 3PP, due to the apparent "motion sickness" thing I have with 1PP.

PvP is the spice of DayZ now because there isn't anything else to do. When you are starving to death, with infected wounds, can barely see due to dehydration, shitting your brains out with every step from drinking bad water, and you have only 2 bullets for your rifle, PvP will be the last thing on your to-do-list.

This is one of the primary reasons I play on 3PP servers. IRL, all of my senses would be working to provide me information before an attack. I would be listening, smelling, looking, hell, even pheromones would be involved. In Day Z, you just have two senses, and only one works with any sense of reliability. So, until they fix sounds in the game, playing on a 1PP server is really severely crippling you. Plus, there is the fact that, even with headbob turned all the way down, I still get motion-sickness for some reason. Don't get carsick, don't get seasick, but if I play on 1PP servers, I get nauseous.

5. We had dogs too, which is what would provide salvation and companionship for the lone wolf. I have heard it said seriously, in anthropological circles, that without dogs co-evolving with us there is a good possibility that civilization as it is today would not exist. 1) I don't mean "westerners" as "People from the Western Hemisphere", I mean "people from the Developed world, used to that sort of lifestyle". A rather outdated term, and derogatory perhaps, but it is stuck in my mind and I used it. I apologize for the confusion. 2) Forgot about dogs. Yes, dogs would help, and played a significant role in the development of our species (they are some of the few animals that are endurance hunters, just like us, so we would hunt together and share the kills. Eventually, whole packs would move in with humans and become essentially domesticated). Unfortunately, in Day Z, I forsee a whole lot of griefing involving killing and eating (or just plain old killing) other players dogs for the lolz.

(Emphasis mine) Well, apparently you have no idea how a bow actually works. You got the "flexibility and resistance" bit right, technically, but only barely, and due to your earlier comment, you probably don't understand why. Bows have been made from "one thick branch" for literally thousands of years because it works. The actual physical strains (yes, multiple forces act on a bowstave) that a bowstave is under when drawn are immense, and if you don't know what you are doing, can cause the bowstave to literally explode when drawn. Essentially, with the exception of modern compound bows, all bows really work in the same way. The different types (self, recurve, long, composite), only really change the amount of the forces exerted on the stave and how they interact with it. Bows have two sides, the "back", which faces away from the user, and the "face", which faces the user. The "back" is made from sapwood, and is designed to stretch when the string is drawn. The "face" is made from heartwood, and is designed to compress when the bow is drawn. In a composite bow, the back is usually made from sinew, but all that means is that it takes more force to stretch the back, making the shot more powerful. These two forces (stretching and compressing), coupled with the bending of the limbs, essentially turn the whole bow into a giant spring, and stores potential energy in the limbs when they are bent. When the string is released, all the potential energy is suddenly changed into kinetic energy, and transferred into the arrow by the string. Thus, the arrow is shot forwards, and the string will rapidly vibrate back and force until it achieves equilibrium. I cannot understate just how much force is applied to the face of the bow when the limbs are bent. Leave too little hardwood on the limb (aka make the limbs too thin) and the limb will explode when drawn due to the forces of compression. Leave too much heartwood on the face (aka make the limb too thick), and you probably will not be able to draw the bow. TL,DR: Bowmaking is an ART, and easy to fuck up if you do it wrong. The actual dimensions of a bow are all different depending on the type of wood chosen, the "type" of bow you want, and your shooting style. Making a bow is far more difficult than just "take a relatively straight stick and attach a string".

Damn straight. The current "Improvised Bow" in-game is a travesty. OP: What you made an described is called a "bundle bow". They are only really good for short-impromptu hunts for small game, like rabbits, and tend to fall apart and lose power and accuracy VERY fast. (Parts 1 and 2) Want more power and accuracy without a lot (about 6 hours or so) of effort? Make a "stickbow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFTPxK2X0NA Want a reliable, powerful, accurate (all depending on user, of course.) bow Make an actual flatbow (with many days of work, plus the time needed to season the wood) (Parts 1,2 and 3)

1) Going into the woods with a "big bag of food, a phone, and a sleeping bag" does NOT equal survival. It equals camping. Going into the woods for a week with a knife, a bottle, and the clothes you have on your back is survival. Survival is going into a situation/location with a disadvantage, and coming out of it at the end. Actual wilderness survival tends not to be very fun, because it tends to be very stressful, frightening, and alien to most modern Westerners. 2) I, for one, would love to have all, or more plausibly, most, of the things you mentioned. I would play the shit out of the game if it was like that. 3) Actually, the overwhelming majority of modern Westerners have little to no survival "instinct" left. It is something that has to be learned, usually painfully. Survival training isn't actually about learning how to purify water, how to build shelters, how to identify edible plants, or how to navigate without a map or compass. It is about fear management. There is a common phrase concerning survival: "Survival is 1% dumb luck (and local conditions) , 4% equipment, 15% skills, and 80% the will to live". Knowing all of those things helps keep the fear away. I've had older teenagers take my (relatively advanced, but still) Wilderness Survival course, full of bravado, but by the end of the week I've seen all of them break down (occasionally tears are involved), form up, and (sometimes) pass the test at the end of the week. 4) People developing mental issues as a result of isolation has been documented. I suggest you read up on it. We are a "social species". 5) Humans survived thousands of years ago because we banded together and helped each other out. Want to know what a common form of death sentence used during the European Neolithic was? Forced isolation, in the form of exile, from the tribe. 5) Real life is not balanced, nor is it fair. I know how to do some things very well, but some other areas, I am next to useless in. Such as the game should be. This was, and still is, supposed to be an "anti-game". Realism when possible, and authenticity when not. Get over it? HA. Get over yourself.

-snort- What are you, 14?

So, you are telling me in an environment and situation where there currently is no food production, that people will use up a dwindling amount of fertilizer and their own valuable time and energy to grow what would amount to little more than a cash crop? In a region where there is no organized trade? -pssshhhhhh- The only drug that would be actually worthwhile to grow on your little list is hemp, and "smoking" hemp and "useful" hemp are two entirely different things.

-sigh-