Robert Allison

I am not saying that DayZ is a military sim or that the weapons need to be accurate to life. I am new to this game and just wanted to share some thoughts. M4A1 The M4 and M16 series weapons are pretty excellent all-around. Nearly the most common-sense and ergonomic way for a warrior to engage point targets to ~500m, which has got to be farther than the vast majority of shooting in DayZ. That being said, not sure why the in-game M4 lacks accuracy. Really not doing the poor rifle justice depicting it in such a way. Even if the weapon was sitting out and not cleaned for a long time, the issue would be more jamming than accuracy. I have also noticed that the Magpul stock seems to increase the accuracy of the weapon. A stock is a stock and as long as it is not a wire or folding stock, it is really not going to have an impact on the accuracy of the weapon. If Mr. Hall wants a less accurate weapon, he should probably go with an AK. While the advertised range for these weapons is mid 300-400m, they aren’t very well made and the sights are pretty bad. For an M16 series weapon, the user can adjust the sights any way he needs just by using a 5.56 round. Not so for the AK series; to adjust windage (the left-right) you need a special tool that looks like a C block with a screw on it.* Whenever I have worked with people who use AK series weapons, they have never seen the tool and their windage is usually way off. In fact, I have had to buy windage tools made in America, since AK users almost never have one. In this DayZ “survivor” scenario I could see a bunch of people walking around with jacked up AK sights that can’t really shoot straight. As for type, I don’t think you would see many AK-47s or AKMs. You seem to pick these things up at military bases so it would be an AK-74M or AK-100 series, or an AN-94 if the base housed a high speed Russian unit. Still though, I am not sure these weapons would be as inaccurate as the M4 seems in game. Mosin-Nagant When using bolt-action rifles, you can just feel the accuracy. You can take brand new shooters to a range and you will see that they are often more accurate already with a bolt-action weapon, there are just less moving parts and they feel like more solid weapons. It could also be that people take more time when they know they have to work the bolt after the shot instead of just cracking off rounds. That being said, the M91/30 is of fairly poor quality but it should be accurate to 90% of the distances people seem to shoot to in DayZ. The real problem is not the weapon but the ammunition. 7.62x54 Rimmed ammo is of wildly different quality. Wildly. Even batches from the same company will shoot different and it is so damn dirty (corrosive) that you really have to clean well after extended firing. Many Eastern European lots will have cracks in the individual casings and you will get a face of hot gas. Not preferred ammunition to be working with. With the addition of the weapons cleaning kit in-game, this is one you would want to clean often. “Magnum” Haven’t used it much in game but seems pretty true to form. These large caliber revolvers are just solid metal and there aren’t many moving parts or much to clean on them. As far as the in-game weapons cleaning kit, the revolver shouldn’t really need it. You would carry a revolver over a semi-auto pistol only if you wanted first shot reliability every time (or if you couldn’t get anything else). Great to shoot and with crisp triggers, they are a nice kind of weapon. I would pick a more specific name though, “Magnum” is just Latin for “more” and is a marketing term to denote rounds that are usually larger (normally lengthened instead of increased diameter). FNX45 In-game I have heard it does not do much damage. A .45 caliber pistol round is pretty serious stuff as far as pistols go. I can’t really get a fix for how accurate the pistols in-game are, but these weapons are good for the last 10 feet. Anything beyond that is really dicey, especially if someone is not well trained. I think this would help in a game where you don’t want guns to be too powerful (if that is a game design goal, I don’t know) Primary & Secondary The idea of having a secondary weapon is mainly to use when your primary goes dry and you don’t have time to reload or you are in very tight spaces. However, in DayZ, the time it takes for me to reload seems to be quicker than pulling out a secondary. I feel like this really defeats the purpose of the sidearm; after spending the time scrounging for multiple weapons, you don’t feel armed to the teeth, you feel like you have a series of individual weapons that don’t really work together as a system and are not interchangeable as the situation becomes fluid. As long as your primary has a sling and your secondary is holstered or even in a pocket, you drop the primary as fast as possible and take out your secondary ready to shoot with a fresh magazine. The M4A1 would most likely have the sling with it if you were looting it from a military base, while the M91/30 may not for a million reasons if you were looting it from a civilian area. But still, I think faster transitions would add to the game. Reloading The “60” round M4 magazine consists of two 30 round magazines taped together…you would still have to release and reload the magazines. Magazines larger than 30 rounds tend to have feed issues due to spring performance. As far as Mosin reloading goes, the weapon allows you to reload rounds individually. I haven’t used it much in-game but my buddy is telling me it treats everything as a stripper clip of 5. A stripper/charger is not needed for reloading the weapon and it does not have to be in a series of 5 rounds. I would have to actually use it in-game to see what the exact problem is though. X+1 The weapons with detachable box magazines in the game (M4A1 and FNX45) can carry an extra round. You would load the weapon, cock it, and then place a fresh magazine in. This gives you 30+1 (30 in a full magazine + 1 in the chamber) for the M4 and 15+1 for the FNX45. Can make a difference. * As an aside/off topic, the windage tool goes back to the original AK-47 and I think it is an interesting social commentary about the Soviet Union. The idea was that this tool would be kept at a central location (the armory) and the armorers would correct the windage before issuing the rifle. This is clearly a bad idea because windage can change (especially on something manufactured as badly as an AK) and you are putting your life in some armory bubba’s hands who has 500 of these rifles to get out the door. I don’t even know if Russian armories have co-located ranges so the armorers can test windage. However, this does centralize power in the chain of command, as you cannot get an accurate rifle without going through “the official process” of getting a weapon. Contrast this to the M16, which allows the user to adjust everything he needs on his own. This is similar to the Russian method of designing early jet-fighter aircraft cockpits – contained within the body of the aircraft with low visibility. The pilot was supposed to rely on a central air command and control center to order them where to go and when to shoot. This obviously does not work well in a fast paced dog fight. The Americans very early on designed the bubble cockpit, raised from the fuselage with maximum visibility so the pilot can see everything around him and make informed independent decisions. You can see how even for weaponry designed for the military, the Soviets did not trust their own people. There always had to be an element of control somewhere. The Russians decided to sacrifice some measure of effectiveness in order to subordinate the individual to the collective. The Americans took the opposite philosophical approach, maximizing the effectiveness of the individual.

PART II - Robert&Wolf After ending RJR and logging out, my buddy (Wolf Suit Mischief) and I (Robert Allison) started heading back inland, ever in search of phat lewt (like can openers [by the way RJR we have yours]). However, the 130 lb black female that is my character was hungry and my status was telling me so. While we were searching through a non-descript Russian hovel, I came across a rotten banana. Probably can’t eat those. In the next room, I discover two more rotten bananas. Hmmm, maybe the game is trying to tell me something. In the final room, there was a rotten cornucopia of three fruits. These fruits are making a good point; maybe I should be eating them? I pick up a rotten kiwi and take a big bite. Feeling satisfied, we leave the building and hear a rabbit scream. This immediately causes a bout of us running in circles looking outboard. But nothing happens…clever girl. It is just a Russian rabbit, a species that shares the same vocal chords as the undead. Walking around in Russia before the zombie apocalypse was disturbing enough, and now, with the zombies constantly making rabbit noises, you can never tell what is around the corner. We decide to circulate back towards the NE Airfield of dreams and take a knee in order to get our bearings. I notice a status message in the corner: ‘”funny taste in my mouth”. Probably nothing to worry about. Suddenly, I hear the rabbit scream behind me again. Probably nothing to worr…blackness. Complete and solid black on my screen. There is a piece of tiny text on my screen that reads “unconscious”. I press my mike button and, oddly enough I can still talk. “WOLF I JUST GOT TAKEN OUT, ZOMBIE SOMEWHERE.” I hear two sets of footsteps shuffling around…the distinct crack of one Mosin shot. “What the hell just happened” Wolf asks. “No idea…it says I am unconscious and I think I am bleeding.” In about ten seconds we just went from the butt to the f**k. “I have a blood bag in my first-aid kit, I think you can revive me with it if you do it fast enough.” “How the heck do I do that?” A furious alt-tab and google for blood bag later, I guide Wolf through the process. “OK, don’t move, I am using the blood bag now.” I don’t know why he told me not to move but I wait in anticipation…daylight. Unbelievable. I can see but the zombie hit me so hard he merged my body into a wall. After some finesse, I extricated myself and was on my feet. Unbeknownst to us at the time this was amazing for four reasons: 1: We just happened to have 1 blood bag and 1 IV starter kit on us. 2: We just randomly happened to have compatible blood types without knowing. 3: We just happened to have the same Rhesus factor. 4: We did it with zero disinfectant and I didn’t get sick. Almost. Anyways while I was fine walking, the whole world went black and white on me and I couldn’t really see much of anything. I was very limited and needed to follow Wolf. To make matters worse, that bi*ch of a kiwi was catching up on me fast and complicating my life. We decide to hit up the water pump before leaving town and I follow him in trace towards the pump. As Wolf goes to slake his mighty thirst, an outstanding (like a farmer in a field) Zed we didn’t see (I don’t know how we didn’t see him) runs right up Wolf’s ass. I get happy (nervous) and start unloading from the hip. Wolf then makes a tactical error by running right into my work space, taking about 3 shots to the grape, but don’t think that made me slack off the trigger for one second, these zombies are serious business. My 5.56x45 cone of destruction mows down two men, one alive (now dead?) and one dead (now more dead?) but both sadly in the prime of their life. Such is war. The sounds of my well-sprayed shots have started attracting every Joe sh*t the zombie man in town, as I hear a wave of rabbit war-cries. “Hold on man, I think I can use this Defibrillator to revive you but I have no batteries!” I say, feeling pretty guilty. “I have a battery in my flashlight! Loot my body!” I rummage through his terribly organized backpack and find the goods. I detach the 9v battery and slam it into the Defib, clicking on his unconscious body. The message comes back “no unit”. “What the hell man, it is telling me ‘no unit’, it is supposed to work!” As I utter the word ‘work’, Wolf expires. For future reference, the Defib must be turned to “on” in your inventory before you use it. Ah, DayZ, your sense of realism sometimes… We end the night with me consolidating all of our gear into as few bags as possible and constantly picking up and dropping the bags to make sure it does not despawn. I have a fireaxe in my pack, another on my shoulder, a Mosin that saved my life twice on the other shoulder, and my trusty (team-killing) M4 in my warrior hands. This goes on for near an hour until Wolf finds me again and re-gears. We log for the night battered but not yet defeated.

So my buddy (Wolf Suit Mischief) and I (Robert Allison) are rummaging through the Air Traffic Control building at the NE Airfield around midnight EST last night. We are pretty geared for 5 hours in, he is set up as a Mosin Sniper and I have an M4. Plenty of ammo. We were getting ready to leave so Wolf Suit goes downstairs and is facing the exit door as I am in trace. Suddenly, we hear over VOIP: “Come out with your hands up.” Yeah, definitely not happening since I don’t know what button that is yet. This badass then proceeds to kick down the door and hip shoot with his M4 day-on stay-on into our general direction like some Russian John Rambo (RJR). As RJR’s shots are ricocheting and hitting walls, I get happy (nervous) and unload almost an entire magazine down the stairwell in front of Wolf Suit, expecting some flashmob of Philadelphia teenagers to close in and knock-out game his life. The Sound and the Fury is now in full effect, with 5.56 singing past everyone’s head. Then there is the single loud distinct crack of a Mosin Nagant shot and RJR’s one man revolution is terminated on the two steps leading into a dirty old municipal government building. Why RJR? We wouldn’t have shot at you. We would have let you go. Since you were such a colossal Philadelphia Eagle’s fan, we had to ventilate you. We spent ten minutes just eating the food you were carrying. I also got some great parts for my M4 from you. We ended up logging out near the sea. But why?