krazypenguin

3 weeks without a post in this thread? For shame. Time to fix that! Bored of my usual\current games I came back to DayZ after a few months or so away. I had read some patch notes so I had a rough idea of what was going on but hadn't read any forum posts so didn't really understand the significance of the changes. All my characters were gone so I ended up with a freshie and, thanks to the new spawn locations and a sufficient break from the game to partly forget every square inch of Chernarus, I found myself in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain. Instantly drenched and then cold - great start! No idea where I was or where the nearest town was, so I sprinted to build up some heat but that meant I just burned my energy and became very hungry, very quickly. Found a small cluster of buildings, not even big enough to call a town and hence no sign, and slowed to loot them. Pretty much nothing to be found and by slowing down all I had achieved was a freezing status which then degraded to hypothermia. Ok, time to sort this out.. Found some stony ground and searched until I found a stone which I then crafted into a stone knife. Walked over to the nearest tree and cut off some sticks and then some bark, then crafted a hand drill and a fireplace. Couldn't seem to get the fire to light anywhere that I would expect it to (eg barns and buildings with covered roofs etc) but eventually fired it up (pun intended) inside a fireplace in a house and got myself nice and toasty. Once sufficiently warmed up I returned to the task of trying to find some food and immediately became drenched and cold again. There then followed a repeated process of unsuccessfully searching for something to eat before having to stop to light a fire and dry myself out and warm up. I left a veritable trail of abandoned fireplaces as I roamed the countryside and towns. At one point I overdid it and nearly died, as shown by my screen becoming almost completely black and white. Eventually, my persistence was rewarded as I heard the clucking of a nearby chicken. There then followed the usual Benny Hill-esque shenanagins as I chased it around a field whilst trying to hit the damn thing with whatever melee weapon it was that I had at the time. Finally I managed to hit it and quickly got myself some delicious chicken which I cooked in yet another fire place. I now realized where I was - Krasnostav, the town just below the civilian airfield in the North East. I found a splitting axe, a sporter and some ammo (but no mag so single shot) and a few more chickens and was soon in a pretty good state - hunger was no longer a problem and, whilst the rain and cold were still ever present I could deal with those. That's why I decided to take on the wolves. I'd heard them around the Northern edge of the town and caught a flew fleeting glimpses of them as they ran between buildings across the town from me. I wasn't sure what they were doing, but I decided to take a look, confident that my axe could deal with them or that I could run if needed. Big mistake. I ended up in a horrible running battle with maybe half a dozen of them and I couldn't seem to take any of them out, whilst I was constantly bleeding. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, I shut myself in a building to bandage up and consider my options. Ok, I've got a gun, albeit a crap one, but why not use it? Opened the door and shot a wolf in the face - it didn't die. Hmm, ok. Reloaded and tried again - still not dead. 3rd times the charm and nope, still alive. Interesting. Admittedly this could have been because I kept shooting different animals, given they were all whirling around I couldn't track them all. Ok, let's try this the old fashioned way... Opened the door and let one wolf into the house with me and slammed the door shut - already bleeding again thanks to it attacking me on the way in - but now safely (er...) trapped in a small room with an angry wolf. Hit the damn thing 3 times with my axe and it didn't drop, then I passed out from blood loss and that was that. Dayyum. Back on the coast and back in the rain. Rinse and repeat. Cold, freezing, hypothermia, fires, chickens, etc.. Slowly make my way North to my usual stomping grounds and gear up nicely along the way. In particular, an MP-133 shotgun with 19 rounds and not one but two barrels so I can build a stash. Particularly pleasing was the discovery of a huge herd of cows that allowed me to stock up on steaks. A few sessions over a day or two later, I found myself logging back in, in the small clump of trees where I had logged off. I headed out towards the nearby town for a looting run and saw a group of animals I didn't recognise in the distance. I moved closer, thinking maybe they were some new type of livestock and realized that the sleek, grey forms running swiftly were, in fact, wolves. Oops. But no worries, I was so far away from them that there was no way they would have seen me. But they had. In seconds they started howling and charged towards me. Fortunately, I was right next to a house so I ran to it and closed all the doors, just in time as a pack of at least eight of them surrounded the building. Ok, the Sporter and the axe didn't work last time, so let's see what a shotgun does. I walked up to the window and a wolf came towards me, snarling viciously. I pointed the gun at its head and pulled the trigger. Yeah, the shotgun works just fine :-) The next one took two shots, because the first shot just clipped it, but the third wolf died in one shot too and then the rest of the pack ran off, leaving me with three dead wolves which I promptly skinned. Sadly, I didn't have room for the pelts (tanning is something I need to try again soon) but the wolf steaks cooked up nicely and were very welcome! Some thoughts: I love the animation and sound effects of the cows and wolves. Also, the AI on these seems really good - cows don't spook until you are really close or until you attack, which feels realistic for cattle, whilst wolves can aggro at long range, which feels right for predatory hunting animals. Wolves are, perhaps, a little too resistant to some damage (pretty sure 3 whacks from an axe would kill one?) but otherwise a really nice addition to the game. On the subject of sound effects, the gunshots are fantastic - it's great that sound carries so far now and yet it's still easy to tell which direction it's coming from. Numerous times now I've been heading towards a town only to hear gunfire in the distance which is clearly coming from where I am going, so I know I am heading into trouble and can react accordingly. The weather effects, whilst somewhat extreme, work for me. I'm personally in favour of the more realistic survival game and I don't have a problem with having to stop and warm up by a fire. That said, this is probably because I know the fire mechanics well enough that it's not a problem for me - for a new starter or for someone who just wants to PVP in military zones I think this could be a big problem. Same with hunger and food - I'm happy to find chickens to cook or even to grow crops, but others might be less so. However, I have to say that I am really looking forward to the devs adding in even more status effects to make the game even harder ;-) But what I think is best, by a long, long way, is the infected. They are amazing. Finally, we have an actual "zombie" game. It's such a rewarding experience to have to carefully plan your way around a town, avoiding the numerous infected, lest you agro one and then have to decide to run or fight - with each option leading to potentially aggravating more of them. Add fellow survivors into the mix and looting towns becomes a very tense and rewarding experience! Whilst there are undoubtedly still some fundamental issues with the game engine (I still sometimes miss doorways and slam into walls, get pushed through fences, hitboxes are a bit iffy, etc..) and a lot of things still to fix (come on devs, fix the pots and pans already so we can cook multiple steaks at the same time!) the direction the game is taking is looking extremely positive. Good work guys!

Aha, thanks for correcting me pilgrim* :-) I shall commit F11 immediately!!! ;-)

Dammit I missed that!!! Thanks!

There certainly feels to be slightly less canned food around at the moment, but that could just be confirmation bias on my part. You need to consider that if you are taking one of the more common routes from the coast to NWAF you will almost certainly be following in the footsteps of previous survivors who will have stripped the towns of any "easy" food sources. Also, if it's a persistence on server and it's been a while since the last maintenance reboot and general restart then food can be VERY scarce. I might be wrong here - and someone please correct me if I am - but my understanding is that after the Wednesday maintenance reboot all loot is generated. Then players take stuff and the next time the server restarts it generates random fresh loot to replace what is taken. Given that people tend to take the good stuff (like canned food) and leave the junk, what happens is that more and more junk is left as less and less good stuff is spawned in. Very rough example using just 2 items to demonstrate. After a Wednesday reboot the server spawns 500 pens and 500 food. The players take the 500 food but leave the 500 pens. At the next restart the server needs to replace 500 items so it spawns in 250 pens and 250 food. The players take the 250 food. Next restart it replaces the missing 250 food with 125 pens and 125 food. The server now has 875 pens and 125 food. Food is now extremely rare. Like I say, kust an example and I might be completely wrong, but it's how I feel it works. Other than apples, which are a pain to find, best bet for food these days it to find a box of matches. Once you have that, find a patch of stony ground, search for a stone, then craft an improvised stone knife. Find and kill one of the plentiful and very common chickens that are everywhere nowadays, then skin and quarter it with the stone knife. Take the chicken breast(s). Use the stone knife to collect sticks from bushes and also cut off a branch from a tree. Make a fire with rags and sticks, light ot with the matches. Put the branch in your hands, add the chicken breast and point the branch towards the fire. Soon as the chicken changes colour, it's ready to eat. The only difficult thing in the entire process is finding some matches. Good luck!

Tried to log into my current favourite private server but, owing to my UI constantly 'slipping' down the screen by half a centimetre, I accidentally joined a different one. Eh, what the hell, let's see what happens. I'm up near Krasno, the town just South West of NEAF, and decide to head South to look for.. something. I'm honestly not sure what. I'm packing a P1 with mag and enough ammo for about 4 clips. Other than that, I've got nothing of note, thought this character has a tan boonie hat, brown hoodie and khaki trousers so I think he looks pretty nice. I head South, through the forests, looking left and right to maybe get lucky and find a tent but there's nothing, just trees and rocks. My route is going to take me near to Khelm so I divert slightly to see what's there. I'm about a third of the way through the town and have found nothing, when the server restarts. I'm in a really funny mood and am not sure if I can be bothered since I can take it or leave it, but I decide that, given I am in the middle of a reasonable town and the server has just restarted, I might as well log back in and look for a rifle of some sort. Maybe I'll get lucky? I log back in and start looting the town from scratch. Still nothing until I check a swagnum (gun) house and find a Sporter and a P1. I ditch them both outside in the bushes - I may not want the Sporter and don't need a second P1 but that doesn't mean that I want someone else to find them and maybe shoot me with them. I clear the rest of the town and am heading towards the final building when I see the survivor. He's sprinting and jinking all over the place and darts into the last building as I stop behind a fence to watch him? Did he see me? I have no idea. The building is a green house with a door at the top of the stairs. My brain fails me completely and, despite knowing the answer, I cannot remember if there is a back door to this house or not. Either way, I hold my position behind the fence, P1 at the ready, and watch the front door and sides of the building for any sign of movement. Nothing. After what feels like a minute I decide to get closer but I don't want to charge right in so I take a wide loop back into the town. It's a risk because it means I lose sight of the building for a few seconds but I reason that I need to try and do something. I make it around the back of the building and do a quick walk around - it's far too high to see into the windows but at least I can confirm that there is no back door. Unless he left during the brief time I lost sight of the door, or he has logged off, he must be inside. P1 raised, I edge up the stairs and peer around the door... I have about half a second in which to react to what I see - namely the fact that he is crouched down against the back wall of the house with a gun pointed at me - before he opens fire. Fortunately, half a second is all I need and I'm already heading back down the stairs as the bullets thud into the wall behind me. I sprint for a nearby fence and take cover in time to see him come charging out of the house with a pistol in his hands. It's impossible to accurately recall the exact sequence of events as we open up on each other but I'm pretty sure I hit him with at least one 9mm shot and he starts bleeding, whilst I don't seem to take any hits at all. We each reload our mags and unleash a second clip of bullets at each other but miss. Obviously now out of bullets, he pulls out his axe and starts running at me. I turn to run so I can reload my gun for a third attempt. Unfortunately, it's at this point that my real life body decides to do its upmost to try to kill my computer game body. A massive dump of adrenaline kicks in and my left hand becomes completely uncontrollable - and I mean completely. I'm trying to press W to keep running away but my left hand is literally spasming every second, causing my hand to repeatedly jump off of the keyboard despite my best efforts to hold it down. It's incredible, I have never ever experienced something like this. Meanwhile, I have no idea what my right (mouse) hand is doing but I keep raising my pistol and zooming in, which is making the whole trying-to-run-away thing impossible. The survivor must be wondering what sort of idiot he's stumbled across but I don't think he really cares as he hits me with his axe. I start bleeding but just about manage to force my finger to stay on W long enough to open up some space between us. I look over my shoulder to see if he's still chasing me and, of course, he is. Sensing victory he is closing in for the killing blow and then my left hand starts spasming again. Frozen to the spot, gun still held up I think "f**k it", resign myself to die in the stupidest way possible and lift my hands from the controls. Then immediately slam them down again. No way am I going down without a fight and definitely not like this. Whatever flash of stubbornness or anger has just fired within me has restored my ability to control my hands. I drop my arms to my sides, start sprinting cleanly away just as his axe cleaves the air where my head was and drop the mag out of my P1 into my coat pocket. I smoothly transfer eight rounds of 9mm ammo into the mag and slide it back into the gun. A quick glance over my shoulder confirms I have enough space. I stop, turn and raise my pistol. Seeing the danger he turns hard to one side and starts running around me. I blaze away to start with, more hoping than aiming, and all my shots seem to miss. It feels like I'm turning in treacle whilst he sprints around me like a gazelle. For a second despair fills me as I think I'm not going to be able to hit him but with a violent jerk of my wrist I'm finally able to track my gun around ahead of him and pull the trigger twice. He cries out and drops to the ground. I point the gun at his head and pull the trigger once more. No more mistakes. I quickly bandage myself and loot his corpse - everything is ruined except for a 10 round Sporter mag. Eh, beggars cannot be choosers, so I run back to the bushes where I dropped the Sporter and load the magazine into it. A quick check of my own gear shows how lucky I've been - he unloaded 2 clips from his Makarov at me and hit me with an axe but the only damage done is to my lovely khaki trousers which are now damaged but it's nothing a sewing kit cannot put right, however everything is very grey so I've obviously lost a lot of blood. I take time to slowly rebuild my health by eating and drinking lots but in small quantities and finally log off deep in a forest.

No idea about deer, sorry - the only ones I saw got stuck on walls and fences shortly after I saw them and that was in Cherno so I wasn't going to mess about with them. I just wanted to add, if it helps, that I saw a cow in the field directly to the East of Gvozdno. Take the East road out of the town and immediately past the first turning on the left is a large field - there was a solitary cow there the other day. I'm not currently using a bow but I wanted the steaks, skin and lard so I had to take it down with my Winchester.

Um, not trying to bit pedantic but if you only found 6 items total, what made you think the cities were unlooted? Clearly those would have been looted... Anyway, whatever, it works the same as always. Coastal cities will always be looted of food and just the junk will be left. Running any coastal route is a recipe for not finding useful gear and the Cherno to Balota run is one of the most common gear runs in the game at the moment (Cherno-Balota-Pavlovo military base-Zelenogorsk barracks-Myshkino tent city-(maybe another town on the way)-NWAF) so yeah, easily accessible food stuffs and drinks will always been gone, as the hardcore PVPers make their 15-20 minute speed runs back to NWAF so they can PVP again. Either accept it as is, or like Red_Ensign says, search for apples, matches and chickens, etc.. Alternatively, don't run the gear route and instead head inland towards the mostly unlooted towns just behind the coastline.

I'm aware that compared to many people I'm still something of a newbie, but with 800 hours of DayZ under my belt I've still been around the block a few times myself, or in this case around Chernarus itself dozens of times. When you've got this much experience and you play the survivor-style game (sticking to the forests, avoiding players, skirting cities, not going near military zones) the game itself can become a little dull - all of my characters across the numerous private servers I play on have got everything I could possibly need - so I set myself a mini-challenge last night. I planned to revisit the abandoned military base in the forest in the top middle of the map. Once there I would finally answer a question I had long wondered about - if you drop off the bottom of the ladder in the underground base can you reach it to climb back out? I have read that you can and I have read that you cannot - clearly the only way to know for sure was to try it myself. I've nearly done this before - in fact somewhere back in this thread I posted a screenshot of myself hanging from the end of that exact ladder but at the time I played it safe and, rather than taking the plunge and dropping to the ground, I bottled it and climbed back up. But not this time, this time I was committed. I loaded up the last server I was on and... ah, it's this one - private server with multiple hives that are always full... this could be interesting :-) I take a moment to get my bearings, I'm up very high with a fantastic view across an airfield below me - I'm on the hill at the far Western end of NEAF. I like it here, you get few players and those you do meet are generally not the military geared types. Mainly though, you can get some very impressive views, especially at dawn and sunset. No matter, I have my mission so I turn North and start jogging along the edge of the ridge line, a steep drop to my right. As usual, I maintain my vigilance, constantly checking all around me for signs of other players and that's how I spot the 2 tents at the bottom of the ridge line. I drop to the ground and watch but there are no signs of movement so I decide to see what they contain. The first one is full of all sorts of assorted magazines, a few pistols and a little loose ammo. I move to the second - an MP-5, a disassembled Trumpet, a Winchester and Mosin. I've got a Trumpet with a hunting scope. Even though I might be losing this character I find I cannot stop myself... I switch the hunting scope onto the Winchester and sling it on my back, dump my Trumpet into their tent and then grab the Mosin. I take all their Winchester (20) and Mosin (11) ammo and run. It's less than 2 minutes later when I start to feel really bad and start debating whether to go back and return my plunder, but the fear of getting caught overrides my guilt and I keep heading North West. I've decided to try this run without a map - I think my knowledge of Chernarus is pretty good but it's been a long time since I visited the base and I'm struggling to recall exactly where it is. As such, once I reach the North I'm vague on whether I need to head East or West of my current location. It's raining very hard and visibility is poor. I decide to head West. After 10 minutes running in diagonal lines North West then South West, I've still not found it. Earlier I passed a quarry which I am sure is to the West of the base so I am sure I have overshot. I turn back to the East and start zigzagging back. I run and I run but there's still no sign of the base. I keep seeing grey shapes in the distance that look like they could be the outer walls but when I zoom in on them with my scope they always turn out to be rocks. I'm still running, still looking, when a something catches my eye. Among all the natural, irregular lines is something straight, then an angle and another straight line. A building? Not the base, for sure, but I turn towards it to investigate anyway. It's a military tent pitched pretty much slap bang in the open. Sure this is a forested area, but the trees are not that thick and the owner has made no effort to even try and shield this massive tent. Then it gets worse as a glance to one side reveals why I've missed the base - I'm about 50 metres from the Northern edge of the map and the base is further South. But that just makes the placement of this tent even more strange - players will always run the map edge (don't believe me, just look at a DayZ death map) so this tent is bound to be found and found quickly too. Then I pause to think. Maybe it's not stupid after all. In fact maybe it's so difficult to hide anyway so why bother at all? Now I think about it, I find myself sort of admiring it - this guy has got the guts to stick a tent down where he knows it must be found. This is brazen, this takes some serious chutzpah (love that word, miss Paranoia rpg), this is a guy saying "here I am, what are you going to do about it?" I'll tell you what I am going to do, I'm going to root through your gear. Seems the owner is a hunter farmer type - seeds, bags of lime, chicken breasts and some knives and axes. No guns or ammo, no military clothing. There's a note from someone saying "nice tent" and I would love to add to it but there's no pen and I don't have one. I leave the tent as I found it and head off to the South East in search of the base. Less than a minute later I find myself running straight towards a blue tent. This one is heavily shielded by thick trees from all directions except the one that I happen to be coming from - unlucky. It's a complete wreck, all battered and torn but it's the contents I am interested in so I duck in to check it out. Empty. I ponder for a moment... I run back to the military tent, rearrange the contents to make a big gap in the middle and plonk the Mosin and ammo into it. Maybe someone else will get it first but if not, whoever you are who owns this tent, have this on me. Just a shame I cannot leave a note. Next I run back to the battered tent for stage 2 of my plan. I justify my actions by telling myself that it's ok because it's a) empty and b) badly damaged but really I know it's not very nice as I pack up the tent and run off with it. Ah well, better a small time thief than a cold blooded killer. I'm running randomly now, still unable to find this flipping base when I find tent number.. what is it now, 2, 3, 4, 5. Tent number 5. This one is pristine and contains some military clothing, jackets, helmets, etc..., all of it damaged, but no guns or ammo. This looks like the sort of tent I would have - an honest tent belonging to a player like me who cannot always find the best stuff and makes do with what he can find. I bet this guy gets killed a lot in military zones as he tries to find the gear he thinks he must have to be 'the best'. I was this guy once. I feel a kinship to this guy, a huge amount of empathy to his struggle to get geared whilst trying to survive against all the hardcore military types with their fully specced M4s and tons of ammo. So I feel somewhat bad as I dump his stuff out of his beautiful tent and onto the ground. But I'm not a complete bastard so after I pack his tent I try to pitch the tatty tent in its place. I cannot quite get it to line up and, half expecting the owner or someone else to catch me in the act, I leave it in roughly the same spot, just kind of half hanging out of the trees that hid the original one. Ah well, I tried. I put his stuff back in, pick up the nice, shiny pristine tent and run off again. Finally I bite the bullet and check a map. I've run past the base, like RIGHT past it, at least twice. I blame the poor visibility caused by this torrential rain... A few minutes later I am in the base. Whilst it is abandoned there are still some barracks here so I fully expect to meet a player but I must complete my mission. I spend a solid 5 minutes running all over the base but I cannot find the entrance to the underground bunker. I know it used to be here because I have seen it here before but I finally give up - I can only assume it's been moved or removed. Shame to fail my mission bit it wasn't for lack of effort and I did find a lot of tents. Time to head back home. I run East and guess what? Tent number 6. Only this one is occupied... I get the drop on him - he's inside the tent storing gear. I stop behind a tree about 10 metres away and put my tent down, but fumble my hotkeys and by the time I get my Winchester out and peek around the tree the tent is closed up. Is he inside or....nope, he's behind a tree and whilst he obviously doesn't know exactly where I am he's clearly heard me and knows I am here somewhere and has a gun out. I don't really know what I was even thinking when I was trying to get my gun out, I am the worst person in the world for pvp and I definitely wouldn't have shot him in the back... probably. Ah well, there's only one way to play this now - I open comms. "Hello there! I am friendly, be cool man, be cool' I can hear him trying to say something but it's garbled - it sounds like he is asking if I am friendly. Ah well... "Yes,I am friendly, be cool, I am putting my gun away, be cool" and I put the gun away. He replies to say he cannot put his gun down as he is double carrying but that he is friendly too. I reinforce my good intentions with a display of the various lower numbered F keys as I forget what each one does so randomly sit, put my hands up, wave, stand and sit again. He waves back :-) We trade - me giving him the hunting scope in exchange for 8 Winchester rounds and we exchange some intelligence too, me warning him that there are other players camped near by and him telling me that he's already looted the military base I just left so not to bother (though I had already taken a black assault vest which he had left - I think we both thought that was quite amusing) I was in the base for quite a while - I wonder if he was looting it at the same time and we just missed eaxh other. Funny how if we had met there it would almost certainly have turned into an instant gun fight but meeting in different circumstances has allowed us to have a rich and valuable interaction - the sort that really makes DayZ such a unique and amazing game. We part company, and I head back to NEAF. I've found 6 tents on my travels and it's really made me think about whether I want one of my own or not. At the same time, I still feel bad about taking those 2 guns, so I make my decision. I return to the first 2 tents I found a deposit the pristine one - by way of compensation for the guns. Then I head to the nearby town to do 2 last things. Firstly, I find some paper and a pen - so I can leave a note to the owners of the 2 (now 3) tents and any others I find. I write a note but when I read it back the paper is blank. I try all the paper but they are all blank. Either the worn pen I have found doesn't work or writing is just bugged at the moment. Disappointed, I try my luck with the last thing I want to try. Yesterday, I could not get a frying pan to attach to a cooking tripod at all so today I plan on using one with an existing fireplace in a house. The frying pan goes in, albeit still in a vertical position (lol) rather than the more traditional horizontal or flat position, but just like the cooking pot, the meat doesn't cook. Pity :-( I run off to the forest and call it a night. It's still raining.

Like I say, whilst I would still prefer none, I think a strict limit will be ok - that's the middle ground that gives the DayZ mod players what they want but doesn't stop SA from becoming just another military sim. But if server owners start spawning a dozen choppers per map then it's going to suck. Quick question, assuming you know - how far does the original road plan go down the military equipment route? Can we expect armoured cars, APCs, tanks, rockets\RPGs etc...? Thanks.

From my 2 likes to eno's posts, it should be pretty clear that I'm not a fan of choppers. I personally cannot see the value they add to what is supposed to be a he game and think the effort required to implement them is better spent elsewhere. I also share his opinion that if you want choppers, go play the mod which already has them - I would prefer to see SA stay chopper-free and not turn into the mod. We already have the mod, why make it again? You like the old days of the mod with choppers? Go play it. You already have\had your game, let us have our turn to have ours please. DayZ SA should, IMO, strive to be something different and something unique. For me, that's what BI games have always been about - pushing the boundaries of gameplay and realism to create unique experiences that no one else has the guts to make. They don't need to recreate an existing game. That said, if it's just 1 chopper per server and it really is that difficult to get, maintain, fuel and fly one then I guess it doesn't really matter - because you won't see them that often. However, they really need to make sure that they ARE strictly limited - and this is what worries me. It sounds like individual server owners will be able to control how many choppers there are and this will, IMO, end up in a situation very much like Battlefield Vietnam, where all you ended up with was servers with masses of choppers, because that's what attracts the players, but at the same time it breaks the balance and just messes everything up. Meanwhile, all the people who want to play Dayz SA, not chopper mechanic\pilot sim 2017 or whatever, will be trying to get into the few overloaded servers that aren't full of helicopters. They won;t be able to and will lose interest and drift away. I dunno, I'm sure it will be fine, but personally I still just don't see the attraction or need. Also...some calculations for you :-) Assuming that the kerosene used by the Little Bird is the same as the "regular" kerosene used as a cooking fuel and in industrial processes (I really do not know but let's assume it is) then fuel should be reasonably common - most of the houses in Chernarus would be using kerosene and there are numerous "fuel tank" style containers near many houses. A Little Bird has a tank of 242 litres. which gives it a range of 430km, or 1.7km per litre of fuel. At 0.72kg/l that's 174kg for a full tank of fuel, or 27.4 stone. So the fuel weighs a hell of a lot and you need quite a lot unless you want to fall out of the sky. Also, a barrel holds 159 litres, so you need about 1.5 barrels of the the stuff to fill up. Then there's the question of transferring that fuel into the chopper itself...hand pump anyone? ;-)

Yeah, even by DayZ's very low standards, death by sinking into the floor is an extremely lame way to die... :-( Also, I did more cooking testing. Still no joy with the cooking pot - I guess it's just not working in 0.60 as well as being more generally bugged like you say, so I tried the frying pan instead. I found that I couldn't attach it to the cooking tripod at all. On reflection, I think that makes sense, but I couldn't use it directly with my camp fire either so, out of frustration, I just shoved it into the fire and watched it burn. Silly really, because now I need to go and find another one to test with a fireplace. Ah well, long pointed sticks FTW...

Had one of those random DayZ encounters yesterday... Was running on a very low pop 1PP server, way up to the North. I've got a couple of barrels hidden up there, in a clump of trees, nothing really special, just some assorted clothing and useful bits for hunter types, things that will allow me to immediately re-gear the next time I do something really stupid and dangerous and die.... like using some stairs. ;-) But... I was getting a little bored and just fancied some real danger and maybe some real rewards, so I ran to NWAF. Looted the military tents and barrack buildings and grabbed 2 assault vests, some M65 jackets and 6 slot trousers - but there were no weapons, only a couple of stanag mags. On the way back, loaded down as I was with half a hundred weight of clothing, I started to massively overheat. With my sole water bottle empty, I ditched the non-essentials to free up some space to store my jacket, slowed my pace to a jog and headed straight for the nearest pond. Which is when I saw the player. He's lying dead still in the middle of the pond, in full military gear and armed to the teeth. But he's looking in the opposite direction to me... Argh, what do I do? Do I try and talk to him and hope he doesn't just blow me away? Do I try and get the drop on him and shoot him, but probably either miss or just wound him and make him angry? Or do I just do what I usually do and run? It doesn't matter because before I can make any sort of decisions, I realise that something is not quite right here. He's lying dead still. As in dead. He's just... dead. There's always a risk in approaching a dead body in DayZ because whatever made that guy dead could still be around to make you dead too, but like I said, I'm a bit bored, and the potential rewards could be great so I carefully approach him. He's fully loaded and it's mostly pristine too, or at worst worn - but nothing is ruined. M4A1 with all the trimmings, multiple mags full of ammo, high capacity assault vest, and that newish assault backpack. Kerrching - jackpot winner!!! I swap out my 2nd rate gear for his top of the line stuff and leg it. So... what's a fully geared player doing lying dead in a pond in the middle of nowhere with no ruined gear? I presume he's not been shot, or his stuff would be ruined. There are no infected around and even if there were, I cannot see how they could have taken this guy down. He's got plenty of food and water on him too, so I cannot imagine he died of hunger or thirst. The only thing I can think of is that, like me, he's also been suffering from overheating, which explains why he's lying in a pond, to the point where either it's killed him or in his attempts to cool down, he's accidentally drowned himself. I guess I'll never know - just another random DayZ encounter. I take care to cool down and jog slowly back to base where I sit for a while to relax and chill out whilst looking at my shiny new M4 :-)

Saw a herd of deer in Cherno (lol, wtf??) the other day - they came running in from the East side so there's definitely a spawn in that area.

Well, I spent a good 30 minutes in Cherno at the weekend on a 60/60 server loudly asking if there was anybody here whilst dispatching infected and generally making a lot of noise and I didn't see a single soul. Maybe I scared them off? ;-) Played around with cooking (I like the survival aspect of the game) and cooked some chicken breasts on long sticks which was cool. It was nice to see that the devs seem to have fixed the old issue whereby when you used to cook food your face would melt. Then I tried using a cooking pot - I poured the contents of my PET water bottle into it, added 4 chicken breasts and hung it on the cooking tripod over the fire. Annoyingly, you don't seem to be able to check the status of the meat without taking the cooking pot off the tripod. Anyway, 15 sticks of wood later the chicken still wasn't cooked so I packed up. If anyone can give some detailed instructions on exactly how to use the cooking pot I would be grateful!! (Does it actually need water? Does it have to be full? How many stacks of sticks are needed to cook 4 pieces of chicken etc...) Met a couple of nice players recently which made a change but also means that the next ones I meet will be the usual KoS losers...

Same issues here Eno, but the game looks much nicer. Some changes are going to be tricky to adapt to - DC ran into a house and was ambushed by 2 guys inside with axes, he ran out and one followed - straight into me with my shotgun. Fired once and somehow missed (seriously? The gun was practically in his stomach ffs) so I fired again and... click...click...click. Forgot you need to press R to chamber a new round\shell\cartridge\whatever now. Stupid change.