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.

That's a really good video sir, well done. Also, that moment when you met therunningmanz and I recognised his voice....so cool. That was awesome and yes, he is a good guy.

DC's been going AWOL a lot recently, playing with his other group of friends, so me and sprig decided to gatecrash the party. We jumped onto the same server (called !TTM!) and try and hook up with DC and his buddies. It took a few days before we were in a position both in-game and in real life, but eventually I managed to meet up with their group at NWAF, which obviously led to an invitation to join their TS server (since any group trying to play together without using an external comms system is doomed to fail - or at least experience a significant amount of friendly fire. And let me tell you, that meeting a group of heavily armed players at NWAF without the benefit of comms is a frightening experience in itself!). On their TS I finally got to meet DC's other friends, Dutch, Hugo, Lukas and Rik. Add DC, sprig and myself and you've now got a group of potentially 7 people... The day that me and sprig joined them they had already got 10 kills and, with some spotting assistance from me, they ended up killing over a quarter of all the players on the entire, 50 pop server. lol. As we all ran into the forest to log off everyone was buzzing and someone said "we own this server!" which kind of summed up just how good we felt. Next session, of course, we all got killed. Then again. Then we had a good run, then we had a night where the group got 8 kills (just to confirm, I sometimes spotted the targets but I never got the kills myself) before we had a really weird experience. Whilst defending (because it's definitely not camping, oh no) the NWAF we took gunfire from an unknown direction. Rik went off into the forest, trying to flank wide around the suspected position of our attackers, only to get killed himself. Sprig got killed despite being crouched down inside a bunker. Spooked, DC and Lukas ran off to check a building, got in, checked it was clear and were trying to spot when they were shot from behind - which really pissed DC off because he hadn't heard any footsteps or doors opening. Then I got killed, whilst lying flat on the upper floor of a bunker overlooking the tents - again without spotting anyone. 5 dead, no one spotted... That left Dutch and Hugo who, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, legged it - better to live to fight another day and it's always useful to have 1 or 2 geared players in position as the others come back as new spawns. They ran into the tree line until Dutch said "this is far enough - let's log off for the night here" Hugo queried if this was really far enough and Dutch explained that there was no way that whoever had just killed DC and Lukas could possibly catch them in the 30 seconds it would take to log off. And was then immediately shot dead. Hugo died about 3 seconds later. All 7 of us dead and not 1 single enemy spotted. I think it's fair to say that we did not own the server that day... Being in a big group is a new and interesting experience which I am quite enjoying for the moment. However, the group does tend to follow the exact same pattern, i.e. get a spawn near Cherno and run the West road up to NWAF, looting the Pavlovo military base, Zelenagorsk barracks and the Vybor military base on the way to NWAF. It takes about 20-30 minutes (if you include some time on looting) and then you're basically back at NWAF. Hopefully, 1 or 2 others are already there and geared, or geared enough that there's at least a gun for each player, then there's some tactical looting as those players wait for others to join, until we reach a sort of "critical mass" of numbers - when we try and take over the airfield. But...there's a problem. The others almost always start playing before me, so assuming I died at the end of the previous session (which is the norm) when I log in I am a fresh spawn on the coast, whilst they are already at NWAF. So the first 20-30 minutes of every session is a relatively tedious time as I run to join them. So last time we all died and quit, I decided to come back and try to get closer to NWAF, to cut out the long wait to join the gang at the start of the next session. As such, I ended up killing another player. I'm not sure what number that makes my kill tally but I'm pretty certain it's still in single figures. I'd just finished sweeping the second floor of the police station in Kamenko and was starting to leave the back room (the one which is through the first door on the left when you come up the stairs) when I hear footsteps, a door open, a few more footsteps and then heavy breathing. Uh-oh... I immediately stop, crouch down, raise my trusty Red 9 (I really love the Red 9) towards the door to the room, look down the sights and wait. The person below me has stopped moving but I can still hear them breathing. Have they heard me, I wonder? A few seconds later there are more footsteps then silence again. After maybe 30 seconds, the pattern repeats and I realise that they are clearing the lower floor, room by room, very slowly and methodically. After a minute or so, with my heart beat pounding in my ears and my arms twitching with adrenaline surging through my veins, they come up the stairs. I brace myself, ready to let rip with my pistol, but they turn right, into the other back room, then into the front right room, then I hear them go into the front left room. This is it, the room I am in is the only room left for them to check. I tense my finger on the trigger... A figure bursts into the room and, before I can even start to process what I am seeing, I'm pulling the trigger as fast as I can. I don't know how long it takes, but it feels like barely a second has passed, before the figure drops to the floor and I hear the "click-click-click" as I continue to pull the trigger on my now empty gun. Hands shaking, I reload as fast as I can, in case he's not alone or someone else hears the gunshots and comes to investigate. As I'm doing this, my brain finally catches up and processes what my eyes have seen. He's wearing a bright yellow raincoat, so was certainly a freshie like myself. but what really strikes me as odd is that he's carrying a bus wheel in his hands. wtf?? (I checked with DC about this and he reminded me what I already knew, i.e. the bus wheels can be used to block doorways, etc.. which can be useful, but he also told me something I didn't know which is that, as he understands it, there's a chance the wheel *might* absorb some gunfire. I'm really not sure about that but, true or not, it didn't work here) I check his pulse and yellow raincoat man is dead - I guess ten 9mm slugs will do that to a person. A quick check of his loot reveals the cause of his delay in clearing the rooms - he seems to have picked up every single item he saw - lucky for me that he didn't have any mags for the RAK or CR75 pistol I had left downstairs and which he is now carrying. Spooked by the encounter, I bail out of the town and run North. About 20 minutes later I've looted the military tents at Stary Sobor and am going to log off in the bushes at the top of the hill above the camp when I hear a gunshot nearby. I'm gradually getting better at recognising gunshots, so I am reasonably certain it's a silenced AK of some sort. I begin jinking towards the bushes but it's late and I am tired and, before I realise the mistake I've just made, I hear an incredibly loud crack from a rifle - definitely a Mosin and it's very, very close. In fact, it's in the bushes. I don't even get a chance to try and turn away when the second Mosin shot hits me and I fall to the floor unconscious. I consider respawning straight away but maybe, just maybe, my attackers will patch me up? I have a standing rule to never, ever be taken alive but the thought of having to do this run again annoys me so I wait...and wait...and you are dead. Dammit.

Just to manage your expectations, things in DayZ rarely happen "soon" ;-) Ever wondered why we have water purification tablets, charcoal tabs, antibiotics, alcohol tincture, vitamins and so many other items which seem useless? They exist because there are a lot of survival features in the game already, but which are either currently not turned on, or if they are on seem to be set to very low levels. For example, whilst I haven't seen a "cold" status on any of my characters in a long time, I've gotten "hot" a few times recently - so clearly the temperature system is still switched on, but perhaps with quite forgiving parameters so that players don't have to worry about it too much right now. A while back, there was a period when it was raining pretty much all the time so you would spawn in, instantly get soaked and then go cold. Every spawn started with a race against time to find a rain coat and some matches before you froze to death. I've lost a few characters to pneumonia in the past. There are also some sickness and infected mechanics in the game too, which add to the survival element. I don't think the sickness mechanic has ever been switched on whilst I've been playing (but I've seen youtube videos about it) but the infected one has been. I cannot recall if attacks by the infected could cause an infection but I know that using a sewing kit to stop your bleeding (wow, I had forgotten about that until I wrote this - can you still do that?) could make your wounds infected, which could be a real problem. I've died from it once or twice. I think dirty rags could cause infection too, hence the alcohol tincture to clean them first and of course the antibiotics help if you do become infected. Sickness\food poisoning was also around for a while - that's what the charcoal tabs are for and maybe the vitamins hint at some overall "health" status, or have some other benefit to a mechanic which is not currently on. My hope is that one day the Devs turn all these features back on, so that surviving Chernarus itself becomes as hard as surviving encounters with other players.

Hi everyone - been a while... Nice to see the forums back and also to see the old gang still here and going strong :-) So what's new? Well, I've been playing quite a lot recently, particularly with DC and sometimes also with sprig and this, perhaps helped with sufficient hours played during which time I've done most of the "survival" things one can do in DayZ, but perhaps more importantly by literally hundreds of player interactions, has resulted in a sea change in my attitude to playing the game. Actually, sea change might be too strong. As I write and I really think about it, the old krazy is still mostly there, it's just that I rarely play solo these days so he doesn't get out much. But you ask, what the hell am I talking about? Well, I've repeatedly stated that I'm terrible at fighting and I don't do PVP and I'm afraid to say that this is what has changed. Well, half of it - I'm still absolutely the worst player in the game for fighting, but playing alongside DC and sprig, I am now pretty much actively PVPing. It's an endless cycle of gearing up, fighting, dying, gearing up, fighting and dying. However, I still have some small sense or right and wrong. I won't take a geared player down to the coast and kill new spawns, for example, but I will travel the chopper spawn points, the military bases and NWAF looking for action. And the best thing is that, because DC is such a good player, we often win. So what's actually been happening? Sadly it’s another overly long, krazypenguin patented TLDR story (C) The action starts as myself, DC and sprig are making our way round “cow corner”™ at the NWAF – so called because me and DC were once at NWAF and saw what we thought was a player but which turned out after 20 minutes of panicked crawling around in the forest to just be a herd of cows who promptly spooked and ran around that corner of the airfield giving away our presence, getting in the way and generally being annoying. (However, the positive that came out of it was that we finally had a name for that part of the airfield that we both knew so there would be no more confusion about where we were or where enemies were.) Myself and DC were, experienced DayZers as we both are, wearing camo (or at least green) gear, crouching, crawling and using bushes and trees for cover as we advanced. Sprig however, was standing up whilst wearing a bright red motorcycle helmet. He stopped next to me for maybe 2 seconds and, just as I was about to say “dude, at least lie down and get behind a flipping tree” I heard a silenced rifle round and a whump as sprig’s lifeless body dropped to the ground next to me. I guess that’s a lesson he learned the hard way. But myself and DC were still alive and, we suspected, unspotted. DC quickly picked up the enemy sniper, sitting in the tower above the bunker just outside the entrance to the military tent end of the airfield. We watched for a few seconds and our patience was rewarded as we spotted a second player with him. Then the sniper came down and both players left the bunker, moving into the forest outside the airfield. Myself and DC turned and ran to the wall at the back of our side of the airfield and then out into the stream bed following it to the West before turning North, hoping to go out wide enough to flank our attackers. Lo and behold, a few minutes later, DC again spotted them amongst the trees “there’s a guy with a blue backpack ahead.” “Where, I don’t see him?” “He’s hiding in a tree dead ahead” “I’ve lost you but I’ve got eyes on the blue backpack guy – taking a shot” I put 3 shots into him for no effect – wtf? Then DC shouts “I got him, head shot, he’s down!” only I can still see him standing there. Confusion takes over – “I can still see the other guy up ahead, big blue backpack, hiding in a tree” “No I got him, the other guy’s got a green talon pack…hang on” More gunshots ring out “DC, wtf is going…” “I got the other one, both are dead, over there” I move up towards the blue backpack guy I can still see just standing there and…oh, it’s a blue barrel. Ffs. Whilst DC’s been taking on 2 enemies on his own, I’ve been shooting a flipping barrel. We check their gear and take all their food since that’s all we need then bug out. 2-1 to us, I’ll take that. Later, we reconnect with sprig and roam the fields of Chernarus. DC’s picked up an Aug rifle which he absolutely loves, but is low on ammo, so our priority is running a chopper spawn route. We’re a short way South West of Lopatino when sprig discovers some tents set up behind a house in a forest. There’s not really anything worth taking, just a few low level rifles and pistols, but we take the opportunity to rest up next to a stream nearby. As we lounge around next to the stream I realise that field next to us holds a chopper spawn so I move over to take a look – nada. But in the distance, on the other edge of the field, sits a single, solitary house and I see movement. “Player! Across the field, outside the house!” DC and sprig rush over whilst I try and get a better look through my Kashtan. “Yeah, there’s someone there – he’s seen us for sure! He’s crouching at the fence – yeah, he’s definitely seen us. How do we want to play this? Flank wide to the right, whilst I keep his attention?” CRACK! I’m hit and go unconscious. Damn, that must have been a hell of a shot! “I’m down – can you guys reach me?” I ask. “No way man, your body’s fallen forwards up the slope and is exposed, sorry” sprig starts flanking wide whilst DC holds position pinned down. I can hear bullets thumping into the ground and cracking off trees. “Who’s he shooting guys?” “You, lol” Great… I sit there helpless looking at the black screen with those damn white words. I was healthy, energized and hydrated before I was hit so I‘m hoping I can wake up and get into cover before he hits me again…come on, get up, get up…. “I’m hit! I’m dead!” yells DC. “There’s another guy, behind us, he got me” Feck, we’re the ones who got flanked… 10 seconds later, my white text updates and changes to “You are dead”. sprig’s moved out wide and gone prone, not daring to move even an inch. “Can you see the guy? Can you get a shot?” we ask him. “Yeah, I can see him, and his 3 mates” he replies. Oh… Now if it was DC still alive, I would still fancy his chances, but sprig’s more my level when it comes to fighting. “Ok man, just try and stay hidden and stay alive – better to try and live and keep your gear rather than join us back on the beach.” Sprig then spends the next 30 minutes trying and, thankfully ultimately, succeeding in avoiding detection. A session or two later we all meet up, despite sprig’s questionable navigation skills (which included literally 30 minutes spent running only to end up exactly where he started as he kept turning and kept turning until he had simply performed a giant circle) at tent city the compound to the West of Myshkino. Me and DC get geared up again and all three of us head South with the intention of performing a chopper spawn run starting in Zelenogorsk. We’re in the forest West of Sosnovka a few minutes later when sprig has to go. He disconnects and myself and DC carry on. 2 minutes later we’re both dead, gunned down by an assailant I never even get to see. DC legs it to the nearby town but it turns out that again, it’s a large group of players, and surrounded on all sides he gets gunned down too. “You know, sprig’s really gonna gloat when we speak next. That’s twice we’ve both died and he’s lived.” I say. “Yeah…” It’s also our second 0-2 loss in a row, which is annoying. So another session or two, and certainly some not inconsiderable amount of gloating by sprig later, we are, once again, geared up and back together and on a PVP run to the NWAF. Sprig’s confident that once again it will be myself and DC who dies, but we remind him that the last time we came here it was him who died whilst we both got away unscathed. We start at the NE corner, clearing 2 barrack buildings and start heading along the back of the hangars. DC and sprig are up against the hangars, whilst I am hugging the wall – I figure a little separation isn’t a bad thing. I’m also constantly scanning in all directions which turns out to be a good thing. “Player to the rear!” I shout. We all trun to face the threat, with DC and sprig freezing and crouching in some bushes behind a hangar, whilst I just drop and lie in the long grass next to the wall “He just went into the barracks we were just in…ok, he’s outside in the treeline, crouching down” Then he disappears “Where’d he go?” ask the guys “I think I still see him, I think he’s lying down, but I’m not sure… I think he’s there..” BANG! “I’m dead” says sprig “Contact rear, 2 geared players, 1 in a ghillie hood!” As we’ve all been looking toward the barracks, 2 geared players have rounded the corner of the hangar, literally walked into sprig’s back and blown him away. But they have seen me or DC. “DC, he’s at the bush right next to you! The other guy is going back around the hangar. First guy is coming now” There’s a hail of gunshots as the guy walks straight into the barrel of DC’s gun and dies instantly. He probably never even saw him. The benefit of separation becomes clear now as I’m able to spot for DC, allowing him to run around behind the ghillied player and take him out. But in the melee we’ve lost track of the guy by the barracks. “What do we do man?” with no control of the situation there’s only one option “Run!” I cover DC from the wall as he runs towards me, then we both high tail it out of there into the forest behind the airfield. We rearm and resupply and wait a minute for our nerves to recover after the brief but intense gunfight. “How you getting on sprig?” I cheekily ask. “Told you it would be you who dies!” He’s not impressed J DC’s blood is up now and he wants more kills. We make our way back to the wall and I immediately spot a player, probably the guy we saw at the barracks, looking around the corner of the barracks, with his back to us. I call it out to DC but by the time he’s ready to take a shot the player has run into one of the other nearby buildings. It doesn’t matter to DC. He simply charges into the building and guns the guy down. 3-1 to us. Time to bail. Next session, myself and DC are once more hunting choppers, this time in the thin line of trees that runs East-West into the military base South East of Vybor. Neither of us like that base in the slightest, but we’re just following a route South when DC spots something. “There’s a spooked cow to our North – can you see anything?” he asks, since he knows that I always carry binoculars. “I whip them out and, by pure chance, as soon as I raise them to my eyes I find myself looking at a player with a large green backpack. “Player, green mountain backpack, running North to that industrial park just outside Vybor.” We both up and run, sprinting flat out towards the buildings he was running towards. DC gets there first and starts sweeping the area but there’s no sign of him anyway. “What do you think” he asks. “Well, if he’s not here, he’s got to be heading towards NWAF, right? So let’s go that way and see if we can catch up to him.” We roll out into a field with some hay bales in it where we stop to allow me to quickly scan the distance with my binos. It’s not luck that we both use the hay bales for cover and crouch down whilst I scan, it’s borne out of hours of experience and it pays off as a gun shot rings out. “Player ahead” shouts DC but, once again, confusion takes over. DC has spotted someone and run into a tiny little shack whilst I cannot see anyone at all. “What’s going on?” I ask “He’s here! He’s on me!!” screams DC and then a massive bang and burst of gunfire simultaneously shatter the silence. “Dude, are you ok?” I ask “Yeah, I got him, he came in with a sawn-off but he missed me, lol” I run over and stop short “This isn’t the guy we’re following, this is someone else!!” I shout, expecting to come under fire any second” “Yeah, no worries, he’s over there – this guy got him just before we got here”. We loot what we can and bail out once more. Funny how a cow spooked by someone else led to this guy getting killed 5-10 minutes later. One last story (I promise!) which left me slightly conflicted. Myself and sprig are about a town and a half away from DC when the server restarts. We rejoin and within 20 seconds I spot, and am spotted by, a player at very close range. Without DC with us, I just don’t have a great deal of confidence, even in a 2 vs 1 fight so I tell sprig to just bug out. We run out the other end of town and up the road. DC’s been checking hunting towers so it still away off. We meet up with him just beyond Rogovo, then turn around and head back to loot the town for food. That’s when we see the player. Now I’m not 100% sure, but I’m 95% sure it’s the same guy me and sprig just met. Of course, it could be pure coincidence, he only really had 2 choices out of the last town, head East or North and North is the better route, but he’s here now and we’re here now so…. He raises his gun initially, which is fair enough of course, but then I think the reality of his situation sets in, he puts his gun away, turns and runs. Sprig’s up on some high ground at the top of the town and quickly loses track of him, whilst myself and DC are lower down and set off in pursuit. I’m double carrying so am slowly losing ground, whilst DC is carrying a pistol and so running pretty much flat out. The chase goes on for quite a few hundred metres as the guy just keeps running directly away, trying to use a line of bushes and trees along the side of the road as cover. Sadly for him, although DC cannot see him, because he is running directly behind him and keeps getting his line of sight broken by all the foliage, I’ve swung off to the left (in anticipation of the guy turning left at an upcoming junction) so although I am further away I can see him clearly. That’s how I can tell DC that he’s stopped in the bush about 3 in front of DC and is logging off. He must think he’s clear but the reality is that as his character is in the process of sitting, standing, sitting for the 30 seconds necessary to really quit the server, DC puts a single 9mm round from his Glock 19 into the guy’s head. Like I say, I’m conflicted by this. He didn’t try to fight us, he just wanted to get away. Maybe he wouldn’t have done the same in a 1 vs 1 but unless it’s an obvious KoS location I always feel bad about being part of killing a player that isn’t trying to fight. I don’t know, maybe the old non-PVP feelings are still there. When the forums came back up this morning I re-read a lot of my posts in this thread and I felt the desire to get into the game straight away and just start hunting (seen that animals are back and behaving correctly again) and cooking. Maybe even try and get some leather gear made up again, or even learn how to farm since that’s about the only thing I’ve never tried.

So, onto a private shard where, on Sunday, I generated a new character on the Tartan Army server - a high pop private shard. Spawn in and I'm somewhere on the coast. I'm on a road with the railway track in front of me, just down a slope. I turn South and there's nothing much to see, certainly no town or city so I swing North at which point my game freezes - something it does with depressing frequency for reasons I do not know. I patiently rap my fingers on my desk once, twice, three times. Still frozen. Ho-hum. 4, 5, 6 raps and my screen updates. I am back in the game and the game is.. dangerous. A guy cradling an AK in his arms is about 25 metres away from me and jogging towards me. Now even if I do say so myself, I'm pretty damn good at evading other players - it's basically my "thing". Others can snipe you with a head shot from 500 metres, or are just CQB pvp kings, but in a run away and hide competition I'll back myself to win every time. What can I say, not getting shot is a great motivator for me. But even I need something to work with. I'm in the middle of the road and the nearest cover, which is the thin treeline just down the slope and past the railway, is too far away. Ah well, maybe he's friendly, you never know your luck, right? I raise my hand in greeting and do the friendly wiggle. He put away his gun and I breathe a sigh of relief - he's friendly! Then he pulls out a pistol and points it at my face. RUN! Bang, bang, bang! The shots ring out but none connect as I sprint down the slope and, with a surge of relief, I realise he has remained in place whilst trying to shoot me and by dropping down the slope I have broken line of sight - game on! Initially I was angling away from him to his left but I turned right as I went down the slope. Hoping to shake him off I reverse course but he either guesses correctly or had just not seen me make the right turn at all and he appears at the top of the slope slightly ahead of me as I steam towards him. Damn. I jink left and right as I pass by below him. He empties his pistol clip at me but all his shots miss and he starts to get his AK out but I'm past him now and, whilst I've been jinking, my overall direction has taken me to the tree line. A chatter of shots ring out as he opens up on me with his assault rifle but again he just cannot hit me. I look over my shoulder and see he has started running along the top of the slope parallel to me. I keep him in sight until a particularly large fir tree blocks the view at which point I skid to a halt, reverse direction and run back the way I came. That does the trick. He's lost sight of me and continues heading South, presuming I am still heading that way myself in the trees, whilst I speed North. A few minutes later I reach a place I know - I'm at 3 valleys. I quickly consider my options. I'm already very hungry, having burned a lot of energy getting away from Captain Psycho and I'm sure I'll be thirsty soon. Ok, so food is a real priority, even more so than usual. I'm not heading South in case he has reversed course or is still down there somewhere. Heading North to Solnichniy isn't attractive either - if he has reversed course he might catch up to me as I stop to search the town. Ok, so it's inland. The road away from the coast at 3 Valleys splits almost immediately. One route heads straight inland twisting and turning until it reaches Msta. It's a long way with only a few buildings on the way so the chance of finding supplies is slim. I've also twice visited Msta only to find it has already been stripped clean and I've subsequently died of starvation before I could find food in Staroye, the next town inland. The other road immediately bends to the left and runs roughly South, almost parallel to the coast, albeit behind a very high and steep hill. It leads to Tulga, which is a relatively small town high up in the hills and basically a dead end. And that's precisely what makes it attractive to me. Small and not on a main looting route it's likely to have at least some supplies, enough to at least stabilise myself in preparation for the push inland. It's also highly unlikely that a bambi hunting PVPer like Captain Psycho will be there - because there's no one for him to shoot. I follow the winding road as it climbs higher and higher, jogging slowly to conserve my energy as much as possible. Every other second I look over my shoulder and expect to see my assailant following me but there's no sign of him. When I get to Tulga it's clear I guessed wrong. Someone has been here and pretty much cleared the place out - they've even pitched a tent near the town but it's empty. Thanks to some careful checking in the houses I do find 2 cans of beans but nothing to open them with. Not having played for a long time I forget about trying to find a stone to make a stone knife and when I finally find a crow bar I'm desperate enough to use to open both the cans of beans - I get a pathetic 4% from the first and, still desperately hungry I open the second one too, getting 20%. I'm still hungry. Fortunately, there is a well here and I even manage to find a canteen so I'm good for water. I also locate a Sporter and a box of ammo for it, though no mag. Checking my map, I know that the small castle at Rog is nearby - maybe some tourists have left food there? I push on, taking it easy but before long my situation is once again critical. If I don't find food in the castle I don't think I'll be able to make it to Staroye. I walk up the stone ruins to find a veritable armoury of swords and maces - the first ones I've ever seen. Great, but without food I will not be able to enjoy them. Fortunately, the next thing I find is a sachet of powdered milk. I've never used it before and I have no idea how you use it or how it affects your energy and hydration but I have nothing to lose. I scoff it down followed by a swig of water and immediately I feel a hundred times better. Crisis averted! I head to Staroye, hoping to pick up a decent weapon in the police station or maybe in the animal pen behind the town. I'm just passing the petrol station outside the town when I hear a truck. I hug the wall and scan all around me but I struggle to determine exactly where it is and, although I can here it nearby for at least 2 minutes I never spot it and then it's gone. Hesitantly I check the police station and then a few other buildings in town but all I can find are a box of Mosin ammo, 2 Mosin strip clips and a PU scope. But no Mosin. I find a little food but still not much. I decide to head up to Polana (my favourite town) where I pick up a 10 round mag for my Sporter but little else until I find a truck. Aware that to the South East there is a construction site with one of those assault vest\boot\gun spawn buildings next to it I decide to drive there. Ah trucks… I’ve written before about how I love DayZ trucks (they’ve always been good to me) but they do of course have one massive advantage, i.e. everyone in 10 miles knows you are there, but, whilst the server was quite highly populated (about 30 players I think) I figured that this construction site is in the middle of nowhere so it’s probably safe, right? Lol, wrong, of course. Not sure why but I left the engine running – first time I’ve ever done that – and sprinted to the building. Nothing, just junk. Ok, I’m not getting shot but let’s not hang about and get back to the truck pronto. I was in the animation of getting into the truck when I heard the first bullet hit. The second hit as I closed the door and a third came in as I accelerated as hard as I could. For a horrible second the truck lurched off of the road and I thought it was going to roll over but I powered through the danger and got away. There followed an even more terrifying minute as I suffered a period of horrific desync – with the truck dematerialising and rematerialising, and jumping all over the place – all whilst I was speeding towards a tiny gap in a tree line but I managed to make it through and came to a stop on the road South of Polana. I jumped out, ran a short way and then bandaged myself because at least one bullet had hit me. Short of food and low on blood I decided to head down to Dolina to try and find some food and maybe a better gun. Found a little food and a nice M65 jacket but still no Mosin. Called it a night and logged off. Last night I was back on. I headed back to Polana and once again found a truck there. Deciding that the chance of someone being camped out at the construction site a second night running was unlikley (even though I had experienced EXACTLY that sort of behaviour in my previous story above) I decided to go back. This time, however, I stayed in the truck and scanned the construction site which was a good idea as after a few seconds I spotted a guy on the middle floor pointing a gun at me. Just as he shot me. Pain flared through my arm as I mashed the accelerator and more and more bullets thudded into the truck's cab, all fortunately missing me. I sped down the road through Orlovets and into the countryside where I, as before, jumped down from the truck to bandage myself and then make myself a splint. To be honest, I was a bit pissed off now. Time for some payback. I finally managed to find enough food to get myself sufficiently energized and hydrated to start the healing process and I headed back towards the construction site, but deep inside the treeline, out of sight. I took my time, being as careful as I could and scanned it for a long time with my binoculars. Nada, but the line of sight I had wasn't great so I took my time to head way past the construction site, almost as far as Polana, before crossing over the road and heading back towards it, again using the forest for cover. Just before I got there I spotted a hunting tower so I climbed it and was stunned to find a pristine Mosin lying inside it. I duly attached my PU scope and loaded 5 rounds. Game on Mr Shooter! :-) I crept up to the back of the building, taking my time, listening for any sounds of life. Nothing. I crawled through a hole in the bottom of the wall at the back of the site and stopped for several minutes, just listening and watching. Still nothing. I removed the PU scope from my Mosin - at these ranges dead sights would be sufficient - and then moved into the building itself. Despite having seen the sniper on the 2nd floor I went straight to the top floor, albeit still very slowly and as quietly as I could. I carefully checked the top floor from the stair well, not wanting to risk exposing myself on the open top floor, but it was all clear so I made my way back down to the middle floor. This was where I had been shot from. The room was large and open, but with many large pallets of building materials which someone could easily be hiding behind. Hugging one of the walls I moved across the floor. Empty. No sign of life at all. With much trepidation I finally went down to the ground floor and swept that. The place was deserted - he'd left. I retired to the forest and called it a night. Maybe next time...?

Good job TRMZ! By far my favourite DayZ youtuber :-)

Hi guys, been a long time... :-) Maybe 3 months ago I took a break for a while but about a month ago I started playing again. I’ve seen the changes in the game, animals seem to have been removed and are either still absent now or at least so rare that they may as well be, whilst guns and ammo seem to be almost everywhere. Every police station has half a dozen Makarovs and a couple of MP5s and RAKs, usually with mags in the same room. Then there’s the guard shack (not sure what it’s supposed to be but I think that’s what it is) that had about 10 assault vests, boots, and rifles on a ledge just outside the door. Basically, it seems like the Devs are making a clear statement, they want players to PVP. Now I’ve always maintained that I’m not a PVPer, to the point that I’ve only ever killed 2 players both in self-defence. Usually I just run away when I make contact – or get killed. However, my return to the game coincided with my friend, DC, also returning to the game so we hooked up. Whilst DC is not a full-on KoSer he will fight and is actually very good at it. More importantly, military locations are KoS areas for him – no messing. So, playing with someone who will fight and finding no animals to hunt and guns and ammo everywhere…it’s PVP time. We geared up quickly and easily, and roamed the West side of the map, making our way up to the airfield, but without any sign of another human. Unsure of what to do next we decided to head East, towards Stary Sobor. When we got there we spotted the new military tent area on the North side of the town, in the shadow of a massive red barn-like building, and we moved in to investigate. We were halfway through clearing the compound when the bullets starting thudding into the ground all around us. With no idea where the shooting was coming from, we reverted to type. DC threw himself to the floor to make himself the smallest target possible, maybe break line of sight and, more importantly as far as he is concerned, to allow himself to accurately return fire once the enemy was located. I, meanwhile, accelerated to a sprint and hurtled towards the nearest hard cover, i.e the big red building, hoping to take shelter inside. On the way I took a hit which broke my arm and started me bleeding, but I managed to jink my way into the building only to realise I’d made a big mistake because as I burst through the door – high up above me on the catwalks I immediately caught sight of a figure with a gun. I’d run into the lion’s den. Fortunately, this particular lion’s den had another door in the South wall so without breaking stride I banked hard right and carried on sprinting through, and then out of, the building. Whether they had seen me enter or not, or just were concentrating on trying to hit DC I don’t know but I managed to sprint all the way out of the South of the town. Safely hidden behind a bush I bandaged myself, topped up my food level to start myself healing and then headed back towards the enemy. Whilst this was happening DC had, of course, managed to shoot one of the enemy in the head but it turned out there were 2 of them and the other had him pinned down. I was maybe 100 metres from the building when the guy spotted DC and took him out. 1 versus 1 might sound like equal odds but when the 1 on your side is me, you’re in trouble. I quickly weighed up the options, either break & run and thus survive, or try and fight it out? I figured the latter would end with me dying but living whilst DC had died felt like the coward’s way out. I chose to fight. I moved into position and luck was with me – I had a clear view up into the top platform in the shed and could see the enemy looking out to the West. Presumably, they had completely missed me running into their building and then out through the South and he must have thought I was still in the tent area. The only problem was my SKS had no scope and the range was still too long. I tried a couple of shots but think I missed and he moved to his right and out of my line of sight. Annoyed that I had potentially given away my location I decided to get in close by walking up the stair case on the outside of the shed for a clearer and shorter range shot. The end turned out to be something of an anti-climax. All the shooting attracted every zombie in the town and I got jumped by 4 of them at the foot of the stairs. I tried to run past them but somehow they blocked me and I had to shoot them all. I reloaded and started climbing the stairs but the element of surprise was lost. Using the third person view I could see him inside, looking towards me and clearly waiting for me. A few steps above me was a hole in the wall which is what I was seeing him through. I walked up 2 steps to get into position to take a shot through the hole when something went wrong. Maybe a glitch or just me being kak-handed (as my dad would have called it) but whatever it was I somehow got stuck against the wall with my head exposed but my gun not clear. As I was fighting the controls to break free he shot me in the head. Another stunning PVP success for krazypenguin… ;-) Back on the beach near Berez we quickly re-geared before calling it a night near Gorka. The next day, as we logged back in, we talked about our aim for the session and I said that I would like to go back to Stary to see, on the off-chance, if we could find our killers. Perhaps, I argued, they were constantly camping the same spot, looking for easy targets in the military tents below. (In fact, we later discovered a permanent chopper crash site just to the North so that area is presumably quite highly trafficked). DC agreed and so we rolled out heading West. Inspired decision ;-) We got to Novy without seeing anyone and got into the treeline on the immediate Western edge of the town, with the huge red shed in Stary Sobor already visible in front of us. I was using binoculars but couldn’t see anyone in the shed, hardly surprising from that side as there are no gaps on that side of the building. We noted a crashed truck next to us which was an obvious warning sign but we seemed to be alone… Unable to get a decent line of sight to the shed we decided to move up to the next tree line and had just reached it when, with a final situation check looking over my shoulder, I saw a player in the treeline we had just left! Has he seen us or not? Is he friendly, neutral or hostile? Maybe’s it just random coincidence that he is there, maybe he’s part of the group in the shed and is trying to outflank us? We lost track of him on the trees and, whilst attempting to maintain situational awareness I caught sight of a gun glitching through the side of the red shed, way up high where the top walkway would be. Jackpot – our sniper killers were back. With a definite hostile in front of us and an unknown behind us we’re now officially in full-on PVP mode now and DC is already preparing to take a shot at the guy behind us. Turns out he was interested in the truck. We spotted him again as he broke cover and jumped into the truck and then, realising it’s totalled, jumped back out at which point DC opened up on him with his AK, putting a hail of bullets into him with fatal consequences. Sorry, wrong place, wrong time. DC went back to check his gear out, found he had the same AK type as DC with about 200 rounds so he grabbed all the ammo and left him there. One down, one to go. Then things went nuts. DC was halfway back to me in the tree line when we heard the truck coming. We froze in position, hoping that the poor visibility trucks offer would give us the advantage. Was this a friend of the guy we had just killed, was it the guy from the red shed or was it just a random encounter? We watched in confusion as he drove in circles around the field, all the while I was creeping to the North, trying to get North of the red shed so I could see into it but also staying hidden from the mad truck driver. At the same time, DC was stealthily crawling towards the tree line. I figured this guy knew we were here and the circles he was driving in was to help him to try and spot us – why else would he drive into an “empty” field and start driving round and around? Anyway, I’m not sure what went wrong but all of a sudden the truck driver just lost it - maybe he desynced or stopped concentrating, but whatever the cause he drove into the tree line, hit a tree or fence, and then flipped over onto his side. With his truck incapacitated the driver jumped out but DC was only a stone’s throw away from the crash site and the guy never stood a chance. Second kill down. Meanwhile, I’d made it to the copse of trees on the hill to the North and finally had an uninterrupted view into the red shed where, lo and behold, I saw an armed figure lying on the walkway. I kept him under observation whilst DC moved into position below him and he quickly became our third kill. Revenge! I bagged 2 kills later on. My third was something of an accident – we’d made it to the military base just South of NWAF where I literally bumped into another player – in the surprise neither of us fired and both claimed to be friendly. We spoke very briefly and I was suspicious of his line of questioning before he appeared to leave. Me and DC continued to search the buildings in the compound including the prison whilst keeping an eye out for the other guy but there was no sign of him. Our standard tactic for clearing a building like the prison is to both enter and then close the door behind us. I’ll then cover the door whilst DC clears the rooms one by one. He was just coming down the stairs when the front door opened and, acting on pure reflex, I emptied my 10 round SKS clip into the figure in the doorway. Turns out the guy I had bumped into had come back. I felt bad for him, but at the same time he knew 2 armed players were in a military base so that was the risk he chose to take. He could have left after we initially made contact but decided to stay. My fourth kill was my first “conscious” kill – i.e. where I chose to kill of my own free in a situation where I was in control, not out of reflex or in self-defence. We’d made it to the NWAF and roamed up and down the North side until we spotted a guy standing in a tower in the tent end of the airfield. DC took some shots at him and, for once, missed or at least didn’t kill him. By now I had an SKS with PU Scope so I lined up a shot and got him. I still felt bad about killing another player, even in a military zone, but if I am totally honest, I mostly felt proud of myself, that I had actually managed to hit him. Maybe I’m not completely hopeless. More kills followed, all by DC, and we’ve racked up at least 10 kills now (this all happened about a month ago now and neither of us can remember the exact number – I think it’s 10, DC thinks it’s 13). Our characters are still alive and waiting for us to return. Maybe we’ll get more, or maybe we’ll be the next to die – who knows and, in the crazy mess that is Chernarus, who really cares? So that’s my public character, reserved for playing with DC. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing extensively on private shards….

NWAF (and indeed all military locations) are considered KoS areas by about 99% of the player base. Your intention (to make friends) was noble but in the wrong place, barracks are dangerous places. You say you killed him with a Magnum but also that he shot the infected with an automatic weapon of some sort. A Magnum versus an automatic weapon is not good odds so you probably just saved yourself by shooting first. Also, if you really wanted to talk to him why not use voice comms? Broadcasting any sort of message in a military location is very dangerous anyway but if you are going to do it it really has to be voice comms. No one really uses text chat and most people distrust it because the other person could be talking to other players on another chat program and without hearing the human voice and hear all the nuances communication is much harder. Could you have revived him? Yes, but not with morphine, that is for breaks and fractures. You would need to stop any bleeding first (use bandages or rags) then bring him up to health with either blood or saline bags, an epi pen (I think) or just stuff him full of food and water, which can take some time. That said, a military barracks is NOT the place to be reviving random strangers...(though it was a low pop server so you might have been ok). But what if he had friends...etc...

Logged in on Wednesday, prior to the servers reconnecting to the hive (so my character was blank and there was no loot in the game at all), so I just derped about for a bit. Reached Mcta where I saw 2 goats, one of which got stuck in a running on ths spot animation. So with nothing else to do I punched its face in. I also heard chickens there too but couldn't see them.

Been away for a while, so sorry if this has changed, but at present I will never read notes. They HAVE to make it so that a blank note has a "blank" icon, whilst a written note has a different icon, so that players can easily differentiate between them just by looking - rather than having to inspect or read them. Otherwise, I won't bother looking since it's just so incredibly rare to find one that's been written on and the risk of getting attacked whilst I am checking every note I find for that 1 in a million chance when it's actually been written on just isn't worth it...