1Macready

Eep. That sounds familiar. Is that the anti-hack script? It definitely has that running.

Hello. I am having a problem with the padlock. I used it to upgrade my gate from level 1 to 2. I now have a locked gate (good), and have the "set lock code" and "unlock" options on my action menu (also good). However, whenever I select either "set lock code" or "unlock" from the action menu, the combination lock displays for a brief second and then vanishes. This leaves me unable to either set a code or to unlock the gate. I can always get out by deconstructing a fence segment, but obviously this sort of defeats the purpose of having a base and lockable gate. Has anyone else experienced this? What is the fix? Thanks in advance.

Thanks! Saturday 7/21, part 2: Once the hourglass reached the halfway point, I checked Four's blood level. Just under 3k. If everything kept on as it was, he would in fact regain consciousness. Slowly, torturously, the hourglass filled. Finally, it finished. Four pulled himself painfully to his feet. I quickly accessed the gear menu and applied a bandage. Once done, I checked his blood level once more: 2041. Ouch. The world around was devoid of color. Four's view pulsed back and forth between completely blurry and mostly blurry. I remembered this from the end of Three's run: you have to take advantage of those pulses of semi-clarity to look about and absorb as much visual data as you can before your vision blurs completely again. I was practicing this skill when Four passed out. Oh, right. I'd forgotten about that. You pass out randomly for brief spells when this low on blood. Once Four had receovered, I took stock of his inventory. He was down to one bandage, but that hardly mattered, since any further damage would almost surely prove fatal. Two of Four's three canteens still held water, and his sole source of food was a single cooked steak. Before he started running with three primary weapons, he usually kept two or three steaks at a minimum. No time for regrets now, though. Four quickly ate his last food for a jump to 2841 blood. Priority check. Four needed to get out of the open. In this state he was at the mercy of any player he might encounter. After all, who wouldn't administer a quick coup-de-grace to gain access to Four's excellent arsenal? He'd also need to avoid zeds, which would involve relying mostly on sound due to the sorry state of Four's vision. And most importantly, he'd have to locate wild animals to hunt, not only for the healing but also because starvation was now a real possibility given that he had just eaten the last of his food. The trek westward to the treeline was tense. I kept telling myself to keep moving so that Four would present a more difficult target for a sniper, but between alternately passing out, pausing to listen for zeds, and stopping to swing the POV about in order to get an angle where he could actually read his very blurry compass, it proved impossible. He must have looked like a drunken sailor lurching around on the street after the last bar had closed. After one close encounter with a zed, Four made it to the treeline. It had been an agonizing process, though. High-level goals such as deer stands and crash sites seemed laughably distant now. A quick check of his hunger icon revealed that it was noticeably orange already. Four peered around blindly, looking for an animal. It would be almost impossible to distinguish one from the blur of its surroundings. But then I had a thought - the L85A2! Four pulled out the weapon and activated its thermal sight. (Actually, I think he passed out first. I'll stop mentioning this specifically; just know that it kept happening, repeatedly and often). A 360 degree sweep revealed only one heat signature, that of a zed off to the east somewhere. What now, then? I thought I'd move Four north, keeping just within the treeline and scanning fields as he went. I'd found that camp near the pond north of Lopatino - had that been on this server? They'd had a tent full of steaks. I decided to move Four in that direction, and then keep on east to the Devil's Castle area where the hunting was good if he didn't find the camp. On the entire trek northward up to and past Lopatino, stopping repeatedly in tedious fashion to perform thermal sweeps with the L85A2, Four spotted only two animals, both of them rabbits. As his hunger increased and the threat of starvation loomed larger, I was tempted to go after these. But, Four's only chance to hit them would be to use the L85A2, which meant potentially revealing his position to zeds or players. Then too, locating the carcass would bring him out into the open for a substantial amount of time (repeatedly sighting with the thermal scope, passing out, etc.). So, I passed. Fortunately, even a blind man can orient himself on the route to the pond north of Lopatino, as keeping to the easternmost trees on a northerly heading eventually has you intersecting a road, at which point it's time to turn due east. Four had nearly reached this turning point when, finally, I spotted something through the scope: a boar on the hillside to the west. I moved Four in that direction and downed the boar. Because Four had only two inventory slots open, I thought I'd have him take two steaks, cook and eat them, and then return for the other two. But after having trouble finding a spot where he was allowed to harvest wood, coupled with passing out a couple of times, the boar corpse was gone by the time Four came back for it. Ah well. At least this find brought him to over 4400 blood. I moved Four out once more, and he arrived at the pond in fairly short order. The thermal scope revealed nothing in the woods beyond the pond. Upon moving into the trees to investigate, Four found nothing. Either that camp had been on another server, or they'd moved on. Four continued eastward after drinking and filling his canteens. Upon moving into the open fields north of Bashnya, Four was finally getting into good hunting territory. And it wasn't long at all before he spotted... a chicken. Not exactly earth shattering, but 800 blood is 800 blood, bringing him up to 5200 and change. A bit further on, he hit the jackpot: one large field was home to both a crash site AND a goat! The goat came first - Four butchered it, and this time removed all of the raw steaks and dropped them onto the ground. From there, he built a fire in the trees and then ran back and forth, ferrying steaks to the fire two at a time. Afer 5 minutes or so, his blood level was looking much better. I was tired of playing by this point, but I wanted to explore that wreck. Four found nothing worth keeping except for a STANAG mag (although he did come across another FN FAL with a nightvision scope). I was literally just heading into the trees to disconnect, when... SESSION LOST. uh oh. I quickly connected to another server to take stock of the situation. Four's location was just about exactly right; his inventory was correct, right down to the extra STANAG mag he'd just looted; his zed count looked spot on; but he had 2.8k blood again. CRAP! To make a long story short, Four was, very fortunately, currently in cow country, and he found two cows back to back in about 5 minutes of playing. So although he had to climb back from the brink of death twice, climb back he did, and when I finally logged off for good, he was back to a perfect 12000 blood. Lesson learned: don't play with tractors. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 451/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: I would really love (and desperately need) a coyote backpack. I'm not sure how to go about getting one, though.

Saturday 7/21: Today's play saw Four return to Chopper Alley. Heading west through the Old Fields area, he hit a deer stand south of Prud, where he located a DMR. This is a very nice long range weapon - like the M14, only featuring a magnified sniper scope. I couldn't resist. I headed Four into the trees, where he changed into his camo clothes, then discarded his old civilian clothes, STANAG SD mags (*sigh*), and a dose or morphine. Then back to the stand to claim the DMR and one magazine. Four carries three primary weapons once more. From there he continued west south of Kabanino to the deer stand at Veresnik. Still no choppers! Chopper Alley wasn't living up to its name today. From Veresnik, the plan next was to head W-NW toward the trees lining the western edge of the map, cutting between Vybor and Pustoshka and taking a last look about for crash sites in the process. But upon breaking free of the treeline surrounding Veresnik, I spotted a tractor parked close by in the fields. At first I just noted its presence and kept Four moving, but after a few more steps I stopped him and turned about. Why not? Four's entire life consists of jogging around at a crouch with a pack full of military hardware. He deserves a break - he's probably got the mother of all blisters on his feet by now from so much moving about on foot. Besides, the open ground between his present location and the trees at the western edge of the map eliminate any sense of secrecy or stealth, so I really wouldn't be adding much risk by throwing in a little noise to boot. Four hopped in. As has been his experience with all of the other vehicles he's encountered, this one had fuel and was in workable condition. He started it up and headed west. This was more like it! I made sure to give anything resembling a building an extremely wide berth so as to avoid any zed aggro. After crossing the road between Vybor and Pustoshka, I needed to veer a bit left to stay in the clear. There was a wooden railing situated next to a line of small trees which began where the railing ended, but it looked like I'd be able to squeeze between the end of the railing and the start of the foliage. There was one very small shrub there, but running over that shouldn't present any problem at all. Wham! Whoops. The shock icon appeared on screen, and the engine stopped. I'd lost a couple thousand points of blood. Evidently that shrub was more of an obstacle than I'd imagined. A tractor killer, even. Oh well, so much for the joyride. I activated the mousewheel menu to get out, and noticed a "shut engine off" entry there. Four's accident had killed the tractor, but did I still need to turn the engine off? I was considering this when it happened. BLAM! The tractor exploded. Four was now outside of it, bleeding, ~3.8k blood, and promptly passed out. A long one too - that hourglass was filling *very* slowly. Oh, man. All of the things he's done, the places he's been, the equipment he's salvaged, and it's going to end like this? As I watched the hourglass and his blood level steadily declining, trying to determine which out of a return to consciousness or death from blood loss was more likely to occur first, I began to eulogize Four in my mind. How would I spin this? I couldn't, really - this was a moron's death. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. ...to be continued Health: 3800 and dropping fast Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 451/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Be less dead.

Thursday 7/19 and Friday 7/20: When I'd disconnected the previous evening, I hadn't been quite sure of where Four was located. That last crash site and the inventory mixup had served admirably as distractions from the planned route. And to complicate the process of reorienting myself, upon logging in early this morning I found myself on a pitch black nighttime server, where it also was raining heavily. I tried to guesstimate the proper heading for the deer stand I'd been aiming for the day before and then navigate by compass, but it was just so unrelentingly dark that Four wasn't making any headway. Worse still, the combination of night and rain was lowering his temperature very rapidly. He'd only been running about for ten minutes or so before it reached 37. I was pretty sure 35 and below meant the onset of sickness, so I'd need to do something quickly. The natural temptation was to change servers. But then I thought: no. Four has survived zeds and hostile players; now he will survive the unfavorable elements as well. I gave up on the deer stand and picked a direction that would bring Four to the nearest unmistakeable landmark - a road. Once he'd found it, he followed alongside it on a northerly heading. And before too long I was able to recognize his surroundings, despite the darkness. He was near the original crash site area east of Grishino. Ok, now Four was on very familiar ground. I knew that if he kept heading northward, he'd eventually enter the large forested area leading up to Devil's Castle. Good timing, too - his temperature was now at 36 degrees. I marched him deep enough into the trees to be away from interesting landmarks and prying eyes, and lit a fire. Wow, so much better! The impenetrable murk was broken in a small circle around his fire. As Four lay there prone, waiting to heat up, I thought I'd try to work through his inventory problems. I shifted things around so that the medical supplies were moved to his pack, and two of the magazines for each primary weapon were located in general inventory. This seemed to sort things out - Four was able to swap back and forth between the Bizon and the L85A2 without issue, although switching to the L85A2 caused the game to unnecessarily swap the Bizon mags into the backpack and skew the mag balance again. Well, I could live with correcting that issue so long as Four didn't experience any more dramatic equipment disappearances. With the L85A2 in hand, Four toggled the thermal optics and did a brief 360 degree scan of his surroundings. No heat signatures detected. Good. Once Four had heated back up to a warm and toasty 42 degrees, I took stock of my surroundings. This server wasn't showing any sign of becoming less dark or less rainy. Having established that he could handle the threatening elements, I elected to switch servers now in order to salvage a bit of game play - I didn't want my entire session today to consist of sitting by a fire. Upon connecting to the replacement server, I was hoping for clear skies and a full moon. Instead I found Four awash in sunny daylight. The difference was stunning. Going from the dark and claustrophobic feel of a black, rainy night to the bright light of day really highlighted the profound effect that the environmental effects can have on gameplay. After taking a minute to adjust to the new lighting, I raised Four up and headed south just far enough to pick out the line of the road heading east to west. Then I moved Four parallel to it on an easterly heading, staying within the trees, aiming for another deer stand sitting halfway between Grishino and Dubrovka. And upon closing into visual distance, Four spotted not only the stand, but a crashed helicopter sitting in the grass right behind it. Wow, this really was Chopper Alley. Did the military powers-that-be within pre-infection Chernarus never wonder at the enormous volume of helicopter accidents in so concentrated an area? Four was far enough away from this one for the grass not yet to be rendered beneath it, and I could clearly see that there was something lying on the ground beside it. This was getting to be old hat. After a careful sweep with the L85A2 to look for heat signatures from other players and finding none, Four equipped the Bizon. Ping! Ping! Ping! He carved a swath of zeds out from his approach vector and moved in at a crouch to examine the chopper. Aside from a small collection of medical supplies near the tail, Four found... the FN FAL ANPV S4, which is a standard FN FAL equipped with night vision optics. The surprising finds were really starting to add up! Supposedly this thing is even rarer than the L85A2. Four withdrew to the trees for a loot assessment. I was giving serious thought to picking this up as a long range weapon, even at the painful cost of abandoning all of the rare STANAG SD magazines and living with no backpack space. But then something in the DayZ wiki tipped the balance. The night vision optics were not able to be toggled. This would render the weapon virtually useless except in the dark. I couldn't see myself discarding good equipment for something that specialized. Four opted to pass. On Friday evening I decided to bring Four to the factory east of Malinovka to take another shot at a toolbox. As you know if you've been following along from the start, that factory hasn't been been very forthcoming. On this approach, I moved him in past the pond to the break at the bottom of the fence, as usual. Upon crawling him inside, I found that he was practically on the toes of a patrolling zed. Oops. Fortunately he lost less than 200 blood in this little mishap before the Bizon set it to rights. As he was clearing a path into the main building, Four passed 400 zombie kills. Not bad! And fitting as well that he should hit that milestone in the same place he'd scored his first kill. I was hoping that the game would offer up a toolbox in recognition of his achievement, but Four's dry streak at this factory was upheld. There was every type of vehicle equipment imagineable - jerry can, rotor assembly, windscreen, fuel tank parts - but no toolbox. After downing a can of pasta he'd found to return to a perfect 12000 blood, Four withdrew from the factory into the treeline to the NE. From here I steered him E-SE to the industrial complex N of Solnichniy, which is I place I've never visited. Even though there were a few players on the server braving the darkness, this place was nice and quiet. And in one of the larger buildings, Four found his toolbox! Excellent. I was about to withdraw him from the building when a fierce rainstorm started. Remembering his previous experience with heavy rain in the dark, I opted to have him stay put and wait it out. It was quite atmospheric huddling alone in the dark in that abandoned factory, listening to the rain fall and to the grunts of zeds patrolling outside. When the rain finally stopped, I pulled Four out to the north by the way of the railway bridge, which he ducked underneath in order to fill his canteens. From there he proceeded steeply uphill to the W-NW to a nearby deer stand, where he found a military flashlight amongst the more common items. An interesting find! I'm not sure I'll have any use for it, but since it just takes up a tool slot, Four added it to his collection. It had begun to rain again, so he huddled in the deer stand until the weather cleared once more. From there I moved him north to the deer stand west of southern Berezino. And while en route, it started to rain once again. Rather than wait this out yet again, I opted to pull Four back to a safe distance and end the session. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 410/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Another run through Chopper Alley.

Wednesday 7/18, part 2: I unexpectedly found myself with the day off from work, so I ended up playing quite a bit during the day today. It would take forever to recount everything that happened in detail, so I'll stick to the highlights. I decided to return to the NW airfield. I ran the barracks a total of three times: the eastern one once, after which I withdrew and went elsewhere. Later in the day I returned on a different server and ran both the east and southwest barracks. The first of those runs, in the eastern barracks, was the most productive. Four came in almost the entire way at a crouch-run, reasoning that in daylight he'd be safer that way if other players were about. He drew the attention of one zed, who wounded him and set him to bleeding. Fortunately the Bizon made short work of it without drawing any unwanted further attention, and Four was able to bandage and complete the run. On the way in the door he spotted a huge loot pile outside - someone had been cycling. It always raises the hairs on my neck to see such obvious signs of other players. But, the inside was quiet. In one of the rooms Four found an ammo case containing 20 STANAG mags and 10 STANAG SD mags. In my experience, STANAG SD mags are extremely rare - I don't recall ever seeing any prior to these. So I opted to ditch the ammo-less Kobra and stow all 10 SD mags in Four's pack. Hopefully one day he'll find a M4A1 Camo SD, and then he'll really be in business. The other two runs featured an almost empty barracks each time. Nothing but crappy ammo, bandages, and the like (when there was anything at all - most rooms were empty). I will say that the SW barracks made me extremely uncomfortable. The approach was even more open and dangerous than I'd imagined in looking at the map, and to make matters worse, there's a bench just inside the door that you have to vault over to gain access to the interior hallway. Remember what happened to Four on his very first run? It would have been awful to have to vault a bench with the demonic horde on his tail. Anyway, my assessment of the SW barracks is: too dangerous. I won't be back. I may yet run the eastern one again, though. I ran Devil's Castle two times as well (once after leaving the first barracks run, and again on my way back). I'm not sure why I still do this, as Four only ever finds food, drink, bandages and handgun ammo there. Not that there's anything wrong with those things, but I generally don't really need any of them. I'm always hoping there will be a Ghillie suit or something like that. Anyway, no sign of any players either time. I spent some time in Chopper Alley (the Old Fields area) and found three choppers. The first was actually closer to the Devil's Castle area, and was different than any other I've come across. No weapons at all, but two camo suits and a huge box of medical supplies (blood bags, morphine, epi-pens... just like the boxes you see in a hospital). Four dropped one of his SD mags and added a camo suit to his backpack. I don't want to wear it yet until I'm sure that all the kinks have been ironed out. People still talk about servers running incorrect hive versions which cause issues with people using alternate skins. I'll go into more detail about the last hour or so of play, because it was then that Four located two choppers back to back. Running these things has become much more casual now that he has a Bizon. I just bring him into the vicinity at a crouch run, and then blow away everyone who is even close to him or the chopper. The Bizon's excellent iron sights have me scoring head shots almost every time. I can't remember much of what the first chopper had - I don't think there was much besides some sparse medical supplies. I was just about to pull out after doing one last sweep of the other side when I got a popup I hadn't seen before: "Take L85A2 AWS (drop Bizon PP-19 SD)." Wow! Talk about a high-end weapon! Magnified multi-zoom optics featuring toggleable night-vision / thermal settings, zeroable, relatively quiet (about the same as the Kobra) and using common STANAG magazines. This was an exciting find indeed. The M14 that Four had agonized over got thrown out like yesterday's trash, and Four placed the Bizon into his pack and equipped the L85A2 and the one STANAG mag that was with it. Four then crossed the Old Fields on an easterly heading, and upon reaching the other end - which was where I was planning to quit - I spotted another wreck. Woohoo! I moved him into a decent approach position and went prone. Then, I opened his pack and brought out the Bizon. But... wait a second. After clicking to bring it out, Four's primary weapon slot was suddenly empty. The L85A2 was gone! I looked frantically about but didn't see it. God, you have to be KIDDING me. I briefly considered Alt-F4ing to see if I might roll back to a time before losing it. Instead, I just started to laugh. Four found what is essentially the highest-end firearm in the game, and managed to lose it within the space of ten minutes. Or was it four minutes? I guess he'd come by his name honestly. I sighed and had Four equip the Bizon. I went out of my way to target every zed aroud the chopper, no matter how near or far, in a fit of L85A2 rage. Once they were all dead, I moved Four in. FN FAL plus mags. Pass. M14 plus mags. Ha! Now I was really laughing. Four sheepishly put this into his pack to replace the L85A2 which had replaced... the M14. Circling around to the other side of the bird, Four got an inventory popup with no indication as to what it was. I opened the gear menu to see... a Bizon. :) No mags, though. One of everything Four either had or had previously discarded, but nothing more. I moved Four away from the chopper and toward the trees. Screw it, I thought. I'm checking that area where he'd had the inventory mishap one last time. I moved Four in and started mousing over the ground. And suddenly I got a gear popup! It was a STANAG SD mag. Oh ho ho! I quickly picked it up. Continuing with the mouseover, I soon got a popup for another STANAG SD. I didn't have room for it, so I ran Four a short distance away (so as not to pollute the crime scene) and discarded one the the DMR mags I'd picked up with the M14. Then I ran back and grabbed the STANAG SD. Mousing around some more, and Four got a popup for the regular STANAG he'd gotten from the barracks. Again he retreated and dropped another DMR mag, then came back and grabbed it. And finally, what I'd been waiting for... a popup for the L85A2! In a fit of deja vu, Four discarded his replacement M14 are picked up the mischievous L85A2 once more. What happened? I can't say for sure. I'm about 98% certain I followed the same procedure that I always do to swap in a weapon from the pack. Open inventory menu, open pack, find desired weapon, click the arrow to bring it out. This usually brings out the desired weapon and swaps the current one to the bag. Maybe this had something to do with the disparity in magazine counts between the L85A2 and the Bizon. The next time that I try this, I'll make sure to have two of each in general inventory. I called it a day right there. After finding one of the best weapons in the game twice, what else was there for me to do today anyway? Ruin it again, of course. I hurried Four into the shrubs and disconnected. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 361/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Time for a throwback to an older priority. I want a toolbox.

Wednesday 7/18: The open fields north of the Sobors up into the area of Grishino certainly seem to be a fertile environment for finding crash sites. But, they're predominantly open fields - very easy to be spotted moving through them, particularly considering it's part of the route an aggressive player might take on a Stary/airfield run. I thought I'd take advantage of my weekday schedule, consisting almost exclusively of early morning play with small numbers of users connected, to continue exploring this area under cover of darkness. We last left Four near the deer stand on the eastern fringes of the Old Fields area. I thought I'd have him check that stand one last time, and then head west across the fields to the deer stand directly north of Stary Sobor, looking out for items of interest along the way. While crossing the field to the stand, I noticed that it was really dark on this server. Four almost ran right into a zed hopper that I just couldn't see in the grass, and was saved only by hearing it just before it was too late. After circumventing this near miss and climbing the stand, he found nothing at all. So, I began moving him west. The start of the trip did offer some cover, as there's a small forest of trees there. But it wasn't long before he broke out into the open fields. Fortunately at this point the clouds seemed to disappate and the moon and stars became visible overhead, greatly improving visibility. I kept swinging the third person camera back and forth in sweeping arcs, looking for anything of interest. At one point I swore I saw a chopper in the distance to the north, but after veering in that direction, it became clear that it had only been a bush that my imagination cast into the shape of a helicopter. Swinging back south to get back on course, I spotted a zed up ahead... was it an outlier from a crash site? No, it wasn't a zed at all, but only a road sign. The mind sees what it wants when peering into the dark of the fields. Before long Four crossed the second of the two roads that ran across his route and plunged into the trees. He needed to maintain a western heading until reaching the other side of this forest, at which place the stand should be located somewhere along the treeline. And as the grass beyond the western edge of the trees came into view, I spotted the telltale zombie guards almost immediately. I should probably comment at this point that deer stands are really easy to check - I laugh now at the thought of Four throwing flares for cover early in his life. Most deer stands are located along a treeline, so here's what ends up happening almost all the time: as you draw into the vicinity, zeds spawn near the stand. Their pathfinding is highly biased toward keeping them out of the trees, so they inevitably head out on different headings within the 180 degree band leading away from the treeline. If you approach the stand from the wooded side, by the time you get close, go prone, and crawl the last little distance, they've all marched off to a safe distance, and you can climb up, pick through anything you find, and then retreat before the zeds come about and walk back toward the stand. That's how it went this time, but Four struck out again - nothing in either of the loot spawn points. Man, it was a particularly unlucky session so far. I could see a long barn out across the field to the west - should I hit it? No, too much open space to be negotiated just for a barn. Glancing again at the map, I thought I'd have Four complete the Old Fields triangle and move N-NE to deer stand east of Grishino, and use that as the rallying point for whatever goal I'd pick next. So, I started by moving him north along the treeline, with the camera swung around toward the barn I'd elected to skip. And he had barely taken a few steps when a shadow south of the barn and more in the foreground caught my eye. Chopper! And not an imagined one, either. Well, this WAS worth the risk of moving in the open. Out came the MP5. I moved Four across the field to the north of it, heading in the direction of the barn. Once he was directly north of the chopper, I dropped him to prone and waited for him to catch his breath. There were three zeds on northerly headings, so he took all of them out (one headshot, a torso shot and a followup headshot, and then a miss followed by three torso shots for the most distant one). I then crawled Four in and approached the side-seat section of the chopper first. As he was drawing close, there was a hopper nearby, so he dropped him (two shots). Now finally at the bird, Four got a gear popup between the tail and the side seats: a M14 and three mags. Ok, so maybe these M14s aren't so rare! I was swivelling the mouse away when the popup changed. FN FAL this time, with two magazines. Huh. With this much stuff here, I was thinking that Four was the first one to find this chopper. He'd have to make sure to give it an extra careful examination. I wanted to raise Four to a crouch to examine the inside-the-chopper hotspot, so he proactively took out a standing zed that wasn't far off (two shots). With that done, the coast was clear, so I spent a minute or two mousing over that area carefully and obsessively. Nothing... damn. It figures that this chopper would have all of the items Four has already found. I dropped him back to prone and moved him around the nose to the other side of the chopper. As he worked his way down the other side, there was another loot popup. This one had an epi-pen and a morphine dose. Ok, I've seen this enough to know now that a medical spawn must be part of the standard package with these choppers. I exited the gear menu and was mousing away from this when I saw something flicker briefly on the screen. Wait, that said what I think it said, right? "Take Bizon PP-19 SD (drop MP5SD6)." I quickly moused back and forth and saw it again. I opened the gear menu, and there it was... a Bizon SMG and three mags! YES!! I was positively giddy at this point. This is by far my favorite weapon in the game that I've yet used. It's been Four's mission in life since Inventory Sunday to have one of these again, and here it was! If you're a PVPer, you're probably thinking that this was the least interesting weapon in the crash site. But if you're like me and avoid player contact when you can, this is a spectacular weapon. It allows you to go wherever you want without a care for the zeds. Great iron sights, HUGE magazines, silent, and the ability to go fully automatic if things go south. A+ on all counts; the premier zed-killer. But I had a little problem here: three mags. I wanted all of them, but since I'd become Three Gun Charlie inventory space was at a premium. What would go? The Bizon would replace the MP5, that was easy, but the MP5 ammo was in a handgun slot, so I still needed to free up three slots in general inventory. Should I get rid of the M14 or the Kobra? Run even leaner on basic survival supplies? I was deep in thought when I was suddenly reminded that there was a game still in progress on the other side of the gear menu - a zed was looming increasingly large in the background. I quickly closed the gear menu, and simultaneously began crawling Four backward and sighting the zed with the MP5. Click-click-click; Four got off three quick shots. Still alive, and looming huge in the zoomed sights of the MP5. It had spotted Four and was moving in. Click. Another shot, and still it lived! Was I missing, or what? The zed had almost closed the remaining distance. Click. Uh oh. That was the wrong click! Not the satisfying *snick* of a totally silenced round speeding toward its target, but the click of a weapon that was out of ammo! Argh! There was a Bizon SMG and 192 beatifully silenced rounds sitting on the ground behind the zed, and Four hadn't picked them up... and now he was out of silenced ammo! Whatever... I was ready to go thermonuclear over this. Four would have that Bizon or die in the attempt. Now that subtlety was off the table, I really wished Four had the Kobra in hand. But that was in the pack and would also require reloading, so it was quicker to switch to the M1911. Four drew his handgun as the angry zed began his attack animation. Blam! One round and it was down. Four swung the M1911 wildly about. Where was the next threat coming from? Apparently it wasn't - the remaining zeds were far enough out not to have heard. And somehow Four hadn't even taken any damage. That was a quick turnaround from what seemed like disaster. Still fired up from the recent threat, I made a snap decision. Four would discard all three of his AK mags. They are not hard to replace, but the Kobra is. I'd drop the mags for now to give myself time to loot the Bizon and decide whether to keep the Kobra. That done, Four quickly moused around the rest of the area on this side of the chopper. Another M14 and another FN FAL! I almost thought he was finding the same ones, but the mag counts were different for both. This was certainly a loot-rich chopper. Finding nothing else, Four headed back toward the safety of the trees. But first... I just couldn't resist. The whistling of two Bizon rounds sounded as Four dropped two zeds with one headshot apiece. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 275/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: I'm not sure. Four has achieved his primary objective of recovering the Bizon SMG. I'll have to think about how best to put it to work.

Tuesday 7/17: I planned on a quieter session this morning to follow up yesterday's more risky play. I had plenty of steaks to use for recovering blood, but Four wasn't yet hungry, so I thought I'd wait and see if I spotted an animal he could use to replenish the food he'd need to heal up. It was night on this server, but clear skies and moonlight, so visibility wasn't bad. I popped into the deer stand E-NE of Devil's Castle for a quick look. Four found a soda, which he drank, an AK mag, which he left (no room), and some other assorted crap which he ignored. From there I noted that there were two additional stands in a roughly straight line on a S-SW bearing, with the second one putting me in the vicinity of helicopter crash site nirvana on the east side of Grishino. Four proceeded to check each one, always taking the roundabout path that kept him within the cover of the trees. Both stands had absolutely nothing in them. Bleh. Four checked the fields on either side of the grove housing the deer stand but saw no choppers. Bummer. In looking at the map again, there was a deer stand located pretty far S-SE of Four's present location (NE of Novy Sobor), and there were a couple of small ponds intersecting the route he'd traverse to get there. There were also a lot of fields to peep into along the way - lots of potential chopper sites. The trip would involve some running in the open, but I was currently on a thinly populated nighttime server, so I thought I'd go for it. Most of the running in the open happened right at the start, and it went by uneventfully. Upon arriving at the next treeline, I knew that the ponds should only be a short distance S-SE, and this proved to be the case. Four drank from a canteen, filled them up, and then resumed his S-SE bearing. After a bit of running, something in my (his) peripheral vision caught my attention. Of course, this happens about a hundred times a day. Usually the "something" proves to be a bush, a tree stump, a rock, a weird rendering glitch involving texture flicker, occasionally a zed, or if I'm lucky, some sort of animal. Today it was a downed chopper. Yay! I forgot all about the deer stand I'd been heading toward. Out came the suppressed MP5 instead. By the way, the three rounds I'd fired the day before at Devil's Castle we're back, giving me a full 15. A bit lame, but better than losing the twelve I hadn't fired. The chopper was well out in the open, so Four crouch-ran as far as I dared to let him before dropping prone for the final approach. My timing was just about perfect. About 12 zeds had spawned, but during Four's approach they had fanned out in all directions, leaving me with a fairly easy job of investigating the wreck. The side Four had approached from was the one without the side seats. He found nothing there, even after I raised him briefly to a crouch to mouse around and be sure. Upon checking out the tail area, I got a gear icon popup. An epi pen, a morphine dose, and painkillers. Did those actually spawn there, or did some player leave them after finding something better? Four rounded the tail to the side with the side-facing seats, which is usually the best loot spot. On the ground was an M14 AIM with a single mag. Ooh. Certainly a rare find. Powerful (but loud), solid effective range, and nice red dot optics (unmagnified though). But what would I get rid of - my MP5? No friggin way - no "loot fever" this time. And I didn't want to abandon my solid all-around assault rifle for a specialty weapon. No. I will pass on the M14. The coast was still pretty clear, so Four raised to a crouch and carefully and repeatedly moused over the hotspot that had yielded a Bizon earlier in his life. Nothing. Since finding that Bizon, I've read that there isn't actually a secret compartment in these choppers - it's just that there's a loot spawn underneath, and mousing over a certain part of the interior is what reveals it. Well, whichever was true, there was nothing there today. I lowered Four back to a crawl and moved him south toward the cover of a treeline. As he was crawling, I spotted the deer stand that he'd been making for originally. He checked it and found nothing good. Hrm. I was still thinking about that M14. I hated to just leave it there - I was afraid of loot remorse. It wasn't nearly as impractical as the FN FAL, either, because it uses somewhat common DMR magazines instead of the rare FAL ones. A thought occurred to me. Could Four run with two rifles in reserve? He could have a dot optics theme, with the M14's red dot complementing the Kobra's green one. Four could be an angel of death in Christmas colors! But yikes, it wouldn't be easy. He had an Alice pack, which means 20 slots. Rifles take up 10 slots in the pack, so toting around two spares meant using the ENTIRE pack. Food, water, morphine, and rounds for all three would have to find a home in general inventory alone. Well, that was actually somewhat familiar territory. If you read the first installment of this journal, you know that Three lived his whole life without a pack. He lost his patrol pack swimming ashore from his island spawn point and never found a replacement. Let's see... 12 slots available in general inventory. Four had 4 steaks at present, but he needed to eat 2 to heal up fully, so that was easy. His 4 water bottles could be pared down to 3 without much problem. I still wanted both morphine doses and the painkillers. The grenade could go. The M9 rounds were taking up a handgun ammo slot, so no problem there. I'd need a slot for the DMR mag, but one would be plenty, since this would be a rarely used weapon. The big thing was the AK mags. I had 9 or 10 at present - I'd have to drop all but 3 of them. But is that a big deal? I've barely fired the thing. It's a bit silly to carry around enough ammo to take out an entire company of soldiers. But then, being a walking gun rack is a bit silly as well. Screw it. I'm taking the M14, at least for now. Four ate two of his steaks (back to a perfect 12000 blood), and then drained a water bottle and discarded it. Deep breath, deep breath... the grenade and the AK mags were dropped next, and the med supplies were shifted from the pack to general inventory. There. 10 slots free in the pack, and 1 free in general inventory. Four commenced crawling back to the chopper. Ok, WTF. While I'd been undergoing my loot crisis, apparently a zombie convention had come to town. There were 15 to 20 zeds scattered about, and most of them were close to the chopper. Screw you, zombies! I DROPPED 7 AK MAGS FOR THIS! Four slithered hither and yon, keeping as much distance as he could. While waiting for traffic to clear, he was spotted, but I'd had my eye on that one as the worst threat - he went down before he'd even finished his first little gurgle of rage. Upon drawing close to the chopper, Four proactively dropped a second zed that was on an undesirable heading. That gave him just the opportunity he needed to stick the M14 in his pack, and the DMR mag in inventory. He then retreated to the northern treeline so that he wouldn't have deer stand zeds to worry about. Well - that was easy, aside from the loot panic and zombie swarm! Four's a walking armory now. I wonder how long this three-rifle thing will last. I equipped the AK and disconnected. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 267/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Choppers and deer stands. Perhaps another run on the barracks. Consider replacing Four's arms with rifles so that he can have five of them instead of just three.

Monday 7/16: It's airfield day! I should probably begin by discussing my proposed plan of attack. Really, I'm just here for the barracks. The ATC, tower and hangars are just an opportunity to get sniped (yes, I still watch DevilDog's videos). And, the loot to be had there can be found in much safer places. But the barracks offer some unique rewards. Between the two of them I'd decided that I definitely prefer the one on the eastern side of the airfield. My main problem with the SW barracks is the approach and fallback. Although they're surrounded by some trees, beyond that it's wide open spaces, baby. Getting in on the sly and making a strategic withdrawal are not easy things to do. The eastern barracks, on the other hand, can be approached under excellent cover. Getting inside the fence involves a brief stretch in the open, but you're still back from anything interesting and most likely out of the sight of anyone else. Of course, the door to the barracks is exposed to the tower and other sniping positions, but it's a brief, manageable risk. And if things really go wrong, I can just fade away into the trees to the northeast. I decided to watch a few YouTube videos to mine them for additional ideas or strategy. I wasn't very impressed with what I saw! People running about in the open blasting zombies, slowly crawling into the hangars in full view of sniper positions across the runways, approaching the eastern buildings by sprinting directly across the runways, and all kinds of stupid crap like that. I decided to trust my own recon and forget about what other people are doing. I logged in bright and early to find a dark server with only a few players connected. Perfect. According to the map, my target was W-SW of Four's present location. Four checked the deer stand he was near before heading in and found a coyote patrol pack. That's an odd one. I don't think I've ever encountered a bag in any of the dozens of stands I've checked to date. Well, whatever. Hopefully better things await. I ran Four to the outer fence, after which point it was prone all the way. Once inside, he quickly crawled his way to the trees bordering the north side of the barracks, and made his way to the edge. The zeds were getting pretty thick at this point. After peering at the tower for a while, there didn't appear to be anyone there (although it was hard to see through the murk), so I crawled Four out from his last cover and along the eastern side of the barracks toward the door on the southern side. Good news and bad news, here: I could clearly hear one or two zeds inside the building, so there was going to be some shooting, and I had no suppressed weapon (stupid, seductive FN FAL). But, their presence meant that this building most likely was not occupied by another looter or server hopper. Four made sure to give the building a fairly wide berth as he crawled along its length. Suddenly I heard the sound of slow footsteps on a hard surface. Uh oh. I looked around hurriedly and spotted a zed in fatigues walking slowly out of the barracks. Crap - that can only mean one thing, right? He wasn't actually making any aggro sounds, though. But he soon removed my doubts by charging Four as soon as he'd cleared the door. And, as if the world itself was mirroring the downturn in his luck, right at this point it began to rain torrentially. Damn! Thankfully I'd already thought to equip the (quieter) M1911. But before Four could use it, something happened for the first time in his young life. He's been pursued by zeds on many occasions, fielded fire from players on others, but here on a rainy night in day 20 of his run, he sustained his first damage. Whap! Bleeding. Four raised to a crouch and put a round in the zed's chest. And in an instant, the night came alive with screeching from every direction. I charged Four toward the door of the barracks. Inside, one zed yet remained, and he quickly got a round between the eyes. I ran Four down to the end of the hall and turned around, hoping to catch enough time to bandage. But there were already five inside the building, and more lined up outside in the storm. One by one, Four took out the five in the building. Reload. Then he took out another 3 or 4. Finally, then, he'd cleared enough room to bandage, which he did quickly. And then after clearing out a few more zeds, the only sound to be heard in the dark outside was the falling rain. Status check: not bleeding any more. No broken bones. Blood at around 10.2k. I quickly moused over the corpses, and pulled painkillers off one of them and had Four down them to head off the shakes. And then, finally, what I'd come for. Time to take stock of the loot! AKM plus mags. Pass. M4A1 CCO with two mags. Tempting, but... pass. I've already got a comparable weapon and way more ammo for it. A frag grenade, which I took in place of a smoke grenade. And, the big find: a M9 SD clip! I was pretty sure that could be used for the MP5SD, but I'd wait to try until I was able to GTFO to a safer location. Pulling Four out by the same route he'd entered was an easy and uneventful task, especially after clearing that many zeds. After retreating to the forest outside the fence, I tried right-clicking the M9 clip to see if I could convert it like ACP/M1911 ammo. No dice. Huh. Wait, is it as simple as just loading it into the MP5? I pulled it out to check. It showed one clip available and the reload icon! After hitting the middle mouse, I was locked and loaded - 15 silenced rounds! The entire airfield raid had taken place in a short amount of time, maybe 15 minutes tops. With a functional suppressed weapon in hand once more, I decided to take Four to nearby Devil's Castle and raid that before quitting. After a short run over, I circled Four around to where the road leads to the main gate. There was a zed parked right in the entryway. Click! One round and down. In the little side room there, Four found some food (10.4k health now), a drink, and a replacement bandage. On to the stairs into the main tower, where there was a stationary zed, as usual. Click! Not anymore. Four found an ACP clip that he converted to 1911 in there, but not much else that was useful. I did spend a few minutes taking a gander at the top of the tower as the sun was beginning to rise. Quite the view from up there! As Four was coming down the tower steps, I thought I heard the faint sound of a rifle shot. Had I imagined it? I waited a bit with my weapon trained on the entrance, but heard nothing more. I then checked the server player list - just me and one other guy. Looking at the zombie count, I saw that there were 45 spawned. It's cheap to metagame, but there was no way Devil's Castle would spawn that many, so that other player must be someplace else. I pulled Four back to the main entrance again, where a zed had spawned in the little open shed to the side of the road. Click! Dead. Four withdrew into the surrounding trees. He didn't find much beyond the basics in Devil's Castle, but it was a fun romp and a chance to use his new (old) toy. I think I'd read that partially spent clips have a habit of disappearing out of weapons when you log out, so I put the MP5 and the clip in my backpack and re-equipped the Kobra prior to disconnecting. Health: 10400 and change (*sniff*) Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 265/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Look for more helichoppers.

Sunday 7/15: I'll begin with a recap of recent events in Four's life, glossing over the less interesting bits. Over the past week Four has been doing a lot of map running, checking deer stands and looking for helicopter crashes. I found a place that I deemed suitable for a tent, so Four deployed the one in his pack, and then slipped the extra hunting knife and matches inside along with a couple of cans of food and a cooked steak. He also chopped some firewood and threw that in there as well. This stuff may or may not be there when he needs it, but he'll check on it and add to it from time to time if he's close by. Four did eventually stumble onto a crash site very close to where he'd found one previously, a ways outside of Grishino. After using almost an entire clip of silenced M9 rounds to get close, Four located a FN FAL and two mags near the wreckage. Reasoning that the silenced ammo wouldn't hold out much longer, I opted to finish out the clip on the closest zeds, and then I had Four drop the M9 in favor of the FN FAL. Looking back now, that was a huge mistake. I was afflicted with "loot fever" after finding a semi-rare weapon. But the simple truth is that the FN FAL's best use is as a player killer, and that is not Four's mission in life. I absolutely should have kept the M9. I found myself wishing for a silenced weapon on multiple occasions after having left it behind. I also visited the NE airfield at one point and was underwhelmed. Two hangars (think deer stand drops), an ATC building, and one or two crappy little outbuildings. Four picked up a couple of AK mags there. In fact, he found AK mags in a lot of places and is fairly swimming in them now. I think he has nine of them, and is now passing them over due to lack of space. Shortly after this visit I saw a YouTube video of two guys sniping this airfield from a hill about a million miles away. Given the risk - a huge open space surrounded by all kinds of potential sniper positions, with little to no doubt as to where the unsuspecting players will be found if they show up - I won't ever return here. There are much better places to get the same sort of drops. Four is now on day 20 of survival. Although I've obviously been playing carefully, I'm not shy about going after things that I want, and frankly did not expect him to have lived as long as he has. So, I decided to celebrate his 20-day anniversary by stepping up my game and giving the NW airfield a try. Four might find a fun new toy there, but more importantly, I won't feel as if I've really played this game unless I visit the place at least once. It's a rite of passage, I think. Four was very far south on the western side of the map when I decided this. So, I opted to move him straight northward, a path which offers plenty of cover as well as close proximity to a lot of deer stands, and then hit the pond by the road way to the north of Lopatino, finally swinging SE back to the airfield. He had barely begun the trip (casing a couple of barns west of Zelenogorsk) when I spotted a tent! Unfortunately, though, it was empty. In a bad spot, too - anyone planning on hitting the barns from the safety of the woodline couldn't help but trip over it. Before talking more about the barns, I should mention that Four ran into a couple of boars along his route, and would have liked to butcher them to replenish his meager food stores. But, in both cases the animals were located very close to a population of zeds, so he refrained. I think I'm witnessing natural selection at work, here. The players have eaten most of the stupid animals, and the smarter ones that are left have figured out that it pays to stick close to the new zed overlords. It's a perfect symbiotic relationship: the zeds only eat people, so the animals are safe. And animals attract the attention of hungry survivors, which makes the zeds happy. If the zeds do manage to nab anybody, whatever's left of them after the meal draws the blackflies away from the animals and fertilizes the ground, making for better grazing. Zombies and farm animals - a match made in heaven. Upon entering the first barn, Four spotted a glitched rabbit that was stuck in the floor. Perfect! There were a couple of zeds at the other end of the building, so shooting was pretty much a given anyway. Four dropped the zeds inside, cleaned up the half dozen or so attracted to the noise, and then ended the rabbit's suffering. After gutting it, he found a soda and drank it. On the move again and finding nothing of note in the deer stands, Four eventually arrived at the pond. I was just crawling him down to the waterline when I noticed a bus sticking out of the trees nearby. I quickly backtracked to some cover and proned Four there for a bit, looking for signs of life, but there weren't any. Good! If he's going to die in the near future, I want it to be in a blaze of glory at the airfield, not filling up his canteens in the middle of nowhere. Four quickly visited the watering hole and then crawled on over to the bus. Ooh.. there were THREE tents here. And they were anything but empty. The first was clearly the food tent - it was loaded with cans, drinks and steaks. I had Four eat one of his own steaks and replaced it with one from the tent. Tent number two was the medical one, filled with blood bags, painkillers, morphine and the like. Four was already pretty well stocked in this department - he'd even tossed his third dose of morphine to make room for another AK mag a while back. And the final tent acted as the armory! The stuff was decent but not great. A vanilla M4A1 and STANAG mags - nice, but pass. A Winchester and slugs. Four had loved his Winchester, but he'd be sticking with the Kobra. Some Draganov(sp?) mags - what are these for? I'd seen some in an ammo crate at the last chopper crash. But then... a suppressed MP5! BOOYAH. There were no mags for it, and Four had dropped the one he'd found earlier to make room for an AK mag. That wasn't stopping me, though. I crawled him off into the bushes and dumped the FN FAL and its two mags. If the owners of these tents found them there, fine - but I didn't feel comfortable leaving this PK rifle right in their tent for them. Bad karma. With space now available in his pack, Four crawled back to the tent and grabbed the MP5. So what to do with the bus, then? I had a thought: I'd always wondered what I'd find if I continued north up the road past the pond N of Lopatino. It just seemed like a lot of effort and bother to find out. But with a vehicle? Easy! Four hopped in, but I then immediately changed my mind when I saw the banged up state of the windshield. I could barely see out. Never mind - I'd explore that road if and when I found a more suitable vehicle. On the subject of more suitable vehicles, what's with the love of buses, anyway? Vehicle hoarders: they make your camp stick out like a sore thumb! On the run up, I'd been debating internally about whether it made more sense to hit the airfield during the day or during the night. At first glance, night seemed like the safer bet - cover of darkness and all that. But then, a player who'd frequent the airfield also seems like just the sort of player who'd have NVGs as well. I might be putting myself at an even bigger disadvantage. In the end I reminded myself that Rocket or some staff-type person had at one point said that only 2% of the player population possessed NVGs. That's too small a chance to worry about. Night it is. There's a deer stand east of the airfield, so I thought I'd check it and then leave Four parked there for an early morning incursion (say, 4:30 or so) before work. Upon arriving in the area and looking for the stand, I spotted a helicopter crash site! Being in the open this close to the airfield made me nervous, but I disregarded that fear almost immediately. Four is never going to hold that Bizon again if he passes these things by. So, he began his approach. Fortunately there was a line of trees extending almost all the way out to the crash site, so he was able to approach under cover. Four was exposed while investigating the wreck itself, but no risk, no reward. Unfortunately I wasn't able to locate any loot at all around the bird. After trying repeatedly for a while, withdrawing as needed when the zeds drew close, I finally gave up. Four located and check the stand (nothing good) and then signed off for the day. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 249/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: NW airfield.

Monday 7/9 - Wednesday 7/12: Patch day arrived on Monday, but after spending a bit of time perusing the forums, I opted to delay upgrading. I hesitated not only on account of the problems, but also because I will be a little sad to leave 1.7.1.5 behind. Four is on day 16 of survival and all of that time has been spent in this patch version. I will always associate it and its particular zed behavior with the fun of discovering this great game. So I think I will take advantage of the instances of the 1.7.1.5 Day Z universe that still exist here and there before they vanish entirely. I will say that I also wanted to exploit this more familiar zed behavior in order to replace Four's lost compass. A while back I happened upon Rocket's explanation of the "exponential visibility calculation" change on page 100+ of the 1.7.2 pending update thread, and I remember being amazed that what sounded like far and away the biggest change of the bunch was buried halfway down the list of changes and written in technical, opaque language. At the time I make the transition to the new patch, I'd like to have compass in hand and be camped somewhere out in the wilderness, so that I can have my first encounter with the new zeds on my own terms. I started Operation Compass by sneaking Four back into Polana to hit the market again. No luck. I checked the red building next door with no success either. Though it was a risk, I logged Four off there so that I could hit the market one more time at the start of my next session later in the day. And when I logged in then, I struck out again. I pulled Four out to the deer stand to the east, where he picked up a third dose of morphine. I'd had three doses on him when my inventory had gotten wiped the day before - it was nice to have caught back up to where I'd been on this important item. On Tuesday morning I had a few minutes so I moved Four back into Polana to check the market again. No compass. Again I left him in the red building next door so that I could try once more that evening after work. And guess what I didn't find then? Upon logging in bright and early on Wednesday morning, I decided after checking the market one last time (nope) to head back into Berezino, where the market there had coughed up a compass prior to Four's last inventory reset. It was night on the server I'd logged into, but I established my bearings from the deer stand east of Polana in relation to the town, and I knew it was a straight shot NE through the woods. I set my heading and moved Four out. Upon Four's punching through the other side of the forest, the transition to daylight was just beginning. I thought I saw the town up ahead, and I kept Four to the treeline as long as possible before dropping him to prone and heading into the open. I'll spare you the drawn out details and just let you know that I'd missed my mark, but it took quite a bit of crawling about in the grass, peering through the murk and repeatedly thinking "it must be just over that rise" before realizing it. When I finally hit the railroad tracks, I crawled alongside them in the direction I suspected I should be going, and was then able to orient myself upon crossing a road. So although it took a full 30 mins of playtime more than I'd expected, Four did eventually arrive in Berezino. By the way, I fully appreciated the irony of all this. A couple of days prior, I was terribly mad at myself for unknowingly and mistakenly venturing into Berezino, a mistake caused by the lack of a compass. Two days later, there I was trying deliberately to get back to that same place, and I couldn't find it due to the lack of a compass. Or put another way, I was going to Berezino to get a compass so that I would never again wander into Berezino for want of a compass. The town was quiet. I checked both the restaurant and the market, and found no compass. Sigh. I did find a tent at the market in this go round, though. I almost passed it by - Four is tied to no server and I like it that way - but then I had a thought. What if after transitioning to 1.7.2 I picked a server and used the tent to make a little starter package for Five in the middle of nowhere? I wouldn't put anything particularly valuable in it, because it was a given that some player or other would stumble upon it sooner or later. But if I placed it in an area frequented mostly by established players (i.e., well away from the coast) and stocked it with the simplest essentials, there was a good chance that whoever found it would leave it be after seeing that it held nothing they needed. I could never depend on this tent - no running into the area half starved counting on it to be there, fully stocked - but with some luck it might just save me some inconvenience in the future. I elected to keep it. Four ate a can of food and discarded the two blood bags to make room for it. I'm sure the blood will raise someone's eyebrows if they find it there in the market. There was a spare hunting knife and set of matches in the market, so Four added those to his backpack to be used as the first two care package items for the tent. I logged out in the second floor of the restaurant. And, upon trying again that evening, Four finally got his damn compass. About friggin time! I think I counted 5 maps and at least 15 watches in all of the attempts. IMO watches, compasses and maps should spawn with equal frequency. Maybe they are supposed to but that sure as hell isn't my experience of the probabilities. I pulled Four out of Berezino to the west (which I knew BECAUSE OF MY COMPASS) and began to work my way NW through the trees once Four had reached them. Before too long I spotted a clearing with some buildings in it. Without realizing it, I had wandered back into the vicinity of the barns where I'd first experienced the inventory mishap! I wondered if there was yet more soda inside. I didn't want to find out, though - being here gave me the creeps. What if it wasn't Chicago 15 at fault after all, but just this inventory Bermuda Triangle portion of the game map? Four might have caught Inventory Disease here. I did check the nearby deer stand before moving out and found a mag for the MP5SD. Four didn't have that weapon at present, but I really liked it when he did, so he pocketed the mag in case he gets lucky. I moved Four a bit more to the NW and checked a couple more deer stands (nothing good), and took out a few zeds, before calling it a day. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 177/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Hit deer stands for AK ammo and look out for helicopter crash sites.

Sunday 7/8, part 2: I'd been trying to be a good sport about Four's inventory glitches, but at this point my patience was wearing thin. Frustration over the inability to retain anything had long since won out over lingering disappointment about the good gear lost in the first mishap. I needed to do a little research to see if anyone else was experiencing issues like this one. A Google search turned up a few threads, one of which was very interesting. Other players were complaining of the same issue in very recent posts. But the second page of the thread held the real smoking gun - a couple of people mentioned the Chicago 15 server in particular. Son of a BITCH. I'd been on that server repeatedly today. When I was first logging in, I got booted from whatever server I'd tried to join, so I next tried Chicago 15, because I play on it all the time without issue. That's when the first gear wipe happened. Then, I'd switched servers to get away from the already looted deer stand and barn. I was probably just fine there. But when the crippling lag in Berezino had become too frustrating, I switched servers... back to Chicago 15. And all my gear was gone again. I'd been treating it as a known-reliable server, and now it looked as if it was the source of all of my problems. Back to the game. In browsing the server list, I gravitated toward one with an extremely low player count - I was hoping for night, where I could hopefully loot Berezino in peace and then GTFO. I found one, connected, and was rewarded with a nighttime setting lit by a beautiful big full moon in a clear sky - just the sort of compromise between cover and ease of visibility I wanted. I started back on the second floor of the restaurant. In there I found some bandages and food, and then quickly headed over to the market. Again, one of everything... almost. An Alice pack, tons of food and soda, a map, matches, a watch, a M1911 with a ton of ammo, a double-barreled shutgun and shells, but no compass. Damn, I value the compass over almost everything else. The lack of a compass was what got me stranded in Berezino in the first place! Well, there's always the market in Polana. Time to head out. I headed out by way of the hospital, where there was nothing to speak of either by the trash or on the roof. But after heading around front, I saw that on this server the glass was broken. Works for me! Four headed in and helped himself to a few morphine injectors, a couple of boxes of painkillers, and two bags of blood. Why the blood? I'd never had them before. Maybe I'd get to play good samaritan before needing to discard them to clear up space. I headed out of town on the exact same route I'd used to get in initially. Once Four reached the safety of the trees, I used the clouds to set a SW heading through the woods. And before long, I emerged from the trees to see what I'd been aiming for from the start: Polana. I moved Four a bit south prior to approaching, so that I could move him in from the east. On his way in he spotted a long barn and decided to pay it a visit. The zeds were pretty thick during the approach, but I managed to squeak him by without incident. Inside the barn I kept Four prone, because there were tons of zeds visible outside. There wasn't much of use to him inside, except for a hatchet, which he gladly took. He's just a hunting knife away from replenishing his store of cooked steaks. As I started to crawl toward one of the end doors, I heard the unmistakeable sound of zed aggro really close by. Crap. He must have heard or spotted Four through the wall - even with him crawling! Out came the M1911, and the zed dropped on the first shot. The sound drew another, and Four made short work of him as well. At this point Four kept completely still for a couple of minutes, listening for signs of further zed aggro or of another player. Satisfied that the coast was clear, Four began crawling for the door again. And again came the sound of immediate zed aggro. Damn! At least this didn't happen in that first barn near Dubrovka when he was completely naked. Dispatching this zed brought his friends out in earnest, and in the space of a minute's time Four had dropped a bunch more. The coast was pretty clear now. I moved Four toward the center of town and the market. As he made his final approach across a yard, a fence blocked his path. Looking around, the coast seemed clear, so I elected to vault it rather than backtrack. Up, over, down... seemed ok. But then I heard scurrying from behind and turned to see a crawler heading Four's way. I raised quickly to a crouch run and ran for the back door of the market. The pursuing zed arrived shortly thereafter for his date with a M1911 round, and the sound attracted one more for a repeat performance. Wow - that's a hell of a lot more action than Four normally sees on an approach! Remember how long he went with a kill score of zero? Now he was up to 169. Regrettably, this market was a repeat of Berezino's. Tons of useful stuff (which Four already had), enough watches to open a jewelry store, but no compass. A quick search of a nearby brick building turned up more of the same. Damn these Makarov clips - I keep getting my hopes up when I see them lying on the ground from a distance. I took Four out of town to the east, knowing that there was a deer stand at the edge of the treeline. Upon arriving, I climbed him up and found an AKS-74 Kobra and an AK mag. Nice. This was a great weapon for Four, offering a nice compromise between distance and short range shooting, relatively quiet, and with a nice scope to boot. There was another deer stand to the SW, across the road near the factory that refuses to cough up toolboxes. I thought I'd end the session there. Four headed that way, climbed it, and found a suppressed M9 handgun and two clips. Hey, I'm back in the suppressed weapon business! Four ate and drank to clear a little pack space and then stowed this new find away. After logging off, I immediately relaunched Arma and logged back in to the same server. Drumroll... inventory intact! Stupid Chicago 15. Maybe you die a thousand horrible deaths. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 169/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: Get a compass. Wield the Bizon SMG again before dying. It completes me.

Friday 7/6: Today's playing actually spanned two sessions, but the morning one was so short that it hardly bears mentioning. I checked the deer stand before heading out and found nothing special. I then moved Four NW through the forest until I sighted the road to Petrovka, stopping along the way to down a boar and replenish my cooked meat. Upon connecting later in the day, I resolved to begin by heading into Petrovka to refill my water bottles. There were a lot of open fields to see during the approach, and I looked about hopefully for any sign of another downed chopper, but saw none. Upon reaching the outer reaches of Petrovka, I dropped Four into the prone position. On the way in he dropped one or two zeds with the Bizon, and filled up his bottles. I didn't see much in the way of enterable buildings. It was only on his way out of town to the west that I finally spotted one, but I'd already moved Four some distance away, and the house was small enough not to be worth returning for. From Petrovka I moved Four due west across some open fields, finally reaching a long line of trees running north to south that allowed him to approach the road again under cover. Once it was in sight, I approached a small house that was nearby and crawled Four over to the outhouse behind it, where he found a can of pasta inside. Really? Has it come to this? I know it's a zombie apocalypse, but eating food out of an outhouse that's baking in the open sun? Oh well - at least it's canned food. With no room to carry it, Four closed his eyes and downed it before moving on. A deer stand was located a short distance to the west of this house, so Four moved in that direction. I wasn't liking the terrain around here too much - too many of the objectives felt out in the open with all kinds of cover around the edges that could be hiding other players. Even the woods themselves felt so open that I didn't think they offered much concealment as Four moved through them. But the other players were clearly somewhere else today - Four reached the stand without issue. Inside he found a soda, which he drank immediately, as well as a heatpack and a STANAG mag, which he left. From here Four began to move W-SW toward a pond located to the side of the road well north of Lopatino. Once he reached the edge of the woods, there was a small house, but I found no loot spawns, and the two or three zombies I dropped had nothing of interest either. So, Four continued on to the west, where he ultimately found the pond, filled his canteens, and then crawled into the trees to end this session. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 65/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: continue operating in the northern reaches of the map. Sunday 7/8: I'm a little behind on my reporting. I played quite a bit on Saturday but didn't write much because Four has been spending a lot of time doing things which don't make for good storytelling (mostly running around remote areas looking for helicopter crashes). I can give you the highlights of this period in Four's life very quickly. I assaulted Devil's Castle at night and found a M1911 there (no players). I found a M16A2 with the underslung M203 launcher in a deer stand somewhere, and discarded the AK74 in favor of it. In a separate find, upon ducking Four into some tiny outbuilding way out in the boonies, I found a toolbox! If you've been reading along from the start, you know that I've been after that for a while. Most importantly, I fell very deeply in love with the Bizon SMG. I thought I loved the suppressed MP5, but after spending some time with the Bizon, I realized that the MP5 was just a dalliance on the way to this much more meaningful relationship. Many zeds fell to it, never having realized that there was a tasty survivor snack crawling about in the grass a little ways away. At the point when this period of Four's life came to an abrupt end, his zed count stood at 157. What sort of abrupt end do I mean? Just this: upon clearing a couple of hours to play on Sunday afternoon, I logged in and immediately noticed something a little off. After frowning for a moment without putting my finger on it, I realized that I couldn't see a weapon in Four's hands. Upon nervously checking the gear menu, I saw that Four had no equipment whatsoever. No main weapon or items, no handgun/ammo/bandages, nothing in his tool slots, and not even a backpack. No food or water either - and his thirst meter was already pretty red. After processing this state of affairs and attempting an Alt-F4 and a couple of server changes, I felt like I needed a drink myself. No amount of restarting or server switching helped. Four was even more naked than a beach-spawned noob, and he was already thirsty - although oddly, his zed count was still intact. I tried not to think about my beloved Bizon SMG as I chanted "it's an alpha, it's an alpha" repeatedly. There was no time for that anyway. The basic needs would have to be met, and soon. Four was in the trees just to the west of Dubrovka. From his position, he could see a set of barns (a long one and a tall one) nearby. I wasted no time in moving him toward them, dropping him prone as he neared the long barn. I'd need to execute the approach gracefully - he hadn't so much as a melee weapon to use to defend himself. When I got him into position at one end of the barn, I noted with relief that there were no zeds inside, although there was at least one in the tall barn. Inside the long barn Four found two sodas and a bandage or two amonst the other crap - score! I retreated him back toward my starting point, where I remembered there was a deer stand not too far off. In there he found an AKS-74u and some ammo. Ok, that's a start! I decided to log off to test my inventory retention abilities. It was only after returning to the Windows desktop that it occurred to me that maybe Four should have drank one of the sodas BEFORE doing the inventory test. That thought gave me a bad feeling. One which was, unfortunately, confirmed when I logged back in to find Four sans weapon and sodas. W-T-F. Something seriously messed up was going on today. In all my hours of playing, everything had always run very stably, except for the occasional lag, and now this all of a sudden? What the hell was going on? Whatever it was, it was clear that Four would be operating under a new paradigm until I got it figured out. Since character state seemed to be saving just fine, I would need to eat and drink just before logging off. Even if I couldn't save the food and drink, I could at least apply one of each to my character state. I'd also need to keep Four near reliable sources of equipment in case I needed to gear up during every session. Right now, though, the thirst problem was paramount. I quickly switched servers, knowing that my current one was home to an already looted deer stand and barn. Upon logging in, I headed into the deer stand to find some bandages, flares, and... a M203 HE round. Seriously? The only M203 rounds I ever seem to find are flares, and ten minutes after stripping me of my M16A2 M203 the game gives me an explosive M203 round? It was starting to feel like someone was toying with me. I was imagining Rocket twirling his mustache and turning to a friend to say, "Ha! What should we do to him next?" Back into the long barn I went, where Four found one soda and a Remington 870 and ammo. He wasted no time in chugging that soda, thank you very much. No food to speak of yet, but then Four was only moderately hungry. I decided that my best bet was to move Four toward Polana, where there was a market. It would be an easy run, not far to the south and just a little east. After clearing the barn area, I raised Four to a crouch-run and hit K to check his compass. Oh, right... he doesn't have a compass any more. So how does this work again? Clouds move east, clouds move east. After peering at the sky for a while, I guesstimated the correct bearing and moved Four out. Shortly into the trip, Four had to cross the road in order to keep to the safety of the trees. Once he'd plunged into the woodline on the other side and had been running for a while, I realized that I was going to need to keep landmarks in sight to assist in navigation. Without a compass it is much harder to plow through the middle of a forest and come out in the proper location. So, I angled Four in the direction I was expecting to see the road, and before long I spotted it. I followed along within the edge of the treeline until I started to see some outbuildings. Once Four got a little closer, I dropped him to prone and began crawling in. Fortunately I was able to see the market way off in the distance, so my path was clear to me. Four moved down a hill and into the town itself, where I lost sight of the market due to the buildings obscuring the view. One big building in particular was really an obstacle, but I remembered that the market had been located close to it, so I decided to treat it as a waypoint and head for it instead. Just what the hell was that building, anyway? As Four drew closer, it was clear that it was much bigger than what I'm used to seeing. As Four began to get really close, he finally got a good look at the front. Medical signs - it was a hospital. That's odd - I didn't know there was a hospital in Polana. Wait a minute... there ISN'T a hospital in Polana. Oh, for f*ck's sake - Four was in Berezino. That's just great. Without my compass to aid me, I'd just brought Four into one of the PK capitals of Chernarus, with only eight Remington rounds standing between him and the Almighty. Well, there was no going back now. The hospital glass was unbroken, and I wasn't about to mess with that. However, I remembered from DevilDog's videos that there's a loot spawn around back, and another on the roof. Four found painkillers by the dumpster, but on the roof he found two doses of morphine - nice! On to the market, where Four basically found one of everything. A map, a compass, a watch, matches, a flashlight, an Alice pack, a M1911 and clips, and plenty to eat and drink. From there I took him into a nearby restaurant, where he found a bit more food and more bandages. At this point Four had so much food and soda that I decided to have him eat and drink again right then. But then another problem cropped up - nothing happened after clicking on the "Eat Food" context menu option. That's usually a sign of severe lag. I noticed then that the debug window was gone as well - also not a good sign. Time to head out. I moved Four down to ground level, went prone, and started crawling toward the edge of town. I was starting to see a lot of red and yellow lag chains. Once out of the main town buildings, I saw a long barn up ahead. Crap, that probably meant I was heading east. Well, whatever. With the lag and lack of weaponry, I just wanted to get out of dodge. As I was approaching the barn, a zed appeared around the left edge of it, so I pivoted Four to the right to go around that side of it. And then... *blink*. I was back on the second floor of the restaurant. Most bestest desynch warp ever! Ok, I give up. Time to find a new server. The eating and drinking sound effects had finally played as I'd been moving Four out of town, and my hunger/thirst icons looked good, so I elected to skip any further eating and drinking attempts. I logged off, closed Arma, and reset my router. Then I logged into another server, where... Four was on the second floor of the restaurant in Berezino, without any equipment whatsoever. AWESOME. ...to be continued Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 157/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: stop the madness.

Happened to me too, three times today. I play Chicago 15 a lot (including today). The first time was the most painful, as I had very nice gear. The subsequent times have just been annoying - gear up, gone. Gear up, gone. I'm staying away from that server from now on. Too many people on this thread have mentioned Chicago 15.

Thursday 7/5: Since completing my last session, I'd been giving my weapon situation some thought. Four was Mr. Suppressed Fire now, which suits me, but as I took a closer look at the Bizon SMG, it dawned on me that both it and the MP5 were short range weapons. They were great for infiltrations into zed territory, but if Four encountered another player, they wouldn't serve him very well unless he got the drop on them at short range (and really, how often does that happen?). So, I resolved to look for a weapon that would extend his effective firing range to 300+ meters if the need arose. I'd assess what to get rid of if and when Four found something suitable. Upon logging in, I made the decision to put the Bizon into play as Four's primary weapon. Four equipped and loaded it, and then set it to semi-automatic firing mode. That done, I thought I'd have him check the nearby deer stand one last time before heading out. As he was approaching, I spotted a military zed passing right by it, so I paused Four to wait for it to move away. As I watched it, it occurred to me that it was heading on a path that would shoehorn it between obstacles on each side. I wondered if its pathfinding would cause it to do a 180 degree turn. Sure enough, it shortly whipped around and started shambling right toward Four. A good opportunity to try out the Bizon! After waiting a bit until the zed was closer, Four squeezed off a single round, and missed. No reaction! Although this weapon was not completely silent like the MP5, it was quiet enough not to raise an alert even when fired in close proximity to a zed. Good to know. Four dropped the zed with his next shot, and found nothing after checking it for items. Four was now clear to scale the deer stand unobserved, and did so. Upon reaching the top of the ladder, he was met with an interesting sight. Deer stands have two loot spawn points, one on each side. This one had spawned the exact same thing on both sides: an AK74 with two mags (so, two weapons and four magazines in all). I pulled Four back to the safety of some nearby bushes to think this one over. This would be a very nice weapon for Four to have. It was quieter than the AKM he'd passed on earlier, and had an effective range of 300 meters. This was just the sort of thing I'd been saying that I should look out for before beginning to play today. Then too, as if to answer the question of whether this find was worthy of Four dropping one of his existing weapons, the game saw fit to throw no less than four AK mags at his feet as well (four for Four!). So he would be keeping this new find. But what to get rid of? You might think that this was a no-brainer, considering he had nearly two hundred rounds of ammunition for the Bizon and only 30 for the MP5, but I had one main reservation. The Bizon is a boutique firearm in this game. It was entirely reasonable to expect that once I had expended the three mags I had on hand - however long that might take - that the Bizon would be useful only as a poorly weighted walking stick. I don't think its ammo spawns anywhere except chopper crash sites. Four had only 30 rounds for the MP5, but at least its ammo spawns in deer stands. I reminded myself that in Day Z you have to live in the moment, and 190 rounds now beats 30 with the potential for more later. So it was with great care and sadness that Four placed his beloved MP5SD and its magazine into the grass a ways off from the deer stand. He then toasted his old weapon with a can of soda, and placed a bandage on the ground next to it, thereby clearing up the necessary room to hold the new AK74 and its mags. I climbed him back up into the deer stand and grabbed all of the ammo and one of the weapons. I hope he chose the lucky one. It's worth noting that Four's inventory is running a bit leaner these days with respect to survival basics. He no longer carries flares or a smoke grenade. He discarded his extra painkillers, and is down to carrying three bandages. He has exactly four each of food and drink. Given that he has only himself to rely upon, I don't think I want him running about with any less of those things. If Four stumbles upon more Bizon or AK mags, there will be some tough choices to be made. Maybe the extra frag grenade or the third dose of morphine will need to be left behind. If it comes down to the frag, I suppose I'd use it for practice rather than just leave it laying somewhere. Perhaps Four can blow up a cow - he'd happily eat ground beef in addition to steak. Well, enough ruminating about equipment. There is a deer stand located S-SE of Devil's Castle, N-NE of Four's present location, so I moved Four north across the road and into the trees to begin the trip. As I marched him along, I thought to myself that I really like this area of the map. It's quiet; there's plentiful tree cover; and the look of the airy pine forests is just visually appealing. Adding to the pleasantness of this trip was the ease of navigation - once Four had negotiated the initial stretch of forest to his north, there was a road for him to follow from the safety of the trees which put him right in the vicinity of his destination, across a field to the east. Rather than take him out into the open, I had him skirt the edge of the field from within the safety of the trees until he reached a grove that he could follow south to the stand. This one proved to be empty - the law of averages evening the field after the double-AK stand he'd just visited. I did note with satisfaction during Four's final approach that he now had situationally approriate weaponry. Running about the map toward some distant destination? Have the AK74 in hand, ready in case another player was spotted. Infiltrating a building or deer stand? The Bizon gets swapped into play in order to make quiet, tactical strikes against the zeds. Once Four had finished checking this stand, the Bizon went back into his pack. There was one more stand I planned to check today, E-NE of Devil's Castle. I moved Four off to the NE, which from the looks of things would keep him within the safety of the trees until reaching a road. That point would offer the shortest distance in the open as he crossed a field to the north. From there, he could follow the treeline, first to the north, and then to the west, until arriving at his destination. This all went according to plan until he was in the home stretch, where I experienced a strong sense of deja-vu. As I moved Four westward through the trees, with the open field visible to his left and the ground sloping steeply down to his right, I felt pretty sure that I was tracing a route that my last character had at some point as well. I had run him around pretty much at random without consulting a map, but I remember that he did visit Devil's Castle at one point. Given how familiar this particular spot looked, he must have approached from this direction. I honestly can't remember what Four found in this last stand. Nothing worth keeping, anyway. I crawled him off into the trees and disconnected. Health: 12000 Zeds/Survivors/Bandits killed: 59/0/0 Future goals, in order of priority: continue operating in the northern reaches of the map.