FlashHawk4

First off, I apologize for the length. A neat little summary is avaliable at the bottom. There are a number of reasons why the presence of armored vehicles in an event would be plausible. In terms of the real world, I'd more or less agree with this, for the following reasons: 1. Of course there will be armored vehicles lying about in the event of an apocalyptic, societal-breakdown-grade event like the one this game depicts. The military will obviously be sent out, and they won't be leaving their heavy equipment at home. APCs like the one pictured will most likely be used in roadblocks and quarantines, which, in conventional zombie lore, tend to get overrun. The soldiers may or may not get a chance to drive them away in the event of said overrun (multi-ton, massive-diesel-engine armored vehicles aren't quite instant ignition like the average sedan, after all). Others will be left ready at high alert on military bases. Obviously, they will be present. 2. Zombies do not have anti-tank/anti-aircraft capabilities. Why there are so many catastrophically-killed BMPs dotting the landscape is beyond me. Unless there was a full-blown civil war that coincided with societal collapse, there is no reason for there to be explosively-destroyed armored vehicles around. So, the military's armor will not be catastrophically killed. Mobility problems, like a broken tread or engine problems, will occur just like in any other military op. Crew kills might hypothetically occur, if the zombies get incredibly, incredibly lucky. Perhaps someone decided to pop the emergency escape hatch on the bottom of certain tank models to take a piss, as many tankers do. Perhaps then a conveniently placed zombie, irritated by that golden shower, proceeded to climb up into the belly of the beast. Perhaps the crew got out of the tank for a second, as obviously people have always done since the invention of the tank, and the zombies chased them off. Any way you think about it, the number of AFVs that get destroyed or rendered inoperable will be fewer than the number left idle and unattended. 3. It's not IMPOSSIBLE to learn how to drive an armored vehicle. For starters, you don't automatically die if you have no idea what you're doing, like flying a helicopter or jumbo jet. Many have steering wheels, and the rest use a lever-based approach that can be figured out in about half an hour. I believe the M113 is the latter. Maybe up to 75% of them will end up somewhere stupid, like in a basement, a ravine, or a pond while people try to figure the controls out. But the other 25% will be successfully figured out. 4. What most people don't quite consider is that even though the military command structure broke down, there will obviously still be soldiers. Soldiers are the ideal candidates for surviving a zombie apocalypse, provided they aren't personally given suicide missions, and just like how you and your neighbor might team up because you're friends, Private Jones and Private Frank would conceivably team up because they've spent the last two years side by side. And, if they were in an APC, then boom. 1, 2, and 3 are all solved already. There's a trained driver, and they don't have to get the vehicle secondhand from an abandoned fortification. So those guys will be roving the wastes, obviously. Now the GAMEPLAY reasons why I think an APC might be beneficial. 1. Given the absence of DIY armored vehicles in ArmA, an APC would fill the niche of heavily-armored big-dog survivor vehicle. It would be useful for fielding rescue calls in conjunction with a radio communications system., or a search-and-destroy mission, or a combat medevac operation. It would also be an invaluable tool for aspiring law enforcers. When these wasteland marshal types receive a call reporting a hostile sniper in a bush somewhere, they would love to have an armored vehicle to let them roll up to the area without the risk of a sniper killing the driver from behind the windshield. And of course PvPers would love it too. 2. Obviously this is not something that would be avaliable on one's first day in Chernarus, nor even one's first week in Chernarus. It would be a long-term goal to strive towards, which this game is seriously lacking in my opinion. Part of the reason I think there is so much mindless PvPing is because people simply get bored; much like this Russian project I was involved with, an MMO variant of Fallout 2 called Fallout: Online, when all you give players are guns and bullets, that's what people go with. They look for the best guns and the best bullets, they find other people with the best guns and the best bullets, and they fight people. Clearly repairing an armored vehicle and keeping it fuelled (more on that later) will be a task that requires trade and cooperation with others. It's not something you can really accomplish while leading a solitary bandit lifestyle. 3. I want a tank. Now, the reasons why I think this is a BAD idea: 1. Armored vehicles' fuel usage is measured in hundreds of liters, not individual liters or even dozens of liters. A five-gallon jerry can would hardly even whet an APC's appetite; they have gas tanks designed to hold between 250L to 1000L of fuel, depending on the model, and they use every drop of it in an extended operation. Most likely a patrol of Chernarus's coastal highway would take over 150L of fuel in an M113, and that's a lot of jerry cans. And I'm personally not a fan of introducing more jerry cans to quiet whiners. 2. Gameplay would no doubt suffer. I'm not particularly a fan of the "that'll make this game too hard for the n00bs" argument; deal with it. Suck it up. That's what this game is about, sucking it up. You'll get swarmed, you'll get sniped, you'll get screwed over in every way. But still, even I agree an APC is a bit much, given the current armory Day Z features. The only thing that could reliably stop it would be the M136, and we all know how rare those are. Until homemade explosives become a feature, I'm somewhat agreeing that armor is OP. A quick disclaimer, though: a good marksman could probably take out the gunner on an M113. And after that, what's the worst they can do, splatter you? Go into the editor in ArmA and spawn yourself an M113. Tell me how hard you think this rolling brick is to dodge matador-style compared to certain other vehicles. 3. I would wildly prefer DIY vehicles over military AFVs. It's simply much more realistic. If it were up to me, my Day Z vehicles would turn into Mad Max jalopies with corrugated sheet metal, chicken wire, and all sorts of ridiculous armor plating. However, that capability is not in the game as of yet, obviously. Still, I think it would be worth the extra effort to design player-made improvised armor features rather than cop out and let them all use APCs. Not that I think a couple of APCs would be a bad thing; I just don't think they should be considered a substitute for these. Well, there's my rant. Take it how you will. Overall, I don't think they'd be as destabilizing as some people say. They'd be fuel hogs, clearly, and they're also only as dangerous as their gun and their speed, which isn't as ridiculously overpowered as some of you are making it out to be. But, I'd like to see a few more features added before they're implemented, namely radios (to make them more useful in the bigger picture), IEDs and homemade explosives, to provide some kind of mid-level counter to these vehicles so that the only plausible anti-tank weapons aren't the ultrarare rocket launchers and the...controversial anti-materiél rifles. And finally, I'd like to also see real post-apocalyptic vehicles with fun bits of 2x4 and sheet metal on them more so than a full-on military APC.

As far as I'm concerned, the HE/incendiary ammo is a no-go. A lot of servicemen I know have gone through their entire career without even handling these types of ammo...especially HE. Now, given the fact that this is Day Z, where would you get even single bullet of those varieties? And, as a sidenote, incendiary ammo doesn't set people on fire when it hits them. Unless you're in Hollywood, of course. I'd like to see more of the civvie ammo types in the game, as others have mentioned...hollowpoints of course, as well as maybe two or three additional shotgun shells. I'm under the impression that right now the only types are slug and pellet (which seems closer to birdshot than buckshot, if you ask me). Plus, the corrosive ammo is a good point. People don't realize how much of a difference it makes, but there are some ammo types that are so dirt cheap and terrible that some neighborhood shooting ranges ban them entirely (certain Russian companies, and Federal Ammunition). It's sold by the assload, but it sucks. Once, I even saw a lot of surplus Persian Army (no, not Iranian Army. We're talking pre-1979) Mauser ammunition, which I subsequently found out tends to missfire at a rate of 60% or higher. So...yeah. Handloading is possible, but it takes a bit more than a bullet and a casing to make a round. Obviously there's the powder, and there's also a good deal of tools and know-how involved. I'm not saying it isn't something the average Joe couldn't learn to do with the time, money, and equipment, but it's another thing entirely to learn the craft in the middle of the woods in the middle of Armageddon. It's not like it's 1757 where we can sit at a campfire with a cup 'o lead and a bullet mold and hammer out enough cartridges for the next big shootout tomorrow. It would have to involve a quasi-factory, and a good supply chain. Big possibility for the post-scavenging, pre-civilization phase of the game that I pray will be possible eventually. But for the one to three man group with a toolbox and a campsite, it's not very feasible.

As far as I'm concerned, the "bonuses" players should earn consist of the things they DO with the time they spend alive, as opposed to simply existing for a set amount of time. The incentive to stay alive shouldn't be more health, steadier aim, or anything like that...aside from the disease resistance (I'm rather partial to that idea, human immune systems after all produce antibodies even after a disease has faded, to prevent the body from catching the disease again). Also the gentleman above me pointed out that there's no workout program like wilderness survival ina zombie apocalypse, so therefore (as long as people remain well fed and hydrated), exercise should factor into this in a slight way. Slightly faster tree-cutting, slightly longer stamina, perhaps like 250-500 more blood, etc. With, of course, the assumption that you're actually doing stuff to earn this, instead of sitting in the corner of a warehouse. Anyway, I think the incentive should also come from more end-game options (we all know the current one is to basically arm up to Rambo status and then shoot people at airfields) than anything else. I'm not talking about winning. I'm talking about the ability to clear areas and make them (more or less) safe, and then start building up. Stuff like that.

Before you guys shoot me down for making a "we need melee weapons lol" thread, bear with me for a bit, because this a little different. If, in the real world, an armed soldier was attacked by one of these zombies at point blank range, and he was unable to shoot, he wouldn't run away from it, or shoulder his rifle and take a hatchet or knife out of his belt to fight them off. He would, probably by reflex, tuck his elbow against his rifle stock and swing the bottom edge at the zombie's head. That's what he's trained to do, after all. And if this situation was happening, they would likely have their bayonets fixed as well. What I think we need is an alternate fire mode, in addition to "semi", "full", "flare", "smoke grenade", etc. is a Melee fire mode. It wouldn't be the magic one hit kill of Call of Duty, obviously, but it would be a good thing to see. Simply double tap F to cycle from semi to full to Melee, and you'd see your character shift his position to a fighting stance. Hit reload, and if you have the appropriate bayonet for your weapon, your character would fix it on the barrel of the weapon. You might say that's a lot of work, or it's overpowered, but I disagree. After all, Melee weapons aren't supported in the ArmA base code, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, so it woul be pretty much the exact same procedure to do this as it would be to add in basebal bats or scythes or whatever. They even have the basic 3D models to work with at the start. The most complicated process, I would assume (though I'm not a coder), would probably be the actual motions made by the character. I think it would be a major benefit to the game if we could use the weapons in our hands at the moment when a zombie rushes us. At the very least, it could push him back. And it would make finding bayonets for the bayonet-compatible weapons (Lee Enfield, Kalashnikovs, M-16s, FALs, etc etc) an additional challenge to gun owners, since at the moment all they need to do is find bullets and they're set until they need to find more bullets. It would also provide a slight logistical question, whether or not they wanted to switch their bayonet for an additional magazine in their inventory, since in my mind the bayonet would work almost exactly like a magazine in terms of storage and equipping, save of course the ammo count. At the moment, you're usually forced by the screwy inventory system to drop your rifle to pull out a hatchet. And even if that WERE fixed, you'd still have the issue of requiring precious seconds to switch from gun to Melee, all the while a zombie or two is probably standing next to you, cutting you open, breaking your legs, or even knocking you unconscious. That's how about 75% of all my zombie deaths occur, is me deciding to pull out my hatchet and getting mauled before I get it equipped (and reloaded, lol). Please consider this suggestion thoroughly, and leave your feedback if you have anything to add or detract.

Sorry to pester you guys, but you were probably a bit pissed that I ignored your deliberate instructions. Here's the report in the proper format. I also don't know if it was a glitch or not, but I'm fairly certain we're supposed to spawn on the beach. Date/Time: ~6:30 Central time, 7/05/12 What happened: I aborted to server screen after dying to restart, and when I spawned back in (no server changes or closing the game in between), I had spawned halfway embedded in the floor of a house in Novy Sobor. I managed to wiggle out somehow, and the game went normally from there. I doubt this is related, but there were hatchets in every drop spawn point in most of the town which I couldn't pick up. Where you were: Died in Elektro, I believe, and respawned in Novy Sobor. What you were doing: Respawning in the game, after dying from zombies. *Current installed version: Most recent. *Server(s) you were on: Dallas 51, I believe. It was in my original report. *Your system specs: Fairly terrible, is all I can say for this, I wasn't playing on my computer. I don't think that had anything to do with it, though. *Timeline of events before/after error: Died, hit abort on the YOU ARE DEAD screen, exited to server screen with player pool and whatnot, then hit the button to go into the game. All within about forty five seconds. The process went normally, until The typed right-hand text read "CHERNARUS- NOVY SOBOR", and I could see partially textured buildings all around me. I had spawned partly underneath the map, inside one of the red brick apartments. At no point in this process did I switch servers, exit the game program, or do anything different than when I normally restart the game. I assure you my ARMA and Day Z files are up to spec, no after-market modifications whatsoever. This is an excellent mod, I commend you guys on it! Keep up the good work!

I'm sorry if I offend anyone, or if this seems like an insult, but here it is. I took a break from these forums for one week. When I came back, I found the first page of the Suggestions forum was completely identical to the one I left earlier. New threads, same old ideas beaten to death by people who either refuse to use the search button, don't know of its existence, or want their fifteen minutes of fame. EVERYTHING I see here had been suggested already. The PvP fixes, the removal of sniper rifles, the identification of bandits...all old news. If you REALLY want to help this community, look for the old threads, with two or three pages of feedback, and provide your own feedback to that. Because feedback is how ideas improve, not spamming. Ok? Please. Before you post, search te forum for something identical. Scroll about eight pages back, skimming over the names. Punch in three or four combinations of search terms. And if there are so many there with vague names, like "my idea to fix pvp", "fixing the disconnect problem", etc etc, don't automatically assume your idea is new, innovative, insightful, and a breath of fresh air. Because fifty nine other people have probably already suggested 90% of your idea's content, and it would be much, much better for The entire community if you tossed in your 10% for the OP and others to review, rather than mindlessly posting your suggestion. That's all, folks.

Yes, I know it exists, for a fact. But do you think others do? Evidently not.

I'm sincerely tempted to go around, find the first ever version of common posts, dated May or something, and paste that on there with the suffix "old news".

"If I don't get handed the thing he worked for hours to get, then...uhh...he shouldn't get to have that!" Typical. Just because you got shot by a sniper automatically makes all snipers totally OP and the devs should delete them because it ruins the game for everyone. Why don't we all spawn with Class IV ballistic armor that stops practically all bullets, so "the noobs" are protected from the "cheating bad guys"? Better yet, let's just ban people who shoot other people without getting their permission eforehand, because ambushes are so OP. No. If we give in to this, you'll find that people then start complaining about the automatic weapons "being unfair", then the semi-automatics "being unfair", then the one and two shot weapons "being unfair", until we all have cricket bats and people call the guys who run around with hatchets "cheating axe murderers". Learn to deal with snipers instead of coming crying to the devs whenever you "lose" their game. Instead, beat the snipers. Get a gun and make friends, search for them, track them, kill them. Make yourself a harder target by moving erratically and not stopping in an open field. Wait, why are you even in an open field? Don't do that. There's something called "passive cover" as well as "active cover". Even when you're NOT being shot at, take care to put something between yourself and potential enemies. If you can choose between Moving down the middle of an empty street and moving behind the treeline, use the trees! If you can choose between cutting across an open field and circling around to the other side of an industrial complex, go behind the industrial complex! Don't whine about your experiences. Learn from them. The devs don't need to fix a damn thing. As soon as you learn to minimize your risks, you won't have this problem near as much.

This is a trauma dressing, of the type USED on gunshot wounds by militaries across the world. Tourniquets are pretty much obsolete, except for extreme situations. Which this sort of is. But one doesn't simply say "lol okay, I'm giving up on this arm because it has an axe cut on it", you try to stop the bleeding with direct pressure, pressure points, and blood clotting agents. NOT a tourniquet. Because you're more than likely to lose that arm forever if you do that without knowledge that surgical treatment will reach you in a few hours. This is coming from a Red Cross certified first responder.

People have been rattling on and on about the psychotic mass murderers who sit behind rifle scopes all day. And frankly, it's getting a bit tiring to hear the same suggestions come up again and again and again. I had an idea a few days ago, and I just realized that it may well be an added challenge to players who want to sit at the tree line with long range rifles, safe from the zombies and pistoleros below, picking them off one by one. Zombie snipers. By this, I mean we place zombies in ghillie suits around the areas where snipers tend to congregate. By force of habit, these long-infected snipers are remaining in place, for they are in death what they are in life- distant Slavic relatives of the infamous Camping Carl. They have regular zombie aggro characteristics, regular statistics, and I feel I should say this before someone calls me an idiot (EDIT: Even with the disclaimer, people are too illiterate to be able to read this, so...) :exclamation:No, they don't know how to use sniper rifles.:exclamation: That way, sever hopping snipers may find themselves suddenly being assaulted by a hooting, shrieking, sprinting bush, and they'll have to flee or give away their oh-so-painstakingly-selected location. OrLf they might fire their fancy-schmancy anti-materièl rifle, and the dragon's roar it belts out would suddenly cause a figure or two to rise from the bushes and chase after him before he can line up a second shot. Those two zombies might buy our hapless noob friend enough time to hide under a shed and curl up into a fetal position until the sniper loses interest because he didn't see where his target went an he doesn't feel like waiting for him to come back. And don't think this is specifically aimed at you psychopaths in green! It also affects everyone traveling by the tree line, especially skirting places like Stary or Chernogorsk. They'd all have to watch for more than just the brightly coloured, frequently-argyle clothing of zombified locals, they'd also have to scan the path ahead of them for zombie snipers. And who knows- maybe as a side effect, people might begin to believe they can get infected :p

Thanks for all of the support and feedback, everyone!

Pfft. Snipers are what makes combat in the real world so nerve-wracking. Besides, I guarantee you those exact people will be clutching M14s and Lee Enfields in the treeline when you take out the scoped rifles.

The Epi-Pen revives people in a state of near-death unconsciousness- considered by me, at least, to be a representation of cardiac arrest.

Hi all. I've been browsing these forums for a good two or three weeks now, and almost 95% of that time has been spent in this forum in particular. Odds are, I've probably commented in your thread if you've started one or adopted one as your own little baby. One thing I've noticed is this: Developers, and even forum moderators, don't even acknowledge 99.99% of the suggestions made here. NOT saying they're uninvolved, or that they think they're better than us (alhough they probably DO have better things to do than surf the Suggestions forum every hour on the hour), but I think it's partly our fault that a good number of damn cool suggestions flicker by here in a flash, vanishing into the annals of history before anyone with actual clout in the game-makers' community even sees them. I say we create a community-run weekly poll on the two best suggestions made that week. That way, the developers can just click on Suggestions, click on this thread, and see for themselves what two ideas are sounding the coolest to the majority of the community. Here's how it would work: YOU, the viewer, would nominate one, and only one, thread for the vote. I'm currently undecided on whether or not we should let people nominate their own. I was planning on doing that in this post, but then I thought, "Wait a second, what if people see this and think it's an elaborate, roundabout way to get more views on HIS idea!" So I, at least, will be abstaining from that practice, for the sake of neutrality. Anyway, after that nomination takes place (valid nominations will require a link to said topic), you must then wait for someone else to second your nomination. When that occurs ten times over, I'll add the ten topics to the handy-dandy topic poll I'm pretty sure our masters, the site admins, just now added (maybe it existed beforehand, I AM an idiot after all, but I don't think it did, and kudos to whoever did that). Viewers can then vote on the two (or one, depends on how the poll here works) best suggestion(s) nominated for the week. Exactly one week later, I'll edit the OP to show the two winners, request the thread to be locked, and start it all over again. For this vote, I'll allow nominations from previous weeks, but if this actually kicks off, I'll restrict it to topics posted the week before only. If your topic was nominated last week but didn't win, too bad, it doesn't get back in. If your topic was posted the week of the competition, and you REALLY want to see it in the vote, cool your jets, hot shot, it'll come up for voting next week. I think this will be a great way to bring up the best suggestions (probably already buried in two or three pages' worth of utter crap, to be frank), and make it much easier for the actual developers to look at what WE think would be cool to see in Day Z. I'd appreciate any feedback, and I do hope this thread stays functioning. I'm not going to pander for a sticky, but... By the way, nominations are open as well.

My point is this- For example, the "Remove AS50 and M107" thread. Nine pages long. Most of which were refusals and flame wars. Why does that get to beat out a cool suggestion like military bases contaminated by chemical weapons that were only enterable with protective gear, were filled with more dangerous enemies, and had better loot, to provide a late game challenge for people who would otherwise bandit?

Again, READ THE POST before you comment. Where did I say they could shoot people?

But just because it has either of those doesn't mean it's necessarily a good suggestion. I remember one I had the misfortune of participating in turned into a debate (on my part, a flame war on my opponent's) over whether defibrillators can bring back the dead in real life, and whether this game should turn into Call of Duty or stay as Day freaking Z. That went on for two pages, but it was still a terrible thread that I wished never happened. The way I see it someone who sees this might instantly think back to one suggestion in particular they REALLY loved (I for one would post a virus/gas mask thread I saw for this) and then others would read it and say, "Oh, that's awesome!"

A matter of opinion. I think Russian weapons are much prettier than the plastic guns the West issues their forces.

I do like the idea, but I feel there should be some way to prevent it from being exploited. As in, "LOL dude, we've got nothing else to do in this game, so why don't we horde as much radio tower as we can and set them up systematically in as many places as we can, because we're just dicks like that!" But your idea does have potential, I must say.

Why would you even hack in the A-10? That wouldn't even accomplish anyone except to get a few noobs' hopes up and advertise your hacker identity...it's not like you can engage individual survivors from it like a helicopter...

I feel like I SHOULDN'T have to exploit an AI glitch (walking only in buildings) to lose zombies ALL THE TIME. The exponent system is interesting, but you guys need to put a max cap on it, because somehow I think these zombies are all Six Million Ruble Men...they've already been able to book it like a Kenyan national Olympic runner, now they can see better than me (I've been aggroed during a midnight rainstorm and I couldn't even see it until it started hitting me), and also rip me to pieces with their bare hands. I preferred 1.7.1.5, to the point of wanting to revert. You guys needed the frame rate fix, but I would have preferred SO many things to this experiment. Where are those helicopters we're all waiting for?

I feel like I SHOULDN'T have to exploit an AI glitch (walking only in buildings) to lose zombies ALL THE TIME. The exponent system is interesting, but you guys need to put a max cap on it, because somehow I think these zombies are all Six Million Ruble Men...they've already been able to book it like a Kenyan national Olympic runner, now they can see better than me (I've been aggroed during a midnight rainstorm and I couldn't even see it until it started hitting me), and also rip me to pieces with their bare hands. I preferred 1.7.1.5, to the point of wanting to revert. You guys needed the frame rate fix, but I would have preferred SO many things to this experiment. Where are those helicopters we're all waiting for?

I just kept playing, and I'm sorry Rocket and crew, but this is fairly awful. At this point I'd advocate reverting back to 1.7.1.5... I'm taking a break from Day Z until the issue is resolved. And I DO consider it an issue. I'd rather see more time devoted to patching glitches or experimenting with added content (radios, pretty please?) than toying with game mechanics like this. I appreciate your trying, but I won't be playing this until you restore it to the original system. Not because I'm rage quitting, or because I think it'll hurt your feelings (you don't care if an individual player quits or not- I wouldn't anyway), but because I honestly no longer get any enjoyment from this game. And it seems I'm neither alone nor in the minority.

Dead men tell no tales. I'm sorry, but we try for authenticity here. How would it be authentic for an unconscious or dead person to shout "Look out, there's a sniper behind that chimney!" after said sniper pops him in the head...