ajbader@umich.edu

Finding good guns isn't easy in my experience. I have been playing the last few days (searching for guns and nothing else) with loot spawn maps and heli crash site maps. It is all about luck because the good guns could be all looted before you arrive. That is what I have seen. Most of the crash sites we visited were looted, but some still had stuff left (Bizon SD with mags, FN FAL with mags, a DMR, an M107). We took the DMR and the M107 and went on our way. The barracks yielded always little to nothing. From my experience, I have never gotten any of my stuff duped. It always happens the opposite way, I lose it or my inventory reverts to a previous state without the gun. My friend once duped a Makarov once while trying to pick up an M1911.The M1911 vanished and we were left with 2 makarovs. I remember once I found 2 L85A2 AWS at a single crash site with NVGs, and only later we lost all of it due to inventory bugs (ones we know how to avoid now, like being careful when disconnecting, giving time for the server to sync the items). I have never seen any hackers because I try to avoid full (40+) servers. I think the game is fine the way it is. Some people get lucky and find hackers or dupe their own items and come out with great loot. Fix that, don't make the loot spawns harder. The're hard enough as is.

Crash site map is adaquate. I have found over 7-8 in the course of a month of playing. Unlike buildings, items to not respawn in heli crash sites even if you clean them out. A server reset is required.

An open field? like in the map or the middle of nowhere? I remember once I was teleported to the middle of nowhere far west off the map. Took me a good 15 minutes just to get to see trees and grass again.

I remember I did this once in a Barracks and I saw two dead players with Bizon SD's and decent equipment. However, the people that killed these poor fools probably were long gone because the place was clear.

As far as I am concerned, a lot of servers already have countermeasures. I remember spawning in some buildings (barracks, supermarket) and they were completely stark empty on multiple servers. Obviously there is already a system in place. BTW we weren't server hopping, we were trying to find a non-night server with less than 30 players. Those are hard to come by these days.

I had an MK 48 Mod 0. Never really used it because I had an M14EBR (or whatever) and I just didnt think I needed the firepower. This was when I was still sorta stupid and I ran out in the middle of the Kamehnka pier and got shot by someone with a Winchester (I didnt see him, and my buddy had the same gun so I wouldnt have shot him even if I saw him). Now I got a M249, and yeah there are a lot more rounds, but I really miss the good optics that the Mk 48 had.

I always believed the bandit skin helped reduce people killing other people on sight, because they could identify if someone was a bandit at a distance. No one is ever going to get close enough to hear a heartbeat, especially over the sound of gunfire. Scars on the face? Blood on hands? Again the same issue. You are going to shoot them before they get close enough for you to notice. Hell you could just change the original survivor/camo/ghilie clothes so that they are a maroon red or are covered in died (or wet) blood so that people can see from a decent distance whether somebody is a bandit or not.

Think it is a database issue. We can't do anything about it at the moment but I suppose when you get new stuff, try to continue playing for a bit more (30+ minutes) while shooting zombies with it in order to make sure that the database is updated with your new inventory.

I have had this same issue. We have found 2 L85A2 AWS at a single crash site and we put them in our backpacks. They stayed there fine, but when we had them in our hands, and then jumped a few servers they vanished completely. Sucks, but what is worse is that we dropped a lot of our stuff to accomodate it, and now it is all gone. This might not be just a L85A2 issue but rather a database syncing issue. Make sure you are on the server for a decent amount of time with the gun out (30+ minutes) and make sure you kill a few zombies with it. My theory is that the servers and code that run the inventory databases can't handle the current load of players so there are a lot of lost packets that cause people's new items not to sync. In order to facilitate that, do not disconnect just after finding a weapon. Make sure you have it for a good amount of time and and kill some zombies (or players) with it before you disconnect.

Nothing you can do. I had this happen to a friend and you will just have to start from 0 until Rocket and the other devs address this issue. Hopefully soon before it reaches beta.

Had a friend die on me like this. He got pissed and then didn't log back in immediately and so we couldn't test that he would have respawned alive next to his corpse. Instead a half an hour later he decided to play again and he spawned like he had died. In fact, we tried to pick up his gun (a DMR) and I swear there are database syncing issues because when we switched servers we lost everything that we had picked up from him and just had what we had before.

Good advice. I'll see if that works next time. I did have the L85 in my backpack for a while, but when I pulled it out I had it out for only a few minutes before disconnecting. I didn't even fire it let alone killing a zombie. However I only had it happen to my L85s (twice), no other gun. We'll see if shooting a zombie can help us avoid this issue.

I have never had any luck with the L85A2 AWS. I found two at a crash site just a few days ago (still 1.7.2.3) and since then, both of them have disappeared from our hands magically. First one was that we joined a night server, and although I had the L85A2, I didn't have any night vision to acompany it so we had to pick another server. Upon joining another server, the L85A2 was completely gone, and my primary weapon slot was empty. Joined a few other servers just to see if we could get it back, but it never appeared again. The other one I gave to my brother, and upon a server restart yesterday, his vanished the same way. I am never going to pick up the L85A2 until this issue is resolved. We cant have our guns vanishing like this and leaving one of our teamate's naked.

It will run it better than my rig, and I get 30-50 FPS

I have had friends like yours. They aren't really good friends. They want you to play with them, and they simply take advantage of you. It isn't a matter of taking the game seriously. This is a matter of taking life seriously. If you are playing with friends that you don't like playing with, then don't play with them. Tell them that you are tired of petty banitry and that you want to play the game like a real man, with friends who are real men. I don't know if it is necesary to kill them both. Doing it yourself is even riskier. It is better to hire someone to do it for you so your friends don't come at you in real life. They sound like the types who would.

It is easier to build a computer than it is to play Arma II and DayZ. You should start learning here. TigerDirect barebones kit: AMD X6 1045, 4GB RAM, Thermaltake Case /w 450W PSU: $200 after rebate http://www.tigerdire...L6hiopbbL5qEguw Radeon 6670: $50 http://slickdeals.ne...ard-gvr777oc1gd 500GB Hard drive: $70 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822152181 CD/DVD drive: $19 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827106289 Windows 7: $100 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16832116986 20" Acer Monitor (optional: if you already have a monitor): $100 http://www.ebay.com/...#ht_2761wt_1063 Logitech keyboard and mouse (optional: you should pick what you want): $24 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16823126097 TOTAL: $563 This should play it well on medium-ish settings. The rig you listed above uses a dual core processor and integrated graphics. It might run it on super low, but it will not be playable. I had a dual core 5000+ (3.1Ghz processor) & a Nvidia 9800GTX+ and it ran, but it ran like crap. It was difficult to play in the cities as I would get about 10-15FPS tops.

For me it has managed to stay in my backpack. But when I had it as a primary weapon and changed servers, it vanished without a trace. What is worse is that I gave up my AS50 for it. Now both are gone. I dont really mind losing one rare gun to a bug, but two? Now that is a low blow.