insitv

Ladies and Gentlemen, this post will explain how the loot spawn system in DayZ works. I will include small parts of the DayZ source code as proof for my explanations. If this is disallowed, please remove these parts from my post. For everyone who doesn't want to know how it does work, please close your browser tab. This information is kinda spoiler-ish but will make additional threads about this subject obsolete. Still here? Ok, let's get started: How does a player affect loot (and zombie) spawn? There are rumours and all kind of explanations about how loot or zombies spawn. Some say it's based on a distance the player has to a building, some say it's tied to a timer. Well, both would be correct. This image is a sketch, the distances aren't correct but you will get the picture. As seen in the image, there are three circles around a barn building. Each circle represents a different loot/zombie spawn mechanism. For this example, we pretend that you are the only player in the area. Blue circle The blue circle represents an area with a maximum distance of 200 meters to the barn. As soon as you enter this circle zombies WILL spawn at the barn. This thread is about the loot spawn system but it's kinda tied to zombie spawns so i included it here. How can i benefit from this information? If you are more than 200 meters away from a building and there are zombies, well, you are not alone there my friend. Proof? Taken from player_spawnCheck.sqf: _position = getPosATL player; _nearby = _position nearObjects ["building",[b]200[/b]]; Yellow circle The yellow circle represents an area with a maximum distance of 120 meters to the barn. I fucked up the relations in the image, don't hang me for it. As soon as you enter this circle loot CAN spawn. "Hey, i ran to a building but there wasn't any loot." Well, that's how the timer comes into play. You see, every 10 minutes loot will generate if certain conditions are met. One of these conditions is that a player is in this yellow circle but NOT in the red one. There is an exception to this rule which i will explain later. You ran to building but there was no loot? Well, go more than 30 meters away from it and wait for a maximum of 10 minutes. After that, there WILL be loot. Run away more than 120 meters and leave the red circle and there will NO loot. Red circle The red circle represents a kind of dead zone for loot. If you are the only player around and you are closer than 30 meters to the building, NO loot will spawn. Due to this mechanic it's impossible to camp a building for loot. Proof for red/yellow circle? Taken from player_spawnCheck.sqf: if ((_dis < 120) and (_dis > 30)) then { ... } Summary: If your distance to a building is between 30 and 120 meters, loot WILL generate there. The loot generation takes place every 10 minutes. How do multiple players affect loot spawn? As i explained before, your distance to the building needs to be between 30 and 120 meters. There is a way to circumvent this: If you are in the red circle, no loot will spawn. BUT if a second player comes into the yellow circle and stays there. Well, he will generate the loot for you in the barn. How can i benefit from this information? Place one player in the building (red circle) and one player in the yellow circle with cover. Loot every item in the building and wait for 10 minutes. There will be new items to loot. How are items generated? Every building in DayZ has a number of possible loot locations. The high value barn i used in my sketch has 12 possible locations where loot can be generated. Additionally, the chance to actually generate loot is 50%. Let's say there are NO items spawned yet. After 10 minutes you entered the red circle the first "spawn wave" will occur. Statistically there will be items on 6 loot locations. There are 6 loot locations without items now. After another 10 minutes, 3 more loot locations will have generated loot. Special rule: Backpacks and ammo crates don't use up loot locations. There will still be items spawning there. How can i benefit from this information? If you clear every loot location in a building you are increasing the numbers of item spawns after every 10 minute cycle. Proof? if (_rnd < _lootChance) then { //if (true) then { _nearBy = nearestObjects [_iPos2, ["WeaponHolder","WeaponHolderBase"],1]; if (count _nearBy == 0) then { private["_index","_iArray"]; _weights = [_itemType,_itemChance] call fnc_buildWeightedArray; _index = _weights call BIS_fnc_selectRandom; //diag_log ("LOOTSPAWN: _itemType:" + str(_itemType)); //diag_log ("LOOTSPAWN: _index:" + str(_index)); if (_index >= 0) then { _iArray = +(_itemType select _index); diag_log ("LOOTSPAWN: _iArray" + str(_iArray)); _iArray set [2,_iPos2]; _iArray set [3,0]; _iArray call spawn_loot; _iArray = []; }; _item setVariable ["created",(DateToNumber date),true]; }; if (!_fastRun) then { sleep 0.1; }; }; Loot timer To clarify some questions: The first player who comes near a building (yellow circle/120m) after a server restart will start the loot timer for that building. Every building has it's own loot timer. The loot timer is 10 minutes. Every 10 minutes new loot is generated as long as a player is in the red circle. Even if you start the loot timer and leave the building, the next player who comes near the building will generate loot (if it's more than 10 minutes after the first player left the scene). Players in vehicles Players who are inside of vehicles, be it cars or choppers, WILL NOT spawn loot or zombies. It's a nice trick to play on other players as you can hide your ATV. They won't see any zombies and will think there are no players around. As soon as THEY spawn zombies, you get off the ATV and kill them. Conclusion I had two reasons for creating this thread. 1) Many players know about these mechanics and use them to gain an advantage over other players. My goal is to close the gap and level the playing field. I don't exactly see it as a cheat or something but as clever use of game mechanics. Until Rocket changes the loot spawn system every player should know how it works and how to benefit from it. 2) Literally dozens of threads about the subject, players asking about it etc. In the future we can simply guide them to this thread and be done with it. Questions? Thanks to alicefanboy for providing a better image!

Just saw the reddit thread referencing my thread here. Remember guys, i wrote the guide last september so it's out of date. Maybe i will find some time to do some digging on different mods and how they handle the loot spawning. Do you guys have any specific mod in mind?

Thanks for the update Rocket! I know it's asking a lot but will you release information about the game mechanics before releasing the game? I don't mean deep insights on how the game is working (that would ruin the fun of exploring it) but rather if certain mechanics like loot/zed spawn mechanics (hello loot cycling as i call it), weapon balancing (hello L85/m107/as50) and vehicle scarcity (having more vehicles but less gas stations to create more hotspots) are changed or tweaked? I think DayZ could use some modifictations regarding it's mechanics and i am sure you and your team know about it too. I would like to know if you are already thinking or even implementing such changes in the current development stage or if it will be done after the initial release. I imagine these topics not being high on your to-do list right now (kinda cosmetic changes imo) but what do i know :) Keep up the good work and give the community the zombie game it needs right now ;D PS: New player models/clothings look **** awesome!

Vehicles spawn when the server is started. How many vehicles or in which condition they spawn is kinda random as far as i know. If the server is connected to the main hive you don't have any control over that. Private hives have unique spawn mechanics for vehicles and often have 50+ vehicles spawned. It's been a long time since i have answered here. I was kinda inactive for a few months because hackers ruined my fun :( As i've seen there are community updates now and they are working on changing the zed and loot spawn system. As soon as these community builds go live i will analyse them as best as i can and update this thread here :) //edit Roughly 18k views on this thread, wow! Didn't expect that so many people will read it, hope it helped you guys ;)

It's possible but users would have to change their own files to make the changes work. That's because item/zombie spawn is determined by client files (kinda dumb). You would need them to download your altered files OR you would have to disable signature checking (inviting cheaters to your server). If you still want to change it, i could tell you how or you google a bit :)

4 to 8 zombies per player.

There is a total of 11 vehicles per server. They spawn randomly. I'm gonna write a thread about the mechanics of it like i did about the loot system (link in my signature). Will take some time tough as i don't own a server and have to search for the files elsewhere.

Animals spawn of on server start. There doesn't need to be a player around, they are wandering the map alone. Don't know how many animals there are or how fast they respawn. No, it does not. The only way to get new crashed heli loot is to restart the server. That's why you often see servers with restarts every 2-3 hours. There IS a mechanic to let loot despawn but i haven't figured out yet after how much time. If that happens to you, wait 10 minutes until the new spawn wave.

You don't have to restart your server to reset loot spawns. Try http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/86751-demystification-of-the-dayz-loot-spawn-system-spoiler/ to get a better look at the loot system. You are correct about the heli crashes tough. They only respawn loot after restarts.

Yea, i am a member of ION.

Are you playing on BadNeighbor? Would love to see some competition there :)

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/86751-demystification-of-the-dayz-loot-spawn-system-spoiler/ Have fun reading :)

Damn, my eyes hurt so much. Please learn to use your iron sights. Your shots will be WAY more accurate.

Yes, it's 200 meters. I updated the OP with a better image (flipped colors and better distance relation), thank you alicefanboy!

It is not possible to flip ATVs at the moment. Rocket said the feature will be added in the next patch.

Not at all. The loot spawn isn't tied to zombies. It's tied to a building. Every building or structure which can hold loot, has a timer. There are quite a few buildings in Chernarus but it's not thousands of them. I can refute that, 100%. Atleast for 1.7.2.5, i haven't looked at .6 yet but i don't think Rocket has stealth changed the loot system. Will look into that later.

What about removing wire fences/tank traps/sand bags from the database when they are removed ingame by a player? They show up again after every server restart. Really annoying because you can't clean up your server because of this. Just thought about asking because you obviously got time to code right now anyways :D

Ok, thanks for your reply. Guess we have to wait for stand-alone in this case :)

When you place your ammo in your backpack and relog, it gets reloaded. That a fix you can do or would it take more time?

I voted yes because there are some fundamental flaws with barbed wire right now. I don't want to say that much because it requires its own thread but: - It's pointless to use it as fortification because everybody can ghost into your base - It will respawn after server restart even if someone removed it. With time the whole server is filled with useless barbed wire - In most cases the script doesn't place it correctly, it's half in the ground and player can jump over it Remove it for now, bring it back later when you have time to fix it.

Thanks! Hope you fix the other ammo glitches too.

If you drop them where you found them, no loot will spawn. The game is checking for items laying there, it's unimportant if the items spawned naturally or were placed there by a player. Dropping the items outside the building is the safest bet. You CAN drop them inside a building but not near loot spots. In a cafe/bar building (the high value residential building) you can drop them on the stairs because there isn't any loot spawning naturally.

Sorry for the double post but i updated the OP with some more information about the loot timer and players spawning loot while they are in vehicles. I hope i could already help some people with these informations. Feel free to ask if something is bothering you.

I can confirm that, as long as you are in a vehicle (any vehicle) no loot will spawn. Ever.

To the people who say it's cheating and we only know it because someone looked "behind the curtain": We could have gathered this information by simply testing it. It would have taken a LOT of time and some people already knew how it was working in some way. This information is to clear up some misunderstandings so everyone can benefit from it. Call it cheating but hey, it's a game mechanic and players can use this the way they like. Ofc Rocket can (and i'm sure will) change it later on but currently it's something everyone should know. "Hiding" this stuff is currently impossible because everyone can look at the source code, given the right tools and understanding of source code. I would bet that the stand-alone version will store such information in another way. It's the same in every game, you get information on a specific game mechanic and use it for your benefit. I just made the information public so everyone can use it.