I shoot when im fired upon, Or when the other guy have real nice loot that i realy need. But i have found out that my mentality gets me killed quite a lot. But i still stick with it, and i try to be friendly as often as possible.
i think 1.7.2.5 works pretty good. Sometime i get the graphical glitch but it dissapers when you flush. But some zeds aggro from waaaaay to far. But hey! Its an Alpha. :P The worst is the cheaters/hackers/scripters.