amentes

They should hire you for condom adverts, I bet you can take the fun out of anything. "Having sex? Well let me tell you..." Yeah, well... when playing ArmA? :P I'm not a funny guy. But people tend to like me anyway ;)

I found a Mk48 Mod0 with two belts of ammo on ground, to the left side of the Grey version, and it did indeed have the right side M134 spewing the muzzle flash. 'Copter wasn't lootable though, I tried all around it, never found a "gear" menu. Weapon was just sitting on the ground, so it could be someone left it there. It seems like a pretty unlikely coincidence though.

As others have said, meeting up isn't really all that hard. You can get a good-size map with all the town names off the net, and then look for the three lines of text in the lower right of the screen when you spawn. Top one is always Chernarus, middle one tells you which area you're closest to, and the lowest one tells you how many real-life days has passed since the char was created. If you want a map, I'd recommend one made by a forum user called Maxander. He calls it "Ultimate Loot Map", and it has all enterable buildings colour-coded. Plus, at 17500x14600 pixels, it's HUGE. You can zoom in MUCH further than on any other out-of-game map I've seen. You can find his post detailing the map here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=9331

No. Once everyone has Direct 100% bug-free, actual human voice will do the job. This would break the infiltration gameplay. (20 words, I win a cookie?)

Well, the no-Z zone around each player should keep Zs from respawning once you've cleared the area when you get in, right? Just gotta clear the area once, then players being there should take care of the rest? The Zs on Skalisty only spawn at the buildings on the west end, correct me if I'm wrong? So clearing out the island, and them keeping a guy or two down there, should fix that problem?

I believe someone mentioned patch 1.7.1, and how it's supposed to incorporate a 30 meter area around any player where Zs won't spawn? Doesn't that basically fix all of your Z problems?

No. Removing the Mak is only gonna make fresh spawns even easier to kill, and having no gun won't make people trust you more. It could be in your pack, out of their view, and even if it isn't, you'll eventually find one and become a possible threat. It won't work.

Honestly not sure where you get the whole "thanks for showing us your attitude" deal from. I don't see any part of my post that was in any way hostile. I was simply pointing out that I don't understand your line of thinking on the subject, and I even took the time to wish you luck, regardless of whether I could convince you or not. I should also point out that I've already declined to show up in person, with perfectly legitimate reasons for making that choice, all of which have nothing to do with your choices with regard to out-of-game voice comms, making the closing statement completely misplaced. Again, I have no idea what could drive you to react with such hostility to what was otherwise a friendly attempt at trying to dig into the reasons for your choices. Oh, and Zeds spawn the Green Mountain. They do for me, anyway.

"I want to play this game authentically the way rocket intended." That's the key phrase. You're saying that Rocket will surely implement in-game radios soon, so obviously you believe that global voice comms are in his intention. In that light, why would using TS/Vent/Mumble to fill that void be so unauthentic?'' Again, if that's the way you're dead set on doing it, then the best of luck to you, and I hope it works out. It just seems like a contradiction to me.

It's true that it may waste ammo, and frankly I'd probably put a silenced weapon in each team to deal with Zs, but the main thing is that you don't wanna hang around for any longer than you absolutely need to. I'm not saying you should shoot anything that moves, and you should still be going around crouched, but the main thing is having agreed on which buildings you want to hit and who's gonna be hitting which ones, before you get to them. With the Huey in the air, you'll be able to see any problematic Zs easily, and when you know you're likely to aggro them, you're honestly better off just pulling them into a building and shooting them in the head one by one. Crawling around through them might mean you don't have to shoot anybody, but if you came in in a car, or in a Huey, everybody's gonna know you're there anyway, and you don't wanna get caught in prone with six zombies around you. If you're hitting a place like Stary Sobor, the NW Airfield, or the Firestations down in Elektro, I do think that you're better off making a show of force and being quick about your business. If someone is there who doesn't want to mess with you, they'll know to get the hell out of the way, and if they do want to mess with you, well, then they'd probably already have spotted or heard you coming in. Obviously I'm not telling people to go in solo, guns blazing, but with a larger team, aggressiveness of action is key.

To me, the key would be aggressiveness of action. Get in, clear and take what you need, then get out, all the while moving with a quickness. I think the optimal situation for a team going out to gather supplies is to come in on a Huey blasting Ride of the Valkyries, and moving through an area quickly, aided by the Huey in the air providing overwatch. I also think you'll do best in the daytime, as having the Huey will allow you to see any danger before it becomes a problem. Doing it USMC Fireteam-style is fine, I think that's a good option as I've said earlier, but having that Huey to get you back and forth and to provide eyes in the sky would be absolutely invaluable. If you do get one, I'd find somewhere to park it that is hard to get to. Hell, maybe you could even move it to the top of a roof, and have the pilot just stay up there as a guard or simply log out. Nobody would be able to get to it then. It's important to keep it out of reach of any newly-recruited guards, and any traders. If there's no pilot in it and someone makes a run for it? Yeah, that'd suck :P

Honestly, what weapons you end up handing out will likely depend on the placement of the specific guard. Depends which location is chosen. I also think having only a mix of sniper rifles and M249s would be counterproductive, not in the least because M249s aren't as easy to come by as an M16, which would pretty much work just as well. You won't be as accurate with an LMG if you're not in prone. Having DMRs in high places is nice, and putting an LMG or two on rooftops, sure. But you need something intermediate as well, which is where the M16 and M4 comes in.

Oh, and yeah, Skype is an option but with 25 people at a time, and not Push to Talk, it's gonna get crowded. What you can use Skype for, though, is keeping people up to date via text chat. I've used that before in 50-70-player clans. Basically, if anyone says something, that gets sent out to anyone else who is online. If anyone else then logs on, the people who were already there will send that to the new guy, and so on. Works really well.

I'd have to say that doing this without the help of TS/Vent/Mumble, you're gonna fail miserably. As others have said, I commend you for wanting to be true to the game, but without in-game radios that can be scrambled with code-locks, it's just not gonna work. If you wanna go somewhere with a Huey to stock up, you'll have no way of communicating between the ground team and the Huey providing air cover. Honestly, I think you owe it to the project to try and work around the current limitations of the game, and I think you'll have trouble finding participants if you won't use a substitute. And of course, I say all of that in the friendliest of ways :)

On the subject of location again, and primarily the Devil's Castle vs Skalisty Island thing, I'd still have to say that Skalisty would be a good option. I mean, personally, I still think Berezino Harbor would have a higher coolness-factor, but if we're just looking at how easy it will be to defend, Skalisty has to be the best option. From my point of view, it's obvious that you will need basic supplies. Ammo, food and water, and some fuel to run your vehicles, and it's also true that Skalisty has NONE of that. But, I'm also completely convinced that the biggest problem you're gonna have, by far, is defense. The problem with Zs spawning inside Devil's Castle is that, once they spawn, the, hopefully, high activity in the trading post is gonna take their attention quickly. This means guards must put them down with a quickness too, which again leads to shots fired without prior notice on voice comm. Eventually, a bandit attack is gonna get mistaken for "Oh, that's just Ed shooting some Zs." Skalisty Island doesn't have much hard cover, that's true, but what it does have is a natural tree blanket all along the northern side. Anyone who tries to get there is gonna have to swim just about 600 meters of water, and will take fire from the six guys in Ghillie suits you've got inside the treeline. It would indeed require a boat, and preferably more than one. And yes, that boat could get destroyed. I'm sure someone is gonna try. However, if you choose a pick-up point that you can observe from Skalisty, then you could provide cover from the island itself. No matter where you decide to settle, I'd imagine you'd need a Huey for logistics purposes. When you need water or fuel, sending a couple of guys out on foot is gonna get the job done fine, but stocking up on ammo and weapons? You'd want a Huey for getting you to Stary and the Airfield, and possibly for collecting the eventual respawned guards. What I envision is basically something along the lines of taking the Huey with a pilot, two door gunners, and 2-4 other guys, and flying it up there. Huey never completely lands, and you'd need a pilot with experience. If going to Stary, you can land right next to the tents, no problem. Huey then does circles in the area, scouting for any players. Once your guys have looted everything, you just get down close to the ground, let people get in, and then you hightail it out of there with a quickness. If going to NW Airfield, you could come up on the north east, and go to the two topmost hangars first. You would probably want a larger ground team for that operation, as there's more stuff to loot, but also to provide more cover in the much larger area. If you take 6-8 guys, split them up into two teams. I'd wanna keep them close to eachother, but one team going into the Firestation and one team going into the ATCT should be more than close enough. All the while, Huey will patrol the area, sticking to the areas closest to your guys, moving with them as they go down through the northern barrack, all the way to the southernmost hangar, and then across the landing strip to the south barrack. There's plenty of space to land a Huey about 20 meters away from the barrack there, so that's where you'd make your pickup. And then you GTFO. As for comms, I think Direct with the traders should be ok, but you would definitely need TS3/Ventrilo/Mumble for comms between guards, and for the "away teams", no matter which location you choose.

You don't need the beta patch to run 1.7 It works fine for me without, and there's plenty of servers running 1.7 and no beta patches. I've heard people saying that they can't find backpacks in 1.7, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for me, as I'm finding plenty. I've definitely seen less ALICE packs than in 1.6.1, but getting one wasn't a problem. What I can't find are concertina wire, toolboxes and entrenchment tools. So yeah. 1.7 does have its problems, but it's worth it IMO, as it is still very playable.

It's true that you'd need fuel for the boat idea, and yes, you might have snipers gunning for it. But I doubt people will be able to steal it, 'cus you'll have six guys hidden in the treeline on the island, ready to shoot down anyone trying anything. Obviously you wouldn't want people to swim out there. Basically, anyone trying to do so would be shot on sight. The point of it is that it should be clear of Zs, and be extremely easy to defend. As for fuel, you could use a Huey to go on supply runs, as has been the case for pretty much all other suggestions :P About guns inside the area, couldn't you have people walking around in Surrender mode? If a trade then was to be made, people would ask permission and the guards would all know that someone not being in Surrender animation was ok. You could even have just one guy allowed to do that at a time. It takes a little while to get out of that animation, so it could work.

Well, yeah, but they have to cross 20 meters of water to get anywhere close, so they would be likely be unarmed, or get shot down while swimming? Honestly, I don't think people will come running for it so willingly.

Honestly though, if we're talking "realism" here, then what happened to the OP isn't in any way realistic. Really, if you ever want a "realistic" story about how humans would act and survive in a post-apocalyptic scenario, go read the Pulitzer price-winning book "The Road", by Cormac McCarthy. When you're running around on your own, the realistic scenario would be to go live in the forest drinking water and butchering cows. I'm not saying people wouldn't be killing each other, but the ones who would are likely to be cannibals, hunting in packs. People are talking about being "paranoid" about getting their 10day+ character killed, and that's very realistic. What isn't realistic is how little attachment people have to their fresh-off-the-beach char, and how people will shoot at you rather than try to evade you.

You know. Thinking about it, what about Skalisty Island? The one down south-east, right off the coast. It has tree cover to the north and north/west. Straight west is Elektro, but that's likely too far to be of any real danger? It would be hard for people to get out there to mess with you, 'cus they'd need to risk swimming, have a boat or have a helicopter. It's not the place with the most real estate to work with, but it has enough space for a chopper to land. Only problem is there's nowhere good to go if it starts raining. There's only two small usable buildings out there. But that would probably be the safest place of all. Put some guys in the treeline to the north, looking over onto the mainland, nobody would be able to get to you and not lose their stuff to swimming on the way over.

Berezino harbor could be an option. There's no hills or other tall landmarks nearby, except for an industrial chimney a stones-throw away, where you could post a lookout or two. The harbor itself consists of two piers enveloping a reasonably wide middle pier, which itself has two cranes for lookout posts, and some roofed-over containers in the middle that could shelter people from rain. On the west side, you've mostly got a wall which turns into a fence as it goes south, and some of those big industrial buildings with huge blue doors. There's holes in the fence between them, but further out is a fairly wide road that nobody can avoid crossing if they wanna get in that way, so it's not a huge deal. There's also more cranes and two of those metal girder tower things with lights on top that you also see at the airfields, great place for lookouts. It being a pier, it would be easy to land a helicopter. It obviously also has boat access, and as mentioned there's a wide road too. Beyond the road there's a fuel station, and further away in the actual town of Berezino there's some military tents that spawn the same stuff found at Stary Sobor, making getting new guards tooled up a fairly easy task. Berezino also has tons of apartment buildings and other places to get food and whatnot. --------------------- Otherwise, I figure the big red monstrosity in Lopatino could work. It has half an outer wall, with a gate in it. If you can build up the rest of the wall with sandbags/concertina wire, that could be very defensible. Road access is there, and there's plenty of room within the half-a-wall to land a helicopter. The tallest point anywhere within shooting distance is the roof of the building, and there's mostly open ground all around. If you take a Huey and put a guy on top of the building, one in each corner, you're pretty much set. I don't know if you can put a tent on top of a building, but if its possible you could even use the roof as an item stash. The downside is its very close to the NW airfield, and far away from everything else. If people wanted to go there, you might almost be better off just setting up sort of a bus route, just ferrying people back and forth or something. You know, something that'd have a route plan and some armed guards. Easiest would be a Huey, but I think a bus carrying two or three guards, plus a follow-car with another three guys in it, maybe. You could use ground transport to collect people from the parking lot in Zelenogorsk, as it's within easy driving distance and has paved and easy-to-remember roads all the way to it. A Huey, you could collect people from practically anywhere, though I'd suggest you only do it from rooftops with few places to get sniped from. ---------------------------- Anyway, that's all I was thinking for now.

Honestly, the main problem is that you'll see a bunch of people who come straight for you, with an intent to kill you all. This will happen often. And even if you say that you will kill them if they try anything, even if you're lucky enough that no 6-12 man team decides that it would be great fun to try and spec-ops your asses with silenced M4s and AS50s from 1200 meters, you'd never be able to guarantee anything other than that "civillian" deaths would be avenged, but never prevented. That's not much different from any police force in the world, certainly, but it would never be enough to convince people that the area you cordon off will be safe. I think it's a great thing that people wanna do stuff like that, and I really do wish it would be possible to set it up in some way, but without the Devs actually going in and giving you some tools to facilitate some of this, it just isn't gonna work.

Far as I know, ArmA3 will use the flight improvements from Take On, indeed. A2 does have a very good system for a game that doesn't focus specifically on helicopters, but if you've tried Take On, you'll know exactly how much better it can get. It took me a long time to learn how to safely land with an inoperable main rotor in A2, but Take On just made so much more sense with the way it handles auto-rotation.