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they're not spawning. they are only on a few server where they have been added. My server has heaps of land vehicles 0 choppers.

hey guys add me on steam at blazer16113 if you wish to have another, i require no training of any type, and am already trained in navigation, formations, breaching, piloting/driving any vehicles, and maintaining sectors. add me if you want more background info, etc.

No there was not. I believe they killed me at Stary and went to their camp and found their vehicles missing. And honestly, it was more of 2-5 minutes. Immediately said session lost. And was RIGHT back up. It was North of Stary, at least a few minutes of walking got someone back there.

The game does need an "endgame" to it, right now, if i die i can run back to my camp and be back with some of the best loot within 30 minutes after death. The endgame right now for me is killing other players, and searching/repairing vehicles. If you run with a group of 10+ that loots NW at least once a day, when you die, all you have to do is find a new alice/coyote pack head to base and pick up a new gun and ammo, and your back at endgame again.

The endgame is something currently lacking in DayZ. Once you've kitted all the way up, all that's left to do is hunt players. --> This is largely a symptom of being a mod in super early alpha <--- That said, I wanted to come up with a list of viable ideas that go with the game's themes and authentic atmosphere. I'll be keeping track of people who agree and disagree with each idea in the following fashion: [Approve/Disapprove] Discussion would be awesome. I get the feeling that the devs just have this section to keep us occupied, but I'm genuinely curious to see what everyone thinks would add longevity to the game. [Forts] [0/0] It has been hinted at that servers will have their own persistence somewhere down the road. This idea would work much better in this type of environment. If a player has enough wood (*snicker*), a tool box and possibly a blueprint, he should be able to construct rudimentary structures. [*] Fences and walls [*] Guard towers (deer stands essentially) [*] Doors and gates [*] Garage type structures [*] Huts, garages and other covered structures [*] Boxes and chests that could potentially be transportable. Additional specialized pieces could be found or constructed from other items found in the world. [*] Search lights and lamps [*] Sirens (attract zombies) [*] Sandbag walls [*] Razorwire walls Allowing players to create bases for themselves and their comrades would virtually make the endgame. Player made and run fortresses could open up nearly endless possibilities. [Recognition system] [0/0] Assuming name-tags get disabled (which they should), players get the option to tag someone as "recognized" when close. They will display the name-tag when in someones crosshairs now. Name-tags are wiped on death, nobody will recognize you and you recognize nobody. This would make groups function far better in a world where 90% of people wear one of three different outfits. [basic skill system] [0/0] Nothing too RPG'ish. Just a simple representation of skills developing over time. [*] Medical abilities allow wounds to be treated faster. [*] Mechanical abilities allow vehicles to be repaired with fewer parts [*] Hunting skills allow slightly more blood to be gained from meat [*] Overall survival reduces the effects of panic Masters of any skills should be able to "spread their wisdom" and teach people below them to a "midlevel" skill level. Gives players more small incentives to survive, and maybe cooperate. [Weapon regularity changes] [0/0] Personally, I'd like to see the following: [*] Slight increase in civilian weapon prevalence [*] Decrease in military weapon prevalence [*] Decrease in ammo regularity across the board I feel this would bring about a number of interesting changes. [*] You'd slow the ability for players to reach "completeness" in their characters. [*] Stockpiling, gun running and ammo trading could become "a thing" to a limited extent. [*] Makes the game feel more like "survival" and less like a zombie themed military scavenger hunt. [*] Gives players incentive to explore longer and in more varied places [Migration][0/0] Of everything. Supplies Zombies Guns Every city should fluctuate between being full of zombies and being a ghost town on a pseudo-daily basis. From being a treasure trove of sweet l00tz and bounty, to having maybe a makarov clip within it. Right now, there are 3 or 4 places guaranteed to give you good stuff most of the time you go there. It gets stale fast. Never knowing where the next gold rush might be keeps things fresh and exciting. Please feel free to discuss, criticize, call my ideas stupid, whatever. If it leads to more ideas for an awesome end-game, I'm all for it. I'd be happy to add your ideas to the main post as well if this thread gets going

Hello all, I was at my friends house and he was playing this and it looked great so i brought it and downloaded your DayZ. and I have played for some hours so far, however there are some things that I cant work out from your fourms (or im not looking hard enough) 1. How do I get a map or open my map or know where I am. (M is a black map screen) 2. are there vehicles and how do I find them? 3.(Main) how can I chat in game by typing, I have seen people talking in blue and I cant talk at all. 4. I was getting chased by some zeds for ages, how can you get away from a horde of zeds? 5. are there anyways to make the game load up faster (I have a great gaming PC and it takes a bit to load up the game) 6. how can I increase my backpack space (like where to get a better bag) and can I store stuff somewhere 5. when i die will my gear be laying where I died? If you guys can please help me by answering this in great detail it would be great. btw I am 100% new to ARMA II and wow there are alot of controls to get used to lol but its a nice realistic SIM, exactly what I wanted.

I've been on servers that wouldn't allow me to loot vehicles parts regardless of bag space. Although I could loot everything else, go figure. lol

The only Ghillie suit I've found' date=' was at a crashed helicopter. [/quote'] I have never seen a crashed heli, or any vehicle except boats and a bike. I do not see crashed helicopters often, but when I do I find a few of em. I have only found them on two servers before and on both of them I ended up finding three crashed helicopters, however neither me nor my friend could loot them in any way no matter how much we searched for the loot spot. As for vehicles, if the server has them (meaning you found boats and bikes) then you just gotta start looking in the right places. So far my group has had and lost or currently has: 4 bicycles, 3 ATVs, 1 motorcycle, 1 white off road truck, 1 off road military, 2 jeeps, 3 cars, 2 helicopters and 5 boats. Look inside large warehouses, in alleys, around shacks out in the middle of the woods with civilization a fifteen minute walk away, in clearings, under bridges, in the ship wreck, partially submerged in ponds/lakes, at the ends of dead end roads, and all of the places that make you think "Damnit, this is gonna be a bitch to fix" due to the location. Once you find one just stock it with parts and cruise for more. Well, if someone finds those spots first, no vehicle. I find a lot of those kinds of buildings with the doors hanging open. I continue to search, but I believe that people get hold of the limited number of vehicles on a given server rapidly, then move them off the map.

The only Ghillie suit I've found' date=' was at a crashed helicopter. [/quote'] I have never seen a crashed heli, or any vehicle except boats and a bike. I do not see crashed helicopters often, but when I do I find a few of em. I have only found them on two servers before and on both of them I ended up finding three crashed helicopters, however neither me nor my friend could loot them in any way no matter how much we searched for the loot spot. As for vehicles, if the server has them (meaning you found boats and bikes) then you just gotta start looking in the right places. So far my group has had and lost or currently has: 4 bicycles, 3 ATVs, 1 motorcycle, 1 white off road truck, 1 off road military, 2 jeeps, 3 cars, 2 helicopters and 5 boats. Look inside large warehouses, in alleys, around shacks out in the middle of the woods with civilization a fifteen minute walk away, in clearings, under bridges, in the ship wreck, partially submerged in ponds/lakes, at the ends of dead end roads, and all of the places that make you think "Damnit, this is gonna be a bitch to fix" due to the location. Once you find one just stock it with parts and cruise for more.

I am not yet sure if it is dependent on the server settings or the GPS since I have not tested it much yet, but when playing on beta servers with my GPS I can see myself on the in game map as a blue circle which updates constantly of course. If you get into vehicles the circle takes the shape of the vehicle. Hopefully that is the GPS and not server settings. I will be doing testing with it tomorrow to be sure which it is.

Currently, helicopters possess the ability to spot stationary enemy vehicles via radar. Which means whoever controls the choppers controls everything. That is an extreme imbalance, especially considering that in nearly every server we've played on that has choppers, it seems like the admins (or the admin's clan) is almost always in control of the choppers. Forcing everyone to stay within the pre-defined area of the country gives whoever has a chopper the ability to scoop up every vehicle. Since choppers can see vehicles, choppers can safely cruise above the maximum view distance, spotting vehicles without even seeing the ground. This makes setting up camps in dense forests to keep things hidden impractical, because choppers can see right through it. There are land features and formations outside the map boundaries. There's nothing out there, but the devs still put in mountains and terrain, so it must be a part of the game world. Now, I can understand perhaps limiting just how far you can walk, drive, or fly past the edge of the map. People shouldn't be able to get all the way to the northern borders. I think maybe we could at least have SOME area outside the main map. I might consider supporting enforcement of map boundaries if and only if chopper's radar system is removed. If you're flying a chopper, you should be looking out your windows and trying to spot camps, instead of being able to find EVERYTHING in the server in a matter of hours. With radar, choppers can fly higher than the server's visibility, thus being invincible, and using the radar, players can find everything.

Don't mean to advertise or boast our server but SLC1 is (From most of our players+my standpoint) Its one of the fastest servers with vehicles and everything. No crosshairs, No nametags, Markers etc and no other serverside bugs. Check us out.

Yeah, clan based servers, they swarm in on a start because their admin warns them ahead of time or conveniently does it when a lot of them a online. The clan termites swarm in with online maps, grab all of the vehicles, move them all off map and normal players never get one. Very server dependent.

SHORT VERSION --------------------------------------------------------- Purchase Only Community Servers Studio Developed (with community feedback and beta period) Kickstarter (for pre-orders // special edition) ----------------------------------------------------------- Key features for a stand alone game could be ----------------------------------------------------------- - Larger map than Chenerus (camps are too easily found)! - Camps (things of the sort) should not be limited to where they can be placed. - Inability to get "off map" (invisible wall at edges of map to make it impossible to get off map). - Players should be able to band together and create parties. - Parties should be able to capture and control towns after ALL zombies have been eliminated from the town and various points (objectives) in the town have been secured by party members. - Controlling a town should give benefit to those in the town. And other survivors may seek refuge in said towns. - Vehicles / Camps may have keys required to use/access them?

I think from what I can see it is up to the sever admins to add in vehicles. So some severs will have them and some won't. Then again I am always wrong so don't listen to me.

Quick question regarding this since I didn't want to make a new thread. If a server has been recently purchased (yesterday), will it be capable or spawning vehicles, or will we have to wait until the next time the devs add more of them? A bit confused on what actually happens when they do this.

[justify]First of all I'm very sorry for breaking the rule of one suggestion per thread, but rather then making 20+ threads we (few DayZ playing communities) decided to put together all of our ideas to make it easier to observe.[/justify] [Dynamic Events] [Dynamic Events] A military convoy that spawns in random area on the map, and makes it way through Chernarus in various different routes. The convoy should probably include few NPC Soldiers that are not that easy to kill, plus one or two light armored military vehicles. The purpose of this is probably the same as Crashed Huey Sites, but those ones besides carrying some extremely good loot would also be harder to find and eliminate. This convoy is hostile to everyone including zombies. After it reaches the key destination it de-spawns. A horde of zombies (30-40) spawning in the random location of the map and moving through fields, forests, towns and whatever else (Just like in "The Walking Dead" movie and comics). Players should NOT feel safe anywhere. Even looting a small town, wondering in wilderness, or running through the field they might encounter that zombie horde. A "burning zombie" (or basically any other much stronger zombie) should have a small chance to spawn together with the regular crowd of zombies. A strong zombie that would have a 50% chance to cause a leg fracture on hit and dealing much more damage, if you don't kill him fast enough after he spots you - he makes a loud roar that attracts other zombies around, making it even harder to survive. Also to kill him you'd need about 10-20 AKM shots in his chest or 3-5 AKM shots in his head. He should also have an own model and set of sounds he makes to help recognize him from distance. I bet most of us would be glad to avoid fighting such bastard. "Black Hawk Down" This idea is related to "radio equipment" Lets say from time to time there will be a plane or helicopter having engine problems and crashing.(currently there are just random spawning Huey Crash Sites) Radio signal "We're going down, requesting evacuation at ****** coordinates" will be transmitted and players with that "radio equipment" would be able to actually hear that signal and get to that place. The first one who gets there -gets the stuff or can find a good position for taking out anyone who'd come to that place to loot it. [New/Reworked Areas] [New/Reworked Areas] A military base guarded by NPC Soldiers. This place should have some good gear, maybe vehicles or vehicle parts, fuel pump and etc. But should also be extremely hard to get in and out. Patrols, guards on towers should be very hard to eliminate and deadly shooters. Shooting everything on sight: zombies, survivors and bandits. Better loot - more and stronger zombie spawns. If you're looking through small villages or towns, maybe barns in the fields and etc - you will hardly find any good stuff, and you should not have strong zombies around such places, but areas with some valuable loot should have much more and harder zombies spawning. Energy generators located on the airfields, some towns, light houses and piers/docks. Basically what they do - they provide electricity lighting up lanterns in the town or on the airfield. Making campers with NVG more even with other people in that area. Refueling with filled jerry cans. Shooting the generator will obviously disable it shutting down the light, but can be repaired using toolbox and scarp metal. Survivor/Bandit Camps (possibly guarded by NPCs that are friendly only to Survivor/Bandits based on the type of that camp) Anyone who've ever played S.T.A.L.K.E.R games knows how cool it is to take a small break in a camp, sit down at the camp fire and relax listen to stories, rumors and other stuff. So what we suggest (though not everyone of us likes this idea, since it gives a limited safety to players) is making a specific area surrounded by walls or trucks (lets say Survivor camp) guarded by low-qualified NPC (inaccurate with low gear), that will shoot zombies and bandits. Disabling ability to loot backpacks of other players inside the camp. If you open fire inside that camp - you will obviously be shot by NPC's and even if they won't be able to deal with you - other players will most likely gun you down. Within that area - you chat will work, so there you can speak freely to other players. From time to time random amount of zombies will be spawning around that camp, going out of the forest and attacking camp, NPCs and any survivors inside of that area. Obviously NPCs alone won't be able to protect that camp and die, so without survivors taking part in defending it - this place will be abandoned and deserted for a while and has no protection. To get it back players would have to clear that area of all remaining zombies. This place can obviously be raided by Bandits, but they are risking to be spotted as well, both by players and NPC's and since the amount of Survivors in covered location will most likely be higher then the amount of Bandits they will have a higher chance to win that fight and get the gear from bandits. As a very strange idea would be a nice try to put "traders" in such camps - like you bring gun, food, ammunition there and give it all out to NPC trader, this will add some money, that will be shown in debug monitor. When you get enough - you can buy stuff from that trader that other players brought (or list of items he sells will be randomly generated) Killing enemy player and looting his corpse will also transfer all money he had to your character. Killing trader though won't let you get any of the stuff he was selling. [Global Chat] [Global Chat] Lootable radio - piece of equipment that should be added to this game. If system like humanity survivor/bandit will ever come back that's how this radio should work. There would be at least 3 channels on this radio - Global channel, where people within 5-10 KM area would be able to communicate with anyone who've got radio as well. Bandit channel, where bandits would be able to communicate with each other if they'd like to. This channel would be accessible only by bandits. (5-10 KM distance) Survivor channel obviously a channel for survivors to communicate without bandits (unless you obviously got a survivor in your bandit group) being able to detect their chat. Accessible only by survivors on the same distance as previous. Also an item such as "radio-signal-finder" might be added to game, giving it's owner ability to detect any out-coming radio signals within a small area around him. So if somebody likes to talk much and pays too less attention to things around, every time he posts a message in chat - people with "radio-signal-finder" can detect him on the map for a brief period of time. Also radio should have an option to be turned on and off. Basically turning off and on chat, not to see all those annoying messages constantly :dodgy: [survivor/Bandit/Groups] [survivor/Bandit/Groups] Blood Stains on the face, hands and boots of the charracter would be a sign that he's a murder. The amount of stains, their brightness and gamma should increase the more people he've killed. Stains should slowly vannish with time if he stops killing other players. So basically if that guy kill everyone he seen - his face and hands will be red, his boots will have some bright blood stains and completely red soles. Tents should be reworked. They are obviously too easy to spot and loot, so far I've seen not a single camp that survived logner then 1.5 of a week on a server that constantly got at least 30 players. How about replacing tents or adding some ground embankments/dikes. Little earth hills made by players where you can put your gear, harder to spot, but still possible. Or maybe giving an ability to dig tent into the ground using showel for half of it's heigh, making them still usable as storage. Maybe adding few variations of camo, so after setting up the tent, together with "Pack tent" "Save old camping tent" and other add button - "Change tent camo" so it will suit fields, deserts and other places more. If all of this does not fit.. at least let us set up tents in the woods, closer to the trees and bushes, under fur-trees, but not in towns. Friendly signs that would help people show others that they mean no harm and have no intention to shoot them. (or if they want to make other people think so) Like current "Salute" or "Sit down" actions, but those are lame, uncertain and while annimation is making you defenseless. What we suggest is an action, where you lower your gun, wave your hand and make a sound like "HEY!" or "I'm Friendly" or "Cease Fire" (or even making those actions attached to separate buttons/action menu, if u only need animation or sound), but the point is that this animation can be cancelled anytime allowing you to run, hide or shoot and do not put yourself in situation where you can't move for a while. Or if you see another player, he didn't detect you yet, but you assume soon enough he probably will and you already want to warn him - you mean no harm to him so you can attract his attention and show him you're friendly. Study Body does not work on the servers with no name tags. That's a little bit dissapointing. I'd like to know the name of the guy I shoot by using "study body" action button. Also that would help identify cheaters on hardcore servers. Also if claymores will be added to this game, would be nice to loot corpse and set up a claymore in his body after. That's so mean and evil that I bet you guys would like that :D Play dead an action that makes you drop on the ground and pretend you're dead. Maybe that action should take few seconds to do(possibly adding flies sound as well, or romoving it from game completely - else won't work. Murders score also shouldn't be updated instantly but only in 5 minutes or after you come and "study body") maybe not.. (if you're running through the field and start getting shot) ID code that will let people identify others. That's just one of the ways this might work: a specific item with 10 numbers code. For example my group would use 5748395847 code for ourselves which would allow us to see name tags of each other if our code is the same. If code does not match - no name tags are shown, this way we can easily avoid friendly fire. (Name tags could possibly work only at close range) Also this item should have 3-5 lines for codes. So if we don't want to shoot [MisFits] we'd just input their code in 2nd line, and they do the same, so that the name tags would be shown to each other. If they no longer want to be detected - each of their members just change the personal/group code and we'll no longer able to identify them like this. Auto-Run action button. Basically Arma II didn't need that function, but DayZ does need it. What I suggest - is an action menu button like for Huey with "Auto hover: on/off" Or auto-run should be attached to a specific key on the keyboard, what will make it a little bit easier for player I guess. [Zombie changes] [Zombie changes] Resurecting corpses zombie can be incapaciated with shots in his chest, legs, hands. But yet you can kill them simply with shots in the chest, what contradicts every zombie movie (worry) If shots in the chest would've just dropped them on the ground for let's say a minute (or you'd have to shoot at least 5 AKM rounds in each zombie's chest to finish them), but only bullet in the head could actually finish them off - that would be rly hardcore realistic style. Or if you don't want to make noise - you'd have to come to each zombie corpse and press "Finish/Kill/Put to rest" instead, to make sure this zombie will not get up to get you when you'll hardly be expecting. Resurecting players if player dies - his corpse remain for about 2 hours before despawning. How about making player's corpse turn into zombie 2 hours after he died, if his body wasn't burnt or hiden (yeh burning corpses instead of hiding would make more sense, but harder mechanics) So his loot disappears, and he stands up as a strong "burning zombie" that was suggested above. Lets say.. make such zombie-player-corpses slowly head towards Airfields, Chernogorsk, Elektro, Stary Sobor. [Weapon/Equipment changes] [Weapon/Equipment changes] Claymores would also be a nice innovation here. They should not be that popular, since a well placed claymore is a deadly trap. A small mine-field in every lootable building is not what this game should look like. Making it possible to disarm and take claymores with yourself would also encourage players to look carefully before rushing for goodies, or just shooting them from distance. Lets say if you approach claymore slowly on a distance of 3 meters you already have option to disarm it, if you get on distance of less then 0.5 meters - you're dead. Crossbow is probably the most useless weapon for now. It should be reworked.. We suggested few ways of doing so. Changing the crossbow model, maybe adding a better irnonsight or even scope. Making it more accurate. Making it more effective against zombies, but not players. Putting a stack of 3-5 bolts in one slot. Adding mechanics: chop the tree with a hatchet to get a woodpile, then with a hinting knife make arrows out of a woodpile. And suddenly crossbow will become much more popular and interesting. Making it easier to pick up bolts from zombie corpses and objects. Food should not be restoring blood instantly, but rather restore it over time (opposite to bleeding effect) Nourishment icon should be flashing green after you ate smth while your blood is being restored. Eating more food during the same time will just refresh the effect, but not improve or increase it's duration. [justify]Once again, we're deeply sorry for going against that rule "one idea per thread" but we just don't want to spam forum with lots of threads and it's hard to track peoples' opinion, suggestions. We hope our message will not be deleted due to that reason and we hope some of you will like ideas we offered. This post will be updated daily with any new ideas that our communities might think off.[/justify]

I know its an alpha, and I'm sure these issues will be addressed soon, I'm just looking for any tips or tricks for improving the consistency of my vehicles and the items within them. Many items that I have, mainly weapons, are being duped when I move items between my fleet of vehicles. I'm not trying to exploit, and I am regularly saving the vehicles using the scroll menu, but it keeps happening after restarts occur. Furthermore, less beneficially (depending on how you look at it), the state of the vehicles is not being saved. Whenever I get a new vehicle, I park it in my base of operations and shoot out the wheels. However after every restart, the vehicle is good as new with absolutely no damages. Are there ways of improving the consistency of vehicles between restarts?

Make the base 'on wheels'. A convoy of vehicles that can relocate all the time. Then its 'harder' for griefers to spawn 'in the base'. Use the truncks for storage. - How did you plan to store the loot originally? /sEi

As much as it is silly and unfeasible, a little bit of me really wants to customize vehicles so I can pull up outside survivor camps and ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p8eO_LXvUo NSFW

Hello, I am kinda curious how the whole process of saved vehicles/tents work on servers. When new patches are applied, sometimes we notice none of these spawn for a time period when the servers come back up(or they dont at all). The question I have is, since from what ive read, the main dayz server tracks all vehicles(damage/location)... When a server is patched and returned to playability, do you have to wait for them to be retransmitted to the individual server that you play on/the vehicles reside on? Before the flames come in, I am well aware that this is alpha. However id like to know the process plans and how they work for future reference. Thanks for your input and much appreciation to the DayZ staff and mods for an excellent piece of work.

Track IR making people sick??? Thats the first time I've EVER heard that. I purchased my Track IR for the sole puropose of using it in Arma/Arma2. Awesome using it in vehicles, on foot the ALT key works fine too.

Can't tell if sarcastic or... The skills need to be huge, and they need to be solid. They need to be game changing. They need to be the only game-based divisible factor between people (other than the items they are carrying). There need not be ancillary or redundant skills. So far, there's only three worth naming: 1- gutting animals 2- performing medical procedures 3- fixing vehicles Basically, they should only be things you wouldn't expect any Average Joe to understand out of the blue, just because it's the zombie apocalypse.

-Vehicles spawn different places on the map, search the forum for their specific locations. They are hard to fix up alone. A wheel takes up 6 slots in your inventory and you usually need 4. You also need engine parts and fuel. -Press / to open chat and the keys next to it to chose chat channels. Only use text in side channel(blue). If you're running the beta-patch, side channel might be disabled on the server. Or if you have joined a non-beta server, while running the patch yourself, you wont be able to talk to others. -I run two startup parameters to load up faster. -nosplash(disabled intro screens) and -noisland(just loads up water in the basic menu). You could use -world=empty instead of -noisland.

The thing is, that currently some people just want to shoot others (having nothing else to do?) and others are still desperately trying to coop and are getting frustrated on always getting shot on sight... How to make it all better for everyone? Without limiting their freedom of choice. Here's my take on the matter: Suggestion 1, "a.k.a. the bandit clan military escort express for noobs": How about giving all the respawned players, even the noobs some kind of "target spot". It could be for example a weapons cache, that only that guy has knowledge about. Maybe just some map coordinate or such (or a map marker if that would be possible). That location could be in some random house or even in the woods or where-ever. Some small pile of trash, which only triggers and spawns the actual "hidden weapon" (or other high-end-gear) when the guy who has knowledge about it gets next to it. The target should usually be far away from the initial player spawn so that just running there quickly would not be an option. Or maybe it should require something like finding a newly spawned map item first. (So everyone would not just start running toward the location at spawn, they would have to risk a bit of exploration first.) Why such a thing? Well, because this would give even the bandits a totally new target to achieve. Instead of just shooting the noob, now they might want to think that hey, I'll just lure that noob into thinking that I'm a good guy, coop with him for a while, get him to lead me to his weapons cache, and then... :P Now, the bandits would have something else to do than to just shoot the poor sob on sight. (Because the guy has something - info - they can't have just by shooting him on the field). Maybe those bandits clans that have vehicles, etc., would actually even consider giving the noobs and other solo guys some safe rides on their vehicles. You know, a bit of a military escort to the target site type of service. In exchange of, well, for example, getting to take the weapon in the cache, if its something good enough that they really want - And giving some of their not quite so good a weapon in exchange (or alternatively just betraying and shooting the poor bastard.) Or maybe if the loot spawn tends to often have like 2 primary weapons or such, then it makes sense to group up to go there. Because one person will probably only need one of those, the other would generally be a leftover for the other guys. Both would be taking a risk, but both might gain on it. A safe vehicle ride to the cache to gain even a bit crappier left-over assault rifle from a bandit would still be a win for the noob, even if the bandits would take the silenced-ultra-weapon found from the cache. Considering the alternative is to probably never even getting to the cache alive. This certainly would give the bandit clans some new goals. Instead of shooting the noob - and gain some beans and makarov, or just lulz, they might have much more to gain by escorting him safely to some location across the map. (Obviously, to balance things out, the high end gear should have an even lower chance of spawn at NW airfield, etc., so just camping around there would not continue to be the easiest way to get all that stuff.) Sometimes it might go well for all involved. Sometimes it might not. At least now everyone would have a little more motivation to consider getting somewhere together and alive. And, oh boy... the possible drama at the end of it all... :P Oh... And maybe there there should be a 20% chance that the weapon's cache would instead trigger a massive zed horde spawn somewhere nearby that would immediately go aggro. Just to make things more interesting for all parties. (And to promote the "better have other people with you, don't just run here alone with your makarov") :D So basically, its like an ultra-light-version of the actual real complex scripted side missions - but incidentally randomly bound to the newly spawned players. Thus, to acquire these "side missions", it would kinda automatically mean having to somehow deal with that specific player. The good: :) + Promotes, but won't force, interaction beyond the shoot on sight with the random people you meet. Even for the bandits. + Promotes journeys beyond Cherno/Elektro/NWA/Stary even for the old timers that might not otherwise bother. + Should be semi-easy to implement since its just a specific player triggered spawn (and a position indication for that player). + Not really a scripted side mission, but hopefully a player interaction filled journey to the loot spot target. (Not the same pre-made story every time) + Does not force any player to play these, does not really aim to punish the bandit style. They can keep on PvP'ing everything that moves if they want to. + Or they can just stalk people that appear to be heading somewhere... maybe the loot spot? Wait for them to get it, then shoot. No need to go talking with them if you don't want to. + Does not have major issues with realism. It is totally conceivable that a person X could have gained knowledge, that others don't have, of some well hidden weapon stash under the floorboards of house Y in town Z (Maybe he hid the stuff there before all hell broke loose). + Most importantly: Offers something interesting / possibly beneficial things to do, other than just killing everyone. On the negative side: :( - This requires the communication in-game to work somehow. Otherwise it won't promote any teamplay with strangers. People will just keep trying to run solo / in their TS group to the target. Thus, this would not work atm. - Careful selection of the target spots is necessary. They should promote team play, not be some instant to run here after spawn. (Gotta be far enough from the coast, gotta be usually at cities/towns, not in the middle of some safe forest, must not be re-selectable by constantly respawning until a good place is found) - And additionally, it needs to have some cap - like allowing that kind of target spot trigger only once a day (or even week) per player. So that, for example, a single clan member cannot just keep killing himself over and over again, telling his teammates to pick him up with a car and thus keep farming the weapons to their tents by constant respawning. As far as the communication requirement goes, there certainly has been several posts about possibility of walkie-talkies and that kind of stuff. And the above suggestion would definitely need something like that (or just bluntly the sidechat, but I doubt that's coming back). Hence, the other related suggestion: Suggestion 2, "everyone wants the radios, right?": Obviously, the often suggested radios and such, that would allow chatter between limited set of random people even before they meet each other (without having to discuss everything globally on the side and annoying others while doing so), would be great. Now, when the random encounter with a totally nameless guy happens, its too late to go for the direct chat and start chatting with the other guy. Its just an anonymous guy, you know nothing about, you feel nothing towards, and its so easy to just shoot him. Consider the same situation, had you chatted with that guy on the radio (walkie-talkie) you found and hour ago or so. And if it was a limited group of people, possibly just you and the other guy on that specific radio channel (fixed channels per radio perhaps, and range limited by a span of few towns?)... Now, after running hours in the woods and looting towns, with only that one guy on the other end of the radio to chat with... You would have a totally different emotional bond to a possible encounter with him. Maybe it would just be a bandit who has been luring you into an ambush or trying to fish out your location. Or maybe its another fellow survivor that's just as bored to running in the woods alone as you are. Maybe when that guy says he got his bones broken by zeds on his last visit to a town and is on low health, you might actually believe it for a moment... Unlike all of those side chat yells of "I'm at elektro power station, I'm hurt. I need help, can anyone bring me morphine, I'll give you my AKM for it". (Right, sure thing, I'll be right there. Not.) And who knows, if there happens to be a bandit near enough with a radio for that channel, it might not just be you who's up for the encounter. The current "direct chat only" policy might theoretically bring some atmosphere to encounters, but what it really does at the moment, is that unless you play in some clan / teamspeak, the game is essentially a singleplayer experience, until that random encounter... And then, at the encounter, the only form of communication are the bullets. You can play for hours, without having a single human contact, and it is quite possible that even in the end, you'll die without even seeing the one who shot you. This certainly has its tension of the constant fear of getting sniped, but it has no psychological human-to-human interaction tension. It would at least be interesting to chat with someone until you die. And then, when the radio goes silent, to wonder if the other guy had been careless and had got shot. (Or if you hear/read some other guy taking contact through the radio on the same channel, you'd know that you're previous contact is probably dead on his feet.) The good: :) + Direct chat, specifically the text, is just way too little, way too late. One of the players is already dead at the typing of the first few words. This would alleviate that by a certain amount. + A possibility to finally get to know some player a little bit before possibly encountering him. Makes the choice of pulling the trigger a totally different psychological ordeal than with some anonymous avatar that has no name and you know nothing about. + Won't take away the possibility to mass-murder anonymously, with no feelings attached - for those who'd rather play that way. + Won't spam everyone globally, won't clutter their screen if they want to immerse themselves into the world and not feel like being in a chat room. The bad: :( - I dunno about the Arma 2 engine, but implementation might be tricky. At least it would need support added on the engine side, probably not moddable on this level as-is. So, what do you guys think? TL;DR probably for the most... But anyone who actually read the whole thing, did it make sense to you? There would still be the same atmosphere of thick mistrust to go around. But at least there would be a chance that the so called bandits might sometimes be willing to risk meeting up on a stranger, rather than just shooting him from afar. As long as there is nothing for the bandits to gain by not just shooting the anonymous person on sight, of course they are going to keep shooting. Ask yourself: why wouldn't they? The suggestions above attempt to give (those players specifically) some new alternative interesting things to do... And by doing that, it would also cater the needs of the so called survivors (and noobs) who would like to co-operate, but keep getting killed by the said bandits on sight. So, everyone wins. (Or in grim reality: Nothing really changes) :P (My apologies for the shiiitt long post.)