Varlun's Advanced DayZ Tips & Tricks Guide (Submit your own tips!)

[Varlun 13]

NOTE: This guide may be outdated in some areas. I am no longer maintaining this guide. Overall though, it should still be a pretty good read. I'm still following this topic, so if you find something that's no longer true, post about it and I'll remove it, or modify it if you tell me how it works now.

 

This guide is basically still a rough draft and is still under work. I'll be adding things, perhaps reorganizing things and maybe even shortening things. I've put a lot of personal comments and whatnot alongside the information itself, but I feel it all makes for a pleasant read. Please leave a reply and let me know what you think of my guide, and how it's structured, and the commentary, and of course absolutely anything else. Thank you.

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Coastline

*Memorize your coastline. This is something that really just happens over time, but if you actually try to memorize it, it could benefit you earlier. Having your coastline memorized is much more important than you'd probably think. When you spawn a new character, it tells you where you are, somewhere on the coast. Now if you've spawned in a crappy little town with nothing but a little residential loot, then you need to go somewhere else. If you don't know whether to go east or west, you could waste a lot of time.

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Buildings

*Learn your buildings, and what types of loot they spawn, and where these buildings are. You've got 3 types of loot, and all but farm buildings spawn their specific loot. You've got your residential buildings, industrial buildings, military buildings, and farm buildings. Each building type spawns their respective loot. The farm buildings are a mix of all low grade loot from every loot type. They're a great place to hit for a fresh spawn. There's also hospitals, which spawn medical supplies.

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Loot Types

*Learn your loot types. Residential loot spawns things like clothing, food, water, maps, GPS, and other useful gear for your character other than weapons. Military loot of course spawns weapons. Industrial loot spawns things you need to fix vehicles, including fuel. Also, they're an amazing place to find hatchets.

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Zombie Loot

Zombies carry loot. Lots of different loot. Items like bandages, tin cans, beans, and soda, those all change your crosshairs when you aim at a zombie, giving you a context-option to pick them up directly from the body. But if you search bodies using the 'gear' key, you can find substantially more. Military zombies carry everything from STANAG ammunition, AK mags, to grenadesand such. So if you're running low on ammunition for your primary... try shooting some military zombies and checking the bodies! Tedious to check every body manually, but very rewarding.
(Courtesy of Xianyu)

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Hold Breath Button

Unbind the hold breath button and assign it to a button of your preference.

As default hold breath it is the right mouseclick. This is the same button as zooming in when looking. So every time you are zooming in you are holding your breath, which in turn leads to you catching your breath every 15 seconds like a chimney smoker. If you happen to get in a firefight after zooming in you are always out of breath.
(Courtesy of wellwellwell)

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No Rangefinder?

If you don't have a rangerfinder you can use waypoints to find the distance between you and your target.
(Courtesy of ShokeR)

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Hackers

*If you see a random message pop up on your screen, with a bunch of random stuff that only programmers would understand, then there's a large chance that a hacker is on the server. Get off immediately, unless you want to risk a dude teleporting to you in a black SUV and running you over, or shooting you, or causing your vehicle to explode, or teleporting you to an arena with a bunch of other people in a free for all with a helicopter in the middle for the winner, which the hacker will force eject them from so they don't even get the chopper. Personal experience.

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Private Hives

*Try to find a good private hive to play on, instead of a public server. Characters won't transfer to this server, so there's less of a chance of random people with full gear logging on in important places and taking you out. You usually get to know the community after a while, and you learn who you can trust and can't. You learn where the bandits like to camp. Besides all that, FPS usually gets a significant bump when you're on a private hive. Some also have nice perks like more vehicles, so it's more like a real apocalypse. Also, there's a lot less hackers in general, and when they do show up, they're usually taken care of pretty quickly. Admins will roll the server back, etc. The server might be down by the time you're reading this, but in case it isn't, I'm going to recommend the one I play on. Search for Privateers, and the name is something like Beck's Privateers. You can also search for the exact IP:

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Backpacks/Tents Eating Items

*If you put your gun in your backpack and the backpack eats it due to not having enough room, step back until you can't see the grass in the area where you were and you will see your gun/item laying on the ground within a 5 or so meter radius of where you were. Same for tents eating items.
(Courtesy of Hetstaine)

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Avoiding/Losing Zombies

*Most of you reading this probably already know that you can hide in large bushes and trees in order to avoid being hit by zombies, so I'm just going to tell you how to lose zombies without stopping. If you're around enterable buildings with a horde behind you, just run through the buildings and duck around corners. See, the way tracking works with these zombies is, if they lose sight of you, they run to where they last saw you. If they see you again, they'll keep going. If they don't, you've lost them. So you need to round two corners to lose a zombie, not just one. Now, as far as zombies are concerned, trees and bushes, even small ones, act like walls for them. Some people simply say to bob and weave back and forth between bushes as you run to lose zombies, but this only somewhat works. Because see, when you're on the left side of a line of bushes, and you cut to the right, that zombie horde is going to rush to where they last saw you, the left. If you cut back to the left, they'll see you again. So you either have to imagine where your horde is, or actually look with the 1 and 3 numpad keys, and just stay out of their sight. Cut through bushes, and if you still have some on you, cut through some more, but don't pick back up what you've already dropped off. You can ditch an entire horde of like 20 zombies by running around a couple trees. So there you go.

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DayZ DB Map

*A handy thing to use is the DayZ DB map... Google it. It's a map of the continent that you can use when you don't have an ingame map, or even when you do. Because it isn't just a map. It puts a small colored dot (red for military, yellow for industrial, green for farm, blue for industrial) on buildings that have a low amount of item slots, a little square on buildings with a medium amount, and a large circle on buildings with a high amount. You can customize this display all you want. I personally disable low and med residential, low and med farm, and low residential. It also shows you where vehicles spawn, which you can disable for each type of vehicle. It shows you where water pumps are for fulling up your canteen, fuel pumps, hospitals, supermarkets, and deer stands.

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Deer Stands

*Don't neglect deer stands. They have a small chance to spawn basically everything valuable. You can potentially find some really amazing stuff in deer stands, and the risk factor is insanely low compared to say, raiding the Northwest Airfield.

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DayZ Commander

*I've been surprised by how many people don't actually know about or use DayZ Commander. If you use the Six Updater, stop now. And it doesn't matter what else you use. Ask around. DayZ Commander is by far the best server manager. And it goes beyond that. It manages your Arma II and DayZ update status, as well as its own of course. It also has the ability to conveniently download other maps and spinoffs of DayZ right there, like DayZ Origins or DayZ+. When a new update shows up for any of this stuff, it lets you know. It tells you the update status of servers when you're browsing for them. Also, deupdating is as simple as updating, it's just a dropdown list where you choose what update to play in. There's also a very nicely done server filter. You can filter by what maps you want to play on. Maybe you only want to play DayZ Origins, you can search specifically for those servers. Maybe you want servers where nameplates are disabled, or death messages disabled. It's all there. Get DayZ Commander.

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Zombie Spawning, Loot Spawning, and Power Looting/Loot Cycling

*Zombie and loot spawning. Zombies spawn from a building when you're within 200m of the outside of the building, not the center. Loot spawns between 30m and 120m of a building, again the walls. Loot is also on a 10 minute timer for each building. This timer stops when nooone is within 120m of the building. It doesn't reset, it just pauses until someone comes back within range. The timer will continue with someone within 30m of the building, but loot won't spawn. Also important is the fact that loot does not spawn when you're in a vehicle, unless we're talking about a chopper crash site. Crash site loot spawns when the server restarts. Also, all loot already spawned despawns on server restart.

*Something that most pro players do is something I like to call power looting. The more well-known word for it seems to be loot cycling, but whatever. Power looting is just taking advantage of the looting mechanics to loot the same building or a set of buildings over and over, and get the good loot out of them. Something to note is the amount of loot slots the building has. Some have more than others. You want to power loot the ones with more. Now, when you spawn loot at a building (by walking into range of it), the server saves what you spawned. So when you take what you want and leave, all the trash you left behind is saved, taking up those slots. So what you need to do, is pick up all that stuff you don't want and drop it right outside the door. Once you've cleaned it up, get about 35m away from the building. Remember the 10 minute timer. More often than not, it'll take you about 10 minutes to completely loot and empty the building, so you won't have to worry about it, but still be aware of it, so you know what happened if you walk back to the building and no loot spawned. Also consider that you might not have walked far enough away. And that's all there is to power looting.

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Hatchet Tips (Stuff about the glorious hatchet)

*A great starter weapon to consider is the hatchet. Its range is longer than you'd think, enough where you can usually take out zombies before they're in range to start attacking. It'll one-shot zombies and two-shot players, with the first shot usually making them bleed. If you hit them in the legs, you'll break them, and if you hit them in the head, you could knock them unconscious as well.

*The hatchet functions as a short-ranged, silenced gun. Far from hack and slash. You even have a circle for a crosshair, just aim and click. Don't click constantly, as that makes your swings insanely inaccurate. Wait for your character to finish the swing animation and your circle to come back, then swing again. If your aim is good, you'll take out zombies literally left and right. Now of course, if they're in your face, it doesn't really matter. Swing away. Other than that, they are of course a silenced weapon. Players can usually tell if there's someone else in a town before they enter because of the spawned zombies, but unless you're firing a loud weapon or pissing off zombies, they won't really have a clue where you actually are. Also, infinite ammo. Now there is a glitch with the hatchet. When you log in with it equipped in your weapon slot, it'll act like it has no ammo and you won't be able to swing. To fix this, just add it to your toolbelt and remove it again.

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Helicopter Tips (Tips having anything to do with a helicopter, vehicles, or flying)

*Fire up Operation Arrowhead without DayZ active and practice flying. The Armory is a great place to start, since it gives you infinite choppers and infinite respawns, making it easy to practice without wasting time in the editor making a practice run. For some added fun and challenge, check out the single player scenario E06: Littlebird. I can play through that three or four times without getting bored, and it offers a great blend of flying, fighting and landing for you to enjoy. Try to fly along the highway at the beginning, and keep your altitude below 10m the whole way to the first town.
(Courtesy of Beez)

*I want to stay away from glitches, because they're temporary, but there's a glitch with choppers I want to cover because so many people don't know how it actually works, and it's kind of annoying. Choppers will leak fuel if your glass is not fully repaired. Nothing else causes fuel to leak, even if it's completely broken. Just glass. The worse the glass is broken, the worse the fuel will leak out. To give you a bit of perspective on how bad it is, 4 pieces of yellow (barely damaged) glass is enough for the chopper to leak out 3 cans of fuel in about 10 seconds. Yeah. So if you're using a chopper, stock up on glass. Guess what happens if you land a little too hard? You screw up all your glass. Guess what happens if you land or are trying to take off and a zombie attacks you, even just once, while you're sitting inside the chopper? You screw up all your glass. So yeah, this is a major pain in the ass considering that the fuel will always leak, no matter what state the chopper is in. Flying, landed, engine on or off, occupied or not, even if noone's around the chopper or the server's completely empty. As long as the server's on, your chopper will leak. So don't be surprised if you log off with half a tank of fuel and some broken glass, and your chopper's empty when you log back on.

*Have you ever found yourself face-to-face with a fully-functional chopper that had no fuel? Maybe you had one or two filled jerry cans on you, and you wondered if it'd be enough to fly it to the nearest gas station? Well I'm here to tell you, that unless it's changed (which it probably won't), a single can of fuel will easily take you at least 2000m. I did this myself. I also hovered right above where I was going to land until the fuel ran out, and I hovered longer than the entire trip of 1800m took. So I would say that you could safely take a chopper 3000m on a single can of fuel, assuming you don't take forever taking off and getting going, or take forever landing etc. Now, if you ever find yourself in this situation, don't forget about the fuel leak glitch with broken glass. If you have just one piece of broken glass, or even just slightly damaged (yellow) glass, then there's no telling how much it'll cut out of your travel time. Regardless, 3000m is easily enough to get to the nearest gas station, unless you're parked at like the northern edge of the map.

*I'm going to give you a quick rundown on how to fly a chopper. It's not hard at all, yet most people who already know the ropes of DayZ don't feel comfortable with a chopper, so that's why I'm sharing. First, if you're not an inverted type of person, I recommend you go into your keybindings and reverse the W and S keys for flying... that way W tilts your nose up, and S tilts it down. I also recommend you hotkey AutoHover to 5 on the numpad. It'll save your life. Now, Q will power up the engine. You don't have to hold it, there's only on and off for the engine, no inbetween. Once your engine's running, double check to make sure you have AutoHover on. Now press Q to fly up. Z will take you down. A and D will tilt your chopper left and right respectively. I don't use the WASD keys while flying, as I find using the mouse to be more precise. To go forward, take off AutoHover and hold Q, to give yourself continuous upward thrust. Tilt the chopper forward, and watch your altitude gauge. You typically want to fly at least 100m or higher. Keep tilting forward and balancing that out, so you're not going up or down while flying forward. To stop, you can just press your AutoHover key, or you can hit W (or S, depending) to tilt your chopper back and stop faster. Only do this if you're comfortable with the chopper. X and C will twist your chopper counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively. Now, landing. Have your AutoHover on, and just slowly go down. As far as landing on slopes, your chopper will slide forward and back, but not sideways, so angle it appropriately. Note that if you land on a slope, when you take off, your chopper will try to fly sideways off the slope, so make sure there's nothing there that you'll hit. Also, sometimes when you're taking off, your chopper will try to twist for some reason. Just take off your AutoHover and use your X or C key to keep the chopper in place, so it won't hit anything. If you ever find your rear rotor damaged or destroyed, your chopper will try to spin. If you're moving fast enough, it won't spin, so you can still get from place to place. The trick is landing. But that's all it is, a trick. You just have to know what to do. Guide the chopper to an open, flat area, by having AutoHover on and using W and S to tilt the chopper back and forth as it spins around. When you're in a chopper, you have a GPS, so use that to gauge how you're moving. Once you're in a good area, just keep AutoHover on and gently, gently tap Z and start moving down. That's all you have to do, is be gentle. Make sure that when you go down, your AutoHover isn't making the chopper rock back and forth, trying to compensate. You may have to temporarily take AutoHover off in order to get it steady. But that's all you have to do is gently hug the ground. Once you touch the ground, it'll quickly stop spinning. If you're good, you should have done no damage at all. Now go get some scrap metal and fix your rear rotor.

*Another note about choppers, as well as every other vehicle. This is mainly with choppers, but more often than not, the look of a vehicle or the symbols once you get in a vehicle will lie to you about the true condition of it. In order to accurately tell what a chopper or other vehicle really needs, you need to look at the repair options on your scroll list when looking at a vehicle. You of course need a toolbox. This list will never lie to you. Also, you may want to give it about 3 seconds after looking at a vehicle and scrolling. Sometimes there's a delay before repair options pop up.

*When you're in the gunner seat of a chopper, you have a scroll option to add M240 ammo. Unless you actually have this ammo in your main inventory, you'll be kicked if you attempt this.

*You must be at least 50m or higher in order to eject from a chopper and get a parachute. Any lower, and you'll just jump to your death. I also wouldn't push it. Have your pilot do at least 55.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Varlun

[taco241 393]

Some good suggestions. I would have skipped the duping tutorial or the Combat logging tip though.

Good info on choppers.

[Varlun 13]

Some good suggestions. I would have skipped the duping tutorial or the Combat logging tip though.

Good info on choppers.

Thanks. Why might you have skipped those?

[Hetstaine 10852]

because why tell people who do not or don't want to know about it ? and... duping is fucked thats why :)

One quick addition, if you do the old gun switcheroonie the wrong way around in your backpack and the backpack eats its..step back until you cannot see the grass in the area where you were and you will see your gun/item laying on the ground within a 5 or so metre radius of were you where. Same for tents eating items.

One other thing, maybe it depends on servers but deerstands have seemed like a massive waste of time for a long time now. I have a better chance of a gun by running to the NW Field via Zeleno (15-20 minute bolt) than finding tin cans and ammo in deerstands :) I don't even look at them anymore.

Hatchet rules for zed killing.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Hetstaine

[DemonGroover 8836]

Some good tips, but i am definitely frowning >:( at your combat logging and duplication suggestions.

I also think that the loot map is a cop out but i do understand why people use it.

[Varlun 13]

because why tell people who do not or don't want to know about it ? and... duping is fucked thats why :)

One quick addition, if you do the old gun switcheroonie the wrong way around in your backpack and the backpack eats its..step back until you cannot see the grass in the area where you were and you will see your gun/item laying on the ground within a 5 or so metre radius of were you where. Same for tents eating items.

One other thing, maybe it depends on servers but deerstands have seemed like a massive waste of time for a long time now. I have a better chance of a gun by running to the NW Field via Zeleno (15-20 minute bolt) than finding tin cans and ammo in deerstands :) I don't even look at them anymore.

Hatchet rules for zed killing.

Thanks for the addition, I'll be sure to add it. As far as duping and combat logging... if I get a few more people on here complaining about that, I guess I'll remove it. Even though I do both myself, admittedly. As I said, zombies are glitchy, and that glass...

As far as the deerstands go, if a few more people tell me that deer stands aren't actually worth it, then I'll remove that as well.

Thanks again.

[Varlun 13]

Some good tips, but i am definitely frowning >:( at your combat logging and duplication suggestions.

I also think that the loot map is a cop out but i do understand why people use it.

Same thing I said to the guy above, if a couple more people complain about the combat logging and duping then I'll remove them.

Is there anyone here who's perhaps on my side on those two issues?

Also, as far as the loot map, I don't even really ever use it for loot anymore. I mainly use it to locate the nearest fuel pump.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Varlun

[hatfieldcw 184]

Combat logging is always bogus in my mind. If I'm playing with a guy and he logs out and back in to shed zombie aggro, I'll shoot him when he gets back and tell him he's a jerk. I duped my share of car wheels and glass back in the day, when you could do it by leaving them in a tent over a server restart. Had like thirty car parts in one tent one time. I can't really endorse the practice, but it's widespread and most of the people flying helicopters and driving Military Offroads do it by exploiting the mechanic, so I can't come down too hard on guys who want to compete at that level by using the methods their competitors use.

An addition to your Helicopter advice: Fire up Operation Arrowhead without DayZ active and practice flying. The Armory is a great place to start, since it gives you infinite choppers and infinite respawns, making it easy to practice without wasting time in the editor making a practice run. For some added fun and challenge, check out the single player scenario E06: Littlebird. I can play through that three or four times without getting bored, and it offers a great blend of flying, fighting and landing for you to enjoy. Try to fly along the highway at the beginning, and keep your altitude below 10m the whole way to the first town.

Finally, head over to YouTube and look at

videos. You'll be glad you did.

[Auslovich 48]

I'm the next complaint about duping and combat logging.

Please remove them, they are bannable offences on almost every server, and are not accepted by the majority of the DayZ player/fanbase.

[Shrapnell 92]

Remove combat logging and duping, please

[taco241 393]

I kind of wish I hadn't read the duping info. I have never used it and I don't think I ever will, but I believe I'm in the minority.

I know it counteracts some bugs but to me those bugs are just part of the survival challenge.

Plus the temptation to give your buddy a copy of you gun ....just this once.... is too great (for many, not me).

[Boshed 29]

I would also like to request that the duplication and Combat Logging 'tips/tricks' should be removed as you are basically providing a tutorial on how to cheat. Moreover, these are areas the community dev team are actively trying to prevent.

[novogeek 253]

Was a good read ... until I got to Duping and Combat Logging ... FAIL!!!

You shall get an honourable mention for MOM.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0sw8RnkESYo/T9-WfM2j5WI/AAAAAAAAAHA/KEoVV_rvpEg/s1600/Kermit+the+Frog.jpg

[Varlun 13]

Due to popular demand, the combat logging and duping suggestions have been removed. Apologies for any upset feelings.

[EliteSkittle 59]

Two sections I would like to see are things I'm always helping people with such as Handling a person to person situation i.e. you just randomly bump into some one or you find yourself on the wrong end of an AK barrel. Basically how to NOT KoS and how to handle a sniper without a sniper either by escape or elimination.

[Varlun 13]

Two sections I would like to see are things I'm always helping people with such as Handling a person to person situation i.e. you just randomly bump into some one or you find yourself on the wrong end of an AK barrel. Basically how to NOT KoS and how to handle a sniper without a sniper either by escape or elimination.

I would definitely like to add tips on such things, but sadly I'm not the right man for the job. I actually don't like the PvP aspect of this game. At all. I never use a primary gun, just a hatchet. M1911 sidearm for if I get shot at and miraculously survive, to use as self defense. I've killed one player so far, purposefully, and that's it. I'm actually hoping there'll be PvE servers for Standalone, where you can't kill other players. To balance, the idea is that there'd be more zombies, they'd be stronger, and they'd adopt a mob and wave mentality, so you really have to work together to survive. I'd like zombies to be able to wear down base defenses, so you really need a group of people to keep them off your gates. But that's a story for another thread entirely.

My point is, that if you or anyone else would like to type up some suggestions for these situations, I'll definitely add them in.

[thesodesa 99]

Just a friendly suggestion:

Could you please add some type of subheadings, and move related tips under the same subheading. For example you could have a section for vehicles and another section related to looting. I find this wall of text really difficult to read, so having some clear punctuation between sections would help immensely.

[Varlun 13]

Just a friendly suggestion:

Could you please add some type of subheadings, and move related tips under the same subheading. For example you could have a section for vehicles and another section related to looting. I find this wall of text really difficult to read, so having some clear punctuation between sections would help immensely.

I've been thinking about reorganizing this, but I've been holding off because I feel like there's a little flow from part to part... like I'll mention the hatchet then I'll talk about it. But I guess since I'm going to be adding tips from other people, I should go ahead and get on some organization.

Thank you for your request.

[jubeidok 495]

Can you also add a link to where you can download cheats for the game?

[Varlun 13]

Can you also add a link to where you can download cheats for the game?

No.

[nox81 28]

*or teleporting you to an arena with a bunch of other people in a free for all with a helicopter in the middle for the winner, which the hacker will force eject them from so they don't even get the chopper. Personal experience."

That actually sounded pretty awesome....accept for the force eject.....talk about playing god lol

Edited March 20, 2013 by BenjamK

[Varlun 13]

*or teleporting you to an arena with a bunch of other people in a free for all with a helicopter in the middle for the winner, which the hacker will force eject them from so they don't even get the chopper. Personal experience."

That actually sounded pretty awesome....accept for the force eject.....talk about playing god lol

Heh. It was an interesting moment. One of my first hacker encounters. I was so sad when he ejected me from the chopper... I saw it crash right in front of my eyes... straight into the firehouse at the NW Airfield. D:

[narwaljunior 18]

If you're in a crowded area, shift walk will lower your chance of being spotted by zombies. Also crawl or shift walk across roads since they attract zombies much easier.

Medical Stuff

- Antibiotics stop the coughing/cold. You have a chance to become infected by the coughing if you get within 5m of a coughing player. For this reason it is best to carry antibiotics whenever you can. If you need to give it to someone, drop it on the ground and back off so they can pick it up. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks, didn't realize the patch made coughing so easy to cure.

- You can pass out from zombies if your blood is beneath ~8000(don't quote me on it). Your blood indicator will be a yellowish-green. If you are at this level it is suggested to be extremely careful around zombies.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Waldo The Doctor

[Hetstaine 10852]

atm coughing does not matter as there are more antibiotics spawning than you will ever need. The last patch was pretty shit to say the least.

[svisketyggeren 662]

im requesting that the combat logging and duping tips be brought back in the guide...for academic purposes of course

im also requesting that balota buddies rename themself too....balota bunnies

Edited March 20, 2013 by svisketyggeren