A dozen cans but no way to open them

[hkurban 31]

So I ended up passing out/dying of hunger with about 8 or more cans of food in my inventory.  I frustratingly tried to open the cans but apparently had no means to do so, despite having several sharp instruments in my inventory to include a fire axe, a screw driver, and a pair of cable cutters.  The bayonet seems to be the only applicable tool for getting cans open, at least from what I have been able to determine, which seems silly.  It doesn't take MacGuyver to figure out a way to use one of the three aformentioned tools to make some sort of hole in the cans from which to draw beany goodness.  Instead however, my character seemed content to starve to death rather than risk cleaving the can of food in half with his hatchet, causing it to spill its contents all over the place.  

 

Now I get what the devs were trying to accomplish by limiting the ability to open canned food.  I mean after all, you're not going to pry the can open with your bare hands, but my ratio of bayonets to canned food found was rougly 1:25 in my few hours of gameplay across a few servers.  Perhaps have some way to try different tools out on the can to varying levels of success.  More knife-like tools are more likely to open the can normally, while blunt or larger tools are more likely to smash your can of food (which would either destroy the item outright, or leave you to salvage whatever's left at the bottom of the can).  Heck, if I had nothing else, in a real survival situation I'd even try smashing the can against a rock like an otter until it eventually splits open, but for gameplay purposes, that at least might be pushing it.  

[Kawllie 18]

Knife and "Can Opener" opens the cans among other things if I'm not mistaken?

[Korsbaek 1778]

Screw drivers will definitely open them. Maybe you're doing something wrong :P

[hkurban 31]

Did not run across either of those, which may have been a byproduct of the shores being picked clean, but I had made my way fairly inland checking residential and industrial alike.  

[Kawllie 18]

Did not run across either of those, which may have been a byproduct of the shores being picked clean, but I had made my way fairly inland checking residential and industrial alike.  

 

From a "realistic" point of view, this makes sense. However agree that there is far too few droppin' can openers in the game. Should be in basically every kitchen of the residential areas?

[Shock4ndAwe 13]

Same boat, bro. I've died twice because I haven't been able to find anything to open a can.

[Zarniwoop 1193]

Put it in whole.

[Swordfish (DayZ) 23]

The knife I had was not able to open the cans. Maybe it was a rubber knife. :(

Edited December 17, 2013 by Swordfish

[benlav 1]

Well this answers my questions. I tried to 'combine' my screwdiver, axe, wrench etc with the canned food with no luck. IRL, 'some' cans have a thumb tab so you can peel the lid off.

 

My first round I died of starvation with 4 cans of food in my backpack.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

You didn't think to pick up some food you could eat without a tool? There's lots of canned tuna, rice, cereal, and even fresh fruit around in some places.

[Kawllie 18]

You didn't think to pick up some food you could eat without a tool? There's lots of canned tuna, rice, cereal, and even fresh fruit around in some places.

 

Sometimes you'd rather die than eat tuna.

[hkurban 31]

You didn't think to pick up some food you could eat without a tool? There's lots of canned tuna, rice, cereal, and even fresh fruit around in some places.

 

During that particular life the only other food I could scrounge up was a single can of tuna and some rotten fruit.  The tuna did nothing to help my hunger for some reason (maybe you need to eat it all at once instead of rationing it) and I risked the rotten fruit from time to time, but in the end hunger won out.  

[mercules 1290]

I've have two can openers and a knife. Loot is random. I was eating tuna and anything with moisture in it because I couldn't seem to find anything to drink. ;)

[Strategos (DayZ) 190]

Some tins have a ring pull, but the knife, screw driver mechanic hasn't worked once for me for opening cans :(

 

Tell you what I'm pretty sure I could open a can with an axe, or a rock, or my M4.