Tips, Tricks & Queries.

[Fold 14]

New game, new rules so I thought I'd compile a few of the more important discoveries that I've found in the standalone.

 

Food & Drink

A precious commodity it seems, failure to satisfy your hunger and thirst will have its negative impacts. Currently, the risk of becoming unconscious will literally be the death of you as you might not wake up without a compadre able to provide you with a blood transfusion (which incidentally isn't as straight forward as the mod, but we'll get to that).

 

Main point to make is, keep a ready supply of good food and drink available. Rotten fruit is a no no! Don't eat as soon as it says you're hungry, allow a short period of time to pass otherwise you run the risk of running out of food.

 

If you've lost blood and can't readily find a blood transfusion, keep your food and drink full for an hour and you'll recover.

 

Energy

Unlike the Mod (aside from later implementations such as Epoch), energy will impact you more than just a 20 second gun sway after running for an hour. Receiving notifications of being tired and weary mean you need to stop running, eat and drink.

 

Blood/Medical

Clothing is your friend (most of the time) and will provide a quick fix to a blood loss problem. Fortunately, you don't need to strip as it spawns all over the place (for now). Ensure it's on the ground, scroll over it and select shred. Your inventory will now contain some strips of material which you can use as bandages.

 

If you've fallen unconscious due to lack of food/drink or blood, you've got a long wait ahead (up to 30/40minutes). Alternatively, if a friend has a saline kit on them, they can use it on you to wake you up.

 

Medical kits aren't too rare, I've personally found them in barns and houses. They can contain all sorts of goodies to keep you alive and well.

 

To preform a blood transfusion from start to finish you'll need:

 

- 2 Blood Testing Kits

 

- 1 IV Starting Kit

 

- 1 (Empty) Blood Bag

 

 

Here are the steps:

 

1. To start determine if the receiver can use the donor blood type, use one blood testing kit on each participant and pay attention to the results.

 

2. Refer to a blood type chart to find out if the transfusion can take place (Handy Wikipedia link here; https://en.wikipedia...l_compatibility).

 

3. Drain your good friend the donor, by applying the IV Start Kit while having the (Empty) Blood Bag in your inventory.

 

4. Now pick up your bag of freshly squeezed human.

 

5. While holding the IV Starter Kit and the (Filled) Blood Bag administer the blood to the recipient.

 

6. Enjoy the knowledge that you probably didn't make them sick if you read the chart right. Good Job Doctor.

 

Zombies

Similarly to the mod, there are differing zombie traits and you will begin to spot them. Some run, jump and scare the crap out of you and other plod along moaning and groaning. Running through trees and breaking line of sight does a good job of getting rid of them.

 

A few bugs I've noticed (and seen documented as known bugs) are:

- Sunken zombies which only display their torso as they chase you. I've only had this happen within a supermarket though.

- Wall clipping happened to me in the airfield barracks.

 

Their melee attacks aren't too threatening, the animation is much slower than the mod's and allows you to time melee hits without sustaining damage.

 

Inventory

Notorious for having terrible user interfaces, the mod was a chore to learn. However, once you learnt the tricks it was fairly straight forward. The standalone is a little easier, but as it's in the alpha stage it is also buggy.

 

Actionbar/Toolbelt or whatever it is called at the bottom of your screen allows 10 items to be quickly accessed through hotkeys.

 

You can carry 1 melee weapon and a rifle on your back.

 

Items now have a shape, a water bottle for example is tall and requires two vertical free spaces in your bag etc to be stored. To find the shape you need to create, drag the item over to your inventory and it will show you.

 

If you know you have space somewhere in your gear for an item, drag it onto your body and it will find a suitable spot for you.

 

Clothing now holds items too, if you remove an item of clothing it will also take the items stored within and keep hold of them. Upgrading to a new item of clothing is straight forward though as you can simply transfer the items back, leaving the old item of clothing on the floor.

 

Misc

- Head-torches can only be turned off in your inventory (whilst typing this I wonder whether they can be added to your action bar instead). They also don't seem to aim correctly as the light falls below your crosshair.

 

- You can run faster with nothing in your hands.

 

- Zombies do not react to torches/lamps etc (players will though!)

 

 

 

Hopefully, this should help others out though bear in mind I've only played the game for an hour or two so there's more than likely numerous amendments to be made.

 

Merry Standalone.

 

±Fold

Edited December 19, 2013 by Fold

[Fold 14]

My queries:

 

- Are dormant zombies meant to remain stationary?

 

- What guns are currently available?

 

- Will the unconscious screen be amended to show a timer?

 

- Thoughts on a shorter day/night cycle?

[TheRedScare 353]

My queries:

 

- Are dormant zombies meant to remain stationary?

 

- What guns are currently available?

 

- Will the unconscious screen be amended to show a timer?

 

- Thoughts on a shorter day/night cycle?

Yes

So far I have found a m4a1 and a mosin as well as ammo for a revolver and a m16.

No.

Perfect how it is.

[Morgankaines 13]

I don't particularly like the day/night system, I think. Working days, it gets dark around 3 pm around here. Meaning I'll have to play in the dark most of the time :(  

On a bright side, it's eerie and interesting, even if I can't see squat!

[Fold 14]

I have to agree Morgankaines, for obvious reasons I don't enjoy night time gameplay as much as day time.

 

I'd prefer a faster cycle or simply a shorter night-time longer day-time e.g. 4 hours night 20 hours day.

[Bisonman80 12]

 

- You can run faster with nothing in your hands.

 

I'm 100% sure I was running faster than these two fresh spawns I just met, and I was holding the long pointy bayonet in my hands and had a full backpack on.

[relapse808 2]

Any tips to help me find my friends would be great.  Im not sure of the spawn points in stand alone.  Also it doesnt tell you the starting location like the mod.  Spent two hours last night trying to find my friend with no luck.  Any tips on this would help :)

[mtreusdell@knology.net 12]

Very nice of you to take the time to post all of that.

 

Thank you.

[Morgankaines 13]

Any tips to help me find my friends would be great.  Im not sure of the spawn points in stand alone.  Also it doesnt tell you the starting location like the mod.  Spent two hours last night trying to find my friend with no luck.  Any tips on this would help :)

 

Only reason I found my way yesterday was reading signs, finding the coast, railroad, anything else of landmarks that could help me figure out where I was... My friend knows the map in her head from before, but if you haven't memorized it or played a shit ton, it's harder.

[meta87 25]

Passed out?

One additional way to wake up from being unconscious is to have a friend use a saline kit on you, this will wake you from your eternal slumber (must be in hand to use on friendly player).

 

Note: If you have been passed out for a long time and have been in game during this time, expect to be EXTREMELY thirsty and hungry. Better have a lot of food/drink to consume to get you back to where you are safe again.

 

Best foods?

Foods that have multiple uses are by far the best foods to carry with you, preferably those that do not rot or go bad easily (canned goods, cereal, etc) and take little bag space.

 

The following are the top 4 foods in my opinion:

Powdered Milk (takes one space and can be consumed 10 times, this applies to hunger, not thirst).

Any Canned Foods (take one space and have 5 uses, require can opener or knife to use)

Rice (takes 2 slots and can be consumed several times).

Cereal (takes 4 slots and can be consumed several times).

Edited December 18, 2013 by Meta

[iAwesome 128]

"You can carry 1 melee weapon and a rifle on your back."

 

 

 

 

 

You can carry 1 melee weapon and a rifle on your back.

However, you can still carry a second rifle in your hands as long as you holster your first rifle to your back, but this will drop it to the ground whenever you're trying to drink/interact with doors, ladders etc, but it's nice to know if you're gonna give your friend a weapon. 

[firemedic 7]

Any tips to help me find my friends would be great.  Im not sure of the spawn points in stand alone.  Also it doesnt tell you the starting location like the mod.  Spent two hours last night trying to find my friend with no luck.  Any tips on this would help :)

As was said by Morgankaines, basically you have to reference yourself. It is very hard to do so in the game and then find yourself with one of the online maps but it's doable if you have enough patience. I haven't played DayZ in a long time and didn't play it for very long when I was but I have a very very good sense of direction and location (firefighter skills of course) so I have been playing the Alpha with the map sitting open on my Nexus 7 and finding where I was through landmarks and anything else I can identify around me. 

I did happen to come across an area not displayed on the old map though so that was exciting. I can't wait for the new maps to come available. This game is so crazy cool.

[kick_buta@hotmail.com 3]

If you're looking for a step by step of the blood transfusion process here's my experience with them.

 

 

To preform a blood transfusion from start to finish you'll need:

 

- 2 Blood Testing Kits

 

- 1 IV Starting Kit

 

- 1 (Empty) Blood Bag

 

 

Here are the steps:

 

1. To start determine if the receiver can use the donor blood type, use one blood testing kit on each participant and pay attention to the results.

 

2. Refer to a blood type chart to find out if the transfusion can take place (Handy Wikipedia link here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type#Red_blood_cell_compatibility).

 

3. Drain your good friend the donor, by applying the IV Start Kit while having the (Empty) Blood Bag in your inventory.

 

4. Now pick up your bag of freshly squeezed human.

 

5. While holding the IV Starter Kit and the (Filled) Blood Bag administer the blood to the recipient.

 

6. Enjoy the knowledge that you probably didn't make them sick if you read the chart right. Good Job Doctor.

[pmjkerr 76]

Great tips dudes. Many thanks. Any other confirmed ways to increase blood count apart from IV transfusion?

[pbrunk 114]

Question:

What is the best article of clothing for each slot?

[Naxin 8]

Thanks for the helpful post. Hope this contributes to the queries section.

 

The disinfectant spray, is it for use on what? It wouldn't let me clean fruit, but it would let me clean my ax. Is there a reason to clean weapons? Does that improve condition potentially?

 

Can weapons, items, clothing be repaired? 

 

What is the rope and duct tape used for currently? Can they be used to restrain other players?

  Can I take rags and duct tape and fix some ruined pants? 

   Can I duct tape weapon magazines together?

 

What is the burlap sack used for?

  When you eat an apple it lets you keep the core, is that related to the Burlap Sack?

Can the burlap sack be put over other players heads potentially when they are restrained (like hand-cuffed or whatever else is possible). 

 

What are the pliers for?

 

I have plenty more, but I am gonna do some more reading on the forums before I ask further. 

 

Can the bayonet be attached to any weapons? I tried the M4A1 and that was not working.

[Bubbajones 238]

tip:

 

 you can store things in the pockets of clothing, then place the clothing in your backpack and it wont take any more room than if the pockets were empty.

 

you cant access pockets when its stored.

 

To retrieve said items, drop the clothing on the ground, take or swap items into the pockets and return the clothing i your pack.

 

e.g. cargo pants have 6 slots but take up 4 in inventory.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Bubbajones

[noey jerd 3]

I can't find food or water. Well, I found a can of beans but had no way to open it. I don't know how to open cans. Can anyone tell me? IMO your hunger and thirst comes too fast. Almost every building I go in there is nothing there! I was thirsty for the longest time and went through a whole city, every building, every room and found NOTHING! lol.

[Naxin 8]

I was also wonder what are books, paper and pens for in the game? I am guessing they are not active fully yet, but can anyone guess what they will be used for?

[Fold 14]

Naxin, I believe they're for leaving notes for other players.

 

I don't think they're operational yet though!

[Fold 14]

Added KickButa's blood transfusion guide to the Medical section, thanks pal!

[Naxin 8]

Added KickButa's blood transfusion guide to the Medical section, thanks pal!

Thanks, also note that blood bags according to the text they come with will only last outside refrigeration for about 24 hours. I wonder if that holds true in the game?

[Naxin 8]

Naxin, I believe they're for leaving notes for other players.

 

I don't think they're operational yet though!

Thank you Fold, I think you are right on both counts, but no way to test till they actually work.

[kick_buta@hotmail.com 3]

I should point out that giving a Saline IV will also boost your blood. So if you don't know your blood type, it'll do.

Edited December 21, 2013 by KickButa