Persistence explanation?

[Irish. 4886]

Persistence:

 

1. This is an early alpha build and everything you see now will change. Drastically. 

 

2. Loot does not respawn from a restart, but does respawn from other loot being picked up in persistent enabled servers. This means every item you pick up, and take away or use, it forces another item to spawn. The codes rather basic right now and is distance based in part, so what happens is you start to see towns that are empty of loot or only holding items like boots and books. On the outskirts of these towns, the new loot spawned in, and its possible that it was picked up as well, moving the newly spawned in loot further North and West. This causes 2 problems: barren areas that have no loot, and loot havens that are difficult to even loot in some cases because there are just too many items on the ground. If you spawn in fresh and do not get lucky enough to find either an unlooted area or one of the loot havens, then you typically either starve to death or meek out a very meager existence living off the land. 

 

3. The loot "bubble" the forces new loot to not spawn around you is not flawless, and seems to be causing areas to get "locked" out of any loot being able to spawn there. I think that is why we see loot havens, because the loot has nowhere else to spawn in. The game sort of locks out areas for good, and the new loot all spawns in small concentrated areas. So if you find loot.. any at all. Take it, use it, get rid of it. Do what ever you can, to force new loot to spawn in. And if you find a loot haven on your own server, or one you call home.. remember it. The theory is that only a small amount exist on each server, so finding them all would mean your ability to survive well, versus perhaps not at all. 

 

4. Loot can be damaged, it just needs to be on your person. It will not degrade on the ground at all currently. It will however disappear if you placed it there, and do not touch it for several dayz on end and it is not in a tent or other container that does not get removed eventually. This rule seems to not stand as true if you picked up an item and moved it only a short distance, in those cases the server seems to treat it as a spawned item and it stays regardless if touched. This is probably attached to the "loot bubble" that defines where new loot can spawn in. 

 

5. I am making educated guesses at best, as I did not read the code and have no clue about that sort of stuff really.. I have played a lot, watched a lot, and read about it a lot (the .50 build) so Ive gathered up some pretty good information. Hopefully my additions above help you all. If not.. I mean.. piss off :) j/k

[Judopunch 523]

You can drink sea water? In ~350 hours of DayZ, it's never occurred to me to do that, ever!

As far as I know you cannot. However there are often inlets and marshes by the sea that you can drink from.

[ChainReactor 922]

-snip, good post, mate-

 

I acquired the habit to use useless items when i find them ever since persistance made it's early steps on experimental. Shed full of chemlights? Break them all. Food house full of books? Tear out pages from everyone ( also mildly resembles my mood when i've encoutered this :P ) Another useless wrench, hammer, plier ? Take it into your hands and throw the F it away ! ( Because you are really really angry now ). Just use those items in any way and their decay / respawn timer should start.