Persistence, dropping of items/maintenance

[Re-Patch 47]

Hallo Guys

 

I've got a few questions about "persistence: on" servers, maybe somebody can help me.

If I want to drop some stuff on a random location of the map (nature, not in a house), in order to make a little stash for my friends, how does that work?

1) If I drop items on the floor (saw, helmets, shoes, ammunition for example) that are not in a peace of clothing or in a backback, will they stay there?

2) If I drop a backback or a peace of clothing on the floor (with or without items in it), will it stay there? 

3) If I drop a weapon (with or without mags) on the floor, will it stay there?
4) Or do I need a tent to do anything of the above?
5) If I leave, let's say, two-three weapons on this server (but I'm bringing them from another one) I will not break/heavily confuse the persitence mechanic of that server or anything like that right? Because I don't want to use it like that.

6) Can hackers see my stuff on their esp?

I heard that on each Wednesday the persistence gets reset, does that mean everything that I put on the floor before will vanish? And the same for the tent? How are people doing this/preventing this with tents? Just wondering, because I saw the tent had a lot of space, too much that any person could temporarily hold it on the char until maintenance is over (especially since you got no backpack when you got the tent on your back??).

Thanks for helping & sorry, I have almost exclusively played on pers: off until now.

 

cheers,

Re-Patch

Edited January 13, 2015 by re-patch

[krazypenguin 174]

1 - Yes

2 - Yes

3 - Yes

4 - No, you don't need a tent

5 - You shouldn't, no.

6 - No comment

 

Every Wednesday there is a server maintenance on all DayZ servers.  At this time EVERYTHING except characters and their immediate items (weapons, clothes & backpacks plus contents) gets wiped.  So yes, a tent left out on Wednesday morning will get wiped as will all other items left outside of a character's inventory.  Different people deal with storing tents and their contents during the Wednesday maintenance in different ways.  I have heard that some people use alternate, "blank" characters as mules to just lug stuff around (i.e. they buy the game on another Steam account but only play that character to store things in inventory), others may use alternative methods which may not be in the spirit of the game.  

 

Personally, I don't get the idea of tents if you cannot keep them longer than a week without having to pack everything up somehow (which should technically be impossible) - that just makes no sense to me.  IMO tents should survive the Wednesday maintenance and patch - but then the game is still alpha, tents and persistence are still relatively new, so I am sure all of this will come in future.

 

A word about persistence.

Like everything, don't trust it.  It's not perfect yet and is still being worked on, as is the entire loot spawn system.  Be mindful that a server may say it is persistence on, but not actually be - test it first.  Be aware that the server owner could turn persistence off without warning (or the server could simply vanish one day with all your tents and loot).  Do not get attached to your gear, or character.

 

EDIT - All the above is based on reading these forums, dev notes, youtube vids etc...if I have made any mistakes, sorry, please correct me!  The one thing I did hear was that only "container" items (i.e. anything that you can put something else inside) would persist (so a magazine\clip would persist, an orange would not)) but that goes against everything else that I read so I am not sure.

 

TL:DR - only way to be sure is to test it yourself on a server.  Find one where what you want works and off you go.  But remember, it can stop at any time.

Edited January 13, 2015 by krazypenguin

[Re-Patch 47]

1 - Yes

2 - Yes

3 - Yes

4 - No, you don't need a tent

5 - You shouldn't, no.

6 - No comment

 

Every Wednesday there is a server maintenance on all DayZ servers.  At this time EVERYTHING except characters and their immediate items (weapons, clothes & backpacks plus contents) gets wiped.  So yes, a tent left out on Wednesday morning will get wiped as will all other items left outside of a character's inventory.  Different people deal with storing tents and their contents during the Wednesday maintenance in different ways.  I have heard that some people use alternate, "blank" characters as mules to just lug stuff around (i.e. they buy the game on another Steam account but only play that character to store things in inventory), others may use alternative methods which may not be in the spirit of the game.  

 

Personally, I don't get the idea of tents if you cannot keep them longer than a week without having to pack everything up somehow (which should technically be impossible) - that just makes no sense to me.  IMO tents should survive the Wednesday maintenance and patch - but then the game is still alpha, tents and persistence are still relatively new, so I am sure all of this will come in future.

 

A word about persistence.

Like everything, don't trust it.  It's not perfect yet and is still being worked on, as is the entire loot spawn system.  Be mindful that a server may say it is persistence on, but not actually be - test it first.  Be aware that the server owner could turn persistence off without warning (or the server could simply vanish one day with all your tents and loot).  Do not get attached to your gear, or character.

 

EDIT - All the above is based on reading these forums, dev notes, youtube vids etc...if I have made any mistakes, sorry, please correct me!  The one thing I did hear was that only "container" items (i.e. anything that you can put something else inside) would persist (so a magazine\clip would persist, an orange would not)) but that goes against everything else that I read so I am not sure.

 

TL:DR - only way to be sure is to test it yourself on a server.  Find one where what you want works and off you go.  But remember, it can stop at any time.

 

Hi Krazy

 

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. 

 

I was asking about single items specifically because for testing reasons I dropped 1x backback (with items), 1x AKM, 1x SKS and 1x helmet, 1x shoes and some ammo and tons of food on the floor.

 

The AKM and all the single items on the floor were gone (plus several mags from backpack) (the server was off for about 3 hours though yesterday, not sure if crashed), I highly doubt it has been found (it was hidden pretty well, still possible though I guess). This is why I asked about the hacker's esp as well, then it would be a huge waste to invest time in that, since there are a lot of hackers now and chances that they would find it would be almost 100% I guess. 

 

The idea behind the whole thing was "helping" my friends. I've got quite some time I can spend on DayZ at the moment (several hours every evening), many of my friends don't have that time right now, so I was thinking of setting up a little mini stash (quite a funny occupation when I'm playing alone) with the most necessary things (backpack, food, rags, med supps, clothing and maybe weapon) for one or two friends somewhere. But it looks like I should wait with things like that, I don't want to have to think about it every Thursday, too lazy :)

 

EDIT - All the above is based on reading these forums, dev notes, youtube vids etc...if I have made any mistakes, sorry, please correct me!  The one thing I did hear was that only "container" items (i.e. anything that you can put something else inside) would persist (so a magazine\clip would persist, an orange would not)) but that goes against everything else that I read so I am not sure.

 

  That would explain why all my single items have vanished, not the AKM mags though :/

 

 

 

 

Thanks & Cheers,

Re-Patch

[rickyriot 1009]

As mentioned already persistence is sometimes just a little odd. One example of this was a fire I was cooking stuff on that I "lost" while the server went through a reboot. When I logged back in the fire visually looked like it had wood in it, but looking in it's inventory it showed nothing but an empty fireplace. However using matches to reignite the fire suddenly everything returned, including my half cooked meat.

 

So while those actions are specific to a fire, don't automatically believe what the inventory tells you.

Edited January 13, 2015 by ricp

[yazar8 584]

Here is a post I made a while back about persistence. It's still valid.

In addition: Cheaters can be able to see your items. But IMO Its not something to worry about if your items are at a remote area.

The real thing to worry about is the weekly wipes and random server wipes.

I have experience on this subject. So yeah all I wrote is from my experience.

Because you can't simply "let your gear lie on the ground."

Only thing that stays on the ground are, backpacks, guns, clips / magazines and protector cases / ammo boxes.

Tents are currently useless, the only advantage of them is that you can store clothing inside them aswell and loose rounds, because at a regular server restart these will get deleted if they are on the floor.

In the future, weapon degradation will be implemented, which will make your weapon get affected from the natural conditions where it is stored at, they will get ruined by time. But when they are in a tent, this natural degradation will not occur.

Also, currently tents are useful to keep your stuff organized and also to store the items that are not persistent.

At the other hand, the real intention of the persistence enabled servers is to use them as storage servers, when loot is dropped it should stay there.

The only place tents will stay after getting pitched is on persistent servers. At other servers, after a server restart is fired, It will not stay there.

At the other hand, persistent servers these items will stay on the floor aswell:

- Tents

- Backpacks with items inside, all items inside the backpack now stays inside the backpack, even after a server restart, the backpack will still be there.

- Weapons (firearms), all firearms stay on the floor with all of their attachments.

- Mags and clips will also stay on the floor.

- Protector cases will stay on the floor with all of their items inside.

- Ammo boxes stay on the floor aswell.

These items don't stay on the floor:

- All clothing (glasses, helmets, shirts, pants, vests, balaclava, glasses, etc etc)

- Melee weapons (as far as I tested only with the firefighter axe though)

- All other items (rags, sewing kits, grenades, anything, rounds alone will not stay aswell, they must be in clips / magazines)

Note: Persistence enabled servers are getting wiped every Wednesday, causing all items on the floor to be deleted.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Yazar8

[krazypenguin 174]

Hi Krazy

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer.

Re-Patch

Hi, you're welcome.

The situations you describe are very familiar to me - when it comes to keeping your items the ground is your most dangerous foe. I've lost count of the number of times I said "I'll just put this down for a second and..oh, where's it gone?"

Last night I decided to try leaving my AK101 (the first one I ever found*) in a forest whilst I looted a town, just in case I got killed. Put it down and..it's gone. Went prone and searched the surrounding area very carefully, using the inventory screen to detect nearby items. Nada, it's varnished like an old oak table. Start rearranging my backpack and suddenly, ta da! the AK101 is back in the vicinity and I can even see it lying on the ground now. Ok, I'll just leave it there and, oh no, it's gone again. Whatever, bored of this now, turn around to walk into town and my AK is now lying 3 metres behind me. Le sigh.

The other thing I get a lot is this. I put a large item om the floor, e.g. a raincoat. I can see it in the inventory and the game. I then drop a can of soda and suddenly the raincoat disappears from both the inventory and game views. Pick uo the can and hey presto, the coat is back.

I now have rules for putting things down, which are:

1 - whenever possible use an existing container to store or transfer the item. E.g. playing with a friend and we need to balance gear, we'll use a backpack already on the floor to transfer items.

2 - If it HAS to go on the floor then the preference is for a road or paved area, followed by the GROUND floor of a building. Forest/grass or any upstairs/raised area is pretty much a 50/50 chance of never seeing that item again, IME (ok, a little exaggeration but you get the point).

If you do lose something on the floor look under anything you can (e.g. under a bed by going prone and using 1PP view), pick up other items in the area, no matter how small, to see if your item suddenly appears, look in a wide area around you and finally, if you are in a building, go look outside - sometimes items can somehow get dropped outside of walls. Oh, and as mentioned before, opening your inventory and walking backwards, forwards and side to side can help you to find things more easily.

* so, the AK101. I raided the town, made it back safe and sound and recovered it. My friend was now online and we agreed to meet, with me using a truck I had found on my raid in the town to make the meet up quicker. Therefore, I ditched my shotgun (hmm, wonder if it's still there...?) slung my new most prized possession on my back and leapt into the truck. Brmmm brmmm!!! 2 minutes later, whilst taking a turn but otherwise driving perfectly normally, the truck suddenly stops and then sinks into the ground. I jump out and, with depressing predictability, "You are dead." pops up on the screen. Just minutes later my friend arrives but there's nothing there.

Like they say, never get attached to your gear...

Edited January 13, 2015 by krazypenguin

[LORDPrometheus 21]

Everything here is accurate as far as I know however for the items disappearing on drop thing my experience has shown this has two possible causes and neither are related to persistence.

1: the item is 'in limbo': this is due to the server update process becoming back logged, this is why you sometimes need to press F several times to open a door or cancel and restart an action to eat something. The server simply lost your request and you need to retry. For example me and my friend shot a deer the other day and tried to skin it but had to try... I think it was 6 times before our request got through. This is also why items will occasionally follow you around (phantom cereal boxes extra guns etc) after you drop them. Your client knows it was dropped but the server missed it and is stuck determining where it is. Waiting several seconds to a full minute usually fixes this issue which gets worse the longer the server is running and the busier it is.

2: the item is underground: in a world as big as this one, areas of poor terrain collision mesh is to be expected. Games like Skyrim and fallout experienced this as well. If you find an area where this periodically happens just avoid it or send in a ticket to the bug tracker. To clarify what is happening is the item leaves the inventory and looks for open floor space to be set down but sometimes the spot it chooses to go is under the floor and since item pickup is both proximity and line of sight you can't always see it. This is why dropping items on the second floor of a building (first floor for Europeans) can sometimes make the item go downstairs or outside the building.

Back to persistence: its work in progress and despite its flaws I feel it is critical to the long term success of this game. Does it have issues yes, do they make some players need to server hop to find anything but boots and books yes. Does it often dump every pice of military loot in the map in one place YES! But is it evil and plotting against you to steal you hard earned fully kitted M4? Not at all

Edited January 13, 2015 by LORDPrometheus

[AdPatres 0]

Hi,

 

Been playing for a couple of weeks now.

 

Before loging off on Tuesday evening, I emptied my civy tent and then put the tent (and a couple of things) into my mountain backpack.

 

I log back in Wednesday only to find that all my items are still in my backpack...except my tent...bit confused here..

 

Any clue ?

 

Thx.