Gear durability question....

[t3h_kgb 6]

Can someone explain how gear degrades? I've had a few clothing/equipped items that seemed to have gone from "pristine" to "ruined" within minutes, and I've no idea why.... Worse, it keeps taking things with it; ammo, canned foods, even a magazine, went from "pristine" to "ruined" when stowed in the gear piece...

Thanks...

Edited January 15, 2017 by t3h_kgb

[wasnu 301]

They get damaged when you get hit by zeds or bullets. Also falling down from some height will ruin your boots/pants with all the items in that part of clothes.

Since the last patch its recommended to carry an sewing kit with you to patch your badly damaged clothes back to worn after you fight zeds.

[General Zod 1118]

Or rugged and durable military (pristine) boots that would serve you for years get ruined in days in the game not even walking on some harsh terrain. I know they can't last forever to create the need to loot, but they deteriorate way too quickly. 

[chambersenator 106]

A few things about durability/damage-

• As clothing/backpacks/footwear gets more damaged, it offers less protection to the items inside it. Ruined items give no protection to their contents.
   
• Using damaged ammunition in a pistol/rifle will not only cause misfires (requiring you to hit 'R' to eject the bad round), but will rapidly degrade your weapon.
   
• As your weapons and attachments wear out, or you add any attachment/furniture to a gun (optics, buttstocks, suppressors, etc) that is in less than pristine condition, it will affect the accuracy/performance of the weapon. To what degree depends on a lot of factors, some more noticeable than others. So be picky about what you attach to your weapon and keep a weapon repair kit in your inventory. 
   
• Putting valuable items inside a cooking pot, medical bag, frying pan, ammo case, etc, will give those items an extra layer of protection
  For example: You have pristine ammo inside a cooking pot in your backpack. You get shot several times in the back, but manage to survive. Your backpack is ruined, along with its contents. However, the ammo inside the pot is still pristine. Why? The cooking pot took the damage hit. If you should get shot again, though, the ammo will be damaged, because both the ruined backpack and the ruined cooking pot provide no protection anymore.
   
• Falling will not just break your legs, but ruin your pants, footwear, and their contents (a few boots have slots for combat knives, so if the boot gets ruined, the knife does too).  Using ruined footwear (or no footwear at all) will eventually cause blood loss, and may even cause another fracture if not replaced. If you find yourself in that situation, run as little as possible, and find new shoes ASAP.
   
• IIRC, even if not ruined, footwear that is worn, damaged, or badly damaged will cause you to become fatigued faster.
   
• NEVER, under any circumstances, keep your morphine injector in your pants. 99 times out of 100, if your leg is broken, your pants and its contents have been ruined. If that's where you put your morphine injector, you've just wasted it, and in a combat situation, that's a fatal mistake. Put it in your backpack, or even better, inside one of the containers mentioned above.
   
• Currently, pristine shoes do not seem to wear out from just regular use. It's a mechanic that's been either turned off or extremely nerfed. It will return in a future patch, so keep that in mind. I only use pristine footwear (due to the fatigue increase mentioned earlier), so it's possible that any footwear in worn or worse condition may still degrade.

[t3h_kgb 6]

First off, thanks for the explanations...

Next, where are you guys getting all this inventory space!? I can barely keep magazines and bullets and food items around, yet everyone seems to have unlimited bag slots... I don't have room for all these fix-it kits! D:

Also, I seem to be having an issue with my pants getting ruined because they feel like getting ruined.... Do they get ripped up on brush or something? Because I can't even begin to count the number of times I've noticed my clothing got dull and crappy and "ruined" within a few minutes of simply traveling....

[chambersenator 106]

21 hours ago, t3h_kgb said:

Next, where are you guys getting all this inventory space!? I can barely keep magazines and bullets and food items around, yet everyone seems to have unlimited bag slots... I don't have room for all these fix-it kits! D:

Also, I seem to be having an issue with my pants getting ruined because they feel like getting ruined.... Do they get ripped up on brush or something? Because I can't even begin to count the number of times I've noticed my clothing got dull and crappy and "ruined" within a few minutes of simply traveling....

In regards to your first question - it takes a little time to learn what's worth keeping and what to keep an eye out for to increase your inventory. Much of it depends on your playstyle, but here's a few basics.

• Rope + Burlap bag = improvised courier bag (12 slots). Cut a branch into 3 sticks, and upgrade that to a 20 slot improvised backpack (just as big as a tanloon backpack, but much better for concealment).
• Cant find rope? Make your own out of rags. Two stacks of 6 rags combine to make rope (also, guts of large animals can also be made into rope)
• Check deerstands for hunting clothes - shirts and pants each give you 6 slots
• Crafted leather clothing and gear all got their inventory size increased across the board  in .61 - if you're willing to spend the time on it, they are very much worth it.
• Are you carrying around a bunch of guns in the hope that you'll find ammo? Try this - collect ammo and magazines instead. It's a better use of your inventory.
• Matches? Don't bother. When you need to make a fire, combine a piece of bark and a stick to make a bow drill firestarter, then after the fire starts, break it down into parts to use as fuel for the fire.
• Knives? Why give up two slots for a hunting/steak/kitchen knife when you can just make a stone knife that takes up only one spot, and make a new one when it wears out?

That's just a few off the top of my head. Read up on crafting - there are several sites around that will help you get the most out of your inventory.

As for your second question, I think the devil is in the details of the words 'simply traveling.' The only ways pants are going to get ruined is from getting hit by bullets, weapons, infected/zeds, wolves, or falling damage.

Edited January 25, 2017 by chambersenator

[General Zod 1118]

On 22/01/2017 at 10:35 PM, chambersenator said:

 

• Falling will not just break your legs, but ruin your pants, footwear, and their contents (a few boots have slots for combat knives, so if the boot gets ruined, the knife does too).  Using ruined footwear (or no footwear at all) will eventually cause blood loss, and may even cause another fracture if not replaced. If you find yourself in that situation, run as little as possible, and find new shoes ASAP.

No

I though we were going for some degree of realism. I see no reason why falling would ruin my trousers or shes. Skipping the part where 3 metre fall in this game can kill whereas in real life I can land that without even breaking my legs. 

Edited January 25, 2017 by General Zod

[t3h_kgb 6]

On 1/24/2017 at 7:08 PM, chambersenator said:

As for your second question, I think the devil is in the details of the words 'simply traveling.' The only ways pants are going to get ruined is from getting hit by bullets, weapons, infected/zeds, wolves, or falling damage.

Quite literally, I mean "simply traveling"... As in, walking (or running) from point A to point B...

As for the list of good info that was cut for brevity's sake:

Bag - I have a 32-slot (I think) military backpack at the moment. I much prefer that to the makeshift bags, though I did wonder how those bags were made (tried burlap sack and sticks, but it did nothing. Didn't know you had to have the smaller bag first)...

Deer stands - Actually, I usually hit the military bases and get mil clothing... I had some USMC woodland (haven't seen it again, have they removed it?) gear that gave me I think 8 slots in each... Unfortunately, .61 wiped characters, and the gear was gone forever... :(

Guns - Actually, I find it quite manageable to keep an AKS-74u on me with a few mags in case I come into battle, a magnum and a handful of ammo (one stack is more than sufficient, and no need for mags), and an SKS with scope and such, again with a handful of ammo, for long-range engagements if need be, again no need for mags... I dislike how the 74u doesn't store on the shoulder like every other rifle, but it's not too big a deal... I do hate, however, the fact that you gotta be REALLY careful with pulling it out of your bag, because if you put it back and ONE thing went into your bag before your 74u, it'll throw the 74u on the ground because of the lack of free spots.... I lost a 74u complete with suppressor and full stacked magazine to the auto-sweep of the loot system this way... I like having a full combat loadout, so that means carrying 6-7 mags full of ammo, but even with just 2 or 3 mags, it seems bag space is super-precious.... Maybe I'm just too much of a packrat...

Matches? - Nope, I haven't needed to make a fire yet... I mean, I have once or twice when respawning, but I've been noticing my character is almost always overheating recently... Maybe it's the fact that I'm covered head to toe with military gear... :P

Knives? - Nope, I carry a hatchet (I know, eats up like 3 vertical slots), because it is the best zombie killing item in the game. 3 hits, and the zombie is down, and each hit makes them reel backward so they can't hit you (until the game mechanism barfs and they hit you five times within one second - not an exaggeration, btw, I died because of one zombie who was staggering backward but somehow managed to land five rapid-fire blows).... Better yet, it works just like any other bladed weapon, and doesn't like wearing out! :D I didn't know combat boots had a slot for combat knives... I did know some boots had a slot, but never really knew what it was for... I may now end up picking up a combat knife in the future... Speaking of mysterious gear slots, what is the boonie hat's slot for?
 

 

13 hours ago, General Zod said:

I though we were going for some degree of realism. I see no reason why falling would ruin my trousers or shes. Skipping the part where 3 metre fall in this game can kill whereas in real life I can land that without even breaking my legs. 

^ omg RIGHT!? Like when you take a step off of like one or two steps too soon, and you end up "chipping" your leg (whatever that means).... Or spraining your ankle... Or dying from a half a foot of height...

I know why this game doesn't have a jump function; because players would be dying left and right simply hitting "jump"... :S

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by t3h_kgb

[chambersenator 106]

On 1/25/2017 at 8:21 PM, t3h_kgb said:

Guns - I dislike how the 74u doesn't store on the shoulder like every other rifle, but it's not too big a deal... I do hate, however, the fact that you gotta be REALLY careful with pulling it out of your bag, because if you put it back and ONE thing went into your bag before your 74u, it'll throw the 74u on the ground because of the lack of free spots.... I lost a 74u complete with suppressor and full stacked magazine to the auto-sweep of the loot system this way... I like having a full combat loadout, so that means carrying 6-7 mags full of ammo, but even with just 2 or 3 mags, it seems bag space is super-precious.... Maybe I'm just too much of a packrat...

You CAN put an AK-74U on your back.

Also, I'd say you are carrying WAY more mags than the usual player needs, but hey, that's just an opinion. It really comes down to how you use the weapon, and how long your character lives on average.

If you're putting that AK-74U in your pack, that means you already have a primary on your shoulder. If you're primary is a long range, scoped rifle, (I'm including scoped M4s, FALs (lucky you), and scoped AKM/AK-74's in this too), then I assume your AK-74s is either for clearing buildings or as a holdout weapon if your primary hasn't killed all the threats from a distance.

In that kind of setup, I'd say you only need two mags for the AK-74U, with one in the gun. Three seems overkill to me. By all means, if you need to have extra ammo, put it in a container and fill the mags as you need it.

Extended PVP combat in DayZ often happens in a series of engagements - first contact, firefight, find cover and/or re-position, another intense firefight, then if there is anybody left, one side waits for the other to be the first one to do something stupid.

I'm having a hard time remembering a time when I have ever seen someone need 7 mags at once for an assault rifle in SA. If this was ArmA, it would be a different story, but in SA? No.

Try this - 3 for the primary, 2 for the secondary, and see how that works out. If you are go through all 5 of those 30 round mags and remain alive, then odds are your victims will be your source of ammo.

If you need to consistently burn through all those mags just to take out 2-3 guys, you might want to consider working on your aim and trigger discipline. I don't mean that as an insult at all. You want to lay down some suppressing fire? 3 round bursts work just as well as a 10-15 round burst.

By carrying 5 mags total instead of 10 (one in each gun, the rest - 2 for primary, 1 for secondary in your inventory), you have just freed up 12 slots for other gear.

In any case, if you are going to be shooting that much, you're going to need that space for weapon repair kits, as those extra mags aren't going to do jack if your rifles are ruined.

 

Quote

Speaking of mysterious gear slots, what is the boonie hat's slot for?

A Fishing Hook. Well, to be more precise, an EMPTY fishing hook.

[t3h_kgb 6]

I think you're overthinking how many mags I'm actually carrying.... I've got a 6+1 setup - 6 mags plus 1 in the weapon - for the AK. The other weapons don't take mags.... Further, 210rds is standard Infantry loadout for the US Army, though I always carried an extra mag in a pouch mounted upside-down on my back so I had a mag I could get to in prone without having to roll over and get to my front-loaded mags. So, I always carried 8 outside the wire, plus another six in my assault pack, but that's cuz I was a grenadier and needed room for extra grenades. Otherwise I'd have carried at least 10 in the pack.

As for the shoulder slot, last I tried the stick slot is only for sticks, so one can only put one rifle up on the character's shoulder. Thus, if you carry an SKS and an AK, the 74u is optimal as it fits in the bag. Thus, you can empty your hands and get a bit more speed in your sprint... Unfortunately, it's like 4x3, and takes up a whole plop-load of slots because of it... Worse yet, if you've got just ONE item in that slot, your character will throw the weapon away instead of stowing it. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped my AK after juggling it and the compass through the inventory via hotkeys... But, that's a fairly unrelated problem...

Also, the AK is my primary carbine. I'd love to carry a full-sized 74 so's I can mount an optic and all that jazz (haven't yet found an optic that fits the 74u), but the full-size doesn't fit in the bag. Dunno why, I can fit a whole bunch of my real rifles in my real bag... But, the AK is primary and the SKS is for long-range engagements and recon. I have since found some binocs, so I don't exactly need the SKS for recon, but it's really handy to have a rifle barrel under the stuff you're looking at really closely... After that, the Magnum is just there in the rare case I run out of all ammo.... With 210rds, it's pretty rare, but it's still possible... It's made far less possible with 210rds loaded up; I can blow through 2-3 mags and still have another 4-5 ready to go should I get into another firefight or zombie nest or wolf pack, before coming across more ammo... As for relying on people dropping ammo, that all depends on what kind of ammo you're using, and what kind of ammo your opponent was just sending your way... That's too much of a variable for me, tbh. It sure would be nice to pick up ammo off the dude you just iced, but I'm not going to bet my survival on someone having the same ammo type... Also, being out of ammo sucks...

Also, I find weapons cleaning kits way abundant... I come across at least two every time I play... Sorta like leather repair kits; they're EVERYWHERE... :P

And finally, it would be nifty if boonies could take a pile of 12g ammo, Vietnam-style in the webbing... A fish hook is pretty much worthless to me...

Oh, PS.... THERE'S AN FAL IN THIS GAME!? How come no one told me!? D:

Edited February 8, 2017 by t3h_kgb