Tips for locating your friends and general help

[BlindFaith 0]

Just bought Arma 2 because i've been hearing alot of good things about this mod. I played it for a couple hours last night and fell in love, it's awesome.

I love that it's so unforgiving and I understand why you can't choose a spawn point or join servers as a group, I even prefer it that way, I think it suits the brutal setting of the game quite well.

While I was having fun attempting to locate my friend, it was quite a struggle and we both died multiple times.

Does anyone have any tips for locating your friends?

I have never played Arma and so neither of us are familiar with the map. I suggested to my friend that we find a copy of the Arma map and try and work out where each of us spawn based on land marks and make our way from there.

If thats the only way, thats awesome. But I thought I would ask and see if anyone has a different way, or could provide some tips for locating them and actually surviving the journey to them.

So far i've been trying to skirt around any major towns I come across, occasionally scouting the odd building after a few minutes of watching and waiting for any sign of movement. I'm generally looking for a starting weapon or anything of that nature, are there any specific places I should be looking immediately after spawning?

Also, If I do happen to find myself running from a horde of bloodthirsty zombies, what is the best way to lose them ? Last night I must have been running for about 5 minutes untill I finally gave up and let them kill me. They just do not give up.

I suppose just any general tips would be helpful.

I read the new player guide, but I feel I have some questions that weren't covered in the thread I read.

Thanks,

[rattus (DayZ) 5]

You're lucky I'm in a typing mood lol.

NAVIGATION

1. Learn how to read topographic maps here + the links from it , it's fairly easy . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_map

2.Pay attention to the little letters telling you where you spawned . You see this when u make a new guy or respawn( gotta be quick cuz it dissapears fast)

3.Go to this DayZ map http://dayzmap.info/

4.Learn how to define the true north ingame without compass , a watch will do(not even needed if you know where the sun rises (east) and sets (west) .

moon / north star can help @ night.

5.Pay close attention to obvious things on your screen that can easily be found on the dayz map . Such as big hills , castles , towns, roads , etc... Especially play close attention when near a road and you find a sign saying what village you're in.

With these points you should be able to roughly tell where you are at any time ( at least when you're not stuck in the woods somewhere without any obvious landmark.)

From here on out get your bearings and proceed to destination.

Or at least the general direction , you'll surely find your way if you keep close attention to your map + road shapes.

Don't travel on the road but rather on high hills near them so you can spot the shape from above it , very easy to recognise on your map this way.

Figure out where you and your friends spawn , arrange a meeting place somewhere in the middle and leg it .

LOSING ZOMBAGS

Zig zag up a hill that is too steep to run on , keep going left and right , by going up at an angle you will be able to run at normal speed . Since zombies always choose the shortest path to you , they will come straight at you , forcing them to WALK.

If that didn't work , run straight downhill , zombies might run too fast downhill and crash to their second death.

Alternatively you can also run through a 2(or more)-door building , inside buildings zombies are forced to WALK , buying you precious seconds. Let them come towards one side of the building slowly , then leg it through the other side to maximise your distance gained.

[cen (DayZ) 0]

Best way to lose zeds is to find a barn with doors on opposite ends. They will start walking once inside the building and you can get out of their LOS (line of sight) through the other door.

As far as meeting up. Pay attention to the text in the lower right hand corner when you spawn in. That tells you your closest town/city. After that you either get lucky by finding a map in game or follow major roads/powerlines to find other cities.

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

For my buddies I play with (they are completely new to ARMA 2) I've made a short video showing the coast. It helped them get to know the spawn locations, landmarks and how to identify where they are on the map (includes location names).

[Yiddus 0]

When you spawn, look in the bottom right, it says where you are - look it up on maps such as dayzdb.com/map ... Once you know where you are, run along the coast or follow power lines as you'll always end up at another town. - Try to avoid walking on roads.

As the previous posters have said... zig-zag up a hill, running diagonally, forcing the zombies to slow-walk or run into large buildings where the zeds are also forced to slow walk.

The best place to find a starting weapon is in farm buildings - you'll find lots of hatchets there. The hatchet is probably your best weapon against zeds. Once you have a hatchet, focus on going to one of the larger towns to get to a hospital or a supermarket for supplies. Once you have those it's really up to you. I usually head inland to find military bases, helicopter crashes and airfields!

[Bludy 324]

hi, i'm a bit nooby too but mybe can help:

barns and houses have basic gear and tools, like knife hatchet bottles and foods or map,compass and bags, and some weapons. fire stations (square building with tower and big doors) have a much more military loot. then shops and hospital for some extra food or needed gear(matchbocks or what you didn't find) and medicals..then to loose Zs best ways are getting them inside barns where they can't run and other buildings where you can sneak from back door. to reach your friends without map i think you should recognise in which town you spawned and maybe you'll need some metagaming to know if you are in the same place or how far from the other..and find rally points, outside towns, i think that following the high voltage line that runs from cherno to elktro would be fine, or something like that..