What do you guys do as solo players?

[tomson569 0]

On every server after I've geared, maybe have some money depending on the server, I feel like there is absolutely nothing to do. What do you guys do when you're solo?

gclub

[Homeschooliazon 87]

Murder people or group up with some randos

[Nayte 503]

It really depends on what type of player you are and what your goals for a session may be.

Most of the time I’d rather play solo as you’re far easier to remain unnoticed. While 99% of the player base may kos, I enjoy the challenge of attempting to be friendly with others. As you may expect, it tends not to go too well the majority of the time, however there are those slim occasions where you’ll be pleasantly surprised. On the other hand, when they become hostile it’s far more fun imo to be reactive in that situation. That happened to me the last session I had.

Really it’s a matter of setting goals or doing some RP is always fun too.

[EzyStriderPS4 191]

A few months ago I was trying to role-play in Kamy, so I put on all the police uniform gear and tried to help fresh spawns. Many players have a tendency to kill bambis down there, it's an effin blood-bath; so naturally, other players wouldn't even give me a chance and would run off as fast as their feet would take them even though I was being the good guy.

Oftentimes, I will run around randomly looking for players to spy on through a pair of binoculars or a hunting scope.  I like to watch their behavior, and keep my distance.  In early January I saw a couple freshies get betrayed by another player they met near Solniy, so I re-positioned and put a .308-sized bullet hole through his/her chest for being a back-stabber. That was cool.

Sometimes I'll put a car together and go drive down the South coast highway. Lots of players like to act up down there, and buck-buck, so I bring the ruckus.

I don't camp military spots.  Pursuing shots in the distance is always exciting.

Heli-hunting is a hobby of mine every few weeks.

I like hunting to feed myself.  I don't like that the animals seem strangely resilient to hot lead. It would be nice to see vital organ hit boxes expanded to be more realistic in update 1.08 or later.

[Donatello McReeses 3]

I’ve been intentionally building a base around a house at the rural end of a town. I login long enough to loot an area I pick on the map to find more farming/food supplies and then plant a large garden outside of my fence before I logout. 
 

I recently popped up a canopy outside of the fence to store the crops I harvest too, that way if anyone happens upon my small base they’ll see they have open choice of some crops for free. I treat it like a farmers market in hopes that anyone passing through will become accustomed to the weird hermit living on the fringe and maybe not kill me? 
 

I don’t actually have much for defense tbh. The area I’m based around is mostly agricultural, so it only functions for me to build bases and cultivate plants. I hate running into people. I got lucky with the last guy who stopped through at least. 

[Tonyeh 444]

Ummm...stay alive as long as I can.

Never really played with any one group of players for any length of time. But I was running with a few lads from Eastern Europe for a wee while and then one of them went psycho and started trying to kill everyone else (he probably got bored). We ended up hunting him down in Gorka and eventually caught him. His best mate executed him, after we made him strip and divvy up all his gear.

But, the vast majority of the time, I lone wolf it.

At the moment, I am in the process of gathering materials for my stash (looking for a USG to replace my SG5 for example), while avoiding contact with other players. But still observing. There's a genuine thrill at simply watching others from afar and studying what they're doing. I was hitting all the camping sites the other day, from first light (on the server), when this pair rock'n'roll up to to the one I was about to check out west of Vavilovo. I heard their car and ducked down. I just watched them doing their thing through the sights of my Mosin, but I wasn't too far away. I could have taken out one of them with ease. The Mosin is a great long range gun with little drop off. But I left them alone. I had thought of nicking their car, which would have been gas. But, I haven't driven a vehicle in DayZ since the beta days. So that might have been a disaster. And if they were smart, they would have disabled it somehow, before they went on their loot grab.

They ended up rifling everything they could and taking a tent that I had my eyes on.

I came across them again, just as dusk was falling. They had the car lights full on and were checking out some town I was near. I just climbed up a hunter stand and watched them through the binoculars. They were geared up, so that usually means interaction is out of the question.

Other than that, I've been hunting cow and stag and leaving the cooked meat along the cost for newbies, because DayZ is a massive pain in the bollocks when you're a fresh spawn. It's been funny watching bambis cautiously approach the meat and not know whether to stop and pick it up or jog on. I had to shout at one to "take the feckin meat", cos they were wondering whether to do so for ages. All I did was scare them off, cos they bolted out of there like they were running the 100 metres.

I've begun leaving the cooked meat in the supermarkets too.

I don't think you can poison food in DayZ 1.08, so I'm not sure what people are afraid of. Probably think it's a trap for jerk off snipers.