An experiment in settlement building...

[lugaru 103]

So I was thinking, the game is very open ended and has no hard rules. So in that regard, I was wondering how camps and settlements would work without making them "a permanent thing".

The important thing is remembering that this game NEEDS survivors and bandits... take one away and it loses a lot of the charm. Following that philsophy people need to be able to build settlements, and settlements need to be destroyable. Also they need to be buildable ANYWHERE, because DayZ is a game without rules. In other words, like players, settlements need to be able to go anywhere on the map and need to be able to die (be wiped out).

So here are a few items that would add up into a nice clan camp or maybe even a full blown city...

NoSpawn Lamp posts: Relatively rare, these can be planted and saved. They provide a strong source of light (not optional) and zombies cannot spawn within 10 meters of one, but they can approach one without problems. 4 or 5 of these can allow you to reclaim a gas station for example... while a crazed organized clan could use them to reclaim a whole village or castle or piece of Elektro. Unfortunately they practically make your settlment visible from space, and a helicopter target. Why? Because you need to mark your territory, keep zombies out yet paint a target to keep the "wheel of life" turning.

NPC TENTS: Each NPC tent you find spawns a robo-survivor, who mostly stands, walks around sits and does not wander far. Interacting with this NPC can make him recognize you as friendly... once friendly he will not shoot at you. They can be set to two modes... shoot on sight, and shoot hostiles (a non friendly who fired a weapon). Not useful against snipers, but they will look after things while you are gone and gun down noobs who wonder onto your "town" if you set them to shoot on sight. Cost: they consume 1 food every 12 hours (that is placed in their tent). If there is no food they wander off and eventually die. If this happens it will take 12 hours to spawn another one once you fill the tent up. Why? It is a use for crap weapons (give them to the guards), it makes your "town" look populated and gives you a reason to hunt and scavenge... keep the citizens happy. Also if set to only shoot hostiles, you have "law keepers" that will make your town safe if you open it up to any visitor.

Building Station: Basically a vending machine that takes sandbags, tank traps and barbed wire as currency. Fill 'er up and every time you ask it for something (a crows nest, a fence, shelters, signs, etc) it consumes some of the materials you put in. This allows you to build up your base, but requires foraging. Why? It will let players customize and give them something to do. On the other hand it will make "towns" unique and instantly recognizable to raiding parties as a new structure.

And maybe...

Generators and crafting stations: Perhaps everything requires energy, which means trips back and forth with Jerry Cans are required. Also perhaps there are goods that cannot be found, only created, like freshly brewed beer, beef jerky, fresh vegetables, reloaded ammo, etc. That would attract traders... but also fullscale "every guy in a clan" invasions.

[ThatGuyCalledReptile 314]

This has been suggested before.

While I like how fleshed out your idea is it has been suggested before.

Cheers.

[Lysander_of_Sparta 43]

Great ideas, but this would probably be waaaay in the future... Maybe once DayZ is finally in beta stage. First, Rocket has to get rid of the main issues. I.E, d/cing, hacking, graphical glitches near dead soldiers, and the rest of those wierd thingamadoodas.

[lugaru 103]

Yeah, if I can choose between settlements and not having massive auroras of visual artifacts... I choose the later. I just love brainstorming at work between busy moments.