I'm doing pretty well.

[ALiborio 13]

I've been playing sporadically over the last couple of weeks and I've pretty much got the hang of the game. I've read a bunch of forum posts here and checked out dayzdb to learn where loot spawns and stuff. So right now I'm pretty well equipped. I've got all the equipment except the GPS. An AKS-74 Kobra, M9 SD, plenty of ammo, water canteens and cooked steaks. I've had a couple close calls but I've been able to keep my blood up around 12000 with the cooked steaks.

Now my main problem is that I keep finding the same guns at every place I loot. I've been hitting up a bunch of deer stands, went to Starry to check the military tents, went to the NW airfield, NE airstrip, and the tents near Berezino. I've even come across 2 heli crashes (got me NVG and camo suit, which is pretty nice). But as for guns I've not been able to find anything other than more AKS-74 Kobras, or M4s or M16s without any scope. I've kept the Kobra since it's got some sort of scope and I've got tons of ammo for it. I've watched a bunch of youtube vids of people playing DayZ and it seems like so many of them come across really awesome guns. Do they really just play for so many hours that they eventually find good stuff? I'll admit the first time I came across an M4 I was pretty excited (I believe it was in Cherno) but since then I've seen them so many times they are complete trash loot.

Does anyone know the best course to take to find a better gun without traversing the entire map like I have so far?

[Hinaru 96]

Its just random.

Bad luck.

Really bad luck.

And AKS Kobra isn't that pretty "nice". At least not for me. (:

[mikhail 65]

honestly just keep looking. Sometimes it can take a lot of searching to find what you're looking for.

[spinager 152]

Luck. Best chance is to take it from a player :D SOme players farm loot. Which is, get everything from a loot span location, and then drop it off far from there. Come back in couple of minutes and there should be new loot. Rinse and repeat.

[ALiborio 13]

Luck. Best chance is to take it from a player :D SOme players farm loot. Which is, get everything from a loot span location, and then drop it off far from there. Come back in couple of minutes and there should be new loot. Rinse and repeat.

Yea I was planning on doing something like that. How far away do you have to be for loot to respawn? Is it also effected by other players in the area?

Also I would take it from a player but I've only encountered a couple of players since I started playing. First was a few people in Cherno who were just running around like idiots like me looking for some loot so we just ignored each other. I've also killed someone with trash loot. Last night while working my way towards the barracks I saw a guy, shot at him but he got away. While I was in the NW airfield I heard other shots but never saw anyone.

I did have a tent set up but all my loot was missing when I came back to it. Either someone found it and stole it all (just some ammo and smoke grenades) or it was bugged.

[DarkFireTorch 9]

There were no weapons at the heli crashes?

Bad luck. The only other place to find decent weapons would either be deerstands, Stary Sobor military tents or NW Airfield.

Also, did you save your tent?

Other than that, I would switch servers, but not farm.

[ALiborio 13]

Came across another Heli crash found a FN FAL and a Bizon SD. FAL had no ammo but BIzon had 2 clips. Figured I try out the Bizon since it's silenced. Headed back to the airfield. Didn't find too much and ran into a group of 2 near the firestation/control tower. Almost shot each other but they declared friendly so we went about our ways. Headed towards the other barracks and I run into another survivor who put me down in a couple of seconds. I think the server only had like 4 people in it too so I guess we were all at the airfield.

Guess "better" guns are the least of my worries now that I'm starting over. Oh well it was a good run.

[Shikhee 2]

There were no weapons at the heli crashes?

Bad luck. The only other place to find decent weapons would either be deerstands, Stary Sobor military tents or NW Airfield.

Also, did you save your tent?

Other than that, I would switch servers, but not farm.

The last heli I was at had no loot whatsoever. I looked everywhere and couldn't find anything. Before that I raided the tents at stary and found nothing worth taking except for a few AKM mags. I have terrible luck.