How Long Do You Scout?

[Taggert1313 37]

Imagine this situation: You are up north. You have pretty good stuff but your thirst light just started flashing and you have nothing to drink. You are in the woods and you spy a high yield area in a clearing ahead. How long do you watch to make sure no one is there? 15sec? 2mins?

When I first started playing, I would have just run at it. After playing a few weeks, I would sit in the bushes and use my binoculars for like 20-30seconds. After a month, I just stopped going to high yield or vehicle spawn locations in the North.

What would you do?

[Cyric (DayZ) 254]

I scout until I'm comfortable I won't be killed three steps out of my cover/concealment.

[Swineflew 480]

I usually scout a building/are for a few minutes before I go in.

[Tenderness 30]

I think I'm still at the point where i don't really spy for more than 10 seconds at most. But in this situation it would depend on the distance to a building or anything where i could hide. If it was more than a 30 second run i will check for more than 10 seconds though. If I'm almost at the building though, i will most likely just make a run for it.

Outside of that scenario though, I don't really go to very high yield areas. I usually just go for deer stands, seeing as i have canteens and hatchet/knife/matches. The most dangerous part about this though is the open fields, where i have to walk through the clearing without anywhere to really go for. At clearings like these i try to find the smallest distance, but i scout for a long time, 30 seconds at least.

[deren93@hotmail.com 95]

This implies that one should "stop scouting". Novices!

[jasonmcmackins@gmail.com 24]

Man up and move in slowly... If you have been playing for a couple of months already then you should know you can just about determine your odds by looking at the number of people on the server. Get you a canteen man and learn where the puddles are. I never have to go into town if I just want to continue surviving.

[Rollonio 54]

If I'm lone-wolfing I don't go near Stary or NWAF,

At towns/deer stands I look for zombies except when it comes to grocery stores/offices/apt buildings I scout for longer.

[Taggert1313 37]

Well when I was new, I always figured that the danger was IN the building. So I would rush in ready to shoot. And get shot in the back by the guy who followed me in. Next I tried crawling towards the building all ninja-style. Then a sniper would shoot me. So I started hanging out and watching from the bushes. That's when a sniper would shoot me. Now I scout sniper spots, then scout the building, then rescout the sniper spots then run like crazy.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Taggert1313

[Dickhat 99]

Sometimes I'll spend like 20 minutes scouting.

And I never move inside a city without a overwatch.

Plus I never move inside a city without at least one friend, so we only go for cities with at least 3 man teams.

[gr33nth1ng 6]

This implies that one should "stop scouting". Novices!

not necessarily.. I think he is asking how long to observe a town/structure etc before deciding its time to move in to loot etc..

I get what your saying though.. you should always have your head on a swivel, aware of your surroundings, whereas going by your statement if they never stop scouting, they would never leave their hide..

[theryl2002 1]

It all depends. How many people are on the server, how many zombies are spawned, can you see zombies from where you are, is the number of alive zombies decreasing? All of these factor into how much time you should spend scouting.

[thepcv 32]

There isn't a time that I stop scouting really. I always make sure where I'm going is safe, minutes before I actually go there. That being said I don't even go into places like Cherno/Elektro/ anymore. I make a couple trips with a small squad to Stary/NWA every once in a while but that's as far as I push it. I basically only put my self into harms way, and die, when I choose too. It's really not that hard to keep yourself safe in this game. Not since everyone left the north and started playing Free-For-All in Cherno.

[capri_stylee 9]

I'm constantly moving and scouting, might stop for 15-30 seconds on the outskirts of a city, once I'm in the open its a zig-zag sprint to my destination. I figure that if a sniper is good enough to hit me hes probably well concealed enough that I wouldn't spot him anyway.

Saying that, I don't get attached to gear, having only been fully kitted out twice, once I died to a single sniper shot from the hills above Elekro, the other time By crashing a jeep. Most of the fun for me is finding the equipment, once i'm done with that I get careless (returning to elektro for example).

[Taggert1313 37]

I just never see a correlation between time spent scouting and success. The longer I take in a city, the more likely I am to be shot. The less time I spent scouting, the more likely I am to be shot. I was just wondering if anybody has found a golden balance of speed vs caution.

[thehumandove 344]

People are going to spawn near you at random times. I don't scout much more than a minute or so, but I always go into high risk areas with backup. I think it's more important to keep yourself open as little as possible, more than it is to see others.

[hallgraeme 17]

I just run in Rambo style and clear the area of people and Z's. 75% of the time it works. I AM great though. The way i play reminds me of the scene in the movie commando, were arnold gears up, then takes on a whole army by myself.

Its working well so far!!

[BearGravy 53]

Well I would probably wait a minute depending on how quickly I need thirst. But the problem with this game is that if no one is in a city, and you aren't close to it zombies aren't spawned in. If I do get to close or zombies are in the city before I get to close, I wait for them to despawn and run in while they just start spawning again. I don't like this because I know exactly when someone is in or not in the city. I know that's cheating and I don't like it, but for me it's a advantage, and its fair, because like I said if I see zombies there already, I don't get to close, I just let the person in there get away and I get to escape a firefight.

[Dingus (DayZ) 429]

I don't scout for very long. At some point, you've seen all there is to see and you're just waiting for someone to arrive, which cannot be predicted.

I haven't played solo for a while though. I have been overwatch for my group, so I guess you could say it's like a permanent scout.

[cragzeek 29]

I like this topic, I've had this question in mind for a while. It seems that my group only scouts for twenty seconds or so. I feel like once you've checked all the spots you could check, like it has been said earlier, the only real concern is arrivals.

I'd always rather spot someone than hear nothing. Its the silence that is dangerous.

[aru_azif 70]

I've only scouted my environment 1ns so far... and i am still scouting it ever since.

[BMD (DayZ) 1]

Scouting is proportional to gear. Yesterday, when i still had all my tools and my l85, i scouted for maybe 5 minutes before moving 10 meters (in any somewhat contested area, of course). So, some ghillied dude got me at NWAF, and i noticed how my scouting went to zero for the first four hours on my next character, even after i had all the essentials and an AKM.

BTW, being killed on a day 20 character is the best thing that has happened to me. The game became fun agian.

[serpent10i 1]

Depends. If its just me ill normal scout as I run up to the loot (0 seconds of waiting)... but if I have friends the we will pick a overwatch w/ a sniper or there long range gun and then the others will run up the the cover and watch of the sniper. Although I normaly hit up places like super markets and deer stand on my own and only venture to Vlypor/NW/Stary with friends.

[kentk94 194]

I don't scout long simply because I'm aware that at any second, while I'm at that location, someone could log in right behind me. Thus making my entire scouting completely worthless. I give the area a look over, move up, look over, move up, etc etc..

Then I'm constantly looking around me for others. I generally know where other buildings are that I can enter, so if I suspect someone is near, I run out, full speed, zombies in tow. Figure if there are more objects, that the bandit has to look at, it makes it somewhat harder for him.

Edited August 3, 2012 by kentk94

[Pupple 9]

For me the big thing to consider is the current server population. If its less than 10 I'll just run in fairly carefree, looking around me but with the knowledge that if someones already hidden they will see me first. As the server gets more crowded I get more careful, scouting for a good few minutes.

[BMD (DayZ) 1]

I don't scout long simply because I'm aware that at any second, while I'm at that location, someone could log in right behind me. Thus making my entire scouting completely worthless. I give the area a look over, move up, look over, move up, etc etc..

Then I'm constantly looking around me for others. I generally know where other buildings are that I can enter, so if I suspect someone is near, I run out, full speed, zombies in tow. Figure if there are more objects, that the bandit has to look at, it makes it somewhat harder for him.

yeah, pretty much