How do you survive for more than a few hours?

[BL1P 252]

some stuff

1. The coast is for Kill on sight players mainly... avoid it if you want to last more than a few hours.

2. Travel in woods whenever possible.

3. Watch towns from afar if you see zombies but you are far from town then there is someone else there.

4. Have a plan of what you need and where to get it.

5. Do not get greedy. go in --- get stuff ---- leave.

6. If you leave cover of woods etc. Check where your crossing / going for about 1 min and use as much cover as possible to cross the area.

7. You need to enter a town to get food. Pick a good enterable building as your "O shit Run" building and if you get in shit run to it :)

8. Once you have Knife,hatchet,matches and water bottle. you no longer need to enter towns for food or drinks.

9. look behind you when moving.

10. Do not jump of castle walls.

[hoorah (DayZ) 36]

You can't find out who killed you unless the server has nametags on and you happen to see the guys nametag before he kills you. Either that, or get killed in a 2 person server.....

[random51 172]

A. When you are not in cover never stop moving.

B. Always stay in hard cover if you can, if you can't concealment is the next best thing.

C. If you're still in a coastal city an hour after you respawned you made a mistake, probably a lot of them.

This is advice for people who aren't interested in the current Coastal Counterstrike fad, obviously.

1. Spawn in. Immediately find hard cover and/or concealment while you figure out exactly where you are on the coast.

2. Figure out the nearest grouping of spawns large enough to yield you 2-3 food, 2-3 soda, and some other basics.

3. Hit that grouping, when you stop to loot something make sure you're out of any long range sightlines. Make sure you're facing the most likely direction to get attacked from at short range.

4. Once you've looted that, figure out where the closest 2nd tier(off the coast, but not deep in the interior)village is with a super market. That is your next destination.

5. Find any basic tools in that market, in that town that you missed down on the coast. Pick up a basic weapon if you haven't already, snag a pack, etc.

Now, you've got food, drink, hopefully you've got matches/hatchet/skinning knife/water bottles, you can live off the land, never approaching a village or town until you're comfortable that it is safe, or it is a moonlit night so you can see just fine and the zombies can't.

Now you can address longer term priorities. The three most important are getting military grade weaponry, a supply of morphine, and a GPS. Good news, you don't have to go to town or a military base to get any of those, all of them can be had at remote deer stands and can be had without firing a shot, without exposing yourself until you are very sure there is nobody else around. Deerstands almost always have one forested approach. You want to come in that way. Come in just far enough for the zombies to spawn, then go prone in cover/concealment and wait and watch. The way zombies typically spawn is in a clump, on a point. Over time they'll usually radiate directly away from that point. In this case, that point is the deerstand. Once they're comfortably far away from the deerstand, approach it stealthily. Quite often you can use 3rd person camera to see what is in the deerstand without actually exposing yourself on the ladder, or up top. You don't want to risk that ladder unless you're fairly confident there is something up there worth grabbing. That ladder is the most exposed, most defenseless you've been since you spawned on the beach. Don't waste time in the stand, don't stand up, if you're going to loot, do it quickly and get out of there. Experienced players know that zombies mean players and if they see zombies around a deerstand they're going to know somebody is there.

Voila, you survived the initial spawn and you've got everything you need to survive indefinitely in the boonies.

Once you can do that without breaking much of a sweat it'll get boring, that'll be the time to switch over to using other players to get your gear when you respawn. You can also use either of these methods to fully gear up after using the above methods to get your basics.

method #1: Once you know the map and are familiar with how many people play it, you'll realize that you can get everything you need just by finding somebodies stashed tents and/or vehicles. These are almost always hidden in the same areas of the map. Grab enough food/water in town so that you wont die and then hit the likely camp spots.

method #2: You'll realize that the people who like to snipe freshly spawned players are actually fairly poor when it comes to skill level. These people are easy to flank, easy to sneak up behind and kill with basic weapons. They'll have tunnel-vision through the scope of their 1-hit I-Win rifle, making them easy meat. These people will usually be fully geared, all of which you take after killing them. Leave anything you don't need on them and hide their body. The really dangerous groups/players in this area are usually there to hunt the noob hill snipers and those players/groups will often leave you be if you don't pose a direct threat, some of them will even help you if they're feeling generous and despise the hill snipers as much as most players do.

All of this ignores the largest threat to survival, at least on non-private servers, and that is the hacker who can kill you at any time, regardless of where you are, regardless of how smart you're playing. Kind of makes any long term strategies pointless, which is a major reason so much of the action has moved down to the coast.

Edited August 7, 2012 by random51

[ZePlague 11]

A. When you are not in cover never stop moving.

B. Always stay in hard cover if you can, if you can't concealment is the next best thing.

C. If you're still in a coastal city an hour after you respawned you made a mistake, probably a lot of them.

This is advice for people who aren't interested in the current Coastal Counterstrike fad, obviously.

1. Spawn in. Immediately find hard cover and/or concealment while you figure out exactly where you are on the coast.

2. Figure out the nearest grouping of spawns large enough to yield you 2-3 food, 2-3 soda, and some other basics.

3. Hit that grouping, when you stop to loot something make sure you're out of any long range sightlines. Make sure you facing the most likely direction to get attacked from at short range.

4. Once you've looted that, figure out where the closest 2nd tier(off the coast, but not deep in the interior)village is with a super market. That is your next destination.

5. Find any basic tools in that market, in that town that you missed down on the coast. Pick up a basic weapon if you haven't already, snag a pack, etc.

Now, you've got food, drink, hopefully you've got matches/hatchet/skinning knife/water bottles, you can live off the land, never approaching a village or town until you're comfortable that it is safe, or it is a moonlit night so you can see just fine and the zombies can't.

Now you can address longer term priorities. The two most important are getting military grade weaponry, a supply of morphine, and a GPS. Good news, you don't have to go to town or a military base to get any of those, all of them can be had at remote deer stands and can be had without firing a shot, without exposing yourself until you are very sure there is nobody else around.

Voila, you survived the initial spawn and you've got everything you need to survive indefinitely in the boonies.

I'll follow this advice, thanks.

[BL1P 252]

Once you can do that without breaking much of a sweat it'll get boring, that'll be the time to switch over to using other players to get your gear.

Or time to start hunting for vehicles and creating your own tent base.