I need to make a blog post but I don't know what to write...

Oh wait...

DayZ: A hero's guide to Bandits

Recently I got into playing a game called DayZ. I've been playing it pretty extensively and I feel pretty happy in saying that I have managed to get pretty good at playing it.

DayZ is a zombie survival horror set a few years after the initial zombie outbreak in a region called Chernarus in south east Russia.
Officially, there are two enemies in the game: Zombie's - in their infinite numbers and other players - a.k.a: the Smart Ones.

Zombies will kill you for your flesh, other players, called Bandits, will kill you for your loot. Or just for the fun of it really.

So, I present to you:

A HEROS GUIDE TO BANDITS

Identify your enemy:

For reference, this here is a bandit:

 

This is a Hero:

 

And this lot are general survivors. This rag tag bunch haven't yet changed their skin:

 

Seen a general survivor? Assume their going to want to kill you.

Now, there is a highly distinctive visual difference between bandits and heros. Bandits have a facemask covering their face and wear dark coloured clothes. Hero's have a checkered shirt and blue jeans. Hero's are friendly - Bandits arent.

Of course, you might come across some friendly survivors. Teaming up with them could be helpful, but only if your sure that they won't shoot you in the back for your lovely M4A3 CCO.

Chances of survival

Most bandits aren't stupid, but there are the odd one or two that do dumb things. Either way, assume that the bandit you think is following you already has your head targeted through his scope.

DayZ doesn't feature anything handy like last stands or infinite healthpacks. Bullets are deadly and headshots are instant kills. There's no energy shields here to keep you alive buddy.

Realistically, your best chance of surviving a bandit is to be in a large group of three or more. Bandits can easily take down two people in a few shots, killing the first and before the second has time to react and get to cover, killing him. Bandits rarely work in groups, as dispute's over who gets the nice gun usually result in the person who shoots first getting it.

In all truth and honesty, bandits don't want to get killed. Realistically, their little sleezebags who would rather steal from other people than go looting abandoned buildings. But if they lose their stuff, you'll usually hear some raging on side chat.

As such, sticking to a large group will greatly assist in survival against a bandit.

But what if your all alone braving the wilderness? All I can really say is a few things, shoot first and ask questions later, stick to places where you cant be seen and for goodness sake, an open field is NEVER safe. It's good practise to stay hidden, even if your all alone on a server.

His Humble Hunting Grounds

First and foremost, assume that a bandit can appear ANYWHERE at ANYTIME. However, there are supposedly designated bandit hunting grounds. Bandits usually stalk these areas because of it's high loot volume, which thus attracts players: A.K.A: Their little play things.

 

 (Note: You will probably need to enlarge this map to read the locations clearly.

Red = Bandit heavy

Yellow = Not many bandits

Blue = You actually MET someone here?

Balota Airport, Chernogorsk and Elektrozavodsk (Often abbreviated to Cherno and Elektro respectively in chat) are big hunting grounds for Bandits. Elektro has a powerstation with a tower that can see across the whole town, thus giving a bandit a good place to snipe from.

The North West Airstrip also has a number of military Barracks and hangars which feature excellent industrial and military loot. Since the whole place is flat, a bandit can hide in a tree and start firing off rounds without being seen.

Berezino on the east coast isnt AS populated by bandits - most people coming here are really only interested in the multitude of industrial loot and it's probably one of the most depopulated regions in the game. That being said, the airstrip north of Krasnostav is dangerous. A bandit can hide at the top of a radio pylon to the North East and snipe right to the far end of town if his aim is good.

Yellow areas don't feature nearly as many bandits. BUT. This does NOT mean you wont find them here! Staroye is an isolated town in the yellow zone that I classified as red, as i've heard plenty of times over chat that they like to hang out there - survivors often stop at Staroye after heading north from Elektro.

In Blue Area's, your actually pretty unlikely to find anyone at all, but the biggest reason is that in most cases, there's nothing there. Although there are a number of villages, most of them arent that worthwhile in looting, so if you keep heading a bit north or west, there's some really good spots for hiding your loot in cars or tents.

Killing a Bandit

Shoot him in the head. Duh...

Or, where possible, get up behind him and put a few rounds in his back. This is most easily achieved by having something to distract him - for example a fellow survivor. Smart bandits will often quickly check behind them, but can't check for long. Thus, if you can be sure their distracted, your bullets will get him before his get you.

A Bandits Treasure

If a bandit has been around for a long time, you can almost be certain that they have some of the best loot in the game. Most of the time, a bandit will actually have sniper rifles like the DMR or the SVD Dragunov - both excellent rifles.

However, in saying this, your equally likely to get some pretty bad loot after that long ten minute firefight. Since most of the loot on a bandit is dependant on what they picked up from other players, that means your subject to the same rule as well.

Final Words

Bandits are fairly cowardly but also extremely dangerous. Never EVER trust a bandit unless you know them personally in REAL LIFE. Bandits will happily shoot other bandits.

Happy hunting.

I have a dream... But Martin ain't in it...

I recently had the most weridist dream. Unfortunately, it wasnt a lucid dream so that basically means I was along for the ride, still it was a good dream.

Through means that I will never understand, I was granted the knowledge of two things: Unbelievably efficient renewable energy generation and the ability to create a hyperdrive.

Now, your immediate thoughts are probably something like "Oh here we go, another spaceship story"
Well shut up. Because your right. (Stupid foresight)
I had no idea what to do aside from writing it all down on paper, which became a serious problem for my family and close friends because it utterly consumed my time. Apparently I managed to stay in the house for three weeks, refusing to leave my room except for food and hygene requirements. You can imagine what my work boss would have said.

Regardless, one thousand A3 page diagrams later, a sore hand and not enough coke, I completed drawing the plans. Huzzah! Now, obviously, nobody actually believed me that these plans were genuine (Including my family) until I built a scaled down, very busted version of the Energy Particle Generator which basically took the house off the national grid and therefore scaling back our power bill massively.

Now, naturally, news travels and pretty soon I had a reporter show up on the doorstep asking about this near infinite power generator. Well, naturally they were not very impressed at looking at a device that looked like a tin can attached to a wrapping paper tube. Either way, my new invention made headlines... For three days.

All of a sudden, three days later, the suits show up. Oh goody goody, we all know what happens here. They want to trade for the plans or they'll come back later with a gun and a crowbar and a black van. Actually, they had the black van the first time. Kinda werid. I did what happens in all the movies, I said Nooooope. They didn't offer me what I wanted. Did I want money? Suprisingly enough, no I did not want money. Because a measly Subway Giftcard was not enough to satisfy me (But I do like Subway... someone write that down for later)

Actually, what I wanted was a big corporation with lots of excess money to spend FOR me. I'm no economist, that's their job. So apparently I teamed up with some US based firm that was all like "Let's go to the moon!" and I was all like "Haha, let's go to Pluto"

Once I accidentally hyperdrove one of their warehouses into pluto itself, they were sold on the idea. Really hope there was nobody inside that warehouse when it and several chunks of ground went with it...

-----

So, about a month and several million dollars later, a massive underground chamber had been dug in order for construction of the ship to begin. It was built into the side of a mountain, so that the ship could just fly straight out. I thought that was a pretty cool idea at the time.

However, eventually tension built up. The head of the corporation grew sick and tired of the fact that I barely talked to him about the progress when he called and stuff, but this was actually due to the fact I was too busy drawing up plans for the darn thing and it was consuming my day like the previous diagrams had done (Probably more so than before)

In a fit of rage, he kinda told me to stop working on the ship and go and hire a secretary to handle communication. I have no idea what drove me to do so, but I decided to immediately head to the nearest university, sign a deal with a lecturer and take on a class for a day. My plan was to find a secretary from one of these bunch. I ran them through several different tests, each designed to stress them extremely mentally (Not really physically... Though one guy did through a desk through a window and that was funny)

Eventually, after half the class had left after I drained them of their energy, there was one girl who had managed to stay calm the entire time (Can't remember her name though, darn dream memory failures!) and only broke a light sweat (Made sure that happened, just to prove she was human and not some evil android FROM TEH FUTURE!). So she was hired and graduated on the spot and then everything was back on track for the construction.

The process was really simple, she does what I say, doesn't disturb me in my office (I GOTS MY OWN OFFICE IT WAS AWESOME) and also follows me around writing down anything important as I walk about the construction zone; stuff like the hull foreman telling me that "we are out of Tritanium... again!". I have no idea what Tritanium is, but it sounds expensive and important. So my secretary dealt with that.

-----

Pretty soon, the ship looked like this.

Which was kinda the look I was going for. (Oh who am I kidding, I drew up the darn thing on paper! It's exactly how I envisioned it)

So we built it and it was done and then there was a huge congratulations ceremony on it's completion. A hippie tried to assault me saying it was going to blow up the planet but... well... yea, dunno what happened to him.

So we did all the checking systems stuff and then boom, we all died.

Just kidding! Nothing went wrong, we moved forward (The pilot was rather giddy with excitement) and out of the launch bay and up into the stars, a perfect start.

Then I woke up.

Dangit.