2. Dangerous World DayZ Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

In DayZ: Standalone many dangers, with zombies amongst them, is waiting for you. This chapter will tell you how to deal with them. You'll also learn about how food is working in this game. You'll read also about in-game night, And moreover you'll learn everything about meaning of weather.

Zombie

Citizens of Chernarus have been infected and changed into zombie. They feed on blood. They can hear and see you.

Avoiding zombies

Zombies are very vigilant and it's hard to sneak around them. The big mistake is to make them notice you by firing (it makes a loud noise). When you fire from not silenced weapon, zombies respawn around it. You can also get their attention with a flashlight at night.

Fighting zombies

As I mentioned, don't fire at zombie from a noisy weapon, if you can avoid it. So what should you do? Use hatchet or silenced pistol. With hatchet, you have to aim for head. Hit eliminates the enemy for good. Hitting the body to eliminate takes too much time. But if zombies have number advantage, don't play and fire. Admittedly, it may lure another player, but you can't underestimate zombies. It's a bit harder to kill zombies in military clothes.

No weapon - what's now?

If you have no weapon, run, run! But there is a way to defeat zombies. It's walking onto elevations. It may be even something small, like stairs. Sometimes, when walking over such an obstacle, zombie slows down so you can run away. So if you're being chased, run through a small elevation or use stairs, and you'll probably get free of them.

How zombie attacks?

Zombie always directly attacks you. It may cause bleeding. Bleeding may cause a lost of consciousness. More about bandaging and losing consciousness in chapters 3 and 9.

Food

Food is rather developed, although it's alpha version. There are three counters concerning food. But you can't see them directly. Those are: energy, water and stomach. They are shown in the Player window in equipment.

Energy

Energy comes from food and energizers. There are five different status of your energy. Those are: energized - green background, energized - green background, no comment, hungry - yellow-green background, hungry - orange background, starving - red background.

No comment means that you should start looking for food.

If a yellow-green hungry status appears, it means that you seriously should start looking for food.

If an orange hungry status appears, you have to find food quickly.

Starving status means that you're losing blood and soon you'll lose consciousness. If you can't find food, log out and ask someone to find you and give you food.

Energized status mean that your character has enough energy. But appearance of the green background isn't the highest level of energy. This limit is very high, so don't worry about it. So the only one limitation is a stomach capacity, about which later on.

Energy should be kept on a high level, because it speeds up blood regeneration after you lose it. It also let you keep your character healthy.

Water

Water can be gained not only from drinks. It comes also from most of the food. Of course, it's not as much, as you'd have gained from drinking pure water. Water is easy to find, as you can drink well water, rain water and water from the lake. There are five different status of water in your body. Those are: hydrated- green background, hydrated- green background, no comment, thirsty- yellow-green background, thirsty- orange background, thirsty- red background.

If a yellow-green thirsty status appears, it means that you seriously should start looking for food.

If an orange thirsty status appears, you have to find water very quickly.

Thirsty status on the red background means that you're losing blood and soon you'll lose consciousness. If you can't find water, log out and ask someone to find you and give you food.

No comment and hydrated on the green background means that your character has enough water, but you can look for it.

Hydrated status onto light-green background means that you have enough water and it's no sense in drinking more, as it'll waste. After crossing the upper limit, the water is wasted.

Water should be kept on a high level, because it speeds up blood regeneration after you lose it. It also let you keep your character healthy.

Stomach

All you eat goes to your stomach. It's capacity is limited. There are four status about your stomach's capacity. Those are: no comment, stuffed - light-green background, stuffed - orange background, stuffed - red background.

If you don't see any of those comments, it means that there is a plenty space in your stomach and you can eat.

If stuffed status has light-green background, you should (but you don't have to) stop eating/drinking.

If stuffed status has orange background, you have to stop eating/drinking.

If you don't stop, stuffed gets a red background. Then it quickly goes to sick and your character starts vomiting, losing both energy and water, what makes your stomach more empty. But you have to avoid this status.

Doesn't matter if your stomach is full or empty. Blood regeneration doesn't depend on that.

Night

There is not a single working street lamp in the Chernarus. That's why the visibility during nights is very limited. So you should carry a torchlight with you. But be careful, as using it makes you more visible for others. Travelling at night is also very troublesome, so if you're not good at navigating, try to avoid servers where the night is at the given moment. At the server browser you can see the current time. If there is "x" mark, e.g. 12:08x it means that night and day shifts dynamically, so the nights are coming very quickly. Way of navigation are shown in Chapter 5.

Rain

When your clothes get wet, you get an information every now and then that you're soaked. But it doesn't affect your character. Nonetheless, rain has its role in game. For example, enemy may not hear a shot in a loud rain. You can also collect the rain water to drink.