Hi guys, do you know this wonderful game called DayZ? I remember getting it about a year ago, it was quite a fun experience in the beginning indeed - I spawned somewhere near a coast, I went from building to building in search of food only to get shot at by some pricks with pistols. I quickly learned that I was bleeding and hid somewhere in a bush, bandaging myself with some rags. My adventure ended when I got skadooshed by a guy with a pickaxe. Your average life span in DayZ is about 20 minutes, have fun!

25. Spawning

You always spawn on a goddamn coast!

How to find yourself on the map:

If you’re playing on a vanilla server, you will 100% spawn on a coast. Maps are available in DayZ, yet they’re not really needed as you can ALT+TAB and find a map of the map that you’re playing on, on the internet. If you don’t know where you are, find any distinct location and find it on the map.

By doing this, you can find useful places that will be near you!

24. Food

This ain’t Plants vs Zombies.

How do you find food?

After you’ve spawned, your best bet is to search houses that are located near the coast, you can find cans of food, water bottles, or even water pumps. Another way of finding food is looking for mushrooms in the forest, or for fruits near the trees. You could also get a pickaxe and even become a farmer(I’ll talk about this later!)

You need food in DayZ, you’ll run out of it fast. Always prioritize food first!

23. Weaponry

You ain’t finding an M4-A1 near the coast, sweetheart!

How to find weaponry:

You most likely won’t find an automatic rifle after going along the coastline for 5 minutes. What you’ll most likely find is a crowbar or at best a pickaxe. A pickaxe, for example, besides being a deadly weapon, also has other uses - you can mine rocks with it, mine smaller rocks, and make a makeshift knife for plenty of other things.

It’s always wise to arm up while searching the coastline, the likelihood of you stumbling upon a friendly player is extremely low!

22. Importance of having a knife

Dat a noice knoif, m8.

Why you should find a knife ASAP:

With a knife, you can open cans without spilling anything out of ‘em, you can skin animals and use their meat as a food source. Knives are also most of the time necessary

when crafting fireplaces, making clean rags out of clothes, or more peaceful purposes, like stabbing players to death!(You can make it out of small rocks, or just find it in houses).

Not having a knife cost me my life many times in DayZ, it’s extremely useful.

21. Inventory space

You gotta put your cans of sardines somewhere, m8.

How to get more inventory space:

In DayZ, each piece of clothing is different and can have a different amount of space, different amount of space entails more canned peaches to carry with you on your journeys. Finding a backpack is also essential, as it will allow you to carry large amounts of stuff if your jacket/pants pockets are full already.

Essential if you’re hoarding weapons, needing to transport vehicle parts, etc.

20. Creating a basic fireplace

There’s no soup in there, just human meat.

How do you create a basic fireplace?

If you have matches or a lighter, all you need to do is gather some sticks and simply combine the sticks with the lighter/matches. If you don’t have a handy firestarter, you gotta have a knife and go for a hike to the forest. Cut some bark off of a tree and slap a bush with your knife - pick up the bark/sticks and combine them together so you can make a Hand Drill Kit, with that you can make a fireplace.

A fireplace is important for cooking food and staying warm, basic stuff in DayZ.

19. Hunting

Oh, deer.

How to hunt in DayZ?

Hunting is another great way of finding food if you don’t like looking for it in more urban areas(aka fighting off other players, dragging 20 zombies behind you, or getting punched 30 times by a Bambi). Of course, it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be safer, you can always stumble upon a bear, a pack of wolves or god forbid, a rooster. Just please, don’t use your melee weapons as a hunting tool for bears or wolves, it won’t end well at all. Use firearms instead <3

An alternate way of finding food in the wilderness.

18. Cannibalism

I just didn’t want to be hungry anymore…

How do you eat people?...

You didn’t have an easy start, the server hasn’t been resettled in quite a long and most of the coastline was already pillaged to the ground, besides that it’s been raining for hours and you became sick. You hear a bunch of people arguing and ending in a shootout, you peak over a window and you see it - a tasty corpse. You walk up to it and drool over it, you pull out your knife and skin the corpse. You loot the meat and run into the woods, start a fireplace and deprive yourself of humanity.

It’s just a game. And an easy way of finding food :)

17. Keeping warm

Quite romantic.

How to stay warm in DayZ:

Warm clothes, don’t run out into the rain, and wonder why you caught a cold.

If your clothes are wet, you’re gonna get cold pretty fast, so start a fireplace and sit near it for a while. Your clothes are gonna dry up and get a bit warmer.

Heatpacks - if you need to be in constant movement, unwrap a heatpack and put it into your pants/shirt. They’ll keep you warm for around 10-20 minutes.

You can get warm by just simply running. Yup!

Get cold, get A cold. 

16. Leaving the coastline

Finally, peace and quiet.

You can leave the coastline at any time, but I highly advise you to loot coastline houses/cities for food, weaponry, and other important tools. You’ll find most of the players on the coastline, which means that going north will be safer and safer, of course until you stumble upon an airfield or a military base - those spots are usually infested by bandit players, so be careful.

Your main priority should be going from a village to a village looting till you find an airfield, there you can find advanced weaponry(such as M4-A1’s, AK variants, sub-machine guns, etc).

Leaving the coastline is the first sign of progress!

15. The airfield

Welcome to the warzone.

Quick airfield guide:

When entering the airfield, zombies are the least of your concern, airfields are a known zone for decent weaponry, such as sniper rifles, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, etc - this means that it’s also a nice hotspot for bandits and squads. Entering an airfield unarmed or having some petty melee weapon leaves you at extremely low chances of survival, having at least some crappy pistol with you is recommended. Don’t waste your time on an airfield, get what you need and bail out before someone snipes your ass.

Airfields are a high-risk, high-reward deal.

14. Military bases

There’s actually plenty of ‘em!

Few things about the military bases:

Military bases most of the time are hidden in remote areas, such as forests or even an island. There are a few bases located on the coast, but they’re scarce and pretty dangerous. As with the airfields, they have plenty of goodies that come in the shape of weaponry, ghillie suits, and even explosives - the most positive thing is that the military bases are not as open as the airfields, which makes them less vulnerable to sniper attacks.

In my opinion, they’re safer, but it’s still advisable to get your loot and move on.

13. Loading a magazine

Wait, how do you load a weapon?

How to load the magazine for your gun:

All this talk of airfields, military bases, guns ‘n’ stuff, but when it comes to reloading a weapon, how the flying duck do you actually do it? Equip the weapon>Go to the inventory>Pull the magazine out of your weapon and drag it to the quick-bar>Equip the magazine and combine the ammunition in your inventory with the magazine, click LMB to start loading your magazine. Then drag the magazine and combine it with the weapon you’re using, taa-daa! It seems complicated, but you’ll learn to do it faster and faster.

Common sense to keep your magazines stacked with ammo :P

12. Broken leg

Wiggle like a worm to safety!

You broke your leg, what now?

Do not panic - unless you broke your leg somewhere in a city, swarming with cannibals, bandits, and zombies. You’re pretty much done at that point, but if you have a stick and 4 rags, you can still make it out. Combining those 2 will make a makeshift splint kit that will stabilize your leg and eventually cure it(after around 20-30 minutes).

Crucial tip if you fell down the stairs like my grandma.

11. Brain Prion Disease

Desperation may lead to immoral choices.

In DayZ, consumption of human meat can lead to Kuru, which is a disease that will, unfortunately, haunt you for the rest of your life(it’s incurable). 

The ways to avoid this disease is to NOT EAT HUMAN MEAT, don’t eat/drink with hands covered in blood.

If you have caught Brain Prion Disease, you’re gonna have tremors and bursts of laughter. Till you die.

10. Cholera

Don’t drink water from a poop lake.

How to avoid Cholera:

You avoid Cholera by not drinking dirty water, dirty water comes from many sources - a lake, a river. You can even contract Cholera by drinking from a water bottle that you’ve found. 

You can purify the water by adding chlorine tablets to the water bottle, then the water is completely safe to drink.

If you catch Cholera, you’re gonna vomit and dehydrate extremely fast, and the way to fight the infection is to find some Tetracycline pills(You don’t need them but they will boost your recovery from the sickness).

Quick tips on how to avoid Cholera.

9. Epinephrine Auto-Injector

Zzzzzzzz.

How to wake your buddy up when he got knocked out:

Let’s say that you’re in a shootout and your homie caught a cap in his chest, you bandaged him and you have to wakey-wakey him up ASAP before your enemies come over and waste both of you. Walk up to his motionless body and inject him with the yellow dildo thingy, after that he should wake up immediately. It also keeps your stamina stable for 1 minute, awesome if you gotta run fast like Keemstar.

Quick solution to an involuntary nap.

8. Gas stations

Boom.

Smarter ways of eliminating your foes:

Did you know that the gas stations could actually explode? If you see somebody trying to get fuel for their vehicle, you can always point at the gas station and watch the pesky player get blown to bits. Of course, you could just shoot him in the head and not damage his items/clothes, but that’s too boring and not spectacular.

A fun tip that I found out about just now ;)

7. Fixing clothes

Don’t run around with that rag you call a jacket!

How to fix clothes that you’re wearing:

1 thing - your boots will eventually wear out, which means that you’ll have to replace them or fix them, you can fix them via the LEATHER SEWING KIT - you can also fix a tactical vest with it.

When it comes to other types of clothing, you use a SEWING KIT. 

This is useful if your clothing is relatively warm/useful and you don’t want to replace it with some crap.

6. Breaking a base wall

It looks like a pear

An easy way of breaking to a base:

Create a fireplace near the player-made wall and put a couple of grenades into the fire, make sure to GTFO after you’ve placed them as they’re going to obviously explode. After they explode, there will be a small mushroom and a broken wall, which will allow an entry to the enemy base.

Useful if you don’t have a pickaxe, or can’t find it.

5. Heavily wounded

Don’t moveee a muscleeeee!

Let’s say that you got shot a few times and you’re low on blood, you managed to bandage yourself, but you have around a liter of blood and you fall unconscious repeatedly. The best thing for you to do now is to find a building and lay in there, do not move as any movement will cause you to faint. Stay hydrated/fed, it will boost your blood regeneration, and just simply wait - you can boost the healing process by getting a blood transfer.

Basic stuff when you’re an inch from death!

4. Charging the car battery

You need it to vroom vroom your car!

 If you found a battery with no power, then you’ll need:

A power generator,

A Battery charger,

A Spark plug,

Gasoline

How to charge the battery:

Put the spark plug in the power generator/plug in your battery charger

Fuel up the power generator

Put your battery in the charger

Switch on the generator/charger

The indicator lights will tell you whether your battery is charged or not(Green - max, red - still needs to be charged).

3. Building/fixing a car

Enjoy while it lasts!

How do I fix/drive a car?

If you see a car, not a wreck, but a car just missing a wheel or a door, go to it and check if it has a spark plug, a radiator, and a charged battery. If it doesn’t, you can go and look for those parts in barns, gas stations, and industrial areas - same for wheels, doors, hoods, and trunks. Remember to pour gas into your car and add water to the radiator.

Basic information about the car parts and where to find them.

2. Agriculture

Yummy potatoes!

How to grow your own plants:

The first step is to get a pickaxe/shovel and create a Garden Plot, after that you’re gonna have a square with 9 slots for each plant that you want to grow.

Let’s say that you found a pack of tomato seeds, next you want to place them in each slot(you can plant different plants at once). 

After that, get fertilizer(Garden Lime) for your plants, it’s not needed, but recommended for boosting the growing speed of your plants.

After planting the seeds/using the fertilizer, you need to water the ground.

The growing process will take less than 20 minutes!

Agriculture becomes useful when you need a stationary source of food(when you’re building your own base, etc).

1. The late-game

The anxiety of losing all that you’ve worked for begins now.

What decides whether you’re in late-game?

If you have a fully customized sniper/assault rifle(a VSD, an M4-A1, etc)

If you have decent armor(A helmet, a military jacket/vest) that protects you from elements/physical damage

Combat boots/Pants(They’ve got plenty of space for items)

A combat backpack.

These items decide whether you’re in the late game or not.

When I reached this stage I started learning about creating bases, fixing cars, and getting friendly with other people. DayZ’s main purpose is survival, yet survival alone is not a purpose, and it’s up to you what purpose you want to create for yourself. Do you want to be a good person and save Bambi’s(new players) from dangerous encounters? Or do you want to be a cruel son of a gun and snipe down newbs in cities, better yet start a cannibal cult! That’s the beauty of DayZ, you make your own rules and goals.

Also Be Sure To Read:

[Top 10] DayZ Best Weapons and How To Get Them (2020 Edition)

[Top 10] Best DayZ Servers That Are Fun (2020 Edition)

[Top 10] Dayz Best Base Locations And Why They're So Good

[Top 10] BEST DayZ Loot Locations

Top 15 Games Like DayZ (Games Better Than DayZ in Their Own Way)