Looting. what's good and how to get it.

[Noises]

Day Z scavenger hunters ahoy! This thread is here to help you hone your looting skills. I'm going to cover the basics and the advanced points, with the intention of making every TOGger a loot ninja.

Now, if you're running around by yourself hitting up barns for beans, there's not much in this thread for you. The practice of hit and run raids is simple. Watch your target building from a distance, see if there's zombies around before you get there. If there is, it's a good sign someone else is there now or has left recently. Depending on your disposition, you may want to either try somewhere else or go human hunting. If it looks clear, sneak in and see if there's anything you can use and sneak back out. Simple.

If on the other hand you're raiding in a group, there's some things you need to know. The first is, loot doesn't respawn until a loot location has been cleared. That means picking up the trash loot and moving it away from the loot spawn.

Second thing is, you have an inventory and a backpack. To access your pack, hit G while not facing loot, and double click your pack. This lets you move items from your inventory to your pack, or vice versa.

You can also face loot on the ground and hit G. You'll see the items in your inventory on one side of your item list and the other side will show what's on the ground. You can pick up items from the ground and put them in your inventory. You can also double click your pack, and you'll see the items on the ground and the items in your pack. If you pick up items in this mode, you'll place them directly into your pack. Near as I can tell, industrial/repair loot can't be picked up into your pack, it has to go into your inventory first.

You can also place items in your pack directly onto the ground, but to do that, first you need one single item on the ground. I always put one piece of trash loot in my inventory when I'm cycle looting, and drop it so that I can then put my reticle over it, open my inventory, then my open my pack and transfer trash from my pack to the ground.

If you happen to be liberating the content of other people's tents or vehicles, you can switch between your inventory and your pack by double clicking your pack, just like loot piles on the ground. One side of the list is labeled "gear" or "old camping tent" or "ATV" etc. The other side is either your inventory or pack. Just remember in this mode you can only transfer items out of your inventory and into your pack in a two step process, via the pile/tent/vehicle.

Cycle looting is when you farm a loot spawn by clearing it out, waiting for it to repop, clearing it again. It can be done alone, or with a group. Tactics may vary but one thing remains the same. The key to good cycle looting is speed. You want to clear out the loot spawns as quickly as possible, drop the loot and have them repop as fast as you can. That means picking up the loot you find and getting it away from the loot spawn. If you have to sort gear, do it while you wait for the next load of loot to respawn. Don't waste time listing every item you find on TS, that's not what cycle looters need to do. they need to get in, get everything, dump it, and get back in there again.

here's a quick (and incomplete) list of items you should never have to ask if anyone wants.

Fairly common, always needed.
Matches.
Maps.
Compasses.
AKM 30rnd mags
G17 mags

less common, always needed.
STANAG 30rnd mags
AK 30rnd mags
M24 5rnd clip
SVD 10rnd clip
M9 mags
M9SD mags
STANAG SD mags
Skins (ghillies and camo clothes)
Fencing kits


Primary Weapons worth having.
M16A2
M24
SVD Camo
M4 A1/A3 variants.
M9 SD
AKS 74
AKM

SideArms
M9SD <aka the fart. silent but deadly.
Makarov <quiet, headshots from close range kill, just aim it.

people may like or use other pistols, but these two (and their ammo) are the only ones worth a space in a looters pack. If you need ammo for something else, call it.

Common items to take if you have room.
Smoke grenades
Epi Pens
Blood bags
Bandages
Morphine Injectors
Makarov Mags

Uncommon loot like NVGs, Range finders, GPS units etc are always worth getting, but we all knew that. If you're looking for common items not on this list and you're not actually looting, it's up to the person who needs/wants the gear to let the looters know before they go in, and remind/ask just before they leave. Looters shouldn't have to ask what's wanted or needed while they're busy looting, try to keep comms clear so the looters can listen for footsteps, gunshots and zombies. If you need a hatchet or a knife, a few spare bandages, morphine or a canteen, call it early in the looting mission.

Remember there's only so much loot each person can carry. Prioritise what you're taking out first after you clear the loot out. If the situation becomes dangerous, you'll be glad you took the rare ammo and weapons first and won't worry about the blood bags and morphine injectors you had to leave behind.

IMPORTANT!!!

If you have to drop a weapon, place it on the ground outside, preferably a road. The weapon will appear directly under you, so if you can't see it, take a couple of steps backwards then look down. Items sometimes glitch through the floor of buildings and you'll lose more guns that way. That's why outside is better. If you pick up a gun, it replaces the gun you have in that slot. Flashlights will also replace your sidearm the same way. If you want to clear a common weapon out of a loot pile and not keep it, you can pick it up into a pack without enough free slots and glitch it out of existence. These dropped/lost glitches can be annoying if you're not concentrating, but the glitches are a constant and if you pause and think, you shouldn't lose any weapons you want to keep. Spare weapons can't be picked up into your inventory, even if you have enough slots. If they don't go in your pack, you toss your old weapon and have no control over where it might land. If you place your weapon on the ground first, it will be exactly where you put it when you come back.

You can't pick up spare packs. Period. If you see a better/bigger pack you want, drop your old one outside, get the new one, go back to your old pack, reticle over it, roll the mouse button and open (old) pack. double click you new pack and transfer items out of the old pack on the ground directly into the new one.

If you're looting and you have trouble with an item, chill. Ask another looter to try, sometimes what's glitched for one person works fine for another. Keep your cool, stay alert, keep trying to deal with it until you get that feeling you've been there too long and it's better to just leave it. Don't let stress over gear or the mechanics of the inventory system turn you into a liability for the team.

One last thing, every time someone says they can't get a pack, Rocket kills a kitten. If you can't "get" a pack, to open it or pick it up, move around it, side to side, look around it, roll the mouse wheel. 95% of the time, the pack isn't glitching, you just have to get the right angle and distance to take or open it.

[RubberRobber]

Nice Job mate. have some Rep.

[Veilo]

really good guide!

I think the main recommendation for the loot team should be that they have a shopping list.
There's really no need to ask every time you find bandages or can of pepsi whether anyone needs. At the same time, the people not doing the looting - it's not like you're sitting in the bushes for half an hour and suddenly you realise "wait wait wait hold on guys, i just realised, i have no g17 ammo at all has anyone seen any?" - press G for Gangster before hand and figure out what you need.

whole team needs to pause for 5min before going in. Loot/assault team needs to clean out their inventory- you will get tons of food/water - dump it all on people who will be doing overwatch/sentry/etc. You won't go hungry/thirsty during the looting.. Sentry/overwatch/snipers - let the looters know what you need. Looters - draw up a "shopping list" of stuff to pick up that the other teammmbers requested.

We should really avoid the situation where the looters spend 1min at every loot pile going "ok there is some pasta here, anyone needs? i don't have room for it because i am carrying 10 cans of pepsi already"

also my recommendation is to reclassify some items a bit :

pistol ammo - all pistol ammo except 9mmSD should be reclassified to "don't pick up unless the looter needs OR is asked for it specifically"

assault rifle ammo - assault rifle ammo isn't that special - should only be taken if requested. Exception is stanag SD which is pretty rare. All other assault rifle ammo should be only taken if someone specifically asks for it.

sniper ammo -
dmr - don't take unless someone asks for it beforehand - it's not common but at the same time
it's rare to run out.
cz550 - don't take. it's a bad gun in many ways and it's rare that someone would use it for extended period of time.
m24 - always take - it's only 5 bullets per mag so that ammo is both rare and very limited/short supply.
50cal/anti material rifles/svd - always take no matter what - even if no one has that rifle, those are so rare and their ammo is so rare that those are always worth taking.

tools:
they are all sort of important/useful (except for watch/map perhaps) and while there are varying degrees, it is generally agreed that matches are fairly rare. Still, there is no point getting loaded up with knives/compasses at expense of stuff that is needed. 1-2 spares is more than enough unless someone needs. Also keep in mind: someone will always die soon and they will need new set of tools. always. so there's no point debating "should i loot this in case someone dies?" - yes, someone will always die and yes someone will always need EVERYTHING. 1-2 spares max.

medical supplies:
- blood bags: always - they are only available in hospitals/medical tents and are extremly useful because they can override lack of food/temperature/water/etc
- morphone: if asked - general load out is 2 per person, 1 spare/for friends.
- epi pens - ditch them. even 1 is too many. maybe 1 per whole team is good enough
- anti biotics - ditch them, currently sickness is so rare we can organise a hospital trip if needed
- pain killers - only if asked
- bandages - 2 per person is minimum, 3 is recommended. take only if on shopping list. otherwise fairly common even in farm houses/barns.

Weapons:
Don't start a public debate every time you find a lee enfield. If you don't know which member of the team is missing a primary weapon and what their preferred weapon is - then you alt tabbed the initial planning part. Don't do this. Plan ahead - which weapons are uprgades/downgrades. Know which ones are very useful AND rare:
svd, dmr, anything silenced, any smg above pdw/uzi, anything with scope/red dot/etc. any lmg, m24, etc.
Know which ones are very common and only should be picked up if someone has nothing:
shotguns, akm/ak74. etc

pistols:
This one is a bit harder i think - someone else might need to come up with a strat for this that will save us time/effort/ts noise/etc.

[Yvnu]

Pistols:

Pistols are primarily for zombies, they need to be quiet. It's undisputable the best pistol in the game is the M9SD.

Some people prefer other pistols like the G17 so they can ask for them at the start if they need a pistol but other than that, everyone needs M9SD.

Second runners if no M9SD's are popping are M9 and Makarov because they are quiet only pick these up if someone in the party doesn't have a pistol.

That being said, pistols take up too much space to carry an extra for long (especially if lots of good ammo is dropping) so if you need a pistol, be on the raid and grab it ASAP.

[Noises]

Looting is a numbers game. Some buildings have as many as 20 or 30 loot spawns in the one building. Most have as few as 2 or 4. Certain items only load in certain kinds of buildings. Certain buildings are placed in very easy, or very difficult to approach locations depending on which town you're in. And some building types, found in only one place in the map, spawn completely unique and totally chibby loot. (looking at you, NW airfield barracks.) And the loot itself is spawned on a percentage chance.

For knowledge of all these arcane secrets, you'll need three things. One, a decent memory. Two, map showing where the buildings are. Three. A data sheet that tells you what kinds of buildings spawn what kinds of loot, and even has an image showing you exactly what the building looks like in game.

For bettering your memory, try Brain Games & Brain Training - Lumosity
For a loot map, I like ArmA 2 DayZ Chernarus map
For the data sheet I use DayZ - Loot cheat sheet

And now, equipped with the right set of tools, I urge you to do your research and make notes of things like which buildings have 20 or more loot spawns in them, and where they are on the map, where main rotor assemblies load, what kind of buildings have engine parts and jerry cans. Once you have your target buildings, find out if they happen to be on the outskirts of a town you and others might not go to very often. If there are clusters of buildings, that sort of thing. And the better a place looks, the more like a good place to go looting it seems, remember other people have had exactly the same thought. So consider safer, secondary, lower yield, lower traffic locations if your focus is survival.

[Bru1zer]

Cementing the age old saying of "you don't know what you got till it's gone"
I love my makerov, I can't fathom how spoiled we were starting with 8 mags.
Ammo is so plentiful whoever has a mak in the group can be the anti zed guy.
Gone are the days of painfully crawling into towns for me, I'll happy run benny hill happy laps whilst the rest of the team is free to loot, and then run though a few buildings losing most of the horde and then headshot the last remaining stragglers.
It's good for close quarters PVP also with it's high fire rate.
Most I end up using is 1-2 mags per town and I will easily come accross at least 6.

The other pistols have their place sure.
The M9SD is great to exectute those one or two zeds blocking your path somewhere, but it is too weak and ammo too scarce to engage a horde resorting you to your primary.
1911 is great for PVP and ammo is widely available but it is too noisy compaired to the mak.
The revolver is great for anti zeds but rubbish for PVP.

[red_one]

i wish the zombies didn't !@#$ change directions sharply when they ran, it's so fake and so hard to hit them

[Biggus]

Really good stuff.

There's a recurring theme of getting greedy and overstaying our welcome when we farm as a group, though.

[banga]

i didnt get a gun when i started up yesterday? first time where do i get 1 and how do i use the food that i collect ?

[Speedy]

Originally Posted by Biggus

Really good stuff.

There's a recurring theme of getting greedy and overstaying our welcome when we farm as a group, though.

Yep Mashiro felt that last night at Stary when someone logged in in a tent and shot him then logged out.
By the time that had happened we had spent somewhere around 35-45 minutes there. We really need to limit ourselves to at most two sweeps through the tents and move out.