Some minutes later VW said he could see some loon running around with a torch in the middle of a field. ‘Er, that could be me!’ Sure enough it was and he was able to take me to a camp where I got a map and could waypoint the other camp with the goodies. I got myself to within a couple of hundred metres and then logged for the night.
Monday evening I equipped at the three tent camp we’d found on Sunday (1). This has everything you could want, so I set off with the biggest backpack in the game (Coyote Patrol Pack), Night Vision Goggles, Rangefinder, GPS, food, meds etc and opted for the L85A2 AWS assault rifle (scope with Night Vision AND Thermal, see pic), the DMR sniper rifle (works with NV Goggles) and a pistol.
Night was falling, so NVGs were in action, and I was sweeping the area using the thermal as well, then moving to another spot not too far off, sweeping again etc. As per the pic, people show up as bright white making it fairly easy to see them against the contrast of the orange, even at range. However, zombies, animals and vehicles also show up like this. So I’d often spot some white poking out round the side of a bush or tree or perhaps over a ridge or gully. This induces mixed feelings of fear, worry, excitement… then a rabbit hops out… FFS!
MM logged in so we met up and decided to head S (2). It wasn’t long before MM realised he hadn’t packed any water bottle or drinks, but he did have about eight morphine auto-injectors… Despite shooting-up a few of these, he was still getting thirsty; clearly not enough H20 in them. So after checking the map we decided that we should head to Lopatino (3) which was 1km to our E, rather than the 2km plus to the lake SW of Vybor. I needed to log for a couple of mins, so gave MM a water bottle as he didn’t want to wait and was going to press on solo.
Now I should let you know that I’ve previously said that I was struggling with DayZ in that my playstyle in a FPS in the past has always been a pretty gung-ho approach. You can’t really do that in DayZ without dying a whole lot, and dying is a royal pita, so I’ve been trying to adapt to be more cautious and considered in my play. MM however is a very impatient chap, and was getting disgruntled having to wait for me repeatedly as I lagged behind anything from 200 to 400m. Needless to say my move a bit, stop in cover, thermal sweep, move a bit, stop, thermal sweep routine was way slower than MM’s charging through the undergrowth like Usain Bolt!
At one point I spotted someone running ahead of MM, and let him know. He expressed doubt in my ability to properly distinguish between a person and an animal. “I can tell the difference you know! It was definitely a person, rabbits have much bigger ears!” Anyway they’d disappeared into the night and despite continuing with my thermal sweeps, didn’t show up again.
After my five minute short break, I logged back in. MM was in Lopatino by this time, busy trying to lose some zombie friends he’d acquired. I started making my way down the hill towards the town and advised him the water pump should be on the N side of the church.
I came into town and crawled passed some zombies who were too close for comfort. MM: “What are you doing, crawling all the way?” So I proceeded to get off the ground and crouch-run to get to him a bit more quickly. This however attracted the attention of some zombies who started heading my way in the hope of fresh meat. Fuck it! I dropped them with my L85 as I was loaded with SD rounds which although make a lot of noise, are actually in-audible to Zombies so you don’t wind up with any more making a beeline to you.
One zombie had a pepsi, so I downed that then went round to the church. “Where are you then MM?”
MM: “Just over here, can’t you see me?” Suddenly my whole screen went bright white. “WTF! I can’t see shit!”
ME: “What da fuk is going on, what did you do?”
MM: “I think I dropped a flare…”
ME: “FUCK! Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Flares totally screw up night vision goggles, blinding you temporarily and at night can be seen from a long way off.
ME: “Head south. There’s a big barn over there, meet in there!” We both stumbled our way out of the town and pegged it across a field with some zombies in tow and into the barn. I said we need to get out of the area fast, so should continue to head south into a nearby wood. MM agreed. Then my screen was plunged into whiteness again as he lit the entire barn up with another flare.
ME: “Seriously dude, wtf!”
MM: “Oh, oops, I still had throw selected…”
ME: “Leg it!”
We made it out safely. I seriously think MM is just trolling me, despite his protestations of innocence. On a couple of occasions he’s let off a round from his silenced M4 near me, shitting me up.
*
We had a drink and topped up our canteens. Flight decided he wanted to test out his aim with his new sniper rifle on a few zombies lurking around in the town, so shattered the silence of the night with the crack of a few shots. A few disgruntled colleagues of his target started heading our way, so I helped take them down. MM was a tad perplexed about all the noise we were making.
After a moment’s discussion on what to do and where to go, we decided to head over to the North West Airfield. This being a military site, it houses various highly desirable resources and is therefore one of the most attractive destinations in Chernarus. MM and Flight were keen to try and take some people out.
Off we set, with me again taking my sweep and move tactics. I noticed how well Flight was hidden with his Ghillie suit, so I took an extra pause to put mine on. You have to drop your backpack, put the suit on the pick you backpack up again. So by the time I was moving again, they’d gotten perhaps around 200m ahead of me.
“CRACK, CRACK, crack… crack!” Shots rang out!
Flight: “I’m dead!”
MM: “I’m hit, I’m down!”
Flight: “I think it was two different shooters, maybe from the right.”
Me: “FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” I was shitting bricks, expecting to go down any moment, adrenaline was absolutely pumping and I was shaking… Being some way behind them and running to catch up, I didn’t know where my downed comrades were or where they’d been shot from. I tried to steady myself and leaned round the side of the bush frantically scanning with the thermal trying to locate our assailants and listening intently. MM started waffling and blubbering on that I needed to kill them! “No shit, STFU, I’m trying to listen out for them!”
I peered round the other side of the bush. Nothing. I held my position and continued to search, still fearing that any second I’d be looking at the ‘YOU ARE DEAD!’ screen. After a few seconds, I was daring to assume they hadn’t seen me at all. Perhaps a minute or so passed, then I spotted them. They’d made their way over to the bodies and the two of them were busy looting one of my buddies.
I took aim with L85 and let off a few rounds but missed. I was unsure of the range and the performance of the L85 from any distance. Luckily, they didn’t hear the shots as I must have been way beyond the audible range of the weapon. I switched out to my DMR and took aim again, going for the centre mass of the body figuring that despite also not knowing the range and zeroing of the DMR, I’d should still at least hit. And hit I did with two rounds and took the kill. The other scumbag dropped prone just as I plugged a round into him but then was out of view. I wasn’t sure if I’d killed him and in the excitement hadn’t checked the bottom left of my screen which displays death messages e.g.‘Joe Bloggs was killed’.
I scanned the area again and couldn’t see anyone else, so moved about 50m to another bush to try and get a better angle to see the second guy. MM was still alive, on good health and not bleeding, however he was unconscious and had a long hourglass time before he would regain consciousness. I opted to continue to scan for other threats and hoped he would come round soon.
No-one else was showing up on my thermal sweeps. I had moved round a little more and could see three bodies, two close together and a third some 50m to the right; I figured this was probably MM and the other two belonged to Flight and an assailant and they were possibly obscuring the second guy I’d hit.
MM: “Oh, should be coming round any second now… Yep I’m up”. I came back from scanning the horizon to where the bodies were. The one now crouching was between the two bodies and the one on the right… wtf!? MM went over to check the bodies on the left and identified them, one being Flight. I wasn’t thinking straight but let MM know about heat I was picking up to the right and guided him over to it.
UI text: “The Joker is dead.”
MM: “Teeehee! Got the bastard!”
No comments:
Post a Comment