I've found some gear in one of the industrial towns, I dont however seem to be able to use it! Only played arma a little, but as I recall r is for reload, this doesn't seem to be reloading my Makarov(I have two clips). Also my guy needs a drink, and I don't even know how to drink my coke! This game is terrifying enough without having to hide behind a door while I try to work out the controls.
As soon as I know how to do all this, I'm going to try and head out of town to somewhere a bit quieter and learn how to refill my water bottle and set up razor wire.

I know sometimes the weapons get bugged for me and won't let me shoot, look down the sights, reload, or anything. The only thing that seemed to work for me was to either find a new weapon and switch or exit the server and rejoin, or find a new server and see if it unbuggs.

To drink, hit G and go into your gear, right click on your can of coke or whatever drink you prefer and you will get a selection to drink it. Same goes for food and a few other items.

Filling up your water container is done through the right click menu as well IIRC, either while swimming in a pond or standing at a well.

Best of luck out there in zombie land

Cheers, will try that. Gotto get to work now, might not be able to get back on before tommorow morning. Hope my guy doesn't get too thirsty in the mean time!

I managed to sort out my pistol, but it was pitch black on the uk server I was on despite the fact that it was at least an hour before sunset here. I made the mistake of trying to get out of town in the dark, rather than switching servers.
I got a broken leg when I crawled into a z, I took him out but three others heard the shots and finished me off.
I'm now exploring the mountains in a US server, hungry thirsty and with no supplies and no Idea where I am.
Seems like I'm going to have to make every mistake in the book before I get any good at this.

Your going to get killed , be it bandits, zeds, or just bad luck. You will loose your fav gear and weapon, best pack and tree ninja outfit. At this point your best bet is taking notes on what does work and getting the gear menu sorted.

As an alpha anything can happen and a server burp or code reset could make you start back at the coast with nothing, again :}

The quickest way to move forward is to get with a group on t/s and be able to ask questions and watch other players handle situations. Can you log in and play any u.s. servers ?

We use several different servers and the gang is on weekends through the day.

And... as more alpha and the betas come rolling out, our charactors will be reset time to time wiping everything out. I don't grow too attached to anything or feel bad, it's not worth getting upset about. Just practice, practice, practice and enjoy this cool mod.

I appreciate the advice chaps. I would like to join you all on the US servers some time, my ping doesn't seem to be too bad considering the distance, at least it wasn't on the server I was on last night.
I am really enjoying it so far though. The atmosphere is great(terrifying), and I look forward to learning all it's intricacies and quirks. At the moment I'm dying of thirst, lost on a mountainside in the rain, just wishing I could throw my head back and open my mouth to keep me going. Oh well the likelihood is I'll find out how long it takes to die of thirst, note it down for future reference and make a note not to walk into the wilderness with no equipment, just as I wouldn't IRL!

You are more likely to succeed in that first few hours if you have a hatchet rather than a pistol. A pistol attracts more zombies when you shoot one (and probably makes you feel confident, which is the wrong attitude when alone). A hatchet can let you silently take out zombie after zombie (backing away after a swing to get out of reach and make them come to you).

Stealthy scavenging will let you find equipment in barns and bigger towns. Villages and isolated houses mostly don't have the loot to justify the risk.

You can die from thirst if you don't find a can of soft drink or a canteen, and your blood level will just drain away. It will also disappear if you let yourself die from exposure by staying outside in the rain.

Life is cheap in Chernarus...

Cheers for the tips Molusc, I think I have no chance of finding my way back to save myself this time, can't wait to try again.
I think this cow will be the last thing I see alive,



Look at those lovely udders, now whats the key to 'milk cow'? It may be my last chance!

That was indeed the last thing I saw, and I am now in a position to say that a man dying of thirst will lose blood at a rate of 283 per minute. This gives anyone with that flashing red icon just over 40 minutes to find refreshment before they die, and just over 27 minutes before you start to suffer with extremely blurred vision.

I started again and found some ammo and flares in a warehouse near my spawn, I got chased by Z's before I could find any food or weapons. Using the excellent map by Moocow I've found a town called Komarovo which looks promising, but full of Z's. I think I'm going to work my way in from the woods on the east side and go building to building.



Theres also this building to the South of the town which I'd like to check out, but theres a lot of Z's and a lot of open ground between me and it. It may even be where I initialy spawned, but I had to run a long way through the woods to drop those 5 or 6 Z's that were chasing me and I got a little bit disoriented.
I'll have to find you all on the TS server if we're ever on at the same time, does it have a password?