Beginner's guide

If you have never played a game in which the style of survival can influence your role, stay calm. Yeah, seriously, follow this beginner's guide and soon tell other beginner's where to go.

Day R Survival is a bit harder, to get started in and to have fun with. If you're a MMORPG veteran, this guide should help you get speed quickly. In addition, this handy online overview guide will give you a general idea of what to expect in the game as you begin playing.

If you find some of the terminology a little daunting, there is a glossary (ext. link) that should help explain some of the more common terms. There is also a list of acronyms (ext. link) out there, that you can look through, to find one that you may not understand.

Advice from the Developers

The game will provide tips during loading screen :

• Loot is generated randomly for every player.
• You can trade in survivors' bases.
• You can make a knife and an axe from flint.
• You can get firewood fast.
• Diseases and injuries are very dangerous.
• You can get gasoline from broken cars.
• You can get firebricks from destroyed brick ovens.
• The map supports multi-touch.
• Waiting time for getting a package is five times shorter for premium players.
• The map is displayed in MOM. To see a new map fragment, you need to go toward the edge of the current one.
• Towns are contaminated by radiation.
• Some items cannot be used if your limbs are injured.
• Searching at night does not work without a light source.(After Sept 2018 Update)
• Improve your skills to unlock new recipes.
• You need a raft to travel faster on the water.

List of guides

Here is a list of helpful guides :

• Reddit famous "how to get an electro car and general tips"
• Playvisor guide
• Twaist1 Guide
• Zighinello420 walkthrough
• Pervinan's video guide (deprecated)
• Sibylle49s Guide(for v594 quests)

General

• It is advisable to progress slowly at first, and to visit every town to loot lots of supplies, to improve skills, etc... It's not a problem not to carry everything from one town to another, just let extra loot outside of town to be able to gather it swiftly when you'll come back (possibly in a long long time! )
• For the first week, search for food and a backpack. Go to Murmansk, search the garage to get tools and bicycle spare parts, then disassemble the broken bike in the post office to get a fully functional bike.
• Do not eat or drink without cooking or purifying foods. Cooked food reduces more hunger and provides other stats. Purify toxic water with charcoal to make dirty water and boil dirty water to produce clean water. (Although, with activated charcoal handy, rotten vegetables may be helpful quenching 10 hunger and 10 thirst. Just watch your health and radiation gauge.) food poisoning and parasites can be prevented with raw diet however it should be noted that you will take 5 times more damage from starvation
• Avoid radiated food. Some food found has a radiation symbol on it, eating this food with dose you with radiatio. Try to avoid eating this food unless you are desperate and can manage that radiation.
• When you find your Makarov at the start of the game, keep it until you can repair it as this is cheaper than making a new one. Keep cloth as it is a valuable component for armor and the Brick house and repairing the Wooden house at save points.
• While searching cities, keep an eye on your radiation levels to avoidradiation sickness. Don't sleep in cities.
• Beware, lighting a campfire in a building and searching may end up burning it down, destroying all goods inside and producing a lot of charcoal.
• Bringing a light source while searching decreases search time and helps warding off wild animals attacks.
• Drink generally any alcoholic drink to reduce Radiation levels as necessary (but be aware that it increases fatigue and can cause Hangover or Alcoholism if consumed excessively) Limit alcoholic beverages to two shots per 24 hours.
• Try to find or make a weapon. Its very important to guard yourself. A homemade pistol does far more damage than many early game weapons.
• Limit the use of medicine, especially alcohol. Pick up and keep all medicine you find, including components and survival items used to stitch you up (alcohol, needles, thread, bandages, etc.).
• Improve your skills as often as possible to increase your chances of survival. Max out the sewing skill by tearing up cloth into rag, sew it into "rag cap"(footcloth is better) & tear it again (repeat until maxed out) outdated with the new perk and level system
• Think ahead, make calculated decisions. Something as mundane as riding a bike for long distances nonstop can have disastrous consequences.
• Do not attack bandits if you aren't ready to beat them (they have good loot, but without proper equipment, they can be VERY dangerous).
• Do not carry more than you need, food weapons, items for repair or important. You can always find items down the track.
• If you drop items on the map and outside cities, they'll be marked with a special symbol so you can come back for them later.
• Avoid Radioactive biomes often hinted by a darker green for forests or red waters for swamps however they generally have otherwise hard to obtain resources water, coasts and roads do not have a radioactive variant
• Take into account info from objects.
• Many objects have a limited durability and will break accordingly. Repair stuff you want to keep, cook meat before it rots, eat it before it rots, ...
• If you use a motor vehicle, always keep an eye on fuel. Best to use motorcycle until you reach survivor camps for efficiency. Don't wander with motorized vehicles, have a clear objective and think ahead to save fuel.
• Rafts don't break down, but only work on bodies of water. Note that not all rivers are water. It is best to construct a new raft when needed rather than carry one over land.
• Beware of weather effects and natural disasters such as earthquakes, blizzards, dust storms, acid rain, etc. Details about these effects can be found on the location screen.
• Kindle a fire before sleeping to avoid rats stealing your food. This has the added benefit of resting faster and using less food. Make camp in forests and use an axe to get the wood that you need rather than carrying it. rat infestations no longer occur in newer versions
• Watch your health gauge, never let it fall below 25% unless you know what you are doing.
• -25 health can be handled easily with a good meal and a good sleep. Higher values will force you to stay in a safe area for longer. Use this off-time to craft massive amounts of stuff.
• If health increases too slowly, you may consider taking some medicine.
• Health will slowly decrease when hunger and thirst reach 0. You can fast for a while to save food, let health dip, then eat, drink, and sleep to recover health.
• Health will decrease when fighting, if your armor points reach 0.

Basic tips

• Watch your radiation levels. Never go over 40. (v.641 Rad level should not go beyond 50 | 75 | 100)
• To lower radiation,
  • Vodka/ Red wine/ Moonshine/ other wines. Alternatively, drink Hot tea.
  • IR-190
  • Energizing Potion/Detoxifying Potion
  • Chlorcystamine
  • Drink Plenty of Water (new update v.641 allows water to reduce radiation levels)
• Always purify dirty water with utensils and fire before drinking.
• An axe is useful as a weapon, and allows to cut wood faster.
• Avoid eating uncooked food (The time cost to cook is worth the time you are stuck resting for days for months to recover. You can spend that time in sleeping/looting!).
• Avoid eating rotten / radiated foods.
• Use a Handmade raft or Bicycle with a cart
  • No fuel required (and no extra weight, if equipped),
  • Cheap to build/repair.
  • Large carrying capacity
  • Much faster than walking (sail instead of walking along a river!)
  • Many cities around water can be looted efficiently that way

Advanced

Fuel/Transport

• Gas and Diesel are rather scarce resources, so be stingy with it. Use mostly raft + bicycle + motorcycle + minimal inventory.
• KamAZ is needed to complete the moving town quest. Save diesel for this purpose, or use the KamAZ for NPC Trading. (Electric car Is the best for light trades)
• Try to guess how much workload you'll need and use the right vehicle. For example, there is no point using a GAZ-24 if you're just rushing survivor quests. Don't use a UAZ-452 if you're trading less than 2 tons.
• Use markers.
• You can swim if it saves you fuel. There are no enemies on water and traveling on water uses no extra fuel.
• Remember to keep your eye on your Fuel. You can also distribute fuel in key points, so that you refill your fuel. Carrying all fuel at once is the best, if you can carry. You can get more from gas station, and trading in survivors' camps.
• It is a good idea to carry a bicycle, a toolkit, and some basic materials (tape, wire, ...) in your vehicle. Spare parts are relatively easy to find, but other materials to repair your vehicle can be tricky to gather. The bike will allow you to go look for gas and spare parts in nearby towns.
• Use preferably the motorcycle outside of cities, and bicycles inside, to save fuel. Use the VAZ/UAZ outside cities when your fuel stocks are high enough.
• Inventory management is a key in this game. Always try to have minimum items on you. Hoard medicines, it's useful and very light. Take the food you need to stay alive for a week or two, and take some more if it doesn't overloads you. If overloading, don't be afraid to drop some food, some water, and non perishable items at camps. You will be able to restock when you come back to visit cities near that camps.
• Food rots even if you aren't carrying it, eat it before it rots! (if possible, bring food that is non-perishable, so you don't have to watch for expiration time.)

Fighting

• Don't underestimate enemies! Serious enemies like bears, that can cause injuries that will set you back for 4-10 days. Fight them only if you're ready.
• Some items will help you evade enemies : craft a ghillie before reaching Moscow if necessary. (Use ghillie suit unless you have better armor)
• ALWAYS read the statistics from weapons and armors and equip the proper equiptment before battle.
• The steel armor offers the best protection, then comes the chitin armor.

Diseases

• Be careful. If you have Raw meat, dry it on a Drying rack. Doing so eliminates your chance of getting parasites or get the raw diet perk
• Be ready to treat any wound or disease. Always keep ~10-20 of each medicine.
• You should fear getting sick with a disease : it makes your life hell.
• If you're struggling to survive a disease, stay at a nearby survivor camp for a couple of days/weeks/months until it heals. It is very helpful against radiation poisoning, which can be lethal otherwise.
• Take the info from everything. you never know from who, where and when you'll receive the stab.
• Treat your wounds immediately, don't bleed out.

Items/Food

• Scavenge everything, with more items discovered, and places you're able to find them, your survival chance increases. Don't bring it all with you though, keep only valuables items (colloidal sulfur, potassium nitrate, sulfuric acid, batteries, radio parts, sugar, salt, coffee, fuel...) and make camps around cities to come back later to pick up stuff you couldn't take.
• Don't make unnecessary items, unless you want to level up and have extra crafting materials.
• Be resourceful. Items found in cities and bandit camps don't respawn.
• Do not trash items without studying them. Sugar, for example, is a VERY VERY useful item, from making Vodka, to Synthesizing medicines. Take Now or Never!
• Always bring water and food with you. If you're on foot or riding a bicycle, 15-25 bottles of pure water + some cookable food + portable oven is enough. Food is abundant around the map and will slow you down if you carry too much. When using a bigger vehicle, you may want to carry more water and food to travel faster.
   

"Exploits" in the latest version (30 Jan 2018)

1. Items with multiple uses can be saved and used when nearly broken: (OUTDATED)

• Cans(utensils in general), tools, chemistry sets, needles, bellows, shovels, axes have "uses". This can be exploited when only a few uses(at best 1) are left. If you start a recipe that requires multiple uses of an item that is nearly broken, only that broken item will be used to complete the recipe.
• Be sure to study in what sequence tools/cans are used depending on whether they're on the ground and their type. See utensil for more details about this game mechanic.
• Examples:
  1. You can boil 100 dirty water with 1 can instead of using a saucepan that has 250 uses - simply move all saucepans to another camp before boiling the water and leave the can that you want to sacrifice.
  2. You can make 50 bandages with 1 can in the same way.
  3. You can use nearly broken tools (that have 90-99% durability used) to craft 100 nails/wire/pipes or any other item that can be crafted in large numbers.
  4. You can use a nearly broken bellows as in 3. to craft 100 items instead of using 100 uses of the bellows' durability. After building the workbench, the bellows is the tool to focus on when blacksmithing.
  5. You can also use shovels/tools/axes that are nearly broken to dig 10 times for constructing houses or other structures from the Survival category.

(V.641 fix this exploit) 2. You can drop/pick up all items multiple times to travel with a heavy weight for a short distance

• This trick works well with a raft if you want to cross a road or a town. Simply
  1. make a camp and drop all items so you can walk
  2. move to the edge of the camp(but still staying inside the camp circle)
  3. pick up all items so the camp disappears
  4. drop all items again to make a new camp. Up to this point you made "1 step" equal to the radius of the camp
  5. repeat 2-4 to make little "steps"

That way you can cross any obstacle if you're overweight or move a vehicle + camp if you have an injury and can no longer equip it to move to safety.

Warning! This does not work in towns where no camp is created, e.g. when you are in a building / on the road or in a survivor camp. Also, if you're traveling in raft on a vast ocean/sea like going to an island, this may work, although there is a 14% probability that you'll loose an item (and you won't notice it, as it may be by units or single item that you need by the time you reach your destination), and worse case scenario, you're moving tons of items but the location is one map fragment to another (in water or land), there are slim chances that it won't let you do the pick and drop move (it may show that you are still with in the camp range/edge but it won't show you the items you dropped on the camp that that was recently created.)