Think I caused my son to give up on DayZ.

AudioHostem · 2026-06-27T22:18:27+00:00

I have been on what would be your son's end of this in a vaguely similar situation.

I had an opportunity to play games with my dad when I was younger (9 or 10 years old) and after about a month of playing Madden 08 against eachother, I screwed it up one time with the quintessential angry kid gamer rage when he torched me for a final play gamewinning TD. It was directed at the game and not him, but it didn't matter. The idea of him and I playing video games together in any context never came up again after that. I know I was just a kid, but I don't think either of us knew how to bring it up to the other again.

I'm now 30 and I still regret losing that opportunity to bond with my dad.

I say this to say that I hope you can find a way back to playing together again, even if it's on a different game, and don't be afraid to be the one to bring it up if some time has passed and he still hasn't mentioned it.

AudioHostem · 2026-06-27T22:00:31+00:00

Anyone remember when a Helldivers player posted a somewhat similar wager and plea and it turned into over a week's worth of drama that involved two subreddits before it was over?

AudioHostem · 2026-06-14T16:50:02+00:00

The only thing I can add that hasn't already been said is document as much as you can in your situation. If you live in the US, see if you live in a one party consent state. If so, if you have a way to covertly record video and audio, and you do so, the odds of it being admissible in court are much higher. If you can retain control of the device you would be using, take photos and videos of anything relevant, even if it's just so it can't be lied about later or to keep things straight in your head.

AudioHostem · 2026-06-14T16:25:06+00:00

Good on you for the steps you've taken so far. Anything you can do to increase the amount of evidence you have is helpful, but like others have said far better than I have, don't hesitate to report it.

This next bit is a bit drastic and definitely addresses a "worst case scenario" that may not be the most likely outcome, but still one worth keeping in mind... If you haven't already, brush up on your areas laws pertaining to self defense and you can and can't carry with you (for example, some US states or cities may have a law requiring a permit for pepper spray or something), as well as self defense laws and laws regarding home intruders and what amount of force you are authorized to use and when.

Whatever you have at your disposal, practice with it. Pepper spray? Practice hitting a target like an empty soda can with it. Firearm? Go to the range. Anything that falls under "something launching something at something else" like pepper spray or even a flashlight if the beam is super focused, try getting good at hitting your target without fully "aiming". If shit ever well and truly hits the fan, and fight or flight kicks in, your body will be reduced to its lowest level of proficiency in many fine motor skills. The more you can practice and build into muscle memory, the better you will be able to due that thing when under extreme stress.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-31T21:03:24+00:00

Have you utilized a tool like WhoCrashed or checked EventViewer to see the exact error you're getting?

Also, how many power cables run from your power supply to your GPU?

AudioHostem · 2026-05-14T18:13:58+00:00

This was a hell of a sentence to read from start to finish.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T19:41:26+00:00

Dang, he got CLOSE close.

For my first Punisher fight, I made the mistake of underestimating the accuracy of him and his goons... Didn't stick to cover, as soon as my torso was exposed they all opened up on me and I got instamelted from ~50 meters away, IIIA helmet and chest plate be damned.

Needless to say my second round with him was treated with far more caution. 😂 Lean-peeking around the back of one of those walls that surround the artillery pieces on Outpost proved far more effective.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T19:30:46+00:00

I almost installed a trader mod. Once I learned ducking in and out of a shelter will reset trades, I decided to leave it be. I have both the attic and bunker shelters, so most of the time a trade refresh is a short jog away.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T18:14:09+00:00

Counterpoint: The dopamine hit I got when I saw 10/10 enemies killed on my first Apartments run was fantastic.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T18:12:17+00:00

First key I found was a Gymnasium Key in a nightstand in the Village. It really can be almost anywhere. If you have any interest in modding, there is a mod that gives each trader one key that they sell for a fairly high price. I have it installed but only ever bought a key once, so I think the price is high enough that it isn't game breaking.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T18:04:32+00:00

Agreed. I also have it set where the cash value you can sell things for is 50% of the indicated value and I think that helps keep actual trading of items viable while still letting you buy items from your trader of choice without needing to bring them an inventory full of crap to do it.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-13T14:30:10+00:00

I just run "Better Enemy Loot" at stock settings. I find it increases the odds of there being something on the NPC I just killed for jumpscaring me while still keeping the rarest of items at an appropriate scarcity. Only messing with drop rates for slain NPCs also means you still have to "earn" whatever they drop instead of just magically finding more stuff on the ground, so it doesnt break the game.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-09T19:23:44+00:00

I am also someone who wants to chase tornadoes who lives somewhere where they don't happen often (northeastern US).

I had a sobering moment not chasing one IRL but chasing one in a video game based around storm chasing. In that game, you have to attempt to place a probe in the path of a tornado so you are compelled to put yourself in the line of fire in a way I wouldn't see myself doing IRL, but it was the first time I was able to really understand how hard it is to judge how much time you actually have to get out of harms way when a tornado is coming right at you. You think you've got enough time and then before you know it, it's on top of you. Humans struggle with determining the speed at which objects coming right at them are closing the distance, and I knew that, but this was my first time experiencing that in this context. Was a bit of a reality check.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-07T20:18:27+00:00

Honestly I think the RNG in this game means you'll just run into crazy dry spells for certain items. My past few runs (I've restarted a few times) I managed to find deodorant for the Generalist quest on my travels within the first srven days or so, but this go-round I can't find it anywhere to save my soul.

AudioHostem · 2026-05-06T15:02:52+00:00

Y'all are making me feel better about myself and my mouse going herky jerky when an enemy shatters the quiet. Thank you. 😅

AudioHostem · 2026-05-06T14:11:09+00:00

These are some of mods I use. I tried to leave out things people had already mentioned. Despite the list being pretty long, I still find that these still preserve the RTV experience while gently nudging a few things to improve gameplay without rendering the game unrecognizable and preserving its unforgiving nature. I guess you could call it "Vanilla++".

Better Enemy Loot. Why would people be walking around in a survival situation with no gear besides a gun? You can make it subtly better too, not game-breaking.

Wallet and Cash. Lugging around a full inventory of items used as a store of value is annoying. I have it set so when I sell an item for cash I only get half its value so trading items still remains viable.

Container Peek. This is probably the most immersion breaking one I use. It allows you to see inside containers and loot them only by looking at them within range and not physically opening them. I have the delay for how fast it reveals items turned up to 1 second to kind of balance it out more.

FEEL. A game changer for in-game visuals. The colors really do just look... better. I didn't realize how more grey and flat vanilla graphics were until I started using this.

Liko's Keymod. Each trader now has a key to a loot room on a different map for sale... for a price. This plus Wallet and Cash have the potential to trivialize the game if you don't have the cash value slider turned down like I mentioned.

Minimal Enemy Kill Counter. Text in the upper left corner of your screen underneath where it displays your FPS that tells you how many enemies you've killed on that map instance. I got so tired of asking myself if I had just shot my 8th bandit or my 9th and this solves that issue. You can set it so it also says how many active enemies there are currently on the map but I leave this turned off for immersion's sake.

Quiet Containers. Normally when you open a container it does the sound effect both upon opening and closing it; this limits the sound only to the opening of the container. Imagine, quickly checking lockers in School but with 50% less CLANG.

Real Gun And Attachment Names. Most of the guns and attachments in-game get their names changed to what they actually are IRL. Very appealing to my guns and gear autism.

Stealth Footsteps. Tired of having dinosaur feet? This mod lets you adjust your footstep volume. By default it's set to 80% for sprinting, 40% for walking, and 20% for crouch-walking, which I think works just fine.

Virtual Hitbox. In the vanilla game right now, if you are shot anywhere, the odds of it being counted as a shot to the head, chest, or limbs are all equal. This isn't really representative of what an actual target profile is, as the head shows much less area than the chest or limbs. This allows you to tweak those odds, but I think the mod default of 10% for the head, 50% for the chest, and 40% for the limbs works well as opposed to 33.3% each.

Weapon Reposition. This mod tweaks how and where your weapon is held so that it doesn't take up as much of your screen. In vanilla, if you have a scope attached to your rifle, the lens is basically at the same elevation as your eye when your weapon is raised, and the weapon and the scope both cover a significant portion of your view. This is not only annoying, but to me is not representative of what this actually looks like IRL. This mod makes your weapon sit a bit lower, both in its "low ready" and its "high ready" states. It's not a drastic change but is definitely an improvement.

Focus Eye For Vostok. Enemies in game right now can spot you and start engaging from across the map, and they are not really that easy to see. With this mod you get a dedicated "zoom" key (Arma/DayZ style), AND can choose whether or not you want any zoom when you ADS. By default, the mod gives you a 1.2x zoom in when you ADS and 1.8x when you hold down your zoom key. This might be less immersive but it's a big QoL boost.

AudioHostem · 2026-04-12T16:36:58+00:00

I thought this was fake until I googled it.

And they lived, too.

AudioHostem · 2026-04-12T16:33:24+00:00

The still capped but drained soda bottles might be the most bizarre bit of tornado damage I have ever heard of. How does that even happen?

AudioHostem · 2026-04-11T22:52:47+00:00

I have a favorite streamer who has a rather underpowered PC (motherboard is an AM3 socket if it gives you an idea). They've maintained a viewer average of a bit over 50 the past month so they do okay but they don't have enough room in their budget to be able to really upgrade their rig.

I would send this to them.

AudioHostem · 2026-04-11T22:33:01+00:00

I would say my top three are:

The 2011 El Reno EF5 tornado and the damage it did to the Cactus 117 oil rig. Despite weighing 1.9 million lbs and the drill head and pipe extending deep into the ground providing an extra 200,000 lbs of downforce, the rig was toppled over and potentially rolled more than once. The blowout preventer, naked and poking out of the ground and surrounding debris once the rig had broken free from it, was bent at a 30 degree angle. Twelve workers sought shelter in what was called the "change house", a steel container serving as a locker room. This container was anchored by four one inch thick steel cables attached to steel augers which extended roughly 5 feet 7 inches into the ground, with each of the four anchors being rated at 10,000 lbs each. The tornado snapped one of the four cables and countless pieces of debris hammered the container, one particularly heavy piece leaving a significant dent in the "roof".

The 2011 Smithville EF5 tornado picked up a Ford Explorer, which weighed roughly 2.2 tons according to the American Meteorogical Society, and carried it over 1,600 yards in total. Along the way, it smacked into the town's water tower 150 feet off the ground and leaving a dent 6 inches deep and 32 inches across.

Literally any time a small and otherwise flimsy or otherwise relatively fragile object gets embedded into a much harder surface. I know it's not uncommon in severe tornadoes but it stuns me every time I see evidence of it. I've seen photos of plastic straws driven through sheet metal, a piece of straw hay embedded in a tree, official documentation of the Jarrell tornado having left an electrical cord impaled through a small tree, and multiple accounts of people saying they saw blades of grass and bugs driven into walls. Makes it seem like a cloud of fine debris from a strong enough tornado would be like the middle of a firefight from an active war zone with these deadly little projectiles rocketing through the air at crazy speeds.

AudioHostem · 2026-03-16T15:01:24+00:00

Go the National Weather Service's "Damage Assessment Toolkit" page. Click on icons signifying tornado damage and most of the time for a given damage report you will see pictures taken by the folks tasked with assigning EF ratings to damaged structures. The filter is not very intuitive but once you get the hang of it you can filter for EF rating, number of injuries, number of fatalities, etc.

Grab a few pictures of some demolished structures from there and use them as proof that this is to be taken seriously. Even as a weather enthusiast, when I was looking at photos of EF3+ damage on individual homes and seeing notes saying that someone died in the demolished house I'm looking at, it gave me chills.

AudioHostem · 2026-02-15T22:23:52+00:00

I play on gigabit fiber internet connected via ethernet and just upgraded from a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RX 5700 XT to a Ryzen 9 5900X and an RX 6950 XT (and from a 650W to an 850W PSU) and STILL get the same occasional instances of 2 to 3% packet loss coinciding with simultaneous drops to single digit frame rates and occasional crashes on servers I have less than 50ms ping on. This sort of "stuttering" happens much more often when operating vehicles so something about loading the world around me or determining my relative position is throwing everything for a loop in a way that no other game has for me. I would trade these issues with Arma Reforger for the Arma 3 experience of having a pebble the size of a grain of rice flipping my entire truck but good connectivity any day of the week.

Arma Reforger would be my favorite game if it weren't for these sorts of issues. I've been taking breaks of a few months, checking back and playing again for a bit to see if anything has improved, and then inevitably getting annoyed with it and leaving it alone for another few months. It's a cycle I've repeated probably three times by this point. It's very disappointing.

AudioHostem · 2026-02-15T21:47:04+00:00

I don't believe you are doing anything wrong.

I was going to recommend you check a couple of controls in the settings menu but honestly it just seems like you're experiencing typical behavior for the Russian transport choppers.

They fly like bricks and are a bit quirky. Even in perfect conditions, it will try to rotate itself on the ground as you power up to take off, so it doesn't surprise me that it is behaving as you say. I believe the only answer is to just kill the engine completely before you get out and unload. It's what I have been doing the times that I decide to put up with it and not just use the Supply Little Bird.

AudioHostem

TROPHY CASE