§ 01Start Here
Start Here
What the server is, how a raid works, and your first hour without losing everything — ten steps from joining the server to your first extract.
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Escape From DayZ is Escape from Tarkov's loop running on Chernarus: you gear up in a safe hub, deploy into the map, take what you can, and get out through an extract. Die and the kit you carried is gone, but your level, your loyalty with the traders, your tasks, your stash and whatever is inside your secure container all survive. Everything else on this site hangs off that one sentence.
Your first hour, in ten steps#
- Join the server. All you need is DayZ on Steam. Open its launcher, press Direct Connect, enter 172.111.51.159 port 2302, and let it set up the mods. Details, and what to do if it won't connect, are in How to join.
- Read the three rules that get people banned. No cheating, duping (copying items) or exploiting bugs. No more than 3 to a group, and no teaming up with other groups. No combat logging, which means logging out to escape a fight; the server enforces that one itself. The full list is short and worth five minutes: Server rules.
- Get to the hub. A brand-new character spawns somewhere along the coast, not in the hub. Your first task is given to you automatically: extract at any green X on your map, which brings you to the hub, and an Alpha secure container is waiting for you there. The hub, also called the safezone, is the base of operations: every hub trader, their task boards, your stash and your money, and the way out are inside it, and nobody can hurt you there.
- Understand the container. Whatever is inside your secure container comes back with you when you die. Keys, keycards, medals, cash, a loaded magazine, the valuable small things: that's what it's for. It refuses explosives, grenades and cases, on purpose. Secure containers explains the bigger ones and how to earn them.
- Take a couple of tasks. Press O for your task screen and accept from there, anywhere. Prapor's and Therapist's first tasks are the easy ones, and five short First Steps tasks pay you for the basics, one of them for typing
!help, which opens the in-game player guide. Tasks pay roubles, XP for your player level, and standing with the trader, and those are what open each trader's higher shelves. The whole list is on one page: Quests / Tasks. - Buy the basics. Press I in the hub for the trade screen: a weapon, ammunition for it, a bandage or two, food and water. Your stash starts with 500,000 ₽ to spend. Loyalty level I with every trader has everything a first raid needs, and you can sell anything from day one. Traders shows who sells what.
- Deploy. Interact with the Land Cruiser or the customs gate at the hub's entrance and pick where to land on the deploy screen: 25 choices, from the coast towns to the interior. Tick WITH MY GROUP and everyone in your group standing within 60 m of you drops with you. Deploy & extract.
- Do your tasks, and watch the map. Scavs, bosses and other players are out there, and so are airdrops and locked rooms worth a key. Your extracts are marked on the map; their names are hidden, so learn which marker is which.
- Extract. Walk into an extract marker and stand still. After 7 s you are back at the hub with everything you carried out. Taking damage doesn't cancel it. Logging out is not an extract — your body stays behind.
- Hand in, sell, stash, repeat. Hand tasks in at the trader, sell what you don't need, put the valuables in your stash, and go again. Do this and your level and loyalty climb on their own.
What survives a death, and what doesn't#
| Survives | Lost |
|---|---|
| Your player level, loyalty and standing, finished tasks | Everything you were wearing and carrying |
| Whatever is inside your secure container | Whatever wasn't |
| Your stash in the hub, and your base | Vehicles you were driving, where you left them |
| Your skills | Anything you'd left in a vehicle or a tent outside a territory, eventually |
None of your progress goes down on death. That is a deliberate choice: the server punishes the raid, never the account, so a bad night cannot lock you out of a shelf you already earned.
Dying, logging out and restarts#
Your body stays in the world after you log out, and it can be killed and looted while you're gone. The one exception is the last 2 min before a restart, when logging out leaves no body. The server restarts every three hours, on US Central time:
- 00:00
- 03:00
- 06:00
- 09:00
- 12:00
- 15:00
- 18:00
- 21:00
Daily tasks change at 6:00 (Central time). Restarts and resets has the detail.