How do items spawn in the game?

[Keenfire]

I've noticed if I hang out in an area for a while items start spawning not too far away from me, but if I just run into a town and cut straight through there could be items but usually not.

[2High2tell]

OK, Im no expert. So I may be slightly wrong. (not on purpose)

There are a few factors regarding the loot drops. First I will say, just because u hit a small town and get no loot, does not mean there WAS no loot. Just on this point, Someone could have looted right before you. The closer to the coast you are, Or at a military area the higher the chance someone has been there before you.

There is also the factor of Vanilla and community servers. Community can be off the charts or rare as hell. The server admins choose this time. There is a persistent time on loot on Vanilla servers, I think it is around 25 mins.

Lag is also a thing that factors into this. I have lagged in gone into a place and found nothing. It was not because someone was before me it was because I was dsyncing and the server was catching up to my laggy ass. In this instance I would chill a bit then go do the cycle again, (I only cycle mil areas) I do not loot cycle. There is a diff.

WhenI say cycle, I mean I wait a few mins and go through the same route starting from the beginning. I am not picking up things and clearing the area waiting for the new loot to come. I am retracing my route once my lag/dsync has caught up. This is very rare. as I generally have great internet.

Another example is small stones. I will go looking for them, go up the path and find none. If I wait just 2 mins or less, and go back down that path I will find them. MANY. (path near stadium at Brena Livonia) is a great example. Again this is my game/internet catching up.

There is just so many factors that determine how u are getting loot. and then there is the good OL, U been DAY'D just bad RNG.

Someone will come here and give u exact times for official. I just do not remember anymore. But I hope I helped u understand the many factors that are in play.

[Ranceed]

Not exactly upto date but should give you an idea

https://dayz.fandom.com/wiki/Central_Loot_Economy

[Keenfire]

Originally posted by 2High2tell:

OK, Im no expert. So I may be slightly wrong. (not on purpose)


Another example is small stones.

This is actually what spurred the question. I'm on a modded winter no base 1st person server and I was at the starting area. I found enough dead people to get a fishing pole and hooks so I started fishing on the beach. As I'm fishing stones spawned in like crazy. By the time I left I had at least a dozen rocks..

[Keenfire]

Originally posted by Ranceed:

Not exactly upto date but should give you an idea

https://dayz.fandom.com/wiki/Central_Loot_Economy

Ya I don't think its updated but it did help, thank you.

[Chaoslink]

Stones and foraging items like fruits or mushrooms don’t spawn like normal loot. They spawn with nearby player activity so that the server doesn’t have to spawn the 50,000 fruits and 40,000 mushrooms and all that map wide at all times. So for those items, lingering in an area will cause there to be many more around.