Crafting

Most of what keeps you alive in the first days you can make yourself, from clothing, sticks, stones and the animals you hunt. Crafting always comes down to combining two items, and the only thing you really need to know is which of the two gets used up.

How crafting works

• You combine one item with another. Usually one is the material, which is used up (all of it or part of a stack), and the other is a tool, which stays and only loses a little condition.
• Neither the tool nor the material can be ruined.
• Most results land on the ground next to you.
• A few crafts need only one item: you break a long stick by hand, turn rags into wrappings, or knock a stone knife into shape against a big rock.
• Containers have to be empty first. A courier bag or a stick with something attached won't craft. When you cut up clothing, whatever was in its pockets drops to the ground.

When this guide says "a blade", it means any knife (the stone and bone knife count), machete, axe, sickle, bayonet or sword. Most recipes also take a saw, a screwdriver, a crowbar or a pickaxe.

RagRagRopeRopeShort StickWoodenStickLong StickLongWoodenStickLarge StoneStoneSmall StoneSmallStoneBonesBone

The basics: rags, rope, sticks and stones

How many rags a piece of clothing gives depends on its size: a T-shirt gives 2, most shirts, trousers and jackets 3, hoodies and sweaters 4, a raincoat 5, gloves, bandanas and armbands 1. A stack holds 6 rags, so anything above that comes as a second stack. Rags are as worn as the clothing they came from. You can cut up clothing you are wearing, too.

Guts come from bigger animals such as deer, boar and cows. They have to be at least half full, and cutting rope from them leaves your hands bloody — wash them before you eat (see Diseases).

Where the raw materials come from:

• Long sticks: cut them from bushes, with a blade or by hand. Break them for short sticks (see the table).
• Firewood and wooden logs: chop trees with an axe. Which one you get depends on the tree; some trees give long sticks too.
• Bark: cut it off a tree with a blade.
• Large stones: hit a rock with a pickaxe, sledgehammer, hammer or mace.
• Small stones: hit a rock with a screwdriver, crowbar, wrench, pipe wrench, meat tenderizer or ice axe — or split a large stone (see the table).
• Bones and pelts: skin an animal (see Animals and hunting).

Your first tools

Stone KnifeStoneKnifeBone KnifeBoneKnifeImprovised SpearSpearBone

Stone knife

Combine a small stone with another small stone or a large stone. One small stone becomes the knife; the other stone is your tool and stays. Even simpler, use a small stone on a big rock in the world.

The stone knife is weak — it wears out quickly — but it is enough for rags, skinning, sharpening sticks and every recipe in this guide that needs a blade. Swap it for a real knife as soon as you find one.

Bone knife

• Bones and a stone (small or large): uses 1 bone.
• Bones on their own, if you have at least 2: uses 2 bones.
• Bones against a big rock: uses 1 bone.

It is just as fragile as the stone knife and does the same jobs.

Improvised spear

Combine a stone knife or bone knife with a long stick or sharpened stick that has nothing attached. Both are used up.

No improvised axe

Vanilla has no recipe for an axe or a hatchet. The Hatchet, Splitting Axe and Firefighter Axe have to be found.

Medical: rags as bandages, disinfecting, splints

BandageBandageDressingDisinfectant SprayDisinfectantSprayAlcoholic TinctureDisinfectantAlcoholIodine TinctureIodineTinctureSplintSplint

Rags work as bandages: each rag stops one bleeding wound. They are slower than a real Bandage — about 8 seconds per wound against 2.

The catch is dirt. Rags you cut are always dirty, and a dirty rag gives you a 15% chance of a wound infection for every wound you close with it. A bandage comes clean; a dirty one would still carry a 5% chance. A clean, disinfected one carries none. More in Injuries.

To clean them, combine a disinfectant with the rag stack or the bandage. The whole stack becomes clean at once:

Clean rags don't stay clean forever. Putting a dirty rag onto a clean stack makes the whole stack dirty, and so does damage — once a rag stack loses condition, disinfect it again.

Splint

A splint holds a broken leg (see Injuries). Combine 2 short sticks with one of these:

• an unused bandage (all of it),
• 4 rags,
• half a roll of Duct Tape,
• a Shemagh.

The sticks are used up along with the bandage, rags, tape or shemagh.

Bags and backpacks

Burlap SackBurlapSackGarden LimeGardenLimeLeather Sewing KitLeatherSewingKit

How much leather a pelt gives depends on the animal: a rabbit 1, a fox 2, deer, boar, wolf, sheep and goats 4, a cow 8, a bear 12. A damaged pelt gives less. Each piece of leather uses up a twentieth of a bag of garden lime. The same 2 leather and a tenth of a sewing kit also make a Waterskin.

Clothing from rags and rope

Rags on their own turn into simple wrappings that keep you a little warmer (see Temperature and clothing):

• 2 rags: head, face, hands or feet wrapping.
• 6 rags: torso or legs wrapping.
• 1 rag: improvised eye patch.

A rope on its own becomes a Rope Belt.

Torches

TorchTorchLong TorchLongTorchFatLard

Every rag on a torch burns for about 2 minutes, so a full stack of 6 lasts about 12. Fat or fuel can roughly double that, but it ruins the rags — you can't take them off and use them for anything else. Lighting it is covered in Fire and cooking.

Fire: fireplace, stone circle, oven

FireplaceFireplaceHand Drill KitHandDrillKitCooking StandCookingStandLarge StoneStone

• Fireplace: combine two different burnable things — a short stick with a rag, paper, bark or firewood, for example. Two of the same kind don't work.
• Hand drill: combine bark with a short stick. It lights a fire without matches.
• Cooking stand: combine 2 short sticks with an empty long stick. It holds a pot over the fire, like a tripod.

A fireplace gets better when you build stone around it. Put large stones into a fireplace that isn't burning, then build:

You can't build an oven on a stone circle or on a fireplace with a tripod: take those off first. Lighting, fuel and cooking are in Fire and cooking.

Smoking and drying meat

Only a stone oven, or a fire barrel with the lid closed, has smoking slots. Each slot takes a single piece of raw meat, fish fillet, fat, fruit, vegetable or mushroom. Once a piece is hot enough (about 70 °C), meat and fish dry in about 2 minutes, an apple in about half a minute. Take it out then: left in for as long again, it burns.

Dried meat is worth it for long trips. It keeps about twice as long as baked meat before it spoils, though it holds less water. More in Food and water.

A Fire Barrel comes from an empty Barrel combined with a blade or pickaxe. That wears the tool down hard, enough to ruin a kitchen knife or a screwdriver, so use an axe or a pickaxe.

Fishing gear

Simple Fishing RodImprovisedFishingRodFishing HookHookBone Fishing HookBoneHookWooden Fishing HookWoodenHookEarthwormWorm

To fish, attach a hook to the rod and an earthworm to the hook. Fish bite noticeably sooner with a worm on. You dig worms out of soft, fertile ground with a knife, shovel, pickaxe or hoe. A found metal Fishing Hook works best: bone and wooden hooks bring smaller catches and get lost more often. Fishing itself and the traps are in Animals and hunting.

Snares and wire

Barbed WireBarbedWirePliersPliersMetal WireMetalWireSnare TrapRabbitSnareTrap

Crossbow bolts instead of a bow

You can't get a bow in vanilla DayZ 1.30: bows don't spawn as loot, and the improvised bow and arrow recipes are still in the game files but switched off. What you can use is the Crossbow. You have to find it, but you can make its ammunition:

• Combine a short stick with a blade: one improvised bolt per stick, up to 5 in a stack.
• Combine an improvised bolt with Chicken Feathers: a feathered bolt. It flies faster and flatter and hits harder at range.

Feathers come from skinning a chicken — one bird gives plenty — or from cutting up an empty Down Jacket with a blade (20 feathers; down jackets show up mostly on Sakhal). More on the crossbow in Weapons and ammo.

Planks for building

Combine a wooden log with a saw for 4 planks. Base building is in Base building. All crafting materials are in the item list; the first things to make after a fresh spawn are in Your first hour.