// dayz disease
Heat stroke
Overheating for a long time — red temperature indicator, or yellow while short of water: hot sun, heavy clothing, running.
Medicine
None helps
Cool down: shade, lighter clothes, washing.
Fastest fix
Wash your face
3 washes, 30 s apart, take you from collapse to below overheated.
Drinking
Yellow only
In the red the heat rises however much you drink.
Deadly
~5 min
At the very worst; at the start of the collapse you hardly lose any.
Heat stroke is heat building up in your body — no germs, so no medicine helps. The game keeps a hidden heat value from 0 to 1: it rises while your temperature indicator is red, or yellow while you are short of water, and only falls once you are out of the yellow and red. The first of its four stages shows nothing at all.
Stages
How the disease runs in the game, stage by stage: when it starts, what it does, and whether it still heals.
Building up
heals by itselfas soon as heat builds up
Nothing you can see — no symptoms, no icon.
Out of the yellow and red it slowly cools down by itself.
Red: ~12–21 min (faster when short of water); flashing red: ~9–13 min; yellow with water below ~20 %: ~30 min.
Overheated
heals by itselfheat above 0.4
Symptoms
- Feeling hot
- Blurry vision
- Stamina runs out fast
- Sick icon in the status bar
Blurred vision, you act hot now and then, and your stamina drains 1.3× as fast and refills at half speed. Sick icon; the thermometer still reads normal.
Out of the yellow and red: ~67 min in the shade until the heat is gone, or 3–4 face washes.
Red and short of water: ~6 min; red, well hydrated: ~10 min; yellow and short of water: ~15 min.
Heat exhaustion
heals by itselfheat above 0.6
Symptoms
- Vomiting
- Feeling hot
- Blurry vision
- Stamina runs out fast
- Sick icon in the status bar
On top of that you vomit every ~7.5–15 min; each time costs 70 water, 55 food and 10 % of your stomach and leaves you out of breath.
Out of the yellow and red it cools down by itself, but slowly: ~1.7 h in the shade until the heat is gone.
Red and short of water: ~6.5 min; red and well hydrated, or yellow and short of water: ~13 min.
Collapse
heals by itselfheat above 0.85
Symptoms
- Vision darkens in waves
- Passing out
- Losing health without being hurt
- Vomiting
- Feeling hot
- Blurry vision
- Stamina runs out fast
- Sick icon in the status bar
Your vision darkens in waves, you black out for 5–10 s every 1–2 min, and while conscious you lose 0.01–0.35 health per second, more the hotter you are.
Out of the yellow and red: ~75 min in the shade to get below the overheated stage, ~2.4 h until the heat is gone. 3 face washes (~1.5 min) do as much as those 75 min.
Deadly: Right at the start of this stage your normal regeneration outweighs the loss at full blood; at the maximum heat you die in ~5 min.
How to get rid of it
No medicine helps. Get out of the heat and take off layers, then wash your face at water or with a bottle — wait 30 seconds between washes — and soak your clothes. Drinking stops it from growing only while your indicator is yellow — in the red it keeps rising — and does not cool you down.
How to avoid it
Wear light clothes in the heat, stay in the shade at midday and keep your water well up.
Good to know
- Each face wash — at water or with a bottle — takes off as much heat as ~30 min in the shade; for the next 30 s the heat cannot change at all.
- In the yellow with water above ~70 % the heat neither rises nor falls; with water between ~20 and ~70 % it stops just short of the overheated stage.
- Heat stroke is no fever: the thermometer reads normal.
Not sure it is this?
The doctor asks what you notice on your character and names the disease and its stage.