You craft in DayZ by combining items — holding one and using it on another, or picking the action from the context menu. There is no crafting menu listing recipes, so knowing the useful ones is half the game.
Early recipes worth knowing
- Rags — cut a t-shirt or other clothing with a knife; used for bandages, splints and fires.
- Splint — 2 wooden sticks + rags, to fix a broken leg.
- Fireplace — sticks/firewood + a fire source and tinder; cook and warm up. See food & cooking.
- Improvised backpack — a burlap sack with sticks and rope for early carrying capacity.
- Fishing rod — a long stick + rope + hook; with bait it feeds you off any water.
- Improvised bow + arrows — a quiet early weapon from sticks and rope.
- Repair tools — a sharpening stone restores blades; a sewing kit and leather kit repair clothing and bags.
Gather the raw materials
Chop trees for wood and sticks, skin animals for bones, fat, guts and hide, and tear clothing for rags. Rope comes from guts or from courier/para cord; bones become fish hooks and knives in a pinch. Keep a knife and some rope and you can improvise most of the basics.
