RedPine | Details
Full spoilers ahead. This page explains exactly what to expect from RedPine, what is new in 2.0, and how our server is designed to create real DayZ stories.
Why Play RedPine?
Thirteen years of DayZ. Hundreds of hours of tuning. One question: what if Chernarus still had teeth?
We didn't build RedPine to make DayZ easier. We built it to make DayZ feel alive again. The way it felt in the mod days when every military base was a commitment, every helicopter crash was a calculated risk, and every encounter could become a story you'd tell for weeks.
Vanilla Chernarus has a problem: resistance only exists when other players happen to be there. You can sprint into NWAF, grab the best loot, and sprint out. No consequences. No fight. No story. That's not DayZ. That's a loot simulator.
RedPine fixes that. Every move you make has weight. Every base you push has defenders. Every reward is earned through survival, not handed to you because the server happened to be empty.
What We Built:
- First-Person Only — Fair fights. Real tension. The way it should be.
- AI that makes you second-guess — Hundreds of hours of tuning. Hundreds of unique names. You won't always know if that's a player or AI until it's too late.
- A progression system with actual stakes — Want the best gear? Fight for keys. Push gas zones. Survive the bunker. No shortcuts.
- A Chernarus that surprises you again — New military bases, new POIs, new reasons to get lost in the woods.
- Tools for emergent stories — Long-lasting radios, notes you can leave behind, dogtags that tell the story of how long someone survived before you put them down.
- Streamer-forward community — Strict anti-stream-sniping rules. This is a place where content creators and survivors can coexist.
RedPine: Built for Stories
RedPine is a handcrafted take on Chernarus. Every change has a reason behind it. Not to make DayZ easier, but to make it feel deeper.
RedPine is at its best when you call out, "Hi, are you friendly?" and you actually get a reply. There is a relief in that moment that you only really understand after you have played enough DayZ. A reply can lead to a rescue, a trade, an alliance, a betrayal, or a story you talk about for weeks.
Many players are drawn to RedPine because of the features that help create memorable stories. Some of these ideas were inspired by roleplay servers, though we do not enforce any roleplaying rules. That said, many survivors enjoy immersing themselves in the world and playing a character of their choosing. Whether it is a friendly merchant or a blood-hungry cannibal, you will often run into some interesting characters in RedPine.
Many of the survivors on RedPine are content creators across a bunch of platforms, but the goal is simple: a world where encounters feel unique, and where the best moments are the ones you did not script.
You Won't Know Until It's Too Late
Most DayZ servers with AI treat them like target practice. Predictable. Lifeless. Obviously not human.
We spent hundreds of hours making our AI feel real. Not perfect. Not robotic. Real.
They move like players. They loot like players. They wear partially damaged gear, carry half-empty magazines, and sometimes have a can of beans in their jacket. When you kill one, you get a dogtag with a name — one of hundreds we hand-picked. You won't know if "Carter" was AI or a real survivor.
The goal wasn't to replace players. The goal was to make Chernarus feel busy even when server population is low. As real players join, our AI scale back. The world stays alive without feeling artificial.
Quality of Life That Respects Vanilla
RedPine does not hand out free wins. These changes exist to support immersion and long-term play.
- First-Person Only — RedPine is played entirely in first-person. It keeps firefights fair, pushes you to consider your options, and makes the world feel more immersive.
- Extended Radio Battery Life — Handheld transceiver batteries last much longer so survivors actually keep radios on.
Tip: Most survivors use 87.8 MHz. - Inkpens & Notes — Leave warnings, journals, clues, trade offers, jokes, or last messages. Notes become part of the world's story.
- Earplugs — Vehicles and boats can be painfully loud. Earplugs help protect your hearing without muting the world entirely. Press P to insert/remove. These earplugs are also configurable in your settings.
- Well Worn Chernarus Map — A rare weathered map with hand-drawn circles, trails, notes, and warnings.
- 6-Digit CodeLocks — Faster base access, less time exposed, and smoother day-to-day survival.
- Vehicle Camo Nets — Cover your vehicle with a camo net to help conceal it from other survivors. Whether you're hiding a long-term stash vehicle or parking a getaway car near a hot zone, concealment is now part of your toolkit.
- DogTags: Your Life, Your Story — Dogtags show the name of the survivor you killed and how long they lived:
- 0–12 hours → Silver
- 12–36 hours → Granite
- 36–64 hours → Cobalt
- 64h+ → Mystery Dogtag
Survivor Refuges
We created two unique meet-up locations on the map to encourage organic player interaction.
These are not safe zones. You can absolutely kill other survivors here. That is DayZ. But if you choose to do that, you are probably not making any friends.
- Trade and meet-up spots that feel natural.
- Places to leave items or notes for other survivors.
- Good "start of the story" locations when you want to meet new people.
Tip: Both refuges will be flying the blue REFUGE flag outside of them.
Custom Points of Interest
Chernarus is iconic. After enough years, though, it is hard to truly get lost. RedPine brings that feeling back.
Every point of interest on RedPine was hand-crafted by someone with over 13 years of DayZ experience. Nothing was placed arbitrarily. Each addition was built to feel like it belongs — like it was always there, waiting to be found.
- New Military Bases — Installations that never appeared on the original map. Each one comes with its own patrol patterns, loot, and risk. Approach carefully.
- Two New Permanent Gas Zones — Added to the two original zones. Four total pockets of high-risk military activity now reshape how you move across the map.
- Lone Woodland Houses — Isolated structures tucked deep in the treeline, far from the roads. Perfect for a survivor looking to quietly turn a forgotten building into a home base.
- Countless Hidden Additions — Small and large. Some obvious, some easy to walk right past. The map has been reworked enough that even long-time Chernarus players will stop and wonder if they took a wrong turn.
The goal was simple: give survivors a chance to get lost again. To walk out of the woods and see something they have never seen before. To feel like Chernarus is a living world worth exploring — not a map they have memorized.
A Map That Doesn't Sit Still
Convoys, heli crashes, police incidents, trains — these are the events most survivors think about. But RedPine has a quieter layer underneath all of that. Sure there are supply ships and migrating bandit camps, but there is also more to RedPine that that.
The map itself shifts. Towns you knew became overgrown. A familiar street corner doesn't quite look the same. New points of interest appear where there used to be nothing but trees. Some changes are obvious. Many of them aren't. They're the kind of things you only notice on the second or third pass — if you notice them at all.
That's the goal. RedPine is meant to feel less like a static map you've memorized and more like a world that hasnt stopped turning. That log right there; Was that there when you passed through earlier? You might not remember seeing that cabin over there in the woods. Are you lost?
Some of it changes between wipes. Some of it shifts more often than that. We're not going to spell out exactly what changes or when — half the fun is the moment you stop and second-guess your own memory of Chernarus.
RedPine was built with veterans in mind. If you've got thousands of hours in DayZ, you already know the feeling we're chasing — that early-days version of Chernarus, before you knew every loot spawn, every shortcut, every tree line. We want you to get lost again. We want you to wander into something you don't recognize and actually stop to look at it. Exploration shouldn't end just because you've played the game for a decade.
RedPine is almost a living, breathing map. Pay attention. The world is paying attention to you.
Dynamic, Hand Tuned AI
RedPine's AI are designed to feel like real survivors and factions moving through the world, not static NPCs.
They move and act like players. You can knock them unconscious, restrain them, and even test their blood. You can feed them raw chicken and watch them get sick. They behave like real survivors. Our AI have been heavily tuned to make you genuinely wonder if you are dealing with a real player or not.
Survivor AI
- Coastal Fresh Spawns — Spawn along the coast like you, with minimal supplies and a rough start.
- Inland Survivors — Found deeper inland with gear that makes sense. A weapon, some supplies, maybe partially used items, a half-eaten can of beans, or maybe even a gas canister that explodes when you shoot them. They are fully lootable and often show up in small groups with matching armbands.
Law Enforcement
- Left Behind Law Enforcement — Never friendly. Often guarding squad cars at dynamic accidents. Fully lootable with solid police equipment.
Bandits
- Dynamic Bandit Camps — Bandits build temporary camps deep in the woods and relocate often. Finding them is never guaranteed. They often carry strong and exclusive hunting loot, food, and weapons.
Military Factions
Note: Many military AI have a chance to drop loot on the ground when they die, but they do not simply drop their full carried loadout. Our military AI use over a dozen dynamic loot pools. Different tiers of military AI drop different categories of gear, meaning the tougher the AI, the better the rewards. From basic military supplies to high-end weapons and rare gear, every encounter has a chance to pay off.
- Western Forces — Most commonly seen securing western helicopter crash sites. When killed, they can drop western weapons and magazines.
- Eastern Forces — Tiered military progression across the map. Higher-tier areas contain stronger units and better weapons. NWAF can contain mixed tiers, with lower tiers on the edges and stronger units closer to the center.
- The HeatPackBandits — A dangerous faction that has overtaken Tisy Military Base. They patrol the base and punish those who don't belong. These are some of the hardest AI on the server and they can drop some of the best loot outside gas zones, including the color-coded container keys needed for gas zone loot. Occasionally, HeatPackBandit patrols can also be found in select locations around the map as they search for supplies to bring back to their base. These roaming squads still have a chance to drop color-coded container keys of any color, but the odds are much lower than the squads defending Tisy itself.
Gas Zone AI
- Eastern Military Gas Patrols — Patrol the gas zone. Well armed and well protected.
- Eastern Military Gas Captains — Captains can drop a punched card used to access the bunker. Getting to them usually means fighting through defenders first.
- HeatPackBandits Gas Teams — The hardest version of the HeatPackBandits. Sometimes hard to spot, usually harder to kill, often suppressed, definitely protecting the juiciest loot.
Progression That Punishes and Rewards in Equal Measure
Vanilla DayZ has a dirty secret: you can run into a gas zone, grab the best guns in the game, and hand them to a friend before you respawn. No effort. No resistance. No story.
That's not survival. That's a loophole. RedPine closes it.
The best loot in RedPine is earned. You fight for keys. You push gas zones under fire. You breach locked containers while AI hunt you. You survive long enough to extract. And if you die? You don't just hand your gear to a buddy. You lose it. That's DayZ.
How It Works:
- You will need to find and fight the HeatPackBandits at Tisy Military Base. They've taken over the base and they don't negotiate. Kill them and they have a chance to drop color-coded container keys. Not all squads have access to all keys. If you want them all, you'll need to clear the entire base. Tisy isn't a quick loot run anymore. It's a gauntlet.
- Take those keys into permanent gas zones. Color-coded shipping containers are hidden inside. The keys open containers of matching colors. But gas zones aren't undefended. Eastern military gas patrols are waiting. Full NBC gear and working filters are mandatory. Sloppy pushes get punished.
- Hunt gas zone captains for punched cards. These cards open the door to the bunker — one of the most heavily defended locations in RedPine. The loot inside is worth the fight, but only if you can survive long enough to extract it.
This is the endgame loop. Keys unlock containers. Containers give you an edge. That edge lets you push harder targets. Every step has resistance. Every reward feels earned.
A Colder, Less Forgiving Chernarus
Chernarus is often a rainy place. We made it slightly less rainy — but just a couple degrees colder as a compromise.
In vanilla, you can wear whatever looks cool and mostly be fine. In RedPine, your outfit is a bit more important. Hypothermia is a real concern. Wet clothes will wreck you. You need to think about what you're wearing if you want to stay healthy.
We want Chernarus to feel brutal again. Not artificially hard. Just unforgiving in the way nature actually is. Pay attention or pay the price.
Supply Ships Beyond the Breakers
We thought it would be cool to put something worth finding out at sea. So we did.
Military supply vessels anchor beyond the breakers. You'll know one is out there before you ever reach the shore. At night, watch for blinking red and green navigation lights on the horizon. During the day, the ship is visible from the coast if you know what you're looking for.
The swim is long and dangerous. The water might take you before you get close. You want an inflatable boat. And those don't come ready to go — you'll need to find a spark plug, maybe gasoline, and hope the engine fires when you need it to.
The loot on deck is worth the crossing. But just like military convoys and heli crashes, the boats don't stay forever. Every second you spend deciding is a second someone else is already on the water.
Helicopters
The original DayZ mod had helicopters. Do we have helicopters? Maybe.
You'll have to find out for yourself.
What we will say is this: helicopters are a double-edged sword. On one hand, you and three teammates can move across the map like gods. On the other hand, everyone knows where you are. The sound carries a long way. You become the most wanted target in Chernarus the moment you lift off.
Finding one is hard. Getting it airborne is harder. The parts you need are scattered across the map — rare enough that stumbling across one feels like fate. Assembling a full bird takes a crew, patience, and probably more chaos than you planned for.
And when that engine finally cranks? Whole towns hear it. They will come. Count on it.
Streamer-Forward by Design
RedPine is built for survivors who want to tell stories. Many of the players on RedPine share their adventures on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Kick. The world is tuned to create moments worth sharing, whether it's a quick clip or a full night of natural DayZ.
We welcome streamers and content creators to join the server and share their journey with their communities. If you are a creator and have questions, concerns, or need assistance, feel free to reach out to Rapture or any of the HeatPackBandits on our Discord.
RedPine enforces strict rules against harassment, meta-gaming, and behavior that ruins the experience. Stream sniping is only allowed if the streamer gives clear consent. Some creators may choose to run special stream sniping events where viewers are invited to hunt them. These events are allowed, but the streamer must clearly inform their audience that stream information may only be used against the consenting streamer.
Viewers may not use stream information to gain an advantage over other survivors who are unknowingly part of the stream, nor use it to hunt or kill players who have not agreed to be part of that event. If you want to interact with a streamer in-game, ask first and be respectful.
Restarts and Day/Night Cycle
RedPine runs on a four-hour restart cycle.
- 3 hours 40 minutes of daylight — roam, scavenge, build, and travel
- 20 minutes of night — short, tense, and meaningful
- Every restart begins a new full day for consistent timing
Server Wipe Schedule
RedPine wipes approximately every two months. Each wipe resets the economy, AI, and base claims so both new and returning survivors begin on even ground.
Raid Weekend: 56 Hours of High-Stakes Survival
Every weekend, the walls of Chernarus stop being safe. Raid Weekend is a fifty-six hour window where base parts can be damaged and defenses can be breached.
Raid Weekend begins every Friday at 4:00 PM Central and runs through Sunday at midnight (all weekend long).
Community and Events
RedPine is more than a server. It is a community built by players who explore together, trade, help strangers, create alliances, and spark encounters that become stories shared for weeks.
Manhunt
Manhunt is a live-world RedPine event that drops directly into the normal server. No separate server. No special sign-up. You play with whatever gear you already have.
A hostile operator is somewhere in Chernarus. He is heavily armed, extremely dangerous, and carrying a locked high-value briefcase. Your job is to find him, put him down, and figure out what is inside.
GhostEcho & Ashfall
We host seasonal events like Ashfall and GhostEcho where teams compete in high-stakes king-of-the-hill battles for bragging rights. We fold what we learn from those events back into how we build survival maps.
The HeatPackBandits
They didn't call themselves the HeatPackBandits. That name came later.
They showed up in the summer. Back when there were still supply routes. Military shipments. Some kind of structure left. They were part of that system — moving supplies, handing things out, helping where they could. People trusted them.
Then the outbreak got worse. Convoys stopped coming through. Routes went quiet. Whatever they had left… was all they were going to get.
They held on longer than most. Rationed. Stretched it. Tried to keep things together.
Then winter hit.
It was a bad one. The kind of cold that doesn't care how prepared you think you are. People started showing up again. Cold. Hungry. Desperate.
At first, they helped. Then they couldn't.
The rumors started not long after. Small at first. Easy to dismiss. People saying they'd kill you for something simple. A heat pack. A bit of food. Whatever you had.
It sounded ridiculous. Who kills someone over a heat pack?
But it kept coming up. Different places. Different survivors. Same stories.
The truth is, by that point… it didn't matter what you had. They needed supplies. Any supplies. And if you had something they didn't — that was enough.
That's when the name stuck. Not something they chose. Something people started calling them after hearing the stories.
The HeatPackBandits.
If you heard it, you knew what it meant. And if you were carrying anything worth taking… you stayed quiet.
The Exiled
They left as soldiers. They came back as something else.
It started as a two week supply run. A small squad pushed out from Tisy when the routes dried up, heading deeper into Chernarus looking for anything they could carry back. Medicines. Food. Fuel. Whatever the group needed to survive.
Then the storms came.
Contact went quiet. The group at Tisy waited.
It had been four months of heavy snowfall. At times, the snow was taller than the roofs of the houses. When the squad finally came back, something was different.
Nobody said it directly at first. But there had been five of them when they left. There were four when they returned. And one of the soldiers they'd passed on the way out — a man who hadn't made it back to base — was never found.
The rumors spread fast. Whispers about what they'd done out there to survive. About what had really happened to the missing man.
The squad never confirmed it. They never denied it either.
That silence was enough.
The group at Tisy made a decision. You don't let cannibals back through the gate. Not when people are already scared. The four were given what they could carry and told not to come back.
That was the last time they saw their team.
Since then, they've been out there. Moving through the treeline. Setting up fires in the woods. Hitting quiet towns when they need to, disappearing before anyone can track them. The military fatigues fell apart long ago — patched until there was nothing left to patch. Now they wear whatever they could scavenge. Hunting gear. Civilian clothes. Layers that don't match.
They look like lost survivors. Like hunters. Like nobody worth worrying about.
But they haven't stayed four.
Since the exile, they've been picking people up along the way. A drifter here. A scared civilian there. Exactly how those recruits were brought in — and exactly what was promised to them — is harder to say. Maybe they needed extra hands to build a proper camp. Maybe they wanted people who could work, forage, fight. Maybe, after what happened in those storms, they'd learned something about the value of having enough meat around.
Whatever the reason — they're not four anymore.
They know Chernarus better than almost anyone still breathing. They're patient. They're hungry. And whatever line they crossed out there in the snow — they crossed it a long time ago. If you stumble across their camp and they invite you to sit by the fire… think carefully before you accept.
