Surviving Namalsk

Namalsk is the only map on the network where the weather is a bigger threat than the players. You can go a whole session without seeing anyone and still die twice. Nothing here is random cruelty, though — every one of these systems has a specific counter, and once you know them the island stops being lethal and starts being merely hostile.

The EVR storm is the one that kills you

Every so often the sky turns, the lights fail, and an EVR storm rolls over the island. This is the signature Namalsk event and the one new players die to.

There is a lot of folklore about how to survive it. Most of it is wrong, so here is what the game actually checks.

Staying conscious

When the storm hits, the game works out a shock value for you and, if it is lower than your current shock, sets you to it. You black out at a shock of 25 or below.

Everyone starts from a base of 10. Each protection you have adds to it:

Protection	Adds	Enough on its own?
APSI switched on, or the LEHS Mk3	+20	Yes
Underground, in the island's own tunnels	+20	Yes
Inside a building or a vehicle	+7	No
Lying down	+2	No

Read that table carefully, because it overturns the advice you will hear in chat:

• Lying down indoors is not enough. That is +7 and +2, so you come out at 19 — still under the threshold, and you still black out. It is better than nothing and it is not a substitute for a suit.
• The APSI alone is enough. It takes you to 30 on its own, standing in the open.
• A bunker is enough, and stacks with everything else.

In a deadly EVR storm the suit is worth slightly less — +15 rather than +20 — so an APSI on its own leaves you at 25, which is exactly the threshold. Pair it with a roof.

Staying alive

Consciousness and health are worked out separately, and the health rule is simpler:

• Wearing a working APSI or the LEHS — the suit absorbs it. Your APSI takes the damage instead of you, and you take none at all.

• Inside a building or a vehicle — you take none.

• Anywhere else — you lose half your health outright.

• Caught in the open near the middle of the storm — you are killed, not hurt. Being under a roof saves you even there.

Everybody loses all their stamina, protected or not. Even a fully-suited player is left standing still for a moment when the storm passes, which is worth remembering if someone else is nearby and equally suited.

The mistake almost everyone makes

The APSI has to be switched ON, and worn on your face. The game looks for it in your eyewear slot and checks that it is running. An APSI in your backpack, or hanging on your vest, or worn but never turned on, protects you exactly as much as not having one.

Turn it on when the warnings start. It tells you the storm is coming — that is what the alerts on its little screen are for.

Getting moved

Storms can pick you up and put you somewhere else. If that happens you arrive with teleport sickness: badly dehydrated and badly out of energy. It is survivable, but only if you have something to eat and drink on you, so do not walk into a storm empty.

The cold, and frostbite

Namalsk is below freezing at all hours. The vanilla warmth rules still apply — get wet and you will freeze much faster — but Namalsk adds frostbite, which is permanent damage rather than a falling temperature bar.

Frostbite is tracked per body part, and the parts are not equal:

So your extremities freeze first, and they freeze roughly two and a half times faster than your chest. A player in a good jacket with bare hands and trainers is in far more danger than one in a mediocre jacket with gloves and boots. Cover the small things first: boots, gloves, a mask or a balaclava, then a hat.

Frostbite only advances while you are below the cold warning — the point where the game starts telling you that you are freezing. Above that line the timers unwind again, so getting warm does not just stop the damage, it undoes the progress toward it.

The LEHS makes you immune. While you are wearing the suit, frostbite is not evaluated at all.

Staying warm in practice

• Fire is the whole game. Build one, dry your clothes, eat something hot.
• Most food you find is frozen and cannot be eaten until you warm it at a fire. Plan for that rather than being surprised by it.
• Get out of the water. Swimming to the marooned ship is a legitimate route, but do not do it without the means to make a fire on the far side.
• Heatpacks are worth their weight. On Namalsk they are a survival item, not a curiosity.

Blizzards, fog and the rest

The island runs other weather events besides the EVR storm — blizzards, heavy snowfall, extreme cold snaps, heavy fog and the aurora. None of them will knock you out the way an EVR storm does. What they do is take away your visibility and push your temperature down faster, which is dangerous in a different way: it is how people get lost, get wet and freeze.

The aurora is harmless and worth stopping to look at.

What kills new players, in order

1. Freezing while wet, usually after swimming or rain, with no way to make a fire.
2. The first EVR storm, without an APSI, in the open.
3. Frostbite in the extremities, from running around in whatever clothing they spawned in.
4. Starving, because most of the food is in the north and most of it is frozen.

None of those involve another player. Namalsk rewards preparation more than it rewards aim.

Where to go next

The island's layout, its loot and the specific places worth walking to are covered in Namalsk on DayZed. If you are chasing the endgame — the suit, the portal and the world on the other side of it — that is a project of its own and it has its own guide.