It depends honestly, fruit only spawns after a certain point after players are nearby. On low pop servers it’s hard to find fruit unless you just hang around for 10 minutes and wait for more to spawn, might as well fish or find some food at that point.

I never have luck finding fruit, also the strategy doesnt work at all on Livonia and Sakhal. My advice is, other than fishing, clearing all the zombies in a town is a pretty quick way of finding some food. This method is even usable after you leave the coast and pretty much all tier areas in the game, just a bit more difficult in military areas.

I built my first ever base after 700hrs of game play (check it out here) it lasted about a fortnight before getting raided, any base inside an already existing structure will be found very soon and eventually raided, I prefer to go for improvised shelters as mentioned in my previous comment/reply, it keeps the loot hidden and you genuinely don’t need that much storage, if you put 6 wooden crates inside an improvised shelters as mentioned you have 400 slots of storage which is plenty for a solo, you can also combine two improvised shelters facing each other at a slight angle to allow for entry on one of the corners and place another 6 crates in the second one for a total of 800 slots if you find that your hoarding a bunch of loot but let’s be honest…what do you really NEED in order to survive out in the wild? Not that much tbh maybe some back up repair kits and fishing gear.

The best part is if anyone does find this sort of base and there isn’t much high tier loot inside they’ll probably leave it alone after maybe taking a couple items, the only thing you’d need to be worried about is them coming back to the shelter when you’re online after they’ve found it, some people like to do something i call “Rodenting” where they’ll find your exposed shelter, come back and pinch ammo and medical supplies off you every now and then, I guess it’s better than getting raided but it sure does suck haha all the best mate glad you’re enjoying the game and honestly well done on clearing the hurdle that is starvation, Youre onto a great path and you understand that DayZ is about rinse and repeat, you’ve learned in this life things that will benefit you in the next one, all the best champ!

You’re welcome! If you’re going for the no mad play style you can eventually kill a deer or cow or goat and get some leather hide, you’ll need Garden Lime found in sheds and a leather sewing kit but you can then make a bigger backpack with I think 56 slots rather than the 35 you get from the courier burlap sack by combining 2 tanned leather with the sewing kit, it’s brown and I think waterproof but dont quote me on that, it’s the path I usually go for storage.

You won’t need a plate carrier if you’re hiding in the woods although it does help out, I’d consider going for a ghillie run by finding an assault vest alongside a buttpack, it means you can have a ghillie suit on your backpack slot and still be able to have storage on the vest instead while remaining camouflaged.

You can also make improvised shelters using sticks with 100 storage slots inside, the stick ones are my go to as they’re camouflaged and blend in with the environment, a useful tip is to find a bush cluster of maybe 2/3 dense bushes, chop them down and build the shelter where the bush was, when the server resets the bushes will pop back up and you can walk through them to the inside of your shelter remaining covered and concealed, you can also store up to 6 wooden crates inside the shelter alongside barrels for cooking on, you can make a oil barrel into a fire barrel with a screwdriver or knife tho keep in mind this usually ruins your blade however theyre great as dont produce smoke when cooking and you can always leave the top open to gather rainwater which is fresh to drink and will not kill you :)

Edit: welcome to DayZ!!!

Forgot to say in order to make a ghillie you need netting and burlap strips which you get from cutting up the burlap sacks and finding netting in sheds and industrial areas, you will need a bunch of it tho Im not gunna lie, you can look up the crafting recipe online but I prefer to hit military zones and Heli crashes in the night when no one else is online and loot around for one, it’s much easier than crafting one from scratch but if you find enough netting and burlap then why not make one!

Yep. On livonia and chernarus if you just punch zombies and loot nothing else you can theoretically survive forever. Sakhal is the only map which actually makes you survive.