There are a lot of questions about Infestation: Survivor Stories that new players have.  This page exists to answer some of those questions and increase your odds of survival.  They appear in no particular order.

Can I re-use arrows?

No.  Arrows are treated like ammo — every shot you fire from your compound crossbow removes one arrow from your inventory and it is gone forever.  It works exactly the same way for a flare gun and flare gun ammo.  You cannot pick arrows back up.  You cannot recycle them.

What happens to my backpack when I die?

Your backpack and everything in it falls to the ground where you died.  They will stay there for up to 10 minutes before they despawn.  Anyone can pick them up in that time.  When you are revived you will be given a free small backpack with nothing in it.

Which is better to stack, 1L or 375mL bottles of water?

375mL.  The 1L bottle quenches 2x the amount of thirst as the 375mL bottle, but weighs 2.7x as much.  Stacking 375mL bottles thus gives you 33% more effect per kilogram.  In addition, 375mL bottles are far, far more common.  If I’m running short on backpack space what I do is drink the 1L as soon as I pick it up, but save the 375mL for later.  I don’t care if some of the 1L effect is wasted because I would have otherwise left it behind.

Which is better to stack, MiniSaints or Instant Oatmeal?

Instant Oatmeal.  Both have the same effect (restoring moderate hunger and minor thirst) but MiniSaints weigh 400g whilst Instant Oatmeal weighs only 220g.  Instant Oatmeal thus gives you 81% more effect per kilogram.  If I’m running short on backpack space what I do is eat the MiniSaints as soon as I pick it up, but save the Instant Oatmeal for later.  I don’t care if some of the MiniSaints effect is wasted because I would have otherwise left it behind.

What happens if I don’t eat or drink enough?

You die.

 How long can I last without food or water?

Assuming you start with full meters across the board:

• your thirst meter will run out in 50 minutes
• you start taking damage (losing health) due to dehydration after 53 minutes
• your hunger meter will run out in 1 hour 06 minutes
• you then lose health due to dehydration and starvation
• your health meter runs out in 1 hour 30 minutes
• you die

What happens when my health gets low?

Below 50% health your stamina recharge rate will decrease.  Stamina is what you use to sprint.  If it recharges slower you can sprint less often.  This has a significant effect on how fast you can travel long distances, and also how often/far you can flee from enemies.

Below ~15% health you can no longer sprint at all.

How do I kill zombies?
What is the best way to kill a zombie?
How do I avoid taking damage from zombies?
What is the best melee weapon for killing zombies?
Should I shoot zombies?
How do I take on more than one zombie at a time?

See my Zombie Eradication Guide.

Why don’t I spawn in the same place as I was when I logged out?
Why do I get moved when I change servers?

Cheaters.

Once upon a time, you did spawn back in exactly the same place as you were when you logged out.  Then some lowlife scumbags worked out an exploit now known as ‘ghosting’.  Let’s say you were engaged in a firefight with an enemy group holed up in a pharmacy.  One player would log out, log into an empty private server, run to the back room of the pharmacy on that server, log out, then log back in on the original server.  They would appear, like a ghost, behind the enemy, and kill them all.  Ghosting.

Because of these lo-skill/no-skill cheaters, the game was patched so that if you switch servers you will be teleported to ‘a safe location’ somewhere near where you were on the last server, but not exactly.

The patch also made ‘server hopping’ more difficult for the lazy scumbags who would go to an item spawn location on one server, loot it, then switch servers, loot the same thing on that server, and keep doing this over and over again… hopping servers and collecting all of the (usually) weapons (specifically sniper rifles) for themselves.  They would then sell these items for GC on the open market.  These server-hopping scumbags are the reason why most of the good loot locations now have virtually nothing in them, because they get hopped on every open server every couple of minutes by these lowlives who are too lazy to earn the weapons in the normal way, like everyone else.

Why do I sometimes get a blue shield over my health meter?
What does the blue shield mean?

All three settlements (marked by red circles on your map) have a ‘safe zone’ around them.  When your character enters a safe zone a blue shield with a white cross will appear over your health meter.  As long as you are in the safe zone other players will not be able damage you (at least, not directly).

The safe zones were implemented to counter cowardly snipers who would camp the hills around settlements and shoot people entering or exiting them.

If you have any other questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.