The question you should be asking yourself is, "Why do I feel the need to go to the center of the circle?"

The objective is to be the last man standing. Being at the center of the circle is not a requirement to achieve this.

Then why does my health go down if i'm not in it?

Maybe I misread your question/suggestion. I thought you were trying to go to the very center of the circle as soon as it appeared as opposed to just inside the edge. I take it then you are not making it inside the circle before you run out of health?

You should be getting a message on your screen that says "Your map has been updated." about 8-10 minutes before you are required to be in the circle. This happens within ~5 minutes of the drop, shortly after the random red bombing/artillery circles disappear. The blue circle is drawn on your map at that time.

It's obviously imporant to figure out how far away you are as soon as the circle is placed on your map because you can figure out how much time you have to loot before you start heading there, or in the case that you are on foot and are far away, you may have to give up on heading to the buildings you wanted to go to in favour of a route that brings you closer to the circle.

I have certainlly been in situations, as I'm sure most have, where I risked continuing to a group of buildings in the opposite direction of the circle and prayed I would have time to double back after looting and I have certainly died mere meters from the edge. The mod is all about risk assessment, you should always prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best:

- "If I kill that unarmed guy for his backpack and potential contents, what is the likelihood that someone will hear the shots and come for MY gear and gun?" <--- Many people are experienced enough to recognize what gun you have based on the sound the shots make, and if you have a good one, someone might risk hunting you for it.

- "If I'm well hidden and I hear several sets of footsteps nearby, do I risk trying to kill them all, or do I hope they will kill each other and then kill the last one while he is looting the others?" <--- Better yet, sometimes the last two people in the area will trade-kill and you get potentially free loot. There might, of course, be someone else nearby hoping for the same thing.

- "If I risk an early parachute pull to get to a relatively safe place to loot early on, will I have time to get to the circle before I die?" <--- Not to mention many people on the ground will see that you are one of the last to land and will know where you are.

- Conversely: "If I see right after drop that I'm over land, should I risk a parachute pull as late as possible in order to get to the nearest vehicle I see?" <--- In this case you will often find that people that arrive near a vehicle at roughly the same time, will often team up or at least offer the other a ride to an area with a lot of buildings before they part ways. They may also just run you over to eliminate one potential future threat. Lastly, if you don't get to the vehicle and nobody offers you a ride, you may have a long hike to the nearest buildings depending on the map and the drop zone.

- "Wow, the care package dropped really close to me, but it's out in the open on the hilltop. Do I risk looting it, or do I wait and see if someone's around and try to kill them while they loot it?" <--- Many people simply avoid the care package at all times. They contain really good gear, but many find the risk simply isn't worth it. I have looted a care package just once, and fortunately there was only one other player nearby. He tried to kill me on my way to it so I ran away and took a well covered route and looted it from behind the cover of the box itself. I left a claymore there (looted from the box itself) and positioned myself inside the blue circle where I could see it, just in case he tried to wait and loot the leftovers after I left. He never showed up and I completely lost track of him, so I touched off the claymore as a distraction so I could move when the circle shrank.

I highly suggest you watch a good players' stream, such as aimPR, to get an idea of the thought processes and decision making required to be successful. You will also see how they plan ahead to maximize time looting and end up in a favourable position inside the circle at pretty much the last minute. Doesn't always go to plan, but it goes back to what I said earlier about preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best.

The same thing goes for playing the mod at all. I watched a bunch of youtube videos and streams before I even tried it out, to maximize my chances of success. As a result I was able to make it to the last 3 people in half of my first 6 rounds. Of the rounds where I died early 1 was because I landed my parachute too hard, one round I died 150m from the edge of the circle because I didn't have a gun yet and decided to loot just one more building before I headed to the circle and the other round I got gunned down shortly after landing because several people found guns really quickly and I risked heading into the town anyways even though I could hear a big gunfight going on.

Great info.
When the ghost hotel was orignally released I could make top 3 like nothing because it was such a smaller area.
What I do is usually take a house find a weapon and hold the stairs for a minute.
I realize now that I have to just haul ass to the circle and risk getting pelted by someone else.

The concept was fun for me when we all started in a large circle that got smaller.
I don't really care for the big island concept as much but it's just my opinion.
Maybe i'm just a camper at heart...

You don't really have to haul ass to the circle. Your first priority should be get either a vehicle or a weapon while keeping tabs on how far you are from the circle and where the majority of people landed. Getting a vehicle is always nice because you can loot at far off locations like towns and military bases in relative safety and still make it back across the map in time to get in the circle. Take your time getting to the circle, the faster and more often you move, the more likely you are to be spotted by someone that got good early loot and headed to the circle to wait in a bush for late arrivals.

Also, you replied while I was editing my post, and there is some additional info there if you skim back over it. I think you'll find that over half of players try to kill everyone they hear/see. Usually it is easier to be stealthy and let all the dummies kill each other off.

Heh, this one time I was looting in a small town and heard footsteps next door. I peeked out the window and saw the guy was unarmed and I didn't have a gun. We were obviously both aware of each other. He must have found a gun ( I did not ) and he finished looting and a vehicle pulled into town near our houses.

When the truck stopped I could now hear 3 sets of footsteps (must have been a two man team in the truck) and a firefight broke out. I watched the whole thing peaking out a window and fortunately, the guy that was next door killed one of them and then got killed by the other so there was one left with the truck who was unaware I was there.

Unfortunately he decided to start looting the row of houses and came to my house third so I quickly hid in a small room where I knew the door opened inwards onto a corner, closed the door and waited. He came into my room and looted the gear in the middle of the floor while I was between the open door and the corner. He never looked behind the door so I survived.

IMO that was a lot more intense than any firefight.

Ya I did enjoy dropping in, running up a house loading the gun and running immediatly to the stairs and killing about 5 players going toward the same building.