ValheimUtils

AI generated. This mod is written by an AI (Claude) under human direction and testing.

Quality-of-life tweaks for Valheim. Every feature has its own switch in BepInEx/config/mh.ValheimUtilsByAi.cfg (generated on first launch). Each feature states whether it runs on the client, the server, or both.

On a server that runs this mod, the server's config applies to every player: switches, ranges, multipliers and lists come from the server's mh.ValheimUtilsByAi.cfg when you connect and whenever it changes. Admins can change them in game with a configuration manager (F1); for everyone else they are locked while connected. Keys (quick stack, sort, trash, ...) and the main-menu mod list stay your own. Your own config file is never overwritten: on disconnect, in single player and on servers without the mod your own values apply. Edit the server's file while it is stopped, or restart it afterwards.

Features

Craft without roof (`[Crafting] CraftWithoutRoof`, default: on)

Vanilla refuses to use the workbench, forge, stonecutter, artisan table, black forge, galdr table, food preparation table, fermenter, spinning wheel and beds without a roof, or when they are "too exposed" (not enough walls and roof around them). With this on they all work in the open: the fermenter can be filled and keeps fermenting, the spinning wheel keeps spinning, and a bed can be claimed, set as your spawn point and slept in.

Everything else stays vanilla: the cauldron and mead ketill never needed a roof and still need a fire, stations still need their extensions in range, and build pieces still need a station nearby. A bed still needs a fire nearby and no enemies around, and you can't sleep while wet, so rain still keeps you out of an open-air bed.

Side: Client. For crafting stations and beds only the player using them needs the mod. A fermenter or spinning wheel works in the open only while the game that controls it has the mod: always in single player; in multiplayer usually the first player who came near it. While a player without the mod controls it, it stalls outdoors as in vanilla, and a fermenter starts over. The server doesn't need the mod; works on vanilla servers.

Kiln wood filter (`[Crafting] KilnWoodFilter`, default: on)

The charcoal kiln only accepts the wood types listed in [Crafting] KilnAllowedWood (comma-separated item prefab names, default: Wood). Any other wood is refused with the vanilla "won't work" message, and pressing E with only unlisted wood in the inventory says there is nothing to process. Smelters and blast furnaces are untouched. Vanilla kiln wood: Wood, FineWood, RoundLog, Blackwood.

Side: Client. Only players running the mod are restricted; a player without it can still add any wood.

Auto storage (`[Crafting] AutoStorage`, default: on)

Adds AutoStorage Link input and AutoStorage Link output to the vanilla Hammer's Misc tab (copper ore and copper bar icons): tools like the Hammer's Repair entry. Free, nothing is placed.

Pick one in the Hammer menu, left-click a processing piece, then left-click any chest built by a player (wood chest, reinforced chest, black metal chest, ...; not carts, ships or tombstones). With Link input the piece takes its inputs from that chest; with Link output it puts its products into it. A piece can have several input and output chests, used in the order you linked them, and one chest can be both its input and its output. There is no pickup radius or area: you choose every connection. Click the same piece and chest again to unlink; click a chest with nothing selected to unlink it from every piece that uses it as input (or as output, with Link output). While a link tool is selected, lines show the existing links of its kind (blue for inputs, green for outputs) and a yellow line follows the selected piece. Pick any other Hammer entry to build again.

You can only link or unlink a chest you could open: a private chest only its builder, a chest inside a ward only players the ward lets in. A piece inside a ward can only be selected by players the ward lets in.

A piece with only input chests still drops or keeps its products as in vanilla, and one with only output chests still needs its inputs added by hand. A chest linked as both input and output also feeds a piece its own products: a windmill then turns oat seeds into oats and those oats into oat flour. Use separate input and output chests to keep the oats.

Piece	Takes from input chests	Puts into output chests
Charcoal kiln	wood (respects the kiln wood filter)	coal
Smelter, blast furnace, eitr refinery	ore / scrap / soft tissue, coal or sap	bars, eitr
Spinning wheel	flax	linen thread
Windmill	barley, oat seeds, oats	barley flour, oats, oat flour
Frigid kiln	ice	liquid frost
Hot tub	wood	-
Beehive, birds' nest, sap extractor	-	honey, feathers, sap
Cooking station, iron cooking station, stone oven	raw food, wood for the oven	cooked (or burnt) food
Frost foundry	casts, liquid frost	the finished weapons, armor and staffs
Fermenter	base mead	mead

A piece never takes the last item of a liked stack in its input chests (see Liked items), so a chest can keep one ore or log as a marker for quick stacking.

Vanilla rules stay: fire, fuel, roof, cover and biome requirements are untouched (Craft without roof lifts roof and cover), and nothing moves while a player has the chest open. When no output chest has room, the kilns, smelters, furnaces, refinery, spinning wheel and windmill drop their products on the ground as usual; a beehive, birds' nest or sap extractor keeps filling up to its limit, a fermenter keeps its mead, and a cooking station leaves the food on the station, where it burns as in vanilla. A cooking station gets no new raw food while none of its output chests can be used (open, not loaded, being handed over, removed or out of range), so only what is already on it can burn. Food that AutoStorage takes off a cooking station gives no cooking skill and no bonus portions, since no player picks it up, and frost foundry gear gets no crafter name. [Crafting] AutoStorageMaxLinkDistance (default 100 m) caps the link length. Pieces are only simulated near a player, so a chest more than roughly 64 m from its piece may not be loaded and the piece then idles.

Products that still landed on the ground (output chests full, open or not loaded at that moment) are picked up later: once a minute each piece with an output chest moves items of the kinds it makes lying within [Crafting] AutoStorageCollectRadius (default 5 m, 0 turns it off) into its output chests. Items are matched by kind, not by where they came from: a cooking station, which makes coal from burnt food, also takes coal from a nearby kiln. Items placed as decoration, such as food on tables, are never taken, and neither is anything a player carried and dropped, so bars dropped next to a smelter to hand them over stay on the ground. A drop is only taken by the game that owns it, exactly like a vanilla pickup, and leaves the ground only as far as it went into a chest, so nothing is duplicated or lost.

In multiplayer only the game that owns a chest edits it. A linked piece asks the chest's owner to hand it over and waits until it does; the owner hands it over only while nobody has the chest open, so two players never write to the same chest at once. A player opening a chest always sees what the linked pieces put into it, even a moment before. The game that controls a piece (in multiplayer usually the first player who came near it) runs its automation with its settings, which are the server's when the server runs the mod.

Links made with the single AutoStorage Link tool of 0.0.10 and earlier are removed: link those pieces again with Link input and Link output. The separate AutoStorage Hammer from earlier versions is gone: any copy in your inventory turns into its materials (3 Wood, 1 Surtling Core) when you log in or pick it up. The custom AutoStorage chest from earlier versions is removed. Empty your AutoStorage chests before updating: placed ones disappear from the world, along with their contents.

Side: Both. The mod (and Jötunn) must be installed on the server and on every client, otherwise the link tools do not exist for them and their chests are never handed over. Turning the feature off stops linking and automation; links are kept.

Auto map sync (`[World] AutoMapSync`, default: on)

All players share one map without building a cartography table. When you join, your explored areas and pins are sent to the server, which merges them into one shared map and sends you everything the others have found. After that your map is sent at most every 5 minutes, and only when you explored something new or added, removed or ticked off one of your own pins; the server passes whatever is new on to everyone else.

The shared map works like one cartography table that everybody writes to: shared areas show as "explored by others", death markers are not shared, and a real table still works by hand. A pin belongs to the player who placed it, and only they can remove it for everyone. If you delete another player's pin it comes back with the next sync, ticking a pin off is not passed on to players who already have it, and resetsharedmap is refilled by the next sync. Syncing never shows pin types you have hidden, and nothing is synced in worlds without a map.

Side: Both. The server and every player who wants the shared map need the mod; update the server together with the players (an older server still passes on single maps, which can remove other players' pins). The server keeps the shared map only in memory: after a restart it is rebuilt as players join, because each player's own map still holds everything that was shared before.

Feeding trough (`[World] FeedingTrough`, default: on)

Adds the Feeding Trough (Hammer > Storage, also under Furniture; workbench): 10 Wood, 2 Resin, a 10-slot chest. Put food in it and hungry tamed animals within [World] FeedingTroughRange (default 15 m, 1-50 m) walk to it and eat one item at a time, just like food dropped on the ground. Each animal only takes what it eats in vanilla. Big animals such as Lox and Moose use it too.

Vanilla rules stay: animals only look for food when hungry, food lying on the ground nearby is still eaten first, and nothing is taken while a player has the trough open. Untamed animals ignore the trough, so it does not tame, and summoned creatures ignore it, so they don't eat the livestock's feed. An animal only eats once it has really reached the trough (not through a gate that closed on its way) and gives up after 30 s if it can't get there. The trough is only checked when the game's own food search runs (every 10 s per hungry tamed animal), without physics queries, so idle troughs and fed animals cost nothing.

In multiplayer only the game that owns the trough takes food out of it. An animal controlled by another player's game waits at the trough and asks the owner to hand it over; the owner hands it over only while nobody has the trough open, so two players never change the trough at once.

Side: Both. The mod (and Jötunn) must be installed on the server and on every client, otherwise the trough does not exist for them and is never handed over. Animals are simulated by a nearby player's game, so that player needs the mod for feeding to happen. Turning the feature off keeps the trough craftable but animals stop using it.

Switch Forsaken power anywhere (`[Combat] ForsakenPowerAnywhere`, default: on)

The Escape menu gets a button below Settings that shows the current power (e.g. Forsaken power: Eikthyr). Each click switches to the next Forsaken power, wherever you are. It works like using a guardian stone: it only changes which power F will use. A power that is already running keeps going and the cooldown is not reset, so switching can't skip the cooldown.

You can only pick powers this character has already selected at a guardian stone at least once (the game remembers them). Only powers whose boss has been killed in the current world are offered (a trophy carried in from another world does not count). New powers still have to be unlocked at the stones as usual. The button is hidden until you have picked at least one.

Side: Client. Other players and the server don't need the mod.

Auto repair at crafting stations (`[Crafting] AutoRepair`, default: on)

Opening a crafting station (workbench, forge, black forge, ...) repairs every worn item in your inventory (equipped or not) that the station can repair, all at once with one repair sound, so you no longer click the hammer button once per item. Torches can't be repaired, as in vanilla. Which station repairs which item, the station level requirement and the crafting skill gain are vanilla too.

When the station you open has a repair button, crafting stations within [Crafting] AutoRepairNearbyMeters of you (default 15 m, range 0-50) repair at the same time, so opening the workbench also repairs the armor only the forge next to it can repair. Each station follows its own vanilla rules: its item types, its level (counting its upgrades), and a roof or a lit fire where it needs one. Each station that repaired something plays its repair sound. Set it to 0 to repair only at the station you open.

Side: Client. Other players and the server don't need the mod.

Larger crafting station build range (`[Building] StationBuildRange`, default: on)

You can build farther from a workbench, forge or other crafting station: its build range is raised to [Building] StationBuildRangeMeters (default 100 m; vanilla is 20 m, artisan table 40 m, max 128), and the circle shown around the station grows with it. The setting never shrinks a range, so the artisan table only gains above 40 m. As in vanilla, removing and repairing pieces use the same range, measured horizontally from where you stand. Changes apply within two seconds. Any bonus from station upgrades, the station's own area effect, crafting distance and upgrade rules stay vanilla.

A station only counts while your game has it loaded. The default Simulation Distance (graphics settings) loads at least 128 m around you; at the lowest setting it is 64 m, so a station farther away than that does not let you build until you walk closer.

Side: Client. Only the player who builds needs the mod; other players and the server don't.

Faster loot from dead creatures (`[Combat] FastCorpseDrop`, default: on)

A killed creature's body vanishes in a puff and drops its loot after [Combat] FastCorpseDropSeconds (default 0.5 s, range 0.1-10) instead of lying there for several seconds. Bodies that vanish sooner in vanilla are left alone, and the loot itself, the death animation start and the puff effect stay vanilla. Player bodies and bosses keep the vanilla timing. Creatures that leave no body, such as skeletons, blobs, Seekers, Bonemass, Moder and the Queen, already drop their loot instantly, so nothing changes for them. When Thungr falls in the Zil & Thungr fight, his trophy drops at once as in vanilla; only his body vanishes sooner.

Side: Client. It applies to creatures your game controls when they die: always in single player; in multiplayer usually the ones near you. Other players and the server don't need the mod; a body controlled by a player without it keeps the vanilla delay.

Craft and build from nearby containers (`[Crafting] CraftFromContainers`, default: on)

Crafting, upgrading and building count materials in chests built by any player within [Crafting] CraftFromContainersRadius (default 15 m) of you. Your own inventory is used first, then the chests. The requirement numbers in the crafting panel and build menu show what you have (inventory plus chests) and what is needed, for example 25/10, and stop flashing red when the chests have enough. A liked stack in a chest (see Liked items) always keeps its last item, which is not counted.

What stays vanilla: carts, ships, tombstones, feeding troughs, other players' private chests and chests behind a ward you can't use are ignored. The item you upgrade must still be in your inventory. Recipes that take only one of several ingredients still use your inventory only, and their amounts don't count chests. Recipe discovery still comes only from what you carry, and no-cost mode never touches chests.

Multiplayer: materials are only taken from a chest while your game holds it, so nothing is duplicated. When you click Craft or pick a build piece, your game asks for the chests holding its materials, the same way the game asks when you open a chest. A craft takes what your inventory lacks out of the chests right when you click Craft (from chests your game didn't hold yet as soon as they arrive, usually a fraction of a second) and holds it until the craft finishes, so other players can open those chests during the craft. If you cancel the craft, close the inventory or walk away, the materials go back to their chest; if that chest is full or another game holds it now, into your inventory, and if that is full too, onto the ground. If you lose the connection during the craft they go into your inventory, since the server can no longer receive them back into the chest; only a crash, or a full inventory at that moment, loses them. A chest another player has open is not counted until they close it. If a chest you need never arrives, your craft says "Chest busy, try again" and takes nothing; a build click that needs a chest your game doesn't hold yet says "Fetching materials, click again". The next try works.

Side: Client. Works for you alone; nobody else needs the mod (owners without the mod hand chests over through the vanilla open request).

Comfort range (`[Building] ComfortRange`, default: on)

Beds, chairs, rugs, banners, fires and every other comfort piece count towards your comfort level from up to [Building] ComfortRangeMeters away (default 20 m; vanilla is 10 m, max 64). Which pieces stack, their comfort values and the shelter requirement stay vanilla. As in vanilla, pieces count through walls and floors, from any player, and meads count as a chair. Resting still starts only near a burning fire, sitting or under a roof; the longer range only raises the comfort level, which sets how long Rested lasts.

Side: Client. Only players with the mod get the longer range; the rested buff itself is unchanged for everyone else.

Station extension range (`[Building] ExtensionRange`, default: on)

Chopping blocks, tanning racks, bellows, anvils and every other station extension upgrade a crafting station from up to [Building] ExtensionRangeMeters away (default 10 m, max 50; vanilla is 2-5 m depending on the extension, and the setting never shrinks it), and the hammer lets you place them that far from the station. As in vanilla, one extension upgrades every station of its kind within range, each type counts once per station, and extensions still need their vanilla spacing from each other. Distant extensions also give the vanilla upgrade bonus: each extension type adds 3-4 m to the station's build radius and to the area around it where enemies don't spawn (the cauldron has only the build radius).

Side: Client. Every player who wants the higher station level or the relaxed placement needs the mod; the station level is computed on each client.

Portal map travel (`[World] PortalMapTravel`, default: on)

Stepping into any portal opens the large map with a portal pin for every portal in the world, named by its tag. Click a pin to travel there; close the map to stay. Moving more than 5 m away from the portal closes the map, so you travel only from the portal you stepped into. Portal tags and connections no longer matter, so a single portal per outpost is enough. Everything else stays vanilla: the same item restrictions ($msg_noteleport), the NoPortals / NoBossPortals world modifiers, the loading screen and the exit spot in front of the target portal. The map pins are temporary and never saved. They use their own portal icon, pulse gently, stay drawn above every other pin and ignore the map's icon filter. With [World] PortalsOnMap (default: on) the same portal pins are also shown every time you open the large map (M), so you always see where portals are; they don't pulse and clicking them does nothing, travel still starts by stepping into a portal. This works even with PortalMapTravel off. Because one portal now reaches every other, the portal and the stone portal cost more: [World] PortalCostMultiplier (default: 1.5, range 0.1-10) multiplies every material, rounded up, so the portal takes 30 fine wood, 15 greydwarf eyes and 3 surtling cores. Set it to 1 for vanilla prices. The new price applies to portals built from then on; destroying a portal refunds the price at the time the world loaded, so a portal built before the change can refund more than it cost. Without a map (the NoMap world modifier or the nomap console command) portals keep their vanilla tag links. Pins can only be picked with a mouse: on a controller, stepping into a portal currently just opens a map you cannot pick from, so turn the feature off to keep vanilla portals.

Side: Both. The client part works alone but only shows portals your game has already seen; with the mod on the server every portal in the world is listed. Other players without the mod keep vanilla portals. The build price is checked by each player's own game, so every player pays the price from their config (the server's when it runs the mod), and players without the mod pay the vanilla price.

Farm everything (`[World] FarmEverything`, default: on)

Wild raspberry, blueberry, cloudberry and lingonberry bushes, the four mushrooms (incl. Ashlands smoke puffs), thistle, dandelion and Ashlands fiddlehead can be taken home. Magecap and Jotun puffs stay vanilla (already farmable). With the Cultivator out, look at one and press the Remove button (middle mouse, hammer "remove" bind): the plant is uprooted and drops one seed item (for example Raspberries seeds, with the berry icon; not edible), plus its harvest if it still has one. Uprooting costs stamina and Cultivator durability, like removing a piece with the hammer. Each seed is a new Cultivator piece (Raspberries plant, ...), placed on cultivated ground like any sapling. A planted one starts bare (mushrooms, thistle, dandelion and fiddlehead as a small version of the plant) and grows its harvest after [World] FarmEverything<Prefab>Minutes (1 to 10000; defaults: 450 for berry bushes and fiddlehead, 360 for mushrooms, thistle and dandelion, i.e. 1.5x the wild 300 / 240), then regrows at that pace after every pick. The harvest itself is vanilla. Uproot a planted one with the Cultivator to get its seed back; for planted berry bushes, hammer remove refunds it too. Unlike saplings, planted ones are never raid targets and grow in any biome without needing free space around them, and the minutes setting of their owner (the player whose game is simulating them; the server's setting when it runs the mod) decides the regrow time. Wild plants and their respawn are untouched unless you uproot them.

Side: Both. The mod (and Jötunn) must be installed on the server and on every client: the seeds and planted pieces are new prefabs, and players without them see errors. Turning the feature off stops uprooting and hides the pieces from the Cultivator; already planted ones keep growing on their configured time.

Plant growth timer (`[World] PlantGrowthTimer`, default: on)

Hovering a planted sapling (carrots, turnips, onions, barley, flax, trees, Mistlands mushrooms, ...) adds a line under the vanilla "( Healthy )" text: grows in 1h 05m. Planted bushes and mushrooms from Farm everything show <name> and the same line while they are bare (vanilla shows nothing there). Wild plants are untouched. The time is the real growth time of that exact plant, so it already includes the random part of the vanilla grow time.

Side: Client. Only you see the text; other players do not need the mod.

Carts and ships on map (`[World] VehiclesOnMap`, default: on)

Every cart and ship in the world (raft, karve, longship, drakkar and modded ones) gets a small pin on the large map and the minimap, using the same icon as in the build menu. Pins follow the vehicle as it moves, disappear when it is destroyed, and ignore the map's icon filter. They are view-only: they are not saved to your map, can't be removed with right click and are not shared through map tables. Your own saved pins and the rest of the map stay vanilla.

Side: Both. The server sends every cart and ship to all players so they are visible anywhere in the world. Without the mod on the server you only see vehicles you've been near this session, at the last place you saw them. Players without the mod see vanilla maps.

Higher breeding limit (`[World] BreedingLimit`, default: on)

Tamed boars, wolves, lox, chickens and every other breedable animal keep breeding until [World] BreedingLimitCount animals of their kind, adults and young together, stand within 10 m (default 20, max 100); vanilla stops at a handful. Everything else stays vanilla: animals must still be tamed, fed and not alerted, need a partner close by, and the love points, pregnancy time and 10 m counting radius are unchanged. A herd spread wider than 10 m can still grow past the limit, as in vanilla.

Side: Both. Breeding is decided by whoever owns the animal, usually the game of the nearest player, so install it on the server and on the client of every player who keeps animals.

Auto-opening doors (`[Building] AutoDoors`, default: on)

Doors and gates built by players open by themselves when you come within 2.5 m, swinging away from you, and close again once nobody is within 4 m. A door you close by hand while standing next to it stays closed until you walk away. Doors the game generated (dungeons, crypts, Fuling villages and other locations), doors that need a key and doors inside someone else's ward stay vanilla and still need E.

Side: Client. Opening uses the same request as pressing E, so other players see the doors move without having the mod, and the server doesn't need it.

Mod versions in main menu (`[Interface] ModVersions`, default: on)

The main menu shows a second line under the game version, for example ValheimUtilsByAi 0.0.17 (12 mods), and gets a Mods button under Settings. It opens a list of every mod BepInEx loaded, with its version. Copy puts the list, headed by the game version, on the clipboard, so friends can compare their setups. Close, Escape or gamepad B close the list. The version shown is the one the mod reports to BepInEx, which can differ from its Thunderstore version. Mods that failed to load are not listed. The Escape menu in game stays vanilla.

Side: Client. Nobody else needs it.

Liked items (`[Inventory] LikedItems`, default: on)

Alt + right click on an item in your inventory or in an open chest likes that stack: it gets a gold border and a line in its tooltip. Alt + right click again unlikes it. Alt + left click stays free for other mods, such as MyLittleUI's chat item links.

In your inventory a liked stack is left alone by quick stack, store all, sort (it keeps its slot) and the trash can.
In a chest a liked stack always keeps at least one item: crafting and building from nearby chests, AutoStorage pieces and restock never take its last one. The chest keeps holding that item even after a craft used up the rest, so quick stack keeps sending it there. Sort leaves it in its slot and fills it up first.

The like is stored in the item itself, so it survives logging out and dying: what you take back from your tombstone is still liked, also when it merges into a stack you picked up since (that stack becomes liked). Splitting a liked stack gives two liked stacks, and upgrading a liked item keeps the like. Moving a liked item between your inventory and a chest by hand unlikes it, since a like in one place means nothing in the other. Items you pick up merge into a liked stack as usual; once it is full the rest lands in a normal stack, which quick stack stores.

Side: Client. Nobody else needs the mod. Players without it don't see the likes, and their own crafting takes from liked chest stacks like from any other.

Quick stack (`[Inventory] QuickStack`, default: on)

[Inventory] QuickStackKey (default P, works with the inventory closed) or the Q button under your weight moves stackable items from your inventory into chests within [Inventory] QuickStackRadius (default 10 m) that already hold the same item. The nearest such chest is filled first; what doesn't fit goes to the next chest holding that item. Items no chest holds stay with you, and the message says how much went, for example Stored 12 of 23 items. Partial stacks in those chests are merged, so a chest doesn't keep two half stacks of the same item.

With a chest open, P and the Quick stack button in the container panel fill that chest only. Quick stack replaces vanilla's Place stacks button, and holding E on a chest follows the same rules.

Never moved: the hotbar (first row), rows other mods add below your inventory (Better Archery's quiver), equipped items, liked stacks, and items that don't stack (weapons, armor, tools), even when the chest holds the same one; Store all moves those. Carts, ships, tombstones, other players' private chests and chests behind a ward you can't use are skipped, as for crafting from chests.

The buttons sit where QuickStackStore puts them: small Q, R and S buttons under the weight in the inventory panel, and a column with Quick stack, Take all, Store all, Restock and Sort in the container panel. Uninstall QuickStackStore when using these features: both mods would add buttons and react to the same keys.

Multiplayer: a chest is only filled while your game holds it. P asks for the chests holding your items, the way crafting from chests does, and stores once they arrive (usually a fraction of a second, at most 2 s). A chest another player has open is skipped and counted in the message, for example (1 chest busy).