Raven Scout

Build a Raven Roost at your base and send its raven on a long scouting trip to far-away land. It flies out over real time, comes back, and tells you what it saw: a revealed strip of map along its route and pins for the dungeons, boss altars, traders, villages and ore it spotted.

Exploring far away, from home. Other raven and map mods reveal or pin things around you, where you stand. Raven Scout's raven flies away from your base to land you haven't reached yet, on a real trip that takes minutes, while you do something else. Upgrade the roost through the biomes and it reaches the far edges of the world.

Works in single player, hosted games and dedicated servers, and in no-map worlds.

Features

• Raven Roost: a box with a tall post and a sitting raven. Name it (N), pick a compass direction and a distance, feed the raven, and click Send raven.

• Real trips: the raven flies out and back in in-game time, and keeps flying while you're away.

• Live tracking: follow a feather on your map and minimap. The map is revealed behind it as it flies, and pins appear as it passes each find ("Your raven spotted: Troll Cave").

• What it spots, anywhere in the world, even land nobody has visited:

  • Dungeons: Burial Chambers, Troll Caves, Sunken Crypts, Frost Caves, Infested Mines, Charred Fortress, Hildir's dungeons
  • Boss altars: Eikthyr to Fader
  • Traders: Haldor, Hildir, the Bog Witch
  • Other places: Fuling villages, Drake nests, Tar pits, Dvergr towers and lighthouses, giant remains, Morgen holes, charred ruins and towers, Volture nests, hot springs and more
  • Ore (copper, tin, silver, obsidian, iron scrap, flametal...) and, if you turn it on, wild food (berries, mushrooms, thistle, wild seeds), in land someone has already been near

• Food: better food flies farther and faster: 1 + the food's health ÷ 50 (cooked meat x1.6, end-game food x3+). A hungry raven flies short and slow.

• Roost tiers: upgrade in place with each biome's materials.

  Tier	Upgrade cost	Range	Speed	Also
  Wooden (Meadows)	build cost	x1.0	x1.0	spots places
  Bronze (Black Forest)	5 Bronze, 10 Bronze Nails	x1.25	x1.1	spots ore
  Iron (Swamp)	10 Iron, 5 Guck	x1.5	x1.2	spots wild food, sees wider
  Silver (Mountains)	10 Silver, 4 Wolf Pelt	x1.75	x1.35
  Black Metal (Plains)	10 Black Metal, 10 Linen Thread	x2.0	x1.5
  Eitr (Mistlands)	2 Black Core, 10 Eitr, 10 Carapace	x2.5	x1.75	sees wider
  Flametal (Ashlands)	10 Flametal, 3 Celestial Feathers	x3.0	x2.0
  Deep North	30 Flametal, 2 Molten Core	x4.0	x2.5

  Tier and food multiply: a Black Metal roost with good food reaches 7.5 km.

• Scout Reports: a parchment the raven brings back to the roost, written from the roost's point of view: "Troll Cave on a hill in the Black Forest, about 600 m north-east. The Swamp begins about 1.5 km north-east." Reports don't stack, so they make an exploration journal; store them or give them away. Copy the latest one at the roost for a friend (1 Feather).

• Feather guide: use a report and the raven's feather points ahead, left, right or behind you toward the nearest find on it. Just a hint, never a marker or compass; three uses per report.

• No-map worlds: detected automatically. The map is never touched; the raven brings a Scout Report instead. Or choose map, report or both in the config.

How to use

1. Hammer → Misc → Raven Roost (needs a workbench): 10 Wood, 4 Feathers, 4 Fine Wood.
2. Feed the raven: look at the roost and press a food's hotbar key, or click Feed in the window.
3. Open the roost (E). On the Scout tab, pick a direction (compass buttons, ±15°) and a distance, then Send raven.
4. Watch the feather on your map, or go do something else. When it's back you get a message, the map and pins are updated, and the window shows the trip's report.
5. On the Roost tab, upgrade the roost when you have the materials.

Trip time: 15 seconds per 100 m there and back at x1.0, so 1 km out takes about 3 minutes with cooked meat. It uses in-game time, so sleeping speeds it up.

Multiplayer

• Everyone needs the mod, the server too, with the same version (Jötunn checks this when you join).
• The server works out what each raven saw, so all players get the same findings.
• ShareFindings: Private (default, only the sender gets the map reveal and pins) or Everyone (all players; those offline catch up on the latest trips when they join).
• Gameplay settings come from the server; keybinds stay personal.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/com.ravenscout.valheim.cfg, or in game with the Configuration Manager (F1): range, trip speed, trips per day, strip width, what is spotted (every name list), pin grouping for ore and food, food rules, every tier's cost and numbers, map or report (NoMapMode), report precision (Vague, Rough, Exact), sharing, copies and the feather guide.

Good to know

• Ore and wild food only exist in land someone has already been near: Valheim creates them when a player first comes close. Over brand-new land the raven still maps the land and spots places, and its report says the rest couldn't be seen yet.
• No danger: ravens always come back.
• Made for Valheim 1.0.20 with BepInExPack 5.4.2351 and Jötunn 2.30.2.

Credits

Made by Faasnu. MIT license.

Changelog

1.0.0

First public release.

• Raven Roost: send a raven on long scouting trips in any direction, in real in-game time.
• Map reveal along the route and pins for dungeons, boss altars, traders, villages and other places, anywhere in the world; ore and optional wild food in land someone has been near.
• Live tracking: a feather on the map and minimap, the map revealed as it flies, pins as it passes.
• Food makes the raven fly farther and faster; a hungry raven flies short and slow.
• Eight roost tiers from Wooden to Deep North: more range, speed and sight; ore and food spotting unlock.
• Scout Reports written from the roost's point of view, with Vague, Rough or Exact distances; Copy for friends; the feather guide.
• No-map worlds detected automatically: no map changes, a Scout Report instead (NoMapMode to choose).
• Multiplayer: the server tracks trips; findings private or shared with everyone, with catch-up for players who join later. Gameplay settings synced from the server.