Dropped and Lost

SERVER-SIDE MOD

Install it on the server only. Players join with an unmodified game and install nothing. If you host a world from your own game, install it in your own game: you are the server.

You are lost. Find your friends. Bosses need company.

Dropped and Lost is for playing with friends. It turns Valheim into a "find each other" adventure: everyone is dropped alone, far from anyone else, with no map and no way to shout across the world. You explore, you survive, and you look for your friends the hard way. Then you stand together, because the bosses will not wake for a lone player.

It is a rule set for a private server or a world you share with people you know. It is not anti-cheat and not meant for public servers.

Forget what you have learned from your hundredth start at the Stones. This one is different.

Built and tested on Valheim 1.0.20. Requires BepInEx on the server.

What it does

• Scattered, far-off starts. Every character gets its own random starting point, 3,000 to 6,000 m from the Stones (configurable), in Meadows, on dry ground, with another biome nearby and clear of dungeons and villages. The point is remembered across relogs and server restarts. Die with no bed and you come back to that point, not the Stones.
• No map. No map, no minimap, no position markers, and other players' positions are never shared. The cartography table is blocked.
• No shout, no pings. Normal talk and whispers still work, so you cannot call a friend across the world. You have to find them.
• Bosses need company. A boss altar only wakes up while at least two living players stand within 50 m of it. Alone, the altar stays silent and nothing is taken from your inventory. This covers all eight bosses, Eikthyr through The Queen.
• Two portals each, named by the server. Each character may have two portals standing. The server names them: the second joins the first, and nobody can type a name. If one is destroyed, the next portal that character builds rejoins the survivor; if both are gone, the name is retired and the next pair gets a new one. Anyone can travel through any linked portal, but only the builder can take one down. If someone else deletes your portal, the server puts it back. Raids, fire and weather can still destroy portals. A third portal disappears within a second and its materials drop where it stood.
• Finding your grave. With no map, a tombstone is hard to find, so after you respawn you are told its heading and rough distance ("Your grave lies about 350 m to the north-east."). Never coordinates.
• Join message and notices. On login: "You are lost. Find friends. Bosses need company." Everyone sees "Name has arrived." and "Name has left." (name only, no position).

The rules are enforced by the server, so players cannot change them by editing their own config.

Optional companion mods (client side)

These are separate mods that players install on their own PC. The server mod works without them.

• DAL Compass - a heading compass (bar, dial or text line) and markers that point toward your last three graves, with a rounded distance and never any coordinates. F8 cycles the style, F9 hides it, F10 clears the markers. Also needed if you turn on the mod list below: it reports the player's mods to the server. It also stops the hammer on other players' portals before the server has to.
• Lost Camps - abandoned camps with diary pages to find, and paintings when you sleep. The server places the camps; each player needs the mod to read them.

Install (server)

1. Install BepInEx on the server (the BepInExPack_Valheim package).
2. Put the DroppedAndLost folder from this package in BepInEx/plugins/.
3. Start the server once, then edit BepInEx/config/com.laoch.droppedandlost.cfg. Changes apply a few seconds after you save; no restart needed.

Settings (all in the server's config file)

DAL Compass keeps its own settings in each player's config (com.laoch.dalcompass.cfg).

Good to know

• Saved data is in BepInEx/config/DroppedAndLost/<world>/. Removing the mod never changes your world or characters; the spawn and portal records are simply ignored.
• Portals built before the mod was installed are left exactly as they are.
• A portal built beyond a player's limit disappears within a second and its materials drop where it stood.
• This is a friends-server rule set, not anti-cheat. A modified game client still receives whatever the server normally sends it.
• Whispers have a 4 m range and normal talk 15 m, as in vanilla.

Credits

The idea for Dropped and Lost came from Vidguy. Thank you! Check out his other work at thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/Vidguy.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Mod list (optional)

Set Mods.EnforceModList = true to kick players whose mods are not in BepInEx/config/DroppedAndLost/ModAllowlist.txt (created on first start). One mod per line: [+]mod.id[|version[|sha256]]; + means required. A version or hash is checked only when you write one; a plain mod.id accepts any version. Players must run DAL Compass, which reports what they run; players without it are kicked after Mods.GraceSeconds. Editing the list re-checks connected players within seconds. A modified client can lie about its list, so this keeps honest players honest; it is not anti-cheat. Off by default.

Arrival and departure notices, and a minimum Meadows size

• Chat.AnnouncePresence (default on): everyone sees "Name has arrived." / "Name has left." (top-left, name only, no position). Wording: Chat.ArrivedText, Chat.LeftText.
• Spawn.MinMeadowsRadius (default 120) and Spawn.MinMeadowsFraction (default 0.8): a start must have at least that share of Meadows within that many metres, so nobody starts on a tiny meadow. 0 radius turns it off. Only the last-resort search stage halves it.

Bug Reports

Found a bug? Email [email protected]

Changelog

0.2.2

• Rebuilt so the plugin reports its own version correctly in the server log (0.2.1 reported 0.2.0). No other change.

0.2.1

• The on-screen warning before a player is kicked for their mods now wraps over several short lines, so a long mod list no longer runs off the screen.

0.2.0

• New spawns keep a respectable distance from where other characters started (Spawn.MinDistanceFromOtherSpawns, 500 m). It is a preference only: if no spot fits, it is halved and then dropped before any other rule is relaxed, so a busy server never runs out of places. 0 turns it off.

0.1.4

• Tips section on the page.

0.1.3

• Portal wording: one linked pair per character, not "two paired portals". DAL Compass and Lost Camps are linked on the page.

0.1.2

• Vidguy's credit moved to the top of the page and added to the description.

0.1.1

• Thunderstore page: credit to Vidguy for the idea, bug report contact, and the portal-restore note.
• A portal deleted by someone other than its builder is put back by the server.

0.1.0 (unreleased)

First build. Server-side only; vanilla clients can join.

• Random first spawn and respawn point per character, saved across relogs and restarts.
• No-map, delivered as a server-sent world key (the saved world is not modified).
• Shout and ping blocking at the server's message relay; cartography table blocked.
• Boss altars wake only while enough living players are within range (ownership-based, so a lone player cannot summon).
• Per-character portal limit with server-named, paired, locked tags and owner-only removal.
• The compass moved out into its own client mod, DAL Compass (adds last-three-deaths markers, F10 to clear).
• Live-reloading server config.
• After dying, the player is told the heading and rough distance to their tombstone (no map needed, no coordinates).
• World.ForcedKeys: world rules the server sends to every joining player without saving them into the world.

Unreleased

• A portal deleted by someone other than its builder is put back by the server (the hammer on the owner's own client skipped the old check). DAL Compass also refuses the hammer on other players' portals.
• Arrival/departure notices; minimum Meadows size for spawns.
• Optional mod whitelist (Mods.EnforceModList, ModAllowlist.txt). Needs DAL Compass on clients, which now reports installed plugins to the server.