Viking Meals

Stable full release · JustQOL Viking Series

Smaller ingredient bills. Enough food to share. Viking Meals reduces excessive ingredient requirements and increases cooking batch sizes, helping you spend less time gathering for every serving. Choose Light, Balanced or Generous, or customize individual recipes. Balanced is enabled by default.

Features

Sensible ingredient costs and larger batches

The presets combine two changes: lower excessive ingredient quantities and more servings per craft. Recipes already using modest quantities keep those lower requirements.

Examples from Valheim 1.0.20 with Balanced:

These are gameplay balance rules, not nutritional measurements. Ingredients retain their role in each recipe, and positive ingredient requirements do not become free.

Three presets

Yields round up to whole items and normally stop at one inventory stack. A recipe already producing more than one stack automatically retains at least its original quantity. For example, Queen's Jam produces 6 / 8 / 10 on Light / Balanced / Generous; its ten-item stack limit caps the Generous result.

Each preset also limits the amount of each ingredient in an eligible recipe:

Requirements below their preset limit stay lower. Optional zero requirements remain zero. Explicit ingredient overrides take precedence over automatic limits.

Oven foods, feasts and compatible modded recipes

• Oven preparation produces extra uncooked portions; baking itself remains one-to-one.
• Feast-preparation recipes receive ingredient reductions while keeping their original kit output and placed-feast serving counts.
• Direct ingredient requirements on feast prefabs are also covered.
• Quality-based fish processing keeps its native output formula while eligible ingredient requirements can be reduced.
• Compatible modded recipes are included when they use the same recognized food, cooking-conversion or feast systems.

For example, a compatible modded food recipe requiring 30 CookedMeat uses 3 on Balanced, alongside the applicable yield increase.

Your progression stays intact

Food health, stamina, eitr and duration, recipe unlocks, crafting stations and station levels stay unchanged. Simple spit cooking remains one-to-one. Mead bases, equipment, building materials and unrelated recipes are not rebalanced.

Individual recipe overrides

Set an exact output quantity or ingredient requirement by prefab name without changing the rest of your chosen preset. You can make a single meal more generous, retain a higher ingredient cost, or adjust feast preparation separately.

How to use

Choose a preset before entering a local world, then craft food normally. The in-world panel shows the active settings with gameplay controls read-only. The F7 shortcut is configurable.

The interface uses Valheim wood panels, Averia Serif text, warm highlights and native controls to match the JustQOL Viking Series.

Installation and updating

Required dependencies:

• BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351
• Jotunn 2.30.2 or a newer compatible version

Mod manager: install VikingMeals by JustQOL through Thunderstore Mod Manager or r2modman. The manager installs declared dependencies automatically. Close the game or server before updating, then restart after installation.

Manual: install the dependencies, then merge the package's BepInEx folder into the game or server directory. The plugin belongs at BepInEx/plugins/VikingMeals/VikingMeals.dll. Keep only one installed copy of VikingMeals.dll.

Preserve configuration and character/world saves when updating. Existing preset selections and recipe overrides are retained.

Multiplayer

Install matching Viking Meals gameplay versions and the dependencies on the server and every client. Restart the server and all clients after an update.

The server's enabled state, preset and recipe overrides synchronize through Jotunn. Each client controls its own panel shortcut. To change server policy, stop the server, edit its configuration, restart and reconnect clients.

Configuration

First launch creates BepInEx/config/com.justqol.vikingmeals.cfg.

[Server]
Enabled = true
Preset = Balanced
RecipeOverrides =

[Interface]
OpenMenu = F7

Overrides use prefab names, absolute quantities from 1 to 100, and semicolons between entries:

RecipeOverrides = CarrotSoup=6;CarrotSoup:Carrot=2

This produces six carrot soups using two carrots, with other ingredients following the preset. An explicit ingredient override can exceed its automatic preset limit; output overrides still respect stack limits.

For feast preparation, use the material prefab name, such as FeastMeadows_Material:CookedMeat=2. Direct-feast ingredient overrides use the feast prefab name. Feast-kit and quality-based output formulas remain preserved even if an output override names them.

Duplicate or malformed overrides are rejected as a group. The preset stays active without those overrides, and a warning is logged.

Set Enabled = false and restart to restore original recipe yields and ingredient quantities. Removing the plugin and restarting also restores normal crafting. Already-crafted food remains in inventories, and existing feast serving state is not rewritten.

Compatibility

Built for Valheim 1.0.20. Food detection recognizes edible recipe outputs, prepared items converted to food by loaded cooking stations, and materials required by loaded feast prefabs. The base game includes nine covered feast-preparation recipes.

Ingredient grouping uses prefab names and recognized recipe relationships. Protein names take precedence over prepared-dish classification. Outputs with names containing Soup, Stew, Broth or Porridge use the pot-yield multiplier; other eligible meals use the meal multiplier.

Mods that rewrite the same recipes can conflict depending on load timing. Another mod applying its changes afterward may replace Viking Meals' quantities. Custom content systems outside the recognized recipe, cooking or feast systems may need separate integration.

Community and support

Join JustQOL | Valheim Mods on Discord for support, announcements, bug reports and suggestions.

For Viking Meals help, use general. Report reproducible issues in bug-reports. Include your mod and Valheim versions, server/client setup, other installed mods, reproduction steps and relevant BepInEx errors with private information removed. For recipe issues, also include the preset and affected recipe. You can also message goon4207 on Discord.

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Created with assistance from OpenAI Codex, under the project owner's direction.

1.1.2 - Stable full release documentation

• Expanded feature, control, installation, configuration and compatibility documentation.
• Consistent JustQOL Viking Series branding and community support information.
• No gameplay changes in this documentation update.

1.1.1

• Add the permanent JustQOL Discord invite and community support instructions.
• Documentation-only package: the gameplay DLL and network version remain 1.1.0.

1.1.0

• Reduce excessive ingredient costs as well as retaining all 1.0.0 ordinary-food yields.
• Add preset-specific limits for staples, protein, prepared dishes and seasonings; existing lower quantities remain lower.
• Include nine feast-preparation recipes and direct ingredient requirements on feast prefabs, preserving serving counts and kit output.
• Keep explicit ingredient overrides authoritative and restore original quantities when disabled.
• Audit all loaded recipes and add live checks for Queen's Jam crafting and a controlled 30-meat recipe.

1.0.0

• Initial release with Balanced as the default, plus Light and Generous presets.
• Increase prepared-food batch sizes while retaining original ingredient costs and food stats.
• Support absolute yield and ingredient-cost overrides by prefab name.
• Add a native wood-panel interface and configurable F7 shortcut.
• Synchronize server gameplay settings through Jotunn and require matching mod versions.