PingHeim

A craftable Ping Stone that lights up everything around you on the map: creatures, traders, other players and buildings.

Use the stone and a sonar-style ping rolls out across your area. Everything it finds appears as a coloured dot on your map:

Then the stone needs to recharge (10 minutes by default). A status icon with a countdown shows when it's ready again.

Contents

• Getting started
• Pinging other players
• Examples
• What a ping can see
• Multiplayer
• Configuration
• Troubleshooting

Getting started

1. Craft a Ping Stone at a forge: 3 Bronze, 5 Fine Wood, 1 Surtling Core.
2. Carry it. Right-click it in your inventory (or put it on the hotbar and press its key) to use it.
3. You hear the ping. Open your map: creatures, traders and players show as dots, and any player-built structures nearby are marked with grey squares.

The stone is not used up. After a ping it shows a recharge timer in your status effects, and using it too early just tells you how many minutes are left.

Pinging other players

A ping isn't silent. Any other player it detects gets a ping at your position, just like a middle-click on the map: the word PING appears in the world and on their map. They are told "Your name pinged you", and you show up on their map as a blue dot for 3 minutes, so a ping reveals you as well as them.

You can switch that off with Detect / NotifyPlayers, so the ping stays your secret (you will still see them).

Examples

Before you enter a swamp crypt: ping from the doorway to see what's wandering nearby, and which of your friends are close.

Scouting a base site: ping where you're thinking of building. The grey squares show whether someone's already built close by.

Checking on the farm at night: a ping tells you whether anything is lurking around the pens.

Finding Haldor: he moves. A ping in a Black Forest clearing shows a white dot if he's within range.

Group hunts: one player pings and everyone nearby sees them. Use it to meet up.

Quiet scouting: turn NotifyPlayers off and ping without alerting anyone you detect.

What a ping can see

• It reaches 120 metres around you by default (Ping / Radius). Valheim only keeps track of the areas close to you, so in practice a ping finds things within roughly 64 to 128 metres, depending on where you stand in your area. You'll see more if you stand near the middle of an area than at its edge.
• Creatures include animals and monsters. It skips creatures you have tamed unless you turn that on (IncludeTamedCreatures), and you can limit it to hostile creatures (OnlyHostileMonsters) or add the creature's name beside each dot (LabelMonsters).
• Buildings are grouped into one grey square per 16 metres (StructureClusterMeters), so a whole base isn't covered in markers. They are real map pins and stay on the map for good. Repeated pings don't stack up duplicate squares. Only things that players built count, not ruins or dungeons.
• Players show as blue dots with their names.

Multiplayer

Install PingHeim on the server as well as every player: the Ping Stone is a new item, and a server without the mod removes items it doesn't recognise. Versions must match. Everything the ping does (the dots, the notice other players get) is between players' own games, so there is nothing for the server to do beyond having the mod installed.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/mbaya.PingHeim.cfg, or Gale's config editor:

Troubleshooting

• The stone isn't in the forge's crafting list. Check the mod is in the profile you launch from, and that you're at a forge with the Bronze, Fine Wood and Surtling Core.
• Nothing happens when I use it. Right-click it in your inventory. A message tells you if it's still recharging.
• I see no dots. Dots appear on the map: open it (M). Only things within the area the game keeps track of can be found, so try again from a more central spot.
• The dots disappeared. Creature, trader and player dots expire after DotMinutes (3 by default). Building squares stay.
• A building square is in the wrong place. Squares sit at the middle of each group of buildings (StructureClusterMeters). Delete one on the map like any pin if you don't want it.
• The server removes my Ping Stone. The server needs the mod too, with the same version.
• Something else. Open an issue at github.com/mattbaya/PingHeim and attach BepInEx/LogOutput.log.

Works with

• PortalHeim SG1: ping your gates' surroundings before you step through.
• GearHeim and Bag O' Heim: keep your loadout and supplies ready for whatever the ping shows.

Changelog

0.2.3

• The filter box is easier to read. A solid dark background, white labels, and a square in each kind's colour, instead of red and blue text on a see-through box. Screenshots added to the description.

0.2.2

• Shorter package description (Thunderstore allows at most 256 characters). No changes to how the mod works.

0.2.1

• Clicking in the options window no longer swings your weapon. The game's player controller has its own input gate, which the window wasn't blocking.

0.2.0

• Filters on the map: a small "Ping Stone" box appears on the map with switches for Creatures, Traders, Players, Buildings and Portals. Switching one off hides it right away; switching it on brings it back. Hold Shift while using the stone to open the same box as a window.
• New icons: buildings use the game's house icon and portals its portal icon (with their names). Creatures are a red paw print, traders a white person and players a blue person.
• Portals are now found and marked too.
• Buildings and portals are now remembered in your character's save data instead of as map pins, so they can be switched off and on.
• A new ping replaces the previous ping's creatures, traders and players.
• The game's map icon names are written to the log the first time you open the map, so the icon choice (Icons / BuildingIcon, Icons / PortalIcon) can be checked.

0.1.0

• First version: the Ping Stone, map dots for creatures, traders, players and structures, a recharge timer, and a ping that tells the players you detect.