Deep North Snowfall

Deep North Snowfall is a small BepInEx mod for Valheim dedicated servers. It restores missing Deep North ground snow after a successful sleep/night skip, so walked paths and shoveled snow look fresh again.

It does not simulate weather, continuous snowfall, or gradual snow buildup. It simply restores Deep North ground snow toward the area's normal generated snow value.

What It Does

• After a successful sleep/night skip, starts one Deep North snow refresh regardless of where players slept.
• Adds an admin command, snowrestore, for manual testing or manual refreshes.
• Restores any currently loaded Deep North terrain immediately.
• Records a pending restore after sleep or a successful manual command, so unloaded Deep North zones restore once when the game loads them later.
• Saves the changed snow paint through Valheim's normal terrain save/sync system.

Safety

This mod is intentionally conservative:

• Only changes the Deep North terrain paint snow-depth channel.
• Never changes terrain height.
• Never resets terrain zones.
• Never touches flattening, digging, raised ground, buildings, structures, vegetation, or items.
• Never piles snow higher than the area's generated natural snow value.
• Refuses the manual command unless a connected player is in Deep North.
• Does not use destructive terrain reset behavior.

Install

Install on the dedicated server:

BepInEx/plugins/DeepNorthSnowfall.dll

The mod is intended to work server-side. Clients receive the restored terrain paint through Valheim's normal synchronization.

If you want to run the snowrestore command from an in-game admin client, install the same DLL on that admin client too. For normal sleep-based restoration, regular players do not need the mod installed.

Config

BepInEx creates the config automatically after the server starts once:

BepInEx/config/com.adamg.valheim.deepnorthsnowrestore.cfg

Useful settings include:

• RestoreAfterSleep: enable or disable automatic restore after sleep.
• RadiusZones: how many zones around Deep North players are restored immediately by the manual snowrestore command. Sleep restore processes currently loaded Deep North terrain, then leaves unloaded zones pending.
• MaxCommandRadiusZones: maximum allowed manual command radius for the immediate restore area.
• VerboseZoneLogs: log each touched zone.

The mod also creates a small state file:

BepInEx/config/com.adamg.valheim.deepnorthsnowrestore.state

That file remembers which Deep North zones have already been restored for the current sleep/manual restore cycle, including after server restarts.

Command

Run on the server console, or from an admin client that has the DLL installed:

snowrestore
snowrestore 3

The optional number overrides the configured radius for that run, capped by MaxCommandRadiusZones.

The command radius controls only the immediate nearby restore. A successful command also starts a pending Deep North restore, so other Deep North zones are covered later as Valheim loads them.

The command refuses to run unless at least one connected player is currently in Deep North.

Compatibility

Deep North Snowfall does not patch or replace DeepNorthTerrainFix. It restores only saved Deep North snow paint values and should be compatible with terrain-generation fixes that leave Valheim's normal terrain systems intact.

Technical Notes

The mod was built after inspecting the current Valheim assemblies. Deep North ground snow is stored in terrain paint data, separately from terrain height.

The mod writes only the terrain paint snow value and its modified flag, then asks Valheim to save the terrain component normally. It does not write to height, level, smooth, flatten, raise, or dig data.

Changelog

1.0.8

Documentation cleanup.

• Rebuilt the changelog into a complete, readable version history from 1.0.0 onward.
• Restored older release notes where available.
• Rewrote the README to reduce repetition and better explain install, behavior, safety, config, and compatibility.
• Updated README wording from "sleep/night skip" to "successful sleep".
• Clarified that PostEventScanSeconds is only the short immediate retry window, not the lifetime of the pending restore.
• Replaced specific third-party mod references with general compatibility guidance.
• Bumped the plugin/package version for this documentation-only release.

1.0.7

Server/client sync support.

• Added Valheim routed RPC synchronization for snow restore events.
• Dedicated servers now create the sleep/manual restore event and broadcast it to modded clients.
• Modded clients restore the Deep North terrain they actually have loaded.
• Avoids risky direct editing of serialized terrain/ZDO data on hosted servers where TerrainComp instances are not loaded server-side.
• snowrestore now queues the restore on the server and broadcasts it to modded clients.

1.0.6

Post-event retry window.

• Added a short loaded-terrain retry window after sleep or snowrestore.
• Helps hosted dedicated servers catch Deep North terrain that becomes available just after the sleep/command event.
• Safety rules are unchanged: only Deep North snow paint data is modified.

1.0.5

Package consistency fixes.

• Fixed consistency between the manifest, changelog, DLL name, plugin display name, and internal plugin version.
• Standardized the packaged DLL name as DeepNorthSnowfall.dll.
• Standardized generated config/state files under com.teamgrimgoren.valheim.deepnorthsnowfall.
• No snow restoration behavior changes.

1.0.4

File naming cleanup.

• Corrected the packaged file name.

1.0.3

Public mod identity cleanup.

• Renamed generated config/state files away from older personal/internal naming.
• Standardized new generated files on com.teamgrimgoren.valheim.deepnorthsnowfall.
• Scrubbed older placeholder changelog/package references for the public Deep North Snowfall release.
• No snow restoration behavior changes.

1.0.2

Pending restore behavior.

• Changed sleep restoration to start one pending Deep North snow refresh regardless of where players slept.
• Sleep restoration now immediately processes any currently loaded Deep North terrain, then restores unloaded Deep North zones later when Valheim loads them.
• Improved dedicated-server player detection for the manual snowrestore command by also checking server player list and connected peer positions.
• Clarified README/config wording around immediate restores, pending restores, and RadiusZones.
• Renamed the packaged DLL/display name to Deep North Snowfall.

1.0.1

Safety and persistence refinements.

• Saved restored snow through Valheim's normal terrain save/sync system.
• Confirmed the mod avoids terrain height, flattening, digging, raised ground, structures, vegetation, and items.

1.0.0

Initial release.

• Restores missing Deep North ground snow toward the area's generated natural snow value.
• Adds the snowrestore admin command.