Valyn Earthlike Worlds

Procedural Map Generator for Valheim — Version 1.0.0

Generate original Valheim worlds with Earth-inspired continental structure: substantial landmasses, broad seas, islands, and climate influenced by latitude, moisture, and elevation. Your world seed determines the arrangement, so different seeds can produce connected continents, separated landmasses, and varied island groups.

The aim is natural-looking geography within Valheim's existing world, with the game's familiar biomes, creatures, resources, and terrain detail.

Similar to Better Continents

Valyn Earthlike Worlds is similar in purpose to Better Continents: both change Valheim's terrain and continent generation. This mod focuses on automatic, seed-based worlds with Earth-inspired continental structure and climate. Better Continents also provides image-map and map-authoring controls.

Better Continents is not required. Use one world-generation mod at a time; do not enable both together.

Features

• Seed-based continents and seas: varied continental arrangements with broad ocean routes and islands.
• Climate-influenced biomes: latitude, moisture, elevation, and distance help shape biome distribution, while retaining a protected starting region and progression-related distance gates.
• Native terrain detail: uses Valheim's elevation detail and biome terrain profiles, including mountainous high ground and lowland Swamps.
• Native waterways and content: retains the game's lake, river, stream, vegetation, resource, and location-placement routines. Placement results can vary with the seed and terrain.
• Upland frost: ground gradually frosts and transitions toward snow at higher elevations. Green decorative grass thins beneath snowy vegetation, while Meadows and Black Forest retain their biome identities.
• Expanded terrain editing: new worlds default to digging 16 metres down and raising 16 metres up, measured from the original generated ground.
• Settings saved per world: each generated world retains its terrain recipe and edit limits.
• Multiplayer recipe checks: the host shares the saved recipe before client terrain generation, with matching plugin versions required.
• Optional diagnostics: check active settings, survey terrain, or capture short frame-interval reports through console commands.

Release status and known behavior

1.0.0 is the initial public testing release. Terrain generation and the frost appearance have been exercised in single-player development testing. Multiplayer synchronization is implemented; live multiplayer and dedicated-server verification are still pending.

• First generation can take longer than normal. Allow extra time for a new world's terrain and location placement to finish.
• Occasional crashes have been observed while terrain is generating. Restart Valheim and reload the world to retry.
• Some island shores can have abrupt underwater drop-offs. Shore shape varies by seed.
• Local biome readings can disagree near some transitions. Report unusual boundaries or misplaced content with a position and screenshot.

Requirements

• Valheim. Development testing used 1.0.21; compatibility with other game versions is not established.
• BepInExPack for Valheim, dependency version 5.4.2360.
• The same version of this mod on the host/server and every player using a generated world.

BepInEx and game binaries are not bundled with this mod.

Installation

Thunderstore / r2modman

1. Install the mod and its BepInExPack dependency through your mod manager. For a downloaded package, use r2modman's local-mod import.
2. If upgrading from a development build, remove or disable its old package/loose DLL so only one copy is active.
3. Launch Valheim through the mod manager.
4. Create a new world with your chosen seed to use this generator.

Manual installation / Nexus

1. Install BepInExPack for Valheim.
2. Close the game and extract this mod's Nexus archive into the Valheim installation folder, merging its BepInEx folder with the existing one.
3. Confirm the plugin is at BepInEx/plugins/ValynWorldTerrain.dll and that only one copy is active.
4. Launch the game with BepInEx and create a new world.

The plugin and config keep their internal filenames for compatibility; the mod displays as Valyn Earthlike Worlds.

Worlds and saving

Installing the mod does not convert an existing unmarked vanilla world. Create a new world for the new generation.

Worlds generated by this mod depend on it: keep the mod installed whenever you open them. Keep a backup when changing game or mod versions.

Current-format worlds from private development builds can continue to load. Their saved terrain recipe and limits are retained. Retired development-world recipes are refused rather than silently converted; see the source/development notes if you need an archived build.

Configuration

After the first launch, settings are in:

BepInEx/config/valyn.valheim.worldterrain.cfg

Example:

[Climate continents]
EnableForNewWorlds = true
DigDepthMeters = 16
RaiseHeightMeters = 16

Change settings while the game is closed. These values are saved when a new world is created; editing the config does not rewrite an existing world's terrain or limits. In multiplayer, the host's saved recipe controls the world.

The extended digging limit changes the ground surface; it does not add voxel tunneling or underground excavation mechanics.

Multiplayer

Install 1.0.0 on the host/server and every client. A development-version client cannot join a 1.0.0 generated-world host even when its saved terrain format is compatible.

For the initial MP test, start with a separate two-player world. Check joining, travel into new areas, terrain edits, building, mining, dungeon entry, reconnecting, and saving/reloading. Preserve logs from both players if anything differs. See TESTING.md in the source or release documentation.

Do not combine this generator with Better Continents, other terrain/world-generation replacements, or another mod that overrides digging/raising limits. Other combinations have not been exhaustively tested.

Optional console diagnostics

Reports are stored in BepInEx/config/ValynWorldTerrain/reports. A frame-interval report is not a CPU/GPU profiler. No scan is required for normal play.

Reporting a problem

Visit Valyn81 on Nexus Mods, open Valyn Earthlike Worlds, and use its Bugs tab or Posts section to report an issue.

Include the mod and game versions, world seed, relevant position, other enabled mods, what happened, and whether it occurred on the host or a guest. Attach Player.log and BepInEx/LogOutput.log before another launch overwrites the evidence. For multiplayer problems, include logs from both sides when possible.

Credits

Created by Valyn. Valheim is developed by Iron Gate. BepInExPack and Harmony provide the plugin-loading and patching foundations. Better Continents is linked above as a comparable world-generation project, not as a dependency or bundled component.

Changelog

1.3.1 — Terrain height and Mountain transitions

This public update rolls up the completed terrain changes since 1.0.0. Private development iterations are not separate public releases.

• Reduced excessive ordinary inland elevation to limit unwanted snow/frost in Meadows, Black Forest and Plains.
• Adjusted native Mountain height inputs so continental uplift is not exaggerated in the same way, while retaining native terrain detail and waterways.
• Continued the inland height reduction through Mountain contributions, removing an artificial recovery of up to 16 metres across their transitions.
• Improved Mountain approaches without broadly flattening Plains, raising surrounding lowlands to match peaks, or replacing native Mistlands ruggedness.
• Retained the independent default digging and raising limits of 16 metres in each direction.
• Preserved existing saved recipes and configuration. Existing worlds retain their generation, including unexplored areas; create a new world for the revised terrain.
• Retained original snow/frost thresholds, native content routines and multiplayer recipe/version checks.

Compatibility and testing

• All multiplayer peers, including the host/dedicated server, must use 1.3.1. Further live multiplayer/dedicated-server verification of this update is pending.
• Positive user terrain checks and eight passing offline regression suites; the public release matches the accepted 1.3.1 test generation in the automated fixture.
• First generation of a new world can take longer than normal. If a rare generation crash occurs, restart Valheim and reload the world.
• Some steep faces, high-altitude frost outside Mountains and island underwater drop-offs may remain. No general crash fix is claimed.

1.0.0 — Initial public release

First public release of Valyn Earthlike Worlds — Procedural Map Generator for Valheim. This entry consolidates the completed development work into one public version.

World generation

• Seed-driven continental arrangements with substantial landmasses, broad ocean basins, and islands.
• Climate-informed biome placement using latitude, moisture, elevation, and progression-related distance gates.
• Protected starting terrain, native terrain detail, mountainous high ground, and lowland Swamp profiles.
• Native lake, river, stream, vegetation, resource, creature, and location-placement routines retained.
• Coordinate-consistent terrain height and material-profile handling across biome requests.

Terrain appearance and editing

• Gradual upland ground frost, increasing toward full snow at high elevations.
• Decorative green grass thinning beneath snowy Meadows and Black Forest vegetation, without changing those biome identities.
• New-world digging and raising defaults of 16 metres in each direction, relative to original generated ground.

World data and multiplayer

• Terrain recipes and edit limits saved per world; existing unmarked vanilla worlds remain native.
• Host recipe delivery before client terrain generation.
• Plugin-version and world-identity validation, with incompatible clients and retired world recipes rejected.
• Current-format private development worlds remain supported.

Diagnostics and implementation

• vt_status, vt_scan, vt_scan_stop, and vt_perf console diagnostics.
• Bounded terrain-field caching, world-context isolation, and diagnostic cleanup when worlds change.
• Focused current-format implementation with retired generators removed while retaining shared layout math.

Release notes

• Initial public testing release; live multiplayer and dedicated-server verification remain pending.
• The first generation of a new world can take longer than normal.
• Occasional crashes have been observed while terrain is generating; restart Valheim and reload the world to retry.
• Some islands have abrupt underwater drop-offs, and local biome transitions can need further refinement.

The mod is similar in purpose to Better Continents, with a focus on automatic, seed-based Earth-inspired worlds. Better Continents is not required and should not be enabled alongside it.