PASTURE LIGHTS

LIGHT THE FENCE. KEEP THE HERD.

A standing torch should not send your next deer running in circles.

Pasture Lights lets selected animals ignore selected placed torches and braziers. Deer, boars and Wizardry Darkhorn are included by default. A torch carried by a character still counts as a frightening fire source.

Compatibility / v0.1.1
Built against Valheim 1.0.15. Requires BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2350 and ConditionalConfigSync 1.0.9. Install on every client and the dedicated server, with matching helper versions. Server settings control the shared behavior. Every participant must update to 0.1.1 together. Wizardry and CoreWoodExtras are optional.

SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI

If this makes your settlement a little easier to live in, buy me a coffee. Your support helps me spend more time on small improvements and compatibility fixes for modded games. A tip is optional and appreciated. Vercadi

A CALMER PASTURE / WHAT CHANGES

• Wild deer, boars and Darkhorn (Sheep_TW) ignore the listed placed lights when evaluating fire avoidance and choosing random walking destinations.
• Defaults cover vanilla standing torches, wall torches and braziers, three GB torch/brazier prefabs, and CoreWoodExtras' horn wall torch and corewood brazier.
• Held torches remain frightening, including when they overlap a placed light.
• Other species keep their existing behavior. Campfires and unlisted sources still count as fire.

This changes the fire-source queries in active avoidance and random walking-destination checks. Animals can still fear players, flee from attacks and take fire damage. It does not automatically tame them or make them follow you. Valheim already skips this fire-avoidance path for tamed creatures.

No new item, recipe, world object or save format is added. Existing animals can use the change; a new world is not required.

LIGHT THE WAY / INSTALLATION

1. Close Valheim and stop the dedicated server normally.
2. Install PastureLights and its dependencies in every player's active profile and on the server.
3. Start the server and clients. Test with a wild deer or boar near a standing wood torch, keeping your distance so fear of you does not hide the result.

Manual installation: copy plugins/PastureLights from this ZIP into BepInEx/plugins. Do not install a second copy through another manager.

Coming from the local test package? Remove the locally imported entry with the game closed, then install the published package. Keep one PastureLights.dll per installation and retain your config.

Removal: close the game and server, remove this helper from all installations, then restart. Original fire avoidance resumes. No world conversion is needed.

YOUR SETTINGS

The first launch creates BepInEx/config/vercadi.PastureLights.cfg.

[General]
Enabled = true
Lock server settings = true
Animal prefabs = Deer,Boar,Sheep_TW
Placed light prefabs = piece_groundtorch_wood,piece_groundtorch,piece_groundtorch_green,piece_groundtorch_blue,piece_walltorch,piece_brazierfloor01,piece_brazierfloor02,piece_brazierceiling01,GB_Standing_Torch,GB_Wall_Torch,GB_Standing_Brazier,mm_horn_walltorch,mm_corewood_brazier

Optional [Diagnostics] → Debug logging = true logs filtered queries on that machine only. It is off by default, limited to one line every two seconds and 60 lines per launch. Each line shows the species, whether this is an avoidance or walking-destination check, and an ignored/retained source. It does not report all possible causes of fleeing.

Lists use exact, case-sensitive prefab names, separated by commas. Names for absent mods do nothing. Held sources remain protected even if their name is listed. Edit the server config while stopped, then restart; clients receive the shared settings on connection.

FIELD NOTES / TROUBLESHOOTING

Look for ACTIVE: placed-light fire-avoidance and walking-destination filters registered in BepInEx/LogOutput.log. This confirms patch registration, not an animal behavior test. INACTIVE means the expected game methods could not be patched; the helper leaves original behavior in place and logs the reason.

If an animal still flees, check player proximity, the creature prefab, and the exact light piece. A nearby campfire or held torch can still cause fear. A different mod replacing the same AI method may need separate compatibility work.

Validation: 89 offline policy and installed-game contract checks passed against Valheim 1.0.15 on Windows. Version 0.1.1 corrects a confirmed missing walking-destination filter in 0.1.0. This candidate has not yet been loaded in Unity or tested in gameplay; the prior version's successful startup does not validate the new hook. Animal behavior and multiplayer ownership transfers remain to be tested. Back up your save before that first test.

CREDITS

Created by Vercadi. Thanks to Iron Gate for Valheim and shudnal for ConditionalConfigSync. This is an independent add-on. Game assemblies and other authors' binaries are not included.

Original code and package icon use the included MIT license. Development used AI assistance. The linked Ko-fi button is Ko-fi's brand artwork.

Enjoying my work? Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. A useful bug report helps too.