TROUGH FOOD COMPATIBILITY

ONE TROUGH. DIFFERENT APPETITES.

Stock the feed. Let each animal choose its meal.

Trough Food Compatibility expands the CoreWoodExtras feeding trough's accepted items from its fixed vegetable list to foods registered in tameable creatures' diets. It also lets animals select their own valid food from a mixed inventory, instead of rejecting that inventory because another food belongs to a different species.

Compatibility / v0.1.2
Requires CoreWoodExtras 2.2.7 or 2.2.8, BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2350 and ConditionalConfigSync 1.0.9. Built against Valheim 1.0.15. Install on every client and the dedicated server with matching versions. This release checks the reviewed CoreWoodExtras DLL exactly; a changed binary leaves the helper inactive until reviewed.
Early release: client/server startup, joining and settings sync have been checked. The new 0.1.2 food rules still await gameplay testing.

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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

FEED THE HERD / WHAT CHANGES

• Discovers food from registered tameable creature prefabs and active creatures, including diets supplied by taming mods.
• Adds those item prefab names to CoreWoodExtras' trough whitelist. Meat, neck tails and modded crops become eligible when an installed creature actually eats them.
• Allows mixed-food troughs. Each animal still needs an item from its own diet; a boar does not start eating meat simply because meat is stored beside berries.
• Preserves CoreWoodExtras' feeding range, hunger handling, per-item selection, network ownership checks and one-item consumption path.
• Blocks the trough's automatic ground pickup by default, so the larger whitelist does not start collecting valuable dropped meals or materials.

The helper does not replace CoreWoodExtras, add a new trough, increase its capacity or alter taming times. The new raw-meat equivalents are enabled by default: animals eating vanilla boar meat also accept BoneAppetit Raw Pork (rk_pork); animals eating vanilla hare meat also accept Odin's raw hare meat (BOH_RawHare_Meat). Herbivores and cooked-meat-only diets do not gain meat. Missing items are ignored. Existing troughs can use the fix; a new world is not required.

STOCK THE TROUGH / INSTALLATION

1. Close Valheim and stop the dedicated server normally.
2. Install TroughFoodCompatibility and the dependency versions above in all player profiles and on the server.
3. Place a CoreWoodExtras feeding trough within the mod's configured feeding range. Stock food suitable for the nearby animals.

Manual installation: copy plugins/TroughFoodCompatibility from this ZIP into BepInEx/plugins after installing dependencies.

Coming from the local test package? Remove that local entry with the game closed, then install the published package. Keep one TroughFoodCompatibility.dll and retain your config.

Removal: empty added foods from troughs first, close the game and server, and remove this helper everywhere. Original whitelist and mixed-food behavior return. Food stored in the world is not deleted by this helper, but the original restriction can prevent putting it back.

YOUR SETTINGS

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

[General]
Enabled = true
Lock server settings = true
Allow trough auto collect = false

[Optional diets]
Creature prefabs = Deer,Boar,Sheep_TW
Extra food prefabs =
Raw meat equivalents = true
Wolves eat hare meat = false
Raw fish equivalents = false
Ocean companion fish fallback = false
Hens eat RtD seeds = false

Extra food prefabs is empty by default. To opt selected creatures into extra crops, list installed item prefab names separated by commas. Creature prefabs selects the species receiving those additions. Existing diet entries remain. Missing items are ignored; names are case-sensitive. This option is a deliberate diet change, not automatic nutritional classification.

For example, if your pack provides BCA_Tomato, adding that name makes the selected deer, boars and Darkhorn accept that tomato. It does not make other species eat it.

Automatic ground pickup requires both Allow trough auto collect = true here and CoreWoodExtras' own auto-collect option enabled. Keep it off unless you want foods dropped near the trough collected automatically.

Edit the server config while stopped and restart all participants after diet changes. Server settings override client values during the session. The helper does not provide a second range setting; use CoreWoodExtras' feeding and storage settings.

OPTIONAL DIETS / 0.1.2

Four separate server-controlled switches add wolf hare meat, RtD cod/tuna/marlin equivalents for raw-fish eaters, vanilla fish for RtD orcas/mermaids, and rice/wheat/corn seeds for adult hens. All four default off. Enable only the diets you want. Dolphins keep their shrimp diet; herbivores do not gain meat. Missing item mods are ignored.

The existing Creature prefabs and Extra food prefabs settings can extend vegetables to horses and individual hare variants. Existing foods remain available. Accepting a food into a trough does not make every animal eat it.

The package does not include a private modpack config. These four options remain off unless enabled in your server settings. Test the specific species and foods you enable before relying on them.

FIELD NOTES / TROUBLESHOOTING

Look for ACTIVE: reviewed CoreWoodExtras 2.2.7 / 2.2.8 trough food discovery and Trough food discovery: in BepInEx/LogOutput.log. These confirm registration and discovery, not successful feeding.

An item will not enter the trough: confirm its creature or food prefab has loaded and its current diet contains that item. Creature names and item names displayed in the UI can differ from prefab names. The helper does not treat everything called meat or vegetable as food.

An animal will not eat: check its hunger, diet and CoreWoodExtras range. Alerts and normal feeding conditions still apply. One trough may contain several species' foods, but each animal needs a matching item.

After updating CoreWoodExtras: INACTIVE: trough compatibility was not applied means the reviewed binary or methods no longer match. Original behavior continues. Do not assume the helper is working merely because it appears in the mod list.

Validation: 51 offline food-policy and installed-binary checks passed. Version 0.1.2 loaded on the client and dedicated server, accepted a player connection and synchronized its settings on 23 September 2026 with Valheim 1.0.15. The packaged DLL matches both installations. The session only joined and quit: actual feeding, food consumption and multiplayer ownership changes were not tested for this version. Earlier 0.1.1 feeding tests do not validate the new optional rules. Back up your save before trying new diets.

CREDITS

Created by Vercadi as an independent compatibility add-on. Thanks to MagicMike for CoreWoodExtras and shudnal for ConditionalConfigSync. Their binaries and game assemblies 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.

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