Hearthlink

Multiplayer synchronization, faster portals, inventory safeguards, graphics optimizations and moving-ship reconnect support in one package.

Hearthlink helps make playing Valheim together smoother and more reliable. It uses your existing characters and worlds with Valheim's normal save files. No additional database is required.

Features

• More consistent multiplayer updates. Integrated networking adjusts update sending for each player's connection and prioritizes nearby world data. It is designed to reduce uneven updates and some common synchronization problems during multiplayer sessions.
• Recovery from interrupted world updates. When assembling or sending an update fails, affected objects remain eligible to be sent again in full. This helps prevent a failed update from leaving players with outdated world information.
• Faster portal travel. Removes the fixed departure and arrival waits by default and shortens portal screen transitions. The destination must still finish loading and pass Valheim's normal ground checks before you arrive.
• Faster portal pairing. Newly built or renamed portal pairs are checked more frequently, so valid matching portals can become usable sooner. Portal item restrictions and world settings still apply.
• Base Territory portal integration. With Base Territory 0.8.0 installed, travel started through its destination picker also benefits from Hearthlink's shorter waits and screen transitions. Base Territory provides the destination selection; Hearthlink handles the travel acceleration. Hearthlink also works without Base Territory.
• Safer inventory transfers. Failed item swaps can be rolled back, incomplete inventory loads are rejected, and outdated chest contents are prevented from overwriting newer data. These safeguards help reduce item loss during inventory operations and synchronization problems.
• Frequent inventory and position checkpoints. Saves changed inventory and your return position through Valheim's normal character-file writer, without repeatedly rebuilding or compressing the explored map. Unchanged inventory and position do not trigger extra writes. Your character's other small gameplay fields remain together with the inventory to keep the saved character consistent.
• Normal full saves for the map. Exploration and map pins are refreshed by Valheim's ordinary autosave, manual, sleep and exit saves. Lightweight checkpoints retain the map data from the last full save and leave the ordinary autosave clock running.
• World checkpoints for stored items. Additional host/server world saves preserve chests and persistent objects. They do not force every player to perform a full character/map save. Received changes to chests, buildings and portals are marked for the next world save.
• Reconnect support for moving ships. Attempts to return a reconnecting player to the same vessel, including when another player has continued sailing. Ship identity and reconnect state are checked before the restore is accepted.
• Graphics optimizations. Combines compatible rendering work while retaining gameplay objects and interactions. This can reduce rendering overhead around suitable structures and bases.
• Automatic installation of both components. The package includes the main plugin and the required startup patcher. Gale places both in their correct locations when you install the complete package.

Installation with Gale

1. Close Valheim. Select the Valheim profile you want to use in Gale.
2. Install Hearthlink from Hexium, or import the complete Hearthlink ZIP as a local mod.
3. Allow Gale to install the required BepInExPack_Valheim if it is not already present.
4. Enable Hearthlink in the profile and start Valheim using Gale's Start Modded button.
5. After an update, fully restart Valheim before playing.

No manual file copying is needed when installing with Gale. Both Hearthlink.dll and Hearthlink.Patcher.dll are included. Import the whole ZIP rather than selecting only the plugin DLL.

Multiplayer and dedicated servers

• Install the same Hearthlink version on every player and on the host or dedicated server.
• For a hosted game, the host needs Hearthlink as well as the joining players.
• A remote dedicated server needs its own installation. Installing into a player's Gale profile does not also update the server.
• Restart the server after installing or updating, because the patcher runs during startup.
• Keep item and content mods consistent between players and the server.

For a server or installation managed without Gale, install BepInExPack_Valheim first. Copy the package's plugins/Hearthlink.dll into BepInEx/plugins/Hearthlink/ and patchers/Hearthlink.Patcher.dll into BepInEx/patchers/Hearthlink/, then restart. Both DLLs are required.

Compatibility

Hearthlink already includes adapted networking, graphics and ship reconnect modules. Do not install these separate mods alongside it:

• FiresGhettoNetworking
• FiresEasyBakeMeshes
• Meshheim
• CharacterAnchor
• ServerCharacters — incompatible with this native-save edition.

Base Territory 0.8.0 is an optional integration. When using its destination picker, disable TargetPortal as required by Base Territory. Mods with their own inventory transfer or portal systems need separate compatibility testing.

Settings

The configuration files are created on first launch and can be edited with Gale's configuration editor.

• Portal travel: no extra fixed wait by default; an optional minimum wait can be set from 0 to 1 second.
• Inventory and position checkpoints: a 10-second minimum between extra saves, with a 30-second pending-checkpoint deadline. Movement of at least one metre from the last saved position also makes a checkpoint eligible. Saving waits until teleport/loading restrictions allow it. There are no extra writes while inventory and position are unchanged.
• Full character/map saves: Valheim's normal timing and manual, sleep and exit triggers. Successful full saves also satisfy the lightweight checkpoint.
• World checkpoints: every 120 seconds on the host/server by default, retained to reduce rollback exposure for stored items. Extra world checkpoints do not request full character/map saves from clients.
• Ship reconnect support: enabled by default.
• Updates from older releases: the 0.1.8 default 60/120-second character intervals migrate once to 10/30-second lightweight checkpoints. Earlier 10/30-second settings already match. Custom interval pairs are preserved.
• Configuration files: portal and graphics settings are in Hearthlink.Client.cfg, saving and reconnect settings in Hearthlink.Server.cfg, and advanced networking settings in Hearthlink.Advanced.cfg.

What to expect

• A destination that is still loading, a large base or a slow connection can make a portal trip take longer than one second. Hearthlink keeps destination and ground checks.
• Inventory safeguards and extra checkpoints reduce the risk of lost progress; they cannot recover every crash or disconnect. Characters and worlds are saved separately. Keep regular backups.
• Lightweight checkpoints remove repeated map refresh/compression from the frequent save path. Native cloud/local writes and large world captures can still pause; complete stutter-free play is not guaranteed. A crash can roll back map exploration since the last full save and inventory/position since the last successful checkpoint.
• If a chest is still synchronizing, close and reopen it after updates catch up. If an item mod is missing, restore the matching mod before loading the affected inventory.
• Release builds and offline checks have passed. Live dedicated-server gameplay, crash recovery and portal timings still require in-game acceptance testing.

Credits

Adapted source and project foundations

• Heimward / Heimward Native contributors — the original project foundation from which Hearthlink was developed.
• FiresGhettoNetworking, by fire-VA — adapted networking source and the foundation for Hearthlink's integrated network module.
• FiresEasyBakeMeshes and Meshheim contributors — rendering and batching source used by the integrated graphics module.
• CharacterAnchor contributors — the foundation for the ship reconnect module.
• Base Territory contributors — cooperation through the optional portal destination-picker integration.

Research and design inspiration

The following projects were studied when reviewing synchronization, native saving, ownership, compatibility and failure recovery. They are research references; listing them here does not mean their code or every feature is included in Hearthlink.

• Swmarly-Valheim-Networking, by Swmarly.
• ValheimTune, by Akoozie.
• SmoothServer, by MJensen01.
• Valheim-serverside, by Sergentval.
• Valheim-serverside, by ddormer.
• BetterNetworking, by CW-Jesse.
• Valheim Community Patch, by MidnightsFX.
• Avledet ServerAuthority, by Sergentval.

Required MIT notices for the incorporated source are included in LICENSE.txt. The Hearthlink artwork is new. Game, Unity, BepInEx and Harmony binaries are not bundled.