Hey all, I've posted here a few times on my personal account, jumpingdead, most recently doing an AMA as a modder who's deep dived the code. (Thread: Unusual AMA – Unity Developer and Avid Valheim Modder )
The mod package is finally working and ready for download. After a dismal initial release where it didn't work for 80% of the people trying it due to a dll incompatibility issue. Of course there was. 🙂
I want to talk the mod up a bit more here because while many of ya'll don't play the game modded, I know many here do, and one of the things I have strived to do with my mods is to not break the game, or change the fundamental gameplay. I started modding because there were a few things that annoyed me, like autolooting hundreds of greydwarf eyes, pressing '3' to equip my mace and then punching a skeleton because I didn't realize I was already wielding my mace, or having to manually open the map and mark a cluster of berries with the same 5 map markers.
So I started making quality of life mods, things that removed annoyances or improved my level of fun, without changing the base game mechanics at all. God mode isn't any fun for me, playing the game in a way it wasn't intended isn't usually much fun either after a few minutes.
So thats where it started. From there it grew to performance improvements. I had a pretty controversial thread a few months back where I let loose a rant about how many CPU cycles were wasted endlessly redoing pointless things over and over. I set out to fix that and improve my framerate and lower my CPU fan speed without changing graphics settings.
Then someone complained about their tame wolves giving birth while out hunting, and the puppy either easily dying or just standing there while mom followed you away.
That spawned a mod that was initially to make a wolf pup follow it's mom, that turned into the puppies acting like puppies and playing, to wolves playing fetch with you. It kinda got out of hand. But "Puppy Mod!" is by far the most fun thing I've ever made for Vaheim.
Some questions in the AMA thread spawned other mods, like making Sunken Crypts fun to play by making the muddy scrap piles not such a slog to chop through, and spreading the iron out to the monsters in the crypts also. (Basically the same amount of iron per crypt, just more fun to raid)
It all culminated in being frustrated at mod managers not ever working just the way I wanted. Updates were not handled well, or at all. You'd need to manually return to sites like nexusmods to see if there were bug fixes or updates. And if you've never uploaded a mod to nexusmods, you don't know the horror of the 45 minute process that nightmare is.
So the mod manager was born, allowing automatic updates, mod browsing, installing and uninstalling directly inside Valheim, in game notifications of newly released mods, and more to come.
Yeah, passion project. Hey Iron Gate! What's up? Need a coder who's just a bit into your game? I may know a guy.
Anyway, listing of all the currently available mods is below. Link to the mod on nexusmods is right here, and also all the way at the bottom: UBG's Valheim Mod Collection
- Auto Planter (v1.4.0)
Adds some useful farming features, such as auto-planting in even rows, live 'is there enough space' feedback, and bulk harvesting.
- "Hey this doesn't suck as much now!" – Better Sunken Crypts (v1.0.0)
Improves the Sunken Crypt experience by making muddy scrap piles faster to pick through, and spreads the iron scrap out with a better distribution, dropping from killed mobs and body piles as well.
- CPU Saver (v0.4.1) [Experimental]
This mod incorporates many small features and tweaks designed to make the game run more efficiently and increase your framerate. See the documentation for full details.
Warning, Experimental Release: Installing and use of this mod could cause damage to your character or game world. Please ensure you have a good backup before using this mod. This mod has not been fully tested in all scenarios. Particularly, in very large bases, it may be possible for certain pieces of your structures to collapse. It's an infrequent bug that has not been addressed yet. Do not use this mod in a world where you require 100% stability. Things could break. No crying to us if it does.
- Custom Build Pieces (v1.2.0)
This mod adds a few new custom build pieces to the catalog. Check out the documentation (the scroll next to the mod name) for an up to date list.
- "Grow! Grow my sweet, sweet thistle!" – Elder Growth (v1.0.0)
This mod replaces the Elder's forsaken power with one much more useful and thematically appropriate, causing all nearby plants to grow. Trees get larger (and provide more wood), respawning plants (berries, mushrooms, thistle, etc) regrow, and planted crops instantly mature. And finally, for the 5 minute duration, planting crops with the cultivator uses 60% less stamina.
- Enhanced Autoloot (v1.0.0)
This adds options to not autoloot certain item types, including the ability to turn off their sparkle, make them invisible, auto delete them, or limit the total number in your inventory.
- Enhanced Signs & Chests (v2.0.0)
Adds a lot of useful features to signs and chests. Signs can be placed directly onto chests, aided by snap points. They can also be placed on the short edge of chests, and resized to fit. Chests can be snapped to other chests and to the center of floor pieces allowing precise alignment. Also adds the ability to make glowing blue and green signs.
- Excuse Me! (v1.0.0)
This mod will teach your tame animals to try and avoid each other and your avatar, having them attempt to walk around instead of ramming into (and pushing) you and each other. Usually. Crowded areas can start to look like a dance floor.
- Inventory Enhancers (v1.2.0)
Adds the ability to select which stacks resources are taken from when crafting (the default is smallest stack first), the ability to select a secondary ammo stack when your primary runs out, and allows the 2nd row of your inventory to also act as hotbar slots (hold [Alt] to swap to the second hotbar).
- "Name your pets!" – Leashes & Collars (v1.1.0)
Allows you to craft items for your tame animals, such as leashes to lead your animals about and through portals, collars to name and remember them by, and even dog whistle!
- "OMG, I'm gonna die of cute!" – Puppy Mod! (v1.6.2)
This mod adds a ton of fun for your wolves. Pups will now follow their mom, run about, and play. Pick them up to keep them safe! Mom's get some fun too and will play fetch!
- Refuse Pit (v1.0.0)
Adds the ability to create a refuse pit with the hoe tool. Any objects placed inside it will be destroyed and removed from the game.
- Silver Veins Collapse (v1.1.0)
This mod allows silver veins (and all future/harder veins) to collapse if they do not have support. See the documentation if you want the nerdy details.
- "Dude, where's my cart?!" – Smart Map Markers (v2.0.0)
The mod includes many new markers for your map. Pages of markers may be scrolled by clicking the arrows on the map, or by pressing [ or ]. Carts and boats are automatically marked where you leave them, and picking berries, thistle, mushrooms, etc, as well as mining silver and copper will all auto mark on the map. (You must actually pick up or mine at least one of the item for it to auto-mark)
- "Necklets?! Seriously?? Yass!" – Tameable Neck (v1.0.0)
This allows Neck to be tamed and bred. Rumor has it they really love to eat raw fish, serpent meat, yellow mushrooms and fishing bait. Install "Puppy Mod!" along side this and watch the little Necklets run about and play!
- Weapon Management (v2.0.1)
This mod has multiple functions, allowing weapons to be stowed on your back while wielding others, automatic swapping of weapons to your back when changing weapons, and linking weapons to shields so that when one is equipped the other is also, as well as a few other minor additions.
Download link for anyone who's gotten this far down the post: https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/1414