IdleBeasts

Idle tame animals rest instead of wandering, and tame creatures far from every player get fewer updates, so a base full of animals costs the game less.

Every loaded creature normally thinks and moves 20 to 50 times a second, even when it is just standing in a pen. With dozens of animals that adds up and lowers the frame rate. IdleBeasts lets animals rest while nobody is near and wakes them the moment anything happens. In tests with about 170 creatures loaded, the game spent about half as much time on creatures and ran about 7 FPS faster.

Features

• Resting animals. A tame animal that has had nothing to do for 5 seconds, with every player more than 20 m away and no enemy within 30 m, stops wandering and rests. It stands still, and its thinking and body update about once a second instead of 20 to 50 times.
• Wakes at once. A resting animal wakes when a player comes within 20 m, an enemy shows up, or it is hurt, ridden, told to follow or goes for food. Eating and breeding work as usual. Animals that are swimming, flying, on a ship or were hurt in the last 10 seconds don't rest.
• Far creatures. Tame creatures more than 50 m from every player, and not fighting, hunting, alerted, ridden or following anyone, think and move less often. Nobody is close enough to see the difference.
• Wild creatures left alone. By default wild creatures always run at full speed. Turning off Tamed only slows far wild creatures too; only tame animals ever rest.
• A rule for each creature. Every creature has its own setting: Default, Never, RestOnly or FarOnly. Bosses are Never by default.
• Built-in test and live numbers. A console command measures creature update time and frame rate with the mod off and on, and an optional line on screen shows the numbers live.

How to use

IdleBeasts works on its own once installed. To see what it does on your PC:

1. Go to your animals, press F5 for the console and type idlebeasts test (Tab completes the options).
2. Stay where you are: the test runs 13 seconds with the mod off, then 25 seconds with it on (15 to settle, 10 measured).
3. Read the result: the time per frame spent on creature updates, and the frame rate, for both halves. It also goes to BepInEx/LogOutput.log and the report file.

Console command	Action
idlebeasts	Shows the current numbers and the last test
idlebeasts test	Measures with the mod off and on
idlebeasts report	Writes BepInEx/config/anwo.IdleBeasts.report.txt: every kind of creature seen, how many are loaded, resting or slowed, and its rule
idlebeasts off / on	Turns the mod off or back on, on your PC only, until you restart (the Enabled setting stays as it is)
idlebeasts wake	Wakes every resting animal

Turn on Show stats to see live in the bottom right corner how many creatures rest or are slowed, and the time spent on creature updates.

Three runs of idlebeasts test in one base in Valheim 1.0.17:

Run	Creatures loaded (run by this PC)	Creature updates, mod off	Mod on	Frame rate, mod off	Mod on
1	171 (113)	6.7 ms	3.1 ms	26 FPS	33 FPS
2	172 (113)	5.2 ms	2.1 ms	32 FPS	41 FPS
3	165 (60)	2.3 ms	1.6 ms	61 FPS	67 FPS
Average		4.7 ms	2.2 ms (-53%)	40 FPS	47 FPS (+18%)

"Creature updates" is the time per frame the game spends thinking, moving and animating creatures. The more of the animals your own PC runs, the bigger the gain. Results depend on the base and the PC.

Configuration

Settings are in BepInEx/config/anwo.IdleBeasts.cfg and can be changed in game with a configuration manager.

1 - General

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
Enabled	true	Server	Rests idle tame animals and slows far creatures. Off: every animal wakes and runs as in the game
Tamed only	true	Server	Only tame creatures are slowed when far. Off: far wild creatures are slowed too (saves more; they act less often while nobody is near)

2 - Resting animals

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
Rest when idle	true	Server	Idle tame animals with nobody near stop wandering and rest
Wake distance	20	Server	Animals rest only while every player is further away, and wake when one comes this close, in metres (3-60)
Enemy distance	30	Server	An enemy this close wakes resting animals, in metres (5-100)
Idle seconds	5	Server	How long an animal must have nothing to do before it settles (1-120)
Only in pens	false	Server	Only animals inside a PenPosts pen rest (without PenPosts, none rest)
Resting turn every	1	Server	Seconds between a resting animal's turns, when it checks for food and danger (0.25-5)

3 - Far creatures

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
Slow far creatures	true	Server	Creatures far from every player, and not busy, think and move less often
Far distance	50	Server	A creature further than this from every player counts as far, in metres (20-200)
Far AI every	0.25	Server	How often a far creature thinks, in seconds (0.05-2; the game: 0.05)
Far physics every Nth step	2	Server	A far creature moves on every Nth physics step (1-4; 1 = as in the game)
Far details every Nth frame	2	Server	Footsteps, foot placement, tails and smooth movement of far creatures on every Nth frame (1-4; 1 = as in the game)

4 - Look

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
Resting animation	Frozen	Client	How resting animals look on your screen: Frozen (no animation, cheapest), Slow (a few updates a second while in view) or Normal (saves less)
Slow animation rate	5	Client	Animation updates a second for resting animals with Slow (1-20)

5 - Creatures

One setting for every creature the game knows, including creatures from other mods, named after its prefab name (as in the game's files): for example Boar = Default or Eikthyr = Never. Training dummies, test creatures and short-lived summons get no setting and follow the default rule.

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
(one per creature), e.g. Boar	Default (bosses Never)	Server	Default: rests when tame and idle, slowed when far. Never: always full speed. RestOnly: rests, never slowed. FarOnly: never rests, slowed when far. Wild ones are only slowed with Tamed only off

6 - Diagnostics

Setting	Default	Scope	Description
Show stats	false	Client	Shows how many creatures rest or are slowed, and the time spent on creature updates, in the bottom right corner

Multiplayer

• Optional for each player. A player without IdleBeasts can still join, and the server doesn't need it. Where both the player and the server have it, the first two parts of the version must match (any 1.0.x with any 1.0.x).
• The host sets the rules. When the host or dedicated server has IdleBeasts, its Server settings apply to every player who has the mod. Look and Diagnostics are each player's own.
• Each game handles its own creatures. A player's game rests and slows the creatures it runs, judging distance by every player. On its own screen it also shows animals rested by another player's game as resting, and slows creatures far from that player. A dedicated server rests and slows nothing itself.

Compatibility

• PenPosts: Only in pens uses its pens.
• LetMeTameYou and PackBeasts work alongside it.
• Valheim Performance Overhaul: don't use both. It changes the same creature updates, and IdleBeasts warns in the log when both are installed.

Patches: the game's shared update loops (MonoUpdatersExtra) and idle wandering (BaseAI).

Uninstalling

IdleBeasts saves nothing the game needs, so it can be removed at any time; animals then wander as in the game. A report file, if written, stays in BepInEx/config.

About

Made with Claude (Anthropic's AI model) and tagged AI Generated, as Thunderstore's rules ask. Built for Valheim 1.0.17 (Deep North; also 1.0.16) with BepInEx 5.4.2351 and Jotunn 2.30.2.