TameMate — Companion & Riding Overhaul

TameMate turns domesticated creatures into persistent companions that can be commanded, trained, grouped and ridden. It works from creature capabilities instead of a fixed species list, allowing compatible creatures from other mods to participate.

Current Release — 0.4.4 (Visual Tier Overhaul, Predatory Scale & Humanoid Equipment)

Version 0.4.4 makes creature tiers instantly unmistakable from a distance and menacing in close combat:

• Massive Volumetric Flame Aura: Expanded flame radiance (6.5m up to 28m) with high intensity and living organic flicker (Mathf.Sin/Mathf.Cos) centered on creature cores.
• Native Valheim Particle Systems (Zero Missing Shaders): Tier-specific VFX directly from ObjectDB (Alpha/Apex flame sparks, Frostborn/Ancestral frost mist, Astral Eitr spirits, Infernal magma embers, Cataclysmic storm elements, Supreme divine shields).
• Physical Scale & Predatory Proportions: Distinct physical bulk (+22% to +185% scale) and elongated upper limbs/hands (+35%) creating an imposing apex-predator silhouette.
• Humanoid Tier Armors & Weapons (VisEquipment): Humanoid creatures (Skeletons, Draugr, Fulings) visibly equip tier-appropriate helmets, shields, and cloaks (Bronze, Iron, Drake, Padded, Mage, and Flametal sets).
• 4-Attribute Danger Scaling: Tiers actively scale Max Health (+35% to +450%), Damage (+25% to +350% with elements), Damage Reduction (10% to 60%), and Speed (+10% to +50%) on top of stars.
• 10 Biome Tiers & Boss Ascension: Ecosystem matrix across all 8 Valheim biomes with permanent biome awakening when world bosses are defeated.
• Ocean Proximity & Sea Predators: Dynamic coastal adaptations for serpents and aquatic predators hunting ships up to 65m.
• Intelligence-Based Bestiary: Telemetry (diet, minutes remaining, exact food portions) scaled by EpicMMO Intellect.
• Evolution Essences & Elixirs: Alpha Blood, Apex Essence, and Cataclysmic Core crafted into ascension elixirs.
• EpicMMOSystem, Seasonality & WorldCataclysms Integration: Native seasonal bonuses, cataclysm storm mutations, and bidirectional XP sharing.

Commands and behavior

Press U to open or close the companion whistle wheel. The wheel can be controlled in either of these ways:

• Move the mouse toward an option and press right click.
• Use the arrow keys to change the highlighted option and press Enter.
• Press number keys 1–8 to choose the matching position directly.
• Press Escape or U to close the wheel.

Every wheel position now displays its number from 1 through 8, so keyboard selection never requires counting hidden slots.

U is recognized even when an older TameMate configuration still contains the previous shortcut.

• Look at one companion to command it individually.
• Look away to command nearby companions.
• Use Group and scope inside the wheel to choose one companion, nearby companions or a selected group.
• Assign the selected creature to groups 1–8 from the wheel. Group 0 removes it from a numbered group.
• Use the wheel's internal pages for orders, behavior, formations, attributes and riding. No modifier keys are required.

Movement page:

• Follow me
• Stay
• Move there
• Attack the marked target
• Guard this position
• Return home
• Patrol between home and the marked point

Mount is available directly from the main page.

Behavior page:

• Passive
• Flee
• Defensive
• Neutral
• Aggressive
• Cancel attack
• Back
• Close

Available formations are free, wedge, line and circle.

Attack searches around both the marked point and the companion, then keeps the moving target until it is no longer valid. Defensive receives the actual attacker from Valheim's damage event, while Aggressive searches for a nearby target. For creatures added by mods, TameMate restores a committed target after Valheim's native faction validation so the same AI update can continue into pursuit and attack. Active Attack, Defensive and Aggressive combat suppresses fire fear; explicit movement orders also continue to be enforced while a companion is hungry or frightened.

ARK-style whistles

Issuing a wheel command produces an audible whistle. Follow, stay, move, attack and regroup use distinct whistle patterns so players can recognize the order by sound. The whistle and command are synchronized in multiplayer and only play for players within hearing distance.

Progression

Companions earn experience from combat, mounted travel and reduced group sharing. TameMate levels are separate from Valheim stars.

Each level awards one point for:

• Health: +5% per point
• Mount stamina: +5%
• Damage: +3%
• Defense: +2%, capped
• Speed: +1%, capped at +10%
• Food duration: +4%

The radial Attributes page keeps the selected companion locked while navigating. It displays companion level, total XP, available points and the current value of Health, Mount Stamina, Damage, Defense, Speed and Food Duration. Spending a point keeps the page open for additional upgrades. Looking directly at a companion adds health, level, XP progress, available points, behavior, order, group, all six attributes and environmental exposure to Valheim's normal creature text.

10 Biome Tiers (ARK Supreme Architecture)

Creatures naturally scale across a 10-tier hierarchy aligned with Valheim's 8 biomes, climatic events, and world bosses:

• Tier 1 (Feral): Meadows / Praderas.
• Tier 2 (Alpha): Black Forest / Bosque Negro.
• Tier 3 (Apex): Swamp / Pantano (and colossal beasts: Trolls, Lox, Abominations, Serpents).
• Tier 4 (Frostborn): Mountain / Montaña & Ocean.
• Tier 5 (Primal): Plains / Planicies.
• Tier 6 (Astral): Mistlands / Tierras Brumosas (Infused with Eitr energy).
• Tier 7 (Infernal): Ashlands / Tierras de Ceniza.
• Tier 8 (Ancestral): Deep North / Norte Profundo.
• Tier 9 (Cataclísmico): Awakened by outdoor cataclysmic storms or mutated via Elemental Elixir.
• Tier 10 (Supreme): BiomeLords and World Bosses.

Combat Advantages: Superior tiers deal +15% bonus damage per tier difference over their target and mitigate incoming damage by +10% per tier advantage. Stars (Vanilla or Smoothbrain's CLLC) elevate natural tier by +1 per star.

Dynamic Intelligence-Based Bestiary

Hovering over wild creatures reveals valuable taming telemetry based on the player's EpicMMO Intellect stat:

• < 5 Intellect: Displays creature tier badge.
• 5+ Intellect: Identifies the creature's accepted diet (all valid taming food).
• 12+ Intellect: Analyzes real-time taming progress percentage and estimated minutes remaining.
• 20+ Intellect: Master zoologist breakdown displaying the exact number of food rations needed to complete taming.

Evolution Essences & Ascension Elixirs

Evolve companions seamlessly through simple, frictionless materials dropped by tiers and crafted at workbenches and cauldrons:

Dropped Essences

• Sangre Alpha (TM_AlphaBlood): Concentrated life essence dropped by Tier 2+ Alpha beasts (50% drop rate).
• Esencia Apex (TM_ApexEssence): Pure titan force dropped by Tier 3+ Apex colossi (Trolls, Lox, Serpents) (65% drop rate).
• Núcleo Cataclísmico (TM_CataclysmicCore): Raw primordial energy dropped by surviving beasts of active cataclysms (100% drop rate).

Ascension Elixirs & Recipes

• Elixir de Ascensión Alpha (TM_Elixir_Alpha):
  • Station: Workbench Lv. 1
  • Recipe: 2x Sangre Alpha + 4x Frambuesas (Raspberries).
  • Effect: Promotes companion to Tier Alpha (+20% damage, +25% max health).
• Elixir de Ascensión Apex (TM_Elixir_Apex):
  • Station: Cauldron Lv. 1
  • Recipe: 2x Esencia Apex + 2x Sangre Alpha.
  • Effect: Promotes companion to Tier Apex (+30% damage, +35% max health).
• Elixir Cataclísmico Infundido (TM_Elixir_Elemental):
  • Station: Cauldron Lv. 1
  • Recipe: 1x Núcleo Cataclísmico + 1x Elixir de Ascensión Apex.
  • Effect: Mutates companion permanently to Tier Cataclísmico (+25% pure elemental damage matching current season/storm, and complete immunity to extreme weather).

How to Use:

1. Via Hotbar: Place the elixir in your hotbar (slots 1–8), aim at your tamed companion, and press the number key.
2. Via Interaction: Carry the elixir in your inventory, look at your companion, and press E when the golden evolution prompt appears. All evolved tiers are saved permanently in the creature's ZDO and preserved inside PortablePals Pal Stones.

EpicMMO & Seasonality Synergy

• EpicMMOSystem: Shared XP between player and companion (companion kills grant player EpicMMO EXP; player kills grant companion TameMate XP). Player attributes directly enhance companion capabilities:
  • Strength: Up to +75% companion physical damage.
  • Body: Up to +40% companion defense.
  • Agility: Up to +25% companion movement & mount speed.
  • Intellect: Up to +60% companion elemental strike damage.
• Seasonality: Automatic seasonal adaptations:
  • Spring: +25% XP gain.
  • Summer: +10% mount speed and bonus fire damage.
  • Fall: +50% mounted loot collector radius.
  • Winter: Frost coat visual aura, cold immunity, +10% frost damage, and increased food consumption.

Riding

Eligible companions receive a functional invisible mount controller. Existing saddle controllers are retained while their separate visual renderers can be hidden for bareback riding. Creatures with a growth component are accepted once they are actually tamed and active.

The system uses Valheim's real riding controller for movement, network ownership and stamina. Primary and secondary mounted attacks use the attacks already present on the creature. Jumping and attacking consume mount stamina, camera distance adapts to creature size, and agile, standard and heavy mounts receive different acceleration and turning behavior. Press Z while mounted to toggle camera-directed aim. Compatible creatures already capable of flight use Space to ascend and Left Control to descend.

When RideOnTroll is installed, TameMate detects its troll controller. Choosing Mount from TameMate's wheel hands control to RideOnTroll's native mount system, preserving its troll movement, combat and platform behavior. TameMate recognizes the resulting rider state for mounted travel XP and automatic loot pickup without sending duplicate combat inputs. This was matched against RideOnTroll 1.0.3 from the supplied profile. RideOnTroll remains required for its special troll implementation.

Monstrum companions are handled through their real Tameable, MonsterAI and saddle capabilities. Its current documented rideable creatures include Razorback, Grizzly Bear, Prowler and Pridetusk Mammoth. Exact seat placement and animation quality still depend on the creature prefab and should be checked in game.

Mounted auto pickup

While riding, TameMate automatically collects nearby ground loot such as wood, stone, ores and creature drops. It uses the player's normal inventory and respects item pickup delay, available slots and items marked as non-auto-pickup. The default radius is 6 meters and can be configured between 2 and 10 meters.

Care

• Universal commandability for tamed creatures
• Taming and growth tuning
• Wild tameable creatures eat valid food from nearby player-built chests when no food is on the ground, advancing Valheim's real taming process
• Hungry domesticated creatures use the same chest system for healing and breeding
• Separate synchronized switches for wild and domesticated chest feeding, 2–30 meter range, and an optional food-only chest rule
• Companion recovery instead of permanent death
• Followers return through player teleports and portals
• Hover information compatible with other hover-text mods
• Persistent owner, home, order, group, formation, level and attributes

Companion map markers

Locally owned companions appear on the map with a gold paw marker labeled with their name and group. Positions update every two seconds and retain the last known location while the creature is unloaded. Trolls already tracked by RideOnTroll are not duplicated.

WorldCataclysms

WorldCataclysms is optional. When installed, companions show exposure in their normal hover text and receive event-specific movement, riding stamina and recovery penalties. Damage remains under WorldCataclysms authority to prevent duplicate hits.

• Hurricane: heavy movement and mount-control penalty
• Blizzard: cold movement and recovery penalty
• Toxic fog: health regeneration disabled while exposed
• Meteor shower: recovery and stamina penalty
• Tsunami: movement and exhaustion penalty
• Thunderstorm: wet movement penalty and normal lightning risk
• Magical aurora: calm and gradual recovery

Interiors protect companions. Natural damage resistances remain handled by Valheim and WorldCataclysms.

My Little UI

My Little UI is optional. TameMate adds companion details to Valheim's normal creature hover text and creates no separate screen panel, so it does not cover My Little UI, inventory or hotbars. It does not modify My Little UI's DLL or assets.

Better Tames and Better Riding

TameMate implements its own systems. During transition it detects Better Tames and Better Riding and logs a warning. Disable their overlapping functionality when testing TameMate to avoid duplicate commands, feeding, protection or mount controls.

Creature content mods remain installed because they provide their own models, prefabs, sounds and attacks.

Test console commands

Look at a tamed companion before using these commands:

tm status
tm claim
tm mount
tm group 1
tm order follow
tm order stay
tm stance passive
tm stance aggressive
tm xp 500

tm xp requires the server or an administrator.

Multiplayer

Every player must install the same patch version. Gameplay configuration is synchronized through Jötunn. Orders, ownership, progression and attributes are persisted in the creature's network data.