Valquake

Loki is thrashing, causing earthquakes all over Valheim!

Loki, bound in chains, is writhing in torment. His thrashings are causing small earthquakes all over Valheim.

Add random, localized earthquakes that shake and rumble, damage pieces, fell trees, heave and crack the ground and scatter creatures.

The quake area, amount of damage, effects of the quake, affected biomes and other behaviors are configurable.

IMPORTANT: See notes on Tuning Valquake below.

Read the WARNING before adding Valquake to an existing world. By default Allow Piece Destruction is disabled.

New

• Updated for Ashlands
• Updated piece damage and item stand visuals

Configuration

Biomes

Meadows: Earthquakes trigger in the Meadows.@

Swamp: Earthquakes trigger in the Swamp.@

Black Forest: Earthquakes trigger in the Black Forest.@

Mountains: Earthquakes trigger in the Mountains.@

Plains: Earthquakes trigger in the Plains.@

Mistlands: Earthquakes trigger in the Mistlands.@

Ashlands: Earthquakes trigger in the Ashlands.@

Deep North: Earthquakes trigger in the Deep North.@

Camera

Camera Sway Override: If enabled, will override Valheim's camera shake setting (just for quakes) and 'sway' camera. If disabled, will use Valheim's setting.

Camera Sway Intensity: Sets how much the camera 'sways'. Lower values will reduce the amount of camera movement.

Camera Sway Frequency: Sets how fast the camera 'sways'. Lower values will reduce how quickly the camera moves.

Control

A. Quake Radius: Radius (in meters) of the earthquake zone. Effects will diminish farther from the epicenter.@

B. Min Interval: Minimum possible time (in minutes) between earthquakes. Minimum value is 1.@

C. Max Interval: Maximum possible time (in minutes) between earthquakes. Value must be equal to or greater than Min Interval.@

D. Fault Zone Chance: The percent chance of a zone having a 'fault line'. Quakes will only create a fissure in a zone with a fault line. A value of 0% will prevent any fissures from forming.@

E. Max Piece Damage: The maximum damage that can be applied to pieces in the quake zone. A value of 0 will not apply any damage. Damage is attenuated by distance from the epicenter and degree of support.@

F. Max Tree Damage: The maximum damage that can be applied to trees in the quake zone. A value of 0 will not apply any damage. Damage is attenuated by distance from the epicenter.@

G. Max Fissure Depth: The maximum depth (in meters) of the fissure for the first quake along a fault line. Subsequent quakes along the same fault line are controlled by Successive Quake Depth as a percentage of this value.@

H. Successive Quake Depth: Sets the percent of the Max Fissure Depth to apply to each successive quake along the same fault line. A value of 0% will not deepen the fissure.@

I. Active Wards Reduce Damage: If enabled, an active ward will reduce damage to pieces if the quake epicenter is within the ward's area of protection.@

Effects

A. Show Dust: If enabled, will display a cloud of dust along the fault line during a quake. Only meaningful if Fault Zone Chance is > 0%.@

B. Creatures Scatter: If enabled, creatures close enough to quake zone will scatter for a short time.@

C. Staggering: If enabled, players and creatures may stagger during the quake while inside the quake zone.@

D. Allow Piece Destruction: If enabled, allows the full destruction of pieces during the quake (dropping materials). If disabled, pieces can only be reduced to 1 health.@

E. Piece Displacement Chance: The percent chance pieces are displaced in the horizontal plane during a quake. A value of 0 never displaces pieces.@

F. Items Can Fall: If enabled, things mounted on items stands can be shaken loose and fall during a quake.@

G. Things Can Move: If enabled, some 'active' things like carts & ships, will move along with the quake.@

Utility

LogLevel: Controls the level of information contained in the log

Settings with descriptions ending in "@" are server authoritative.

In-game reconfiguration

You can use Configuration Manager (or similar) mod to change the configuration without exiting the game, or change the config file manually.

Notes

• Camera Motion: Valquake uses camera motion to simulate the shaking & swaying effects of an earthquake. The 'shake' is more of an undulating motion than the combat impact shake in Valheim. Valquake will respect the Valheim 'camera shake', setting, but you can override that just for earthquake undulations with Camera Sway Override. You can also adjust the 'amount' of sway with Camera Sway Intensity and how fast it sways with Camera Sway Frequency.

• Videos in #clips-and-highlights on Discord

• If a player is close enough to a fissure's epicenter, there is one intense shake as the fissure is created, however this always uses Valheim's camera shake setting.

• Valquake is not hooked into the Valheim event system. It is independently controlled.

• Valquake does not currently save the time to the next quake across saves, so every player spawn 'restarts' the random event for that player.

• Every quake will reset all player's quake timers to a new future time.

• If you enable Allow Piece Destruction any non-living thing that can take hit damage (except ships, wagons and containers) will be destroyed if it reaches zero health. It will drop materials. If this is not enabled, pieces will stop taking damage once they reach 1 'health'. Note while containers are not subject to direct quake damage, if they fall due to the destruction of support pieces, they will break.

• Terrain will 'fissure' along 'fault lines' in the ground. Quakes will only affect terrain along these fault lines.

• Setting Fault Zone Chance greater than 0% determines the chance of a zone having a 'fault line'. This is not a random chance that a fissure will occur in that zone, but rather the chance that a zone has a fault line which will fissure during a quake. If a zone doesn't have a fault line, a quake will never cause a fissure in that zone. If you increase the value, more zones will have fault lines that fissure. You will never know if a zone has a fault line until there's a quake in that zone and it fissures (or not)

• You can control the amount fissures deepen with quakes (after the first one for each fault line) using Successive Quake Depth which is a percentage of the max depth.

• If Active Wards Reduce Damage is enabled, active wards will reduce damage to pieces if the quake epicenter is within the ward's area of protection. The amount of reduction depends on how far the ward is from the epicenter. Wards will not prevent full destruction however, and can be destroyed themselves.

• Pieces close to the epicenter will take up to the maximum configured damage. Damage drops off the farther the object is from the quake epicenter. Damage is also reduced by the amount of support a piece has. Pieces in direct contact with the ground (blue) will take substantially less damage than those precariously placed ones (red)

• It's not always obvious where the quake epicenter is located. Watch for falling and shaking trees, cracking ground, dust clouds, and listen to where the rumble is coming from.

• If you set Piece Displacement Chance greater than zero, shaken pieces may get 'displaced', i.e. slightly moved from their current locations. While this adds a bit of realism, it will make repairs more involved, since pieces will regain health on repair, but retain their displaced positions.

• You won't get staggered if you're crouching, sitting, or holding onto a ship.

• Right now, the length of a fissure is limited. Longer lengths are possible, but I'm still working on ironing out a few rendering oddities when fissures span across Valheim's map divisions.

• Currently, 'loose' logs on the ground do not roll with the quake. They'll be added in a future release once I get effect's visuals 'right'.

• Special thanks to abborre for correcting my mythological reference, and pointing me toward Loki's torment!

Tuning Valquake

• Valquake can be very destructive (as an earthquake should be) to structures and trees.

• It's suggested that you first 'tune' Valquake on a test world to ensure the effects of the quake fit with what you want to accomplish with this mod.

• You can trigger a quake manually from devcommands using the command 'valquake' (no quotes)

WARNING!

• If you add Valquake to an existing world with player-built structures, it's highly advisable to start with Allow Piece Destruction disabled. If a base happens to be located close enough to an epicenter, a quake with a high enough max damage can destroy most or all of the structures.

Compatibility issues & defects

• If you find a compatibility issue you can post it on NexusMods. Be sure to include the mod name and version you think may be incompatible.
• If you have a bug please report it on NexusMods. If you do post a bug report, please make sure to include the following:
  • Your version of this mod
  • What you were doing, or attempting to do when it happened
  • If it's repeatable - i.e., can you duplicate it?
  • The exact behavior you observed (or didn't observe)
  • A capture of the log file with errors (errors always begin with this mod's name) on Discord in #mod-help

You can find all Neobotics released mods on:

• Thunderstore: https://tinyurl.com/NeoboticsOnThunderstore
• Nexus Mods: https://tinyurl.com/NeoboticsOnNexus

Your comments and feedback are always welcome. Post on NexusMods or Discord: https://tinyurl.com/NeoboticsOnDiscord