NoVikingLeftBehind — the ultimate Valheim quality-of-life mod!

One install. Twenty-six modules. Zero arguments about config. NoVikingLeftBehind is the all-in-one quality-of-life mod for co-op Valheim: extra inventory slots, one-key loadouts, fist weapons with a shield, crafting straight from your chests, food that never decays, a compass back to your corpse, dual guardian powers, ore that grows back, portals that carry your metal — and a catch-up system that keeps the whole crew playing together even when half of them only get online on weekends. It replaces six other mods and plays nicely with the content mods you already run.

Every number below is a server setting, and every one of them can be changed while the server is running — save the cfg file and it applies within a second, no restart, no client re-download. The server enforces the settings, so nobody has to agree on config by hand.

Why it exists

For co-op groups where nobody can play every night. If half your crew is deep in iron and the other half only gets online on weekends, this mod stops the gap from turning into a wall — no more "the bronze crunch": ore mined out, the forge moved on, and the latecomer stuck ranging the coast for scraps of copper everyone else abandoned weeks ago.

How it thinks

The mod tracks the world's frontier: the highest boss your group has actually killed. Anything at or behind that frontier is "old news" and gets easier; anything at or ahead of it — the boss you haven't beaten yet — is untouched. Nobody is singled out as "behind"; the rule keys off the world's progress, not any one player's.

Concretely: your group kills the Elder. World tier ticks up to 2. Bronze (tier 1) is now behind the frontier, so all at once: bronze recipes and pieces cost half as much, smelters spit out double the bars per ore, portals stop refusing to carry it, mined-out copper and tin nodes grow back over time, and Haldor starts selling ingots of it. Iron — the new frontier — isn't touched at all. The mod never makes the leaders' game easier; it only softens the trail behind them.

Features by theme

Catching up

• TrailingTierDiscount — that iron cuirass costs half the ore it used to, the moment iron stops being your group's edge. Tune it: [Discount] CostMultiplier=0.5, ExtraPerTierBehind=0.0, MinAmount=1
• RichSmelting — drop copper in a behind-the-frontier smelter and watch it spit out twice the bars per ore; craft a bronze recipe and get double the yield per craft. Tune it: [Smelting] OutputMultiplier=2, RecipeYieldMultiplier=2
• FastMining — a behind-the-frontier vein melts under your pickaxe instead of eating your stamina bar. Tune it: [Mining] SpeedMultiplier=3.0, DropMultiplier=1.0, IgnoreToolTier=false, OreNodes="rock4_copper:1,rock4_copper_frac:1,MineRock_Tin:1,silvervein:3,silvervein_frac:3,MineRock_Obsidian:3,MineRock_Meteorite:4"
• OreRegrowth — that copper vein your group stripped bare a month ago is standing again next time someone new needs it, quietly regrown while nobody was near — and only once the whole vein is gone, never while a half-mined chunk of it is still standing. Tune it: [Regrowth] RegrowDays=7, CheckIntervalSec=60, MinPlayerDistance=64m, MaxPerTick=5, Prefabs="rock4_copper_frac:1:rock4_copper,silvervein_frac:3:silvervein,MineRock_Tin:1,MineRock_Obsidian:3,MineRock_Meteorite:4"
• TraderStock — Haldor has bronze and iron bars on his shelf now, not just the trinkets he's always sold, and only once your group has actually earned the right (boss-key gated). Tune it: [Trader] Items="Bronze:5:60,Iron:5:80,Silver:5:120,BlackMetal:5:150", TraderNames="Haldor"
• PortalTrail — that stack of iron you'd normally have to lug home on foot? Toss it through the portal like everything else — the newest tier still can't ride along, but everything behind it can. Tune it: [Portals] AllowBehindFrontier=true, ExtraTiersBehind=0, AlwaysAllow="", NeverAllow=""
• PlaytimeRubberBand — the friend who only logs in Sundays gathers and levels noticeably faster than the group's daily grinders, without anyone ever slowing down. Tune it: [Playtime] MaxBonus=1.0, MinGroupSize=3, WindowDays=14, GatherBonusEnabled=true, XpBonusEnabled=true
• GroupSkillCatchup — your one-hand sword skill climbs noticeably faster while it trails the group's best swordsman — and stops mattering once you catch up. Tune it: [SkillCatchup] Bonus=1.0, MaxFactor=3.0, WindowDays=14
• VanguardShadow — stand near your better-geared friend and feel it: hits land softer, XP ticks up faster, stamina comes back quicker — the moment you drift out of range, it's gone. Tune it: [Vanguard] Radius=20, TierGap=1, DamageReduction=0.25, XpBonus=0.5, StaminaRegen=0.2, RequireBehindFrontier=false

Combat & powers

• DualPowers — carry two Forsaken powers at once, each on its own cooldown, and hit G to fire the other one mid-fight instead of waiting out the first (the key is written on the second power icon, so you never have to guess). At a boss altar, interacting normally fills the first empty slot — hold Shift while interacting to put the power in slot 1 (F) instead, and the game tells you which slot and which key it landed on. nvlb.power clear 1|2 and nvlb.power swap fix a power in the wrong slot. Tune it: [Powers] Slots=2, IndependentCooldowns=true, CooldownMultiplier=1.0, local SecondSlotKey="G", local Slot1Modifier="LeftShift"
• Power HUD — every Forsaken power icon is drawn as a circle with a thin charge ring around it that fills as the cooldown recovers: full ring means ready, and every second CombatRecharge shaves off jumps the ring forward, so you can see the power charging while you fight. Built at runtime in Valheim's own parchment gold — no extra downloads, no flashy overlay, and the vanilla icon and cooldown text are untouched underneath. Tune it: local [Powers] RoundIcons=true, CooldownRing=true, RingThickness=4, RingColor="E6C88AD9", RingTrackColor="00000066"
• CombatRecharge — every hit you land or take visibly chips seconds off your power's cooldown bar, so a hard fight brings your power back around, not the clock. Watch the charge ring on the icon jump forward with each hit. Tune it: [Recharge] SecondsPerHitDealt=2, SecondsPerHitTaken=3, MaxPerSecond=10, AffectAllSlots=true
• FistsAndShields — put the Flesh Rippers (or Hugo's bronze knuckles) in one hand and a shield in the other. Vanilla calls every fist weapon two-handed, so equipping one drops your shield — even though bare fists and a shield have always worked fine together. Now they don't fight each other, and a torch will sit in your off-hand too. Tune it: [Fists] ExtraPrefabs="", ExcludePrefabs=""

Inventory

• ExtraSlots — dedicated slots for helmet/chest/legs/cape, two utility slots (Megingjord + Wishbone together), three auto-eating food slots, two ammo slots, and two generic slots for whatever doesn't fit anywhere else — all extra real estate outside your main bag, so it never eats into carry space. Stored outside the vanilla save package (a vanilla client or tool can't delete them), with 3 rolling backups and a rescue path for characters migrating off shudnal's ExtraSlots. Tune it: [Slots] EquipmentSlots=true, UtilitySlots=2, FoodSlots=3, AmmoSlots=2, GenericSlots=2, QuickSlots=0, AutoEatFromFoodSlots=true
• Loadouts — hold Ctrl and tap V to save your current weapon+shield, then just tap V later to snap both back into your hands mid-fight without opening the inventory. Tune it: [Loadouts] Slots=2, local Loadout1Key="V", Loadout2Key="B", SaveModifier="LeftControl"
• CraftFromChests — stand at the forge near your storage wall and craft straight through it — no more running back and forth for one more bar. The stone oven bakes straight out of the chests too, while meat racks never pull, so the raw meat you stashed for a recipe is still there when you go looking for it. Tune it: [Chests] Range=20, PullForCrafting=true, PullForBuilding=true, PullForSmelters=true, PullForFires=true, PullForCookingStations=false, PullForOvens=true, OvenPrefabs="piece_oven", local ToggleKey="LeftAlt+O"

Survival & world

• FoodNoDecay — that meal you ate ten minutes ago is still giving you full health and stamina right up until it actually runs out, instead of quietly fading the whole time. Tune it: [Food] KeepFraction=1.0, HidePulse=true, PulseBelowSeconds=0
• LongFires — load the hearth once and it's still burning hours later; your hand torch barely loses any charge on a long cave crawl. Tune it: [Fires] FuelDurationMultiplier=5, HandTorchDurabilityMultiplier=5, InfiniteFuel=false
• CorpseRunPlus — five things that make dying suck less: a HUD compass points straight at your grave so you're never guessing; you respawn with a meal already eaten and Rested already running; Grave Pull boosts your stamina regen the farther you are from your loot, easing off as you close in; and vanilla's own Corpse Run buff scales up the farther your grave was from home, so a death way out in the mountains actually helps on the long walk back. Tune it: [CorpseRun] CompassEnabled=true, RespawnRestedEnabled=true (RestedMinutes=10), RespawnFoodEnabled=true (RespawnFoods="Bread"), PullEnabled=true (PullMinDistance=50m, PullFullDistance=1000m), ScaledEnabled=true (ScaledDurationPer100m=0.2) The grave marker is an off-screen waypoint: it sits on your corpse while the corpse is on screen and slides to the edge of the screen in its direction when it is not, so it only points dead ahead when you are actually walking at it. Hold Delete for a second and a half to dismiss a grave you have given up on, no console needed.

Server-side knobs that need no client mod

• ServerKeys — the admin-only dials every server owner reaches for on day one: skill XP rate, how much skill you lose on death, free build/craft, unlockable recipes without a workbench — applied to the world itself, so even a vanilla client feels the effect. Tune it: [ServerKeys] SkillGainRate=1.0, SkillReductionRate=1.0, NoBuildCost=false, NoCraftCost=false, AllRecipesUnlocked=false, DeathKeepEquip=false

Customize everything

Every setting above lives in one file on the server: Nosferatu.NoVikingLeftBehind.cfg, generated the first time the server boots with the mod installed. Edit it in a text editor, save, and the change is live within a second — no restart, no re-download for players, because ServerSync pushes the new values to every connected client automatically. The one exception: flipping a module's Enabled line from off to on needs a server restart to install that module's patches (turning one off is instant, same as everything else).

A handful of settings are deliberately local, not server-synced — hotkeys and HUD panel offsets for ExtraSlots, Loadouts and CorpseRunPlus — because those are about your keyboard and your screen, not the group's rules.

A real excerpt of the cfg:

[Discount]
CostMultiplier = 0.5

[Regrowth]
RegrowDays = 7

[Slots]
FoodSlots = 3

[CorpseRun]
RestedMinutes = 10

Two console commands round it out: nvlb.status (client) prints the live world tier and every module's current settings, and nvlb.slots.restore rolls your ExtraSlots storage back to one of its automatic backups if something ever looks wrong.

On a private test server the admin can add [Debug] AllowTestCommands = true to unlock three helper commands for connected players - nvlb.give, nvlb.power and nvlb.tier - which a dedicated server's console otherwise refuses; it is off by default, so nobody can hand themselves items.

Install

Players — install via r2modman or the in-game Thunderstore mod manager (Online tab): search NoVikingLeftBehind under the Valheim community and install it into your profile. First, remove any of the mods it replaces from that profile: SkillGainModifier, SmartSkills, AzuCraftyBoxes, ExtraSlots, ConditionalConfigSync, YamlDotNet. Join the server — if EnforceClientMod is on, r2modman keeps you version-matched automatically.

Server admins — unzip the whole Thunderstore package contents into BepInEx/plugins/NoVikingLeftBehind/ on the dedicated server (depends on BepInExPack_Valheim 5.4.2333). Start the server once to generate the cfg, then edit it to taste. [General] EnforceClientMod (default on) rejects any connecting client that isn't running a matching version — turn it off to let vanilla clients join alongside modded ones (they just won't see the client-side features).

FAQ

• Can a vanilla client join? Not while EnforceClientMod is on — the server rejects it with an explanatory message. Turn that setting off if you want to allow vanilla clients in.
• Will my items in the extra inventory slots survive a crash or a bad update? Yes — they live outside the vanilla save package entirely, with 3 rolling automatic backups and nvlb.slots.restore to roll back if anything looks off.
• Does it work alongside content mods, like a Jotunn item/creature pack? Yes — NoVikingLeftBehind never touches prefabs, items, or creatures; it patches vanilla behavior (costs, yields, mining speed, cooldowns, and so on) and stays out of content mods' way.

Credits & license

MIT licensed. ServerSync by blaxxun-boop (MIT-0), vendored as source. CraftFromChests adapts container-pulling logic from AzuCraftyBoxes by Azumatt (MIT-0). ExtraSlots' panel UI is adapted from shudnal/ExtraSlots (Unlicense / public domain). Full details in THIRD_PARTY.md.

Source & issues: https://github.com/MJensen01/NoVikingLeftBehind

Sibling mod, server-tuning focused: SmoothServer.