PortalHeim SG1

Turn Valheim's wooden portals into ancient stone ring gates, then dial any gate you know from a menu or the map.

Every portal becomes a ring of carved stone with nine glowing Chevrunes and a turning inner ring of Elder Futhark runes. Walk up to a connected gate and it wakes up: the ring spins, the Chevrunes lock on one pair at a time, and the opening fills with a pool of rippling water. It's inspired by a certain famous gate, but built from Norse runes and a design of its own.

And it isn't only cosmetic. With the mod on your server too, you can dial any gate instead of pairing by name, see your gates on the map, carry ore and metal through, and pull your cart through with you.

Contents

• What you get
• Quick start
• Dialing any gate
• Carts and heavy loads
• Examples
• What needs the mod on the server
• Sounds
• Configuration
• Troubleshooting
• Works with

What you get

The gate

• A stone ring with an inner ring of rune carvings and nine Chevrunes around it.
• Start-up sequence: when someone walks up to a connected gate (at either end), the inner ring turns and the Chevrunes lock on in pairs, bottom to top, the top one last. They start as arrows and turn into glowing runes as they lock.
• A pool of water fills the opening once the gate is open, and drains away when everyone has gone. (Prefer the game's own swirl? Set Interior to Vanilla.)
• Dormant glow: a connected gate that nobody is near glows faintly, so you can tell it's live from across the base.
• Ramps and a sunk ring: the bottom of the ring sits at ground level and a gentle ramp on the front lets anyone walk in, even when overencumbered. (Want one on the back too? Set Look / BackRamp to true.)

The trip

• A long portal trip shows an endless swirling tunnel flying toward a bright light, with a deep bass loop, instead of the game's spinner.

The network

• Dial any gate you've visited from a menu at the gate, or by clicking its pin on the map.
• Set a home gate and dial it in one keypress.
• Carry anything through a portal, ore and metal included.
• Take your cart with you: it comes through and hooks back on.

Quick start

1. Install with Gale (or any Thunderstore mod manager). It needs BepInExPack_Valheim, which installs automatically.
2. Start the game. Every portal you see is now a ring gate. Existing portals change too, and nothing about them breaks: names, pairs and destinations are exactly as they were.
3. Optional but recommended: install the mod on your server (or the game you host) as well, to turn on dialing, gate pins and carts. See what needs the mod on the server.

That's all for the new look: there's nothing to build or craft. Portals are built from the Hammer exactly as before.

Dialing any gate

With the mod on the server too, you aren't limited to portals that share a name.

1. Walk up to a gate and press E (the normal use key). A window opens listing the gates you know, nearest first, with their distance.
2. Pick a gate and press Dial (or highlight it and press Enter). Both gates run their start-up sequence and open. Walk in.
3. The gate closes by itself about 15 seconds after the last player has left both gates. To close it sooner, use either gate (the one you dialed from, the one you dialed, or one that was set aside for the dial) and press Shift+E, or press E and click Hang up. Either end can hang up.

Home gate. Press Set home next to a gate. From then on it's highlighted first in the window, and Shift+E on any gate dials home straight away: the "I'm in a hurry" button.

On the map. Known gates appear on your map as a small gate icon (the powered-off gate, sunk in the ground with its ramp). In the dial window, click Pick on map: the map opens with a banner, and a click on any gate's icon dials it from the gate you're at (Esc cancels). You can also stand at a free gate, open the map yourself, and Shift+click a gate's icon. The map updates by itself whenever a gate is built, removed or renamed.

Which gates do I see? By default, only gates you've been near (within about 30 m) or built yourself, so exploring still matters. Each character remembers its own list. If you'd rather see every gate in the world, set Dialing / OnlyShowVisitedGates to false.

Paired gates work too. Portals that share a name still pair the way they always have, and walking through them works as usual. You can also dial from or to a paired gate: its old partner is set aside while the dial is open, and when the dial closes the original pair is put back exactly as it was. (Switch this off with Dialing / AllowDialingLinkedGates.)

Naming. Give each gate its own name so you can tell them apart in the list (use a gate, then Rename this gate). Gates sharing a name pair in twos at random, the way Valheim always has, which is confusing in a list. Unnamed gates pair with each other the same way, so name them all.

Carts and heavy loads

• No item limits. Valheim refuses to let you through a portal carrying ore, metal bars and a few other items. PortalHeim lifts that limit (Portals / AllowAllItems, on by default), so hauling a pack full of copper to the forge takes one step.
• Carts follow you. Pull a cart into a gate and it comes through with you and hooks back on, ready to keep pulling. You step out a few metres further from the gate than usual so the cart behind you isn't inside it (Portals / CartExitDistance).

Examples

A home gate network. Build a gate at your main base, name it Home, and press Set home. Build one at each outpost: Mines, Swamp, Plains, Boss altar. From any of them, Shift+E sends you home. From home, E and pick where to go. No more guessing which two portals share a name.

Hauling ore. Load a cart at the mine gate, pull it into the gate, dial Home and walk out the other side with the cart behind you. Unload at the smelter.

A quick escape. In trouble at an outpost? Shift+E on its gate dials home. (The gate closes again by itself once everyone has left.)

Keeping old pairs. You already have two pairs of gates named SG1. They keep working as two pairs. Dialing from one of them sets its partner aside until the dial closes, then puts the pair back as it was.

Playing alone. It all works in single player, with no server involved: the game is its own server.

What needs the mod on the server

Feature	Where it must be installed
Ring gate look, start-up sequence, water, sounds, ramps, travel tunnel	Your game only. Other players see normal portals (or their own look if they have the mod)
Carry any item through	Your game only
Dial any gate, gate list, gate map icons, carts follow you	Your game and the server (a dedicated server, or the host's game). Everyone who uses these needs it too

On a server without the mod, everything still looks and sounds the same on your side, but gates behave as in vanilla: no dialing, no gate pins, carts stay behind. Nothing breaks. If you host from your own game, you and your friends all need the mod for dialing. A dedicated server needs BepInEx with this mod installed.

Sounds

Gate sounds are included: a heavy thud for each Chevrune, a stone scrape as the ring turns, a deep rumble and splash as the gate opens, a low hum while it's open, a whoosh when you step through, and a power-down when it shuts. They're mixes of free public-domain (CC0) recordings and sounds made for this mod (credits below).

Want your own? Put clips (.ogg, .wav or .mp3) in BepInEx/config/PortalHeim_SG1/sounds/, named for the moment they play. A file there replaces the included one. Restart the game after adding files.

File	Plays when
chevrune	each Chevrune locks
spin	the inner ring turns
activate	the gate opens
idle	the open gate hums (loops; replaces the game's own hum)
teleport	someone steps through
close	the gate shuts down
travel	the music that loops while you're in the portal tunnel (the loading screen for a long trip)
travelfx	optional: a second sound layered under it (loops); none ships

More free sounds

All CC0 (public domain), none from any show:

• 100 CC0 SFX #2 by rubberduck: stones, metal hits, doors, switches, air flowing, and loops including flowing water.
• Metal Impact Sounds by BMacZero: thuds and clinks.
• 6 Short Water Splashes by ezwa: splashes.
• Various Sound Effects by Luka Aleksic: includes grind_stone, lock and door sounds.
• Sci-Fi Sounds by Kenney: 70 sci-fi and engine sounds.

Credits for the included sounds

Built from CC0 recordings by rubberduck (100 CC0 SFX #2), BMacZero / Brian MacIntosh (Metal Impact Sounds) and ezwa (6 Short Water Splashes, cut by qubodup from public-domain recordings), plus sounds synthesized for this mod. The travel sound is "Deepbassloop80bpm" by deep into perspectives, CC0. Details in sounds/CREDITS.txt.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/mbaya.PortalHeimSG1.cfg, or Gale's config editor:

Key	Default	Notes
Look / Reskin	true	Set to false to keep ordinary portals
Look / ChevruneColor	orange	Glow colour of a locked Chevrune
Look / Ramps	true	A gentle ramp up to the portal's base on the front
Look / RampDepth	1.0	How far below the base the ramp starts (m). Deeper also runs it further out, so it meets the ground even where the ground falls away
Look / BackRamp	false	Also add a ramp on the back
Look / SinkRing	true	The ring sits low so the opening is level with the ground
Look / DormantGlow	0.3	How brightly a connected but idle gate's Chevrunes glow (0 = dark)
Look / SecondsPerChevrune	0.5	Seconds between start-up steps (five steps: bottom pair, then up the sides, top last)
Look / TravelScreen	Tunnel	Tunnel = endless swirling tunnel, Gate = a miniature gate, Vanilla = the game's own spinner (reload a world to apply)
Look / Interior	Water	Water = rippling pool, Vanilla = the portal's own swirl
Look / Shading	PortalShader	If the ring looks wrong or is missing, try Standard (restart the game)
Portals / ActivationRange	3	How close you must be (metres) before a portal wakes up. The game's own is 5
Portals / AllowAllItems	true	Carry ore, metal and other normally blocked items through portals
Portals / CartsFollow	true	A cart you are pulling comes through with you (needs the mod on the server)
Portals / CartExitDistance	5.5	Extra metres from the gate you come out when pulling a cart
Dialing / Enabled	true	Dialing on or off (set it on the server to switch it off for everyone)
Dialing / AllowDialingLinkedGates	true	Paired gates can be dialed from or to; the old partner is set aside until the dial closes
Dialing / OnlyShowVisitedGates	true	false lists and pins every gate in the world
Dialing / ShowGatePins	true	Gate pins on the map
Dialing / GateIconOnMap	true	Mark gates with the mod's own gate icon
Dialing / PinIcon	Icon4	Built-in map icon used when GateIconOnMap is off
Dialing / CloseAfterIdleSeconds	15	Server: a dialed gate closes this long after the last player leaves
Dialing / MaxOpenSeconds	300	Server: a dialed gate always closes after this long
Dialing / DialRange	15	Server: how close you must be to a gate to dial from it
Dialing / KeepOpenRange	15	Server: a dialed gate stays open while a player is this close to either gate
Sound / TravelSounds	true	The bass loop on the portal-travel loading screen
Sound / TravelMusicVolume	0.75	Volume of the travel music (already played at half its earlier level)
Sound / TravelEffectVolume	0.5	Volume of an optional second travelfx layer (none ships)
Sound / ChevruneThuds	true	Play a thud as each chevrune locks (set false to switch it off on every gate)
Sound / OpeningSound	true	Play the gate-opening rumble and splash (set false to switch it off on every gate)
Sound / IncomingGate	Burst	What an incoming gate sounds like: Burst = one chevrune thud together with the opening sound as it opens, Silent = nothing, Normal = the whole sequence
Sound / UseBundledSounds	true	Turn off the included sounds (restart the game)
Sound / Volume	1.0	Also follows the game's sound-effects volume
Diagnostics / PreviewKey	F8	Stand near a gate and press it to replay the opening sequence and sounds
Diagnostics / ShowStatusMessage	false	Show the one-line status on screen a few seconds after you spawn (it's always written to the log; it shows on screen anyway if something goes wrong)

Troubleshooting

• Portals look the same as before. Check that the mod is in the profile you launch from. A few seconds after you spawn, a status line is written to BepInEx/LogOutput.log saying how many portals are gates and whether the water and sounds loaded (set Diagnostics / ShowStatusMessage to true to see it on screen). If the ring is missing or looks wrong, set Look / Shading to Standard and restart.
• No water in the gate. The water only shows while a gate is live: someone standing at either end. Stand next to it, or press F8 to replay the opening sequence.
• Pressing E still opens the old naming box. The mod isn't on the server (or the server hasn't answered yet; give it a few seconds after spawning). Gates paired by name behave the old way when Dialing / AllowDialingLinkedGates is off.
• The dial list is empty or missing a gate. By default you only see gates you've been near or built. Walk past it once, or set Dialing / OnlyShowVisitedGates to false.
• Two gates share a name and won't dial. Gates sharing a name pair in twos at random. Rename each one so it's unique.
• Something else. Open an issue at github.com/mattbaya/PortalHeim-SG1 and attach BepInEx/LogOutput.log. The mod logs each dial and the server handshake there.

Works with

• Bag O' Heim: its Bag O' Portals carries two portals' worth of materials, so you can drop a new gate anywhere. A pack holding ore no longer blocks portals when PortalHeim is installed.
• GearHeim: switch to your "Mining" loadout, step through a gate to the mine.
• Other mods that change how portals behave may conflict with dialing, and ones that only change their look may fight over the visuals. If something misbehaves, open an issue and say which mod.