Valyn Earthlike Worlds

Procedural Map Generator for Valheim — Version 1.0.0

Generate original Valheim worlds with Earth-inspired continental structure: substantial landmasses, broad seas, islands, and climate influenced by latitude, moisture, and elevation. Your world seed determines the arrangement, so different seeds can produce connected continents, separated landmasses, and varied island groups.

The aim is natural-looking geography within Valheim's existing world, with the game's familiar biomes, creatures, resources, and terrain detail.

Similar to Better Continents

Valyn Earthlike Worlds is similar in purpose to Better Continents: both change Valheim's terrain and continent generation. This mod focuses on automatic, seed-based worlds with Earth-inspired continental structure and climate. Better Continents also provides image-map and map-authoring controls.

Better Continents is not required. Use one world-generation mod at a time; do not enable both together.

Features

• Seed-based continents and seas: varied continental arrangements with broad ocean routes and islands.
• Climate-influenced biomes: latitude, moisture, elevation, and distance help shape biome distribution, while retaining a protected starting region and progression-related distance gates.
• Native terrain detail: uses Valheim's elevation detail and biome terrain profiles, including mountainous high ground and lowland Swamps.
• Native waterways and content: retains the game's lake, river, stream, vegetation, resource, and location-placement routines. Placement results can vary with the seed and terrain.
• Upland frost: ground gradually frosts and transitions toward snow at higher elevations. Green decorative grass thins beneath snowy vegetation, while Meadows and Black Forest retain their biome identities.
• Expanded terrain editing: new worlds default to digging 16 metres down and raising 16 metres up, measured from the original generated ground.
• Settings saved per world: each generated world retains its terrain recipe and edit limits.
• Multiplayer recipe checks: the host shares the saved recipe before client terrain generation, with matching plugin versions required.
• Optional diagnostics: check active settings, survey terrain, or capture short frame-interval reports through console commands.

Release status and known behavior

1.0.0 is the initial public testing release. Terrain generation and the frost appearance have been exercised in single-player development testing. Multiplayer synchronization is implemented; live multiplayer and dedicated-server verification are still pending.

• First generation can take longer than normal. Allow extra time for a new world's terrain and location placement to finish.
• Occasional crashes have been observed while terrain is generating. Restart Valheim and reload the world to retry.
• Some island shores can have abrupt underwater drop-offs. Shore shape varies by seed.
• Local biome readings can disagree near some transitions. Report unusual boundaries or misplaced content with a position and screenshot.

Requirements

• Valheim. Development testing used 1.0.21; compatibility with other game versions is not established.
• BepInExPack for Valheim, dependency version 5.4.2360.
• The same version of this mod on the host/server and every player using a generated world.

BepInEx and game binaries are not bundled with this mod.

Installation

Thunderstore / r2modman

1. Install the mod and its BepInExPack dependency through your mod manager. For a downloaded package, use r2modman's local-mod import.
2. If upgrading from a development build, remove or disable its old package/loose DLL so only one copy is active.
3. Launch Valheim through the mod manager.
4. Create a new world with your chosen seed to use this generator.

Manual installation / Nexus

1. Install BepInExPack for Valheim.
2. Close the game and extract this mod's Nexus archive into the Valheim installation folder, merging its BepInEx folder with the existing one.
3. Confirm the plugin is at BepInEx/plugins/ValynWorldTerrain.dll and that only one copy is active.
4. Launch the game with BepInEx and create a new world.

The plugin and config keep their internal filenames for compatibility; the mod displays as Valyn Earthlike Worlds.

Worlds and saving

Installing the mod does not convert an existing unmarked vanilla world. Create a new world for the new generation.

Worlds generated by this mod depend on it: keep the mod installed whenever you open them. Keep a backup when changing game or mod versions.

Current-format worlds from private development builds can continue to load. Their saved terrain recipe and limits are retained. Retired development-world recipes are refused rather than silently converted; see the source/development notes if you need an archived build.

Configuration

After the first launch, settings are in:

BepInEx/config/valyn.valheim.worldterrain.cfg

Setting	Default	Effect
EnableForNewWorlds	true	Apply the generator when creating a new world.
DigDepthMeters	16	Maximum lowering below original generated ground.
RaiseHeightMeters	16	Maximum raising above original generated ground.

Example:

[Climate continents]
EnableForNewWorlds = true
DigDepthMeters = 16
RaiseHeightMeters = 16

Change settings while the game is closed. These values are saved when a new world is created; editing the config does not rewrite an existing world's terrain or limits. In multiplayer, the host's saved recipe controls the world.

The extended digging limit changes the ground surface; it does not add voxel tunneling or underground excavation mechanics.

Multiplayer

Install 1.0.0 on the host/server and every client. A development-version client cannot join a 1.0.0 generated-world host even when its saved terrain format is compatible.

For the initial MP test, start with a separate two-player world. Check joining, travel into new areas, terrain edits, building, mining, dungeon entry, reconnecting, and saving/reloading. Preserve logs from both players if anything differs. See TESTING.md in the source or release documentation.

Do not combine this generator with Better Continents, other terrain/world-generation replacements, or another mod that overrides digging/raising limits. Other combinations have not been exhaustively tested.

Optional console diagnostics

Command	Purpose
vt_status	Show the version, active world recipe, and saved edit limits.
vt_scan	Run a read-only coarse terrain survey and write a CSV report.
vt_scan_stop	Cancel an active terrain survey.
vt_perf	Capture about 30 seconds of frame intervals and GC counts; run again to finish early.

Reports are stored in BepInEx/config/ValynWorldTerrain/reports. A frame-interval report is not a CPU/GPU profiler. No scan is required for normal play.

Reporting a problem

Visit Valyn81 on Nexus Mods, open Valyn Earthlike Worlds, and use its Bugs tab or Posts section to report an issue.

Include the mod and game versions, world seed, relevant position, other enabled mods, what happened, and whether it occurred on the host or a guest. Attach Player.log and BepInEx/LogOutput.log before another launch overwrites the evidence. For multiplayer problems, include logs from both sides when possible.

Credits

Created by Valyn. Valheim is developed by Iron Gate. BepInExPack and Harmony provide the plugin-loading and patching foundations. Better Continents is linked above as a comparable world-generation project, not as a dependency or bundled component.