Sproti – Version 0.5.1

What he lacks in OP-ness he makes up for in grumpiness.

Sproti is a grumpy forest creature who loves trees and all plants, really – probably because he is one. He used to live in an old stump until he vanished into the Black Forest years ago, and now no one has seen him in a long time. Rumor has it he is in danger, and someone should really go look for him.

They say he is a great gardener and grows the tastiest crops. If you get him out of trouble, he might be persuaded to help with your farm. Give him seeds and he plants them, harvests what is ripe, cultivates the ground and even grows a small forest for you. Don't touch his stuff, though.

The details are hidden in the Spoilers section at the end.

Sproti on Thunderstore | Nexus Mods | Hexium

Features

• Sproti's Tree: a tree house with two built-in chests for seeds and harvest.
• Farming: Sproti harvests ripe crops into the harvest chest and replants from the seed chest on cultivated ground in his work area. He also picks berries, mushrooms and flowers that grow back, wild or planted, in his area.
• Cultivating: put a cultivator in the seed chest and he cultivates the work area himself.
• Tree nursery: a second area where he plants trees from tree seeds.
• Upgrades: bigger work area, bigger chests, and regrowing tree stumps.
• Status display: a symbol above his house shows what he is doing.
• Multiplayer: works for all players, with ward permissions and ownership respected.
• Config: Mod has some config options for visuals, sound, map icons.
• Commands: Mod offers a few console commands for convenience.

Requirements and installation

• BepInExPack Valheim: Thunderstore | Nexus Mods | Hexium
• Jötunn: Thunderstore | Nexus Mods | Hexium

Install with a mod manager, or manually: put Sproti.dll into BepInEx/plugins/. The config file is automatically created by BepInEx.

Multiplayer: every player and the server need the mod. Players with a different minor version (e.g. 0.1 vs 0.2) cannot join.

Getting started

1. Meet Sproti and learn the recipe for Sproti's Tree (see Spoilers).
2. Build the tree with the hammer, near a workbench. Cost: 25 Ancient bark, 10 Fine wood, 1 Acorn, 2 Bronze.
3. Put seeds into the left chest (seed chest). Collect the harvest from the right chest (harvest chest).
4. Cultivate a field in his work area yourself, or put a cultivator into the seed chest and let him do it.

Where you can build the tree

• Only in the Meadows, Black Forest, Plains and Mistlands. He is a forest spirit and is not fine with fire, snow and muddy things.
• Only on natural ground, not on floors or other building pieces.
• Sproti needs room to reach his door and chests: no bushes, rocks, stumps or logs within about 3 m of the tree. Plants, pickable stones and building pieces are fine.
• One tree per player per world. Removed or destroyed trees no longer count.
• The work areas of different players may not overlap. A new tree or tree nursery must keep clear of other players' areas.

The tree

• Work area: 10 m radius around the tree (12 m with the upgrade). It also counts as a player base, so nothing decays inside.
• Show the area: hold a cultivator, or use Shift+E on the tree to see the circle for 10 seconds. Normal E opens the upgrade menu.
• The chests are regular public chests and are protected by wards like any other chest. They cannot be removed or damaged on their own; damage only hits the tree.
• Removing the tree is always possible, even with full chests. Both chests drop their contents, and you get back the building cost and the cost of all bought upgrades.
• The lantern lights up at night. The cultivator leaning at the door means Sproti is at home.
• A small paved patch in front of the door stays free; Sproti never plants or cultivates there.
• The ground under the house is cultivated once when you place the tree, so no grass grows through it.

How Sproti works

Sproti stays inside his tree until there is work. He pops out, thinks for a moment, works until done, and pops back in when there is nothing left to do.

Work order: cultivating (only with a cultivator in the seed chest) before harvesting before planting.

Harvesting

• He harvests one kind of crop per round, all ripe plants of that kind, then carries the yield to the harvest chest.
• He only harvests when the full possible yield fits into the harvest chest. A full harvest chest means no harvesting. He prefers crops that already have a not-full stack in the chest.
• He never takes anything back out of the harvest chest.
• Besides crops, he picks plants that grow back in place: berry bushes, mushrooms, flowers and the like, wild ones too. Branches, stones, flint and treasure are left alone. He does not plant these himself.

Planting

• Crops only on ground that is already cultivated, inside his work area, and only where the plant would actually grow (biome, cold, heat, roof, space, like vanilla). He keeps about 0.5 m away from the edge of the cultivated ground.
• Seed order: he plants by the slot order of the seed chest, row by row from the top left. The first seed with free space wins; if it fits nowhere, he tries the next one.
• Put in a seed that cannot grow at the tree? You get a message once (e.g. "Barley doesn't grow here"). The chest still accepts it.
• He does not plant in fixed rows.
• He keeps about 1.5 m free around his chests.
• Plants set by Sproti count as planted by the tree's builder, just like your own field.

Cultivating

• With a cultivator in the seed chest, he cultivates all uncultivated ground in his work area, including roads and painted terrain. The cultivator stays in the chest and does not wear out. Take it out to stop any cultivating.
• He never changes the ground height.
• He keeps about 1.5 m away from player buildings. Exceptions: his own tree and chests, and vanilla fences, fence gates and stakewalls, where he cultivates right up to them (the cultivated ground may reach under them).
• He works around rocks, stumps and bushes, but not under water, inside no-build zones, or on steep slopes and spots he cannot reach.
• Tip: the flatter and freer the ground, the better. You can also cultivate the 1.5 m strip near buildings yourself; he plants there if the usual checks pass.

Wards and permissions

• Sproti plants and cultivates with the ward permissions of the player who built the tree, not of whoever is standing nearby. If the builder has no access to an active ward at a spot, he skips it.
• Granting or removing the builder's access at a ward takes effect immediately.

Fences and unreachable spots

• Fenced fields need a gap he can walk through. A fence does not limit his area; cultivated ground on either side can be planted.
• Plants and spots he cannot reach are tried again only every 10 minutes.
• He never swims and walks around water. His path may leave the work area, his targets may not.

Status display

A symbol above his house shows what he is doing:

• ? – he is thinking, or waits for a chest someone has open.
• Item with down arrow – planting (shows the yield, e.g. a carrot for carrots, seeds for seed carrots).
• Item with up arrow – harvesting.
• Cultivator – cultivating.
• Treehouse – walking home.
• ! – alarm (also while hiding inside).

Turn it off with [Visual] ShowStatus (see Configuration).

Danger

• Sproti acts tough, but he is shy like a deer. If he sees (12 m) or hears (8 m) a monster, he hides in his tree. About 30 seconds after the danger is gone, he gets back to work.
• Monsters ignore him, attacks from anyone do not hurt him, and he doesn't fight.
• Environmental damage (e.g. lava) works as in vanilla. If he dies or disappears, he simply returns from inside his tree.
• If his tree is destroyed, Sproti disappears. If you rebuild, he spawns back in.

Chests in use

• Sproti never touches a chest that a player has open. He waits with "?" and continues as soon as it is closed. After 20 seconds of waiting, he goes home and comes back later.

Upgrades

Use E on the tree to open its crafting menu. Each upgrade is bought once, in any order. Bought upgrades are listed when you hover over the tree. Some upgrades require tools to be consumed as ingredients. Only level 1 tools are accepted, upgraded ones are refused.

• Bigger work area: Work area grows from 10 m to 12 m. Cost: 1 Cultivator level 1
• Storage expansion: Seed and harvest chest grow to 24 slots. Cost: 20 Fine wood, 4 Iron
• Regrowth: Stumps of felled trees in the work area and in the tree nursery grow back. Cost: 10 Acorns, 3 Ymir flesh, 8 Silver

Regrowth details:

• Works for natural vanilla trees that drop seeds if you leave the stump. Dead trees and swamp trees do not regrow.
• The timer starts when a stump is first covered by the upgrade and counts game time, also while the area is unloaded.
• A blocked stump waits until there is room, under the same biome and space rules as a sapling. Its hover says "Tree is regenerating".

Tree nursery

A second area where Sproti plants trees. You unlock the recipe while Sproti moves into the tree (see Spoilers).

• Cost: 1 Hoe (level 1), 10 Ancient bark, 6 Birch seeds, 10 Wood. Built with the hammer.
• Marked by a decorated stump with a 15 m radius. Nothing decays inside.
• Must be within 32 m of your tree. Only the builder of the tree can place its nursery. One nursery per player.
• Active while your own tree is within 32 m, otherwise inactive. Hover shows the state: "Inactive (TOO FAR)" or "Inactive (NO TREE)". The tree's hover shows "+ Tree Nursery" when it has an active one.
• Put tree seeds (e.g. beech seeds, birch seeds, acorns, fir cones, pine cones and Timberwood cones) into the seed chest. Without an active nursery, you get the message "No active tree nursery".
• Trees grow on any ground, cultivated or not.
• Each tree gets enough room for its grown trunk, so trees stand much farther apart than crops.
• If the nursery overlaps the work area, the seed chest order decides whether crops or trees fill the shared ground first.
• Moving the nursery: remove it with the hammer (you get the cost back) and build a new one. Plants and ground stay as they are; the old area loses its protection and regrowth feature, it becomes a regular forest again.
• If your tree is removed, the nursery stays but becomes inactive (no regrowth, no planting by Sproti). Remove an inactive nursery before building a new one.
• Show both areas: hold a cultivator or use Shift+E on the tree or nursery.

Names and map

• Hover over another player's Sproti to see "<name>'s friend Sproti". Yours is just "Sproti". The tree and nursery show their builder's name.
• While loaded in, your own Sproti appears on the map as a moving leaf while he is outside. Your tree (stump with door) and nursery (tree) show on the map. Only you see them; they are not shared at the cartography table.
• The map icons can be configured on/off.

Configuration

File: BepInEx/config/de.evabs.valheim.sproti.cfg, or in-game with a configuration manager if you have one. All settings are local to your client.

HopVolume in Audio:

• Volume of his hopping sounds. Popping and work sounds stay.
• Range: 0 (off) to 2
• Default: 1

ShowSproti in Map:

• Your Sproti on the map.
• Range: true / false
• Default: true

ShowTreeAndNursery in Map:

• Your tree and nursery on the map.
• Range: true / false
• Default: true

HouseSapling in Visual:

• Oak sapling on the roof. Turn off if it hides the status display.
• Range: true / false
• Default: true

ShowStatus in Visual:

• Status display above the house.
• Range: true / false
• Default: true

FaceStyle in Visual:

• Valheim = pixelated like vanilla, HD = a bit less pixelated, to fit HD texture packs better. Needs a game restart.
• Range: Valheim / HD
• Default: Valheim

Edited the file while playing? Type sproti_reload_config in the console (F5). This does not reload textures: a changed FaceStyle still needs a game restart.

Console commands

Open the console with F5.

For everyone:

• sproti_findtree – pings your tree on the map (only you see it) and prints its position, even when not loaded.
• sproti_findnursery – the same for your tree nursery.
• sproti_reload_config – reloads the config file.

With devcommands active, sproti_findtree and sproti_findnursery list all trees and nurseries in the world. Additional cheats with devcommands:

• sproti_recipe_add – learn the tree recipe.
• sproti_recipe_remove – forget the tree and nursery recipes and reset the move-in scene.
• sproti_free – Sproti appears 3 m in front of you, like after freeing him. Gives tree recipe.
• sproti_movein – plays the move-in scene 3 m in front of you. Gives nursery recipe.

The tree and nursery recipes are learned from Sproti only: picking up ingredients does not unlock them, and mods that remove recipes based on ingredients (e.g. Wait What?) leave them alone.

Performance

• Sproti only works in loaded areas, like any creature.
• His search for work is spread over several frames, with a fixed time budget of 1 ms per frame for all Sprotis on your machine together.
• Unreachable targets are skipped for 10 minutes instead of being retried constantly.
• Regrowth timers use game time and need no updates while unloaded.

Compatibility

I am a software developer and I have 1100+ hours in Valheim. I love this game. These mods were active while I developed and tested Sproti:

• Willybachs HD Valheim and Badgers HD Terrain <3
• Advize Plant Everything
• CraftFromContainers
• CraftingStationTweakz
• ExtendedPlayerInventory
• FloatingItems
• PlanBuild
• QuickStackStore
• Sakey's My Kvastur
• ValheimBuildCamera

Using HD textures? Set FaceStyle to HD (see Configuration). Sproti then looks a bit less pixelated, but don't expect true high resolution.

Known limitations

• Single-harvest crops from other mods are supported if they are planted with the cultivator like vanilla crops.
• He plants vanilla cultivator crops (carrot, turnip, onion, barley, flax and later-biome crops) and vanilla tree seeds. Berry bushes, mushrooms and flowers he only harvests; plant them yourself (e.g. with PlantEverything).
• Mods that let you craft from nearby chests (e.g. Craft From Containers) work for upgrade materials. The cultivator for the bigger work area and the hoe for the nursery must be in your inventory.
• Seasonality: Sproti ignores its seasonal harvest lock and picks anyway (might change this in a future update).
• He never moves items between chests. You fill the seed chest yourself.
• Not yet tested on a dedicated server.

Changelog

• 0.5.1 – Links to all mod pages, new mod icon.
• 0.5.0 – First release.

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Spoilers

Everything below reveals how you find Sproti. Read on only if you want to know.

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Where to find Sproti

• The greydwarfs have kept Sproti prisoner for years. Destroy a greydwarf nest in the Black Forest: with a 25 % chance, Sproti is found, freed, and appears next to the destroyed nest.
• He only appears if at least one player within 50 m does not know the tree recipe yet.
• He has a short conversation with you. Press E on him to continue, or wait 10 seconds per line.
• Afterwards, all players within 50 m learn the recipe for Sproti's Tree, and he vanishes.

Moving in

When you build your first tree with a character, Sproti appears at the door for a short move-in scene. He looks at the house and gives you a few hints. Press E to continue.

• The scene plays once per character, across worlds. If you leave or log out, it continues where it stopped when you come back.
• If you are too far away to learn the nursery recipe, the scene plays again at your next tree.
• If the tree is removed during the scene, Sproti vanishes.