Portal Limit and Discovery

Portal Limit and Discovery is for Valheim servers that want portals to stay useful without letting fast travel take over the whole world.

It gives server owners two big tools: a fair portal limit for players, and discovery portals that let admins create shortcuts players have to earn by finding the other side first.

Why Use It?

• Keep public servers from filling up with unlimited personal portal networks.
• Give players a simple way to check how many portals they have.
• Turn shortcuts into exploration rewards.
• Create locked travel routes for bosses, biomes, dungeons, quests, towns, or events.
• Let admins manage special portals in-game without editing config files.
• Keep normal tagged Valheim portals feeling like normal Valheim portals.

Discovery Portals

Discovery portals are the fun part.

Admins can make a portal at spawn, a town, or a hub that stays locked until each player finds and enters the matching portal somewhere else in the world.

Example ideas:

• A portal to the Bog Witch that only unlocks after players find her swamp-side entrance.
• A mountain shortcut that opens after players climb to the outpost once.
• A boss arena return portal that unlocks after the group reaches the arena.
• A town network where each destination has to be discovered before it becomes convenient.
• Event routes that reward exploration without permanently disabling portals.

Each player unlocks discovery routes individually, so one player finding the far side does not automatically unlock it for everyone.

Portal Limits

Set how many portals each non-admin player can own. The default is 10.

When players place a portal, they get a simple live count like:

Portals placed: 4 / 10

Players can also type this into regular in-game chat:

/portals

That shows their current portal count and the server limit.

Admin Tools

Admins get an in-game Portal Limit UI for:

• changing the player portal limit
• making a portal normal, locked, or unlocked
• choosing discovery marker text and colors
• customizing player-facing hover text
• checking who built a portal
• seeing when a portal was built or last used
• reviewing who unlocked a discovery route
• checking total world portal counts

Normal players cannot open the admin editor.

Normal Portal Behavior

Normal tagged portals still behave like regular Valheim portals.

Portal Limit only changes a portal when an admin marks it as a discovery portal, or when a player reaches the server's portal limit.

Blank-tag portals are prevented from linking together so new portals do not fake a connection before players set a tag.

Good To Know

• Existing portals are not automatically deleted when the mod is installed.
• Players who are already over the limit will need to remove portals before placing more.
• Commands like /portals and /portallimit go in regular chat, not the F5/dev command panel.
• The package includes both the client and server DLLs.
• A fuller FULL_README.md is included in the download for server owners who want config details.

Contact

Join the Discord for questions, bug reports, balance feedback, or suggestions:

https://discord.gg/3Ewv8v2D

Changelog

0.1.4

• Set the default player portal limit to 10.
• Kept normal tagged portals close to vanilla Valheim behavior, including the orange connected swirl and normal teleport feel.
• Stopped blank-tag portals from connecting or teleporting players.
• Added live portal placement feedback such as Portals placed: 2 / 10.
• Added /portals regular-chat command for players to check their current portal count.
• Added /portallimit regular-chat command for admins to open the admin UI.
• Added admin F5 commands for counts, portal lists, and server exports.
• Added configurable admin hold-E portal editing. Tapping E still opens Valheim's normal Set Tag prompt.
• Added discovery-locked portals with LOCKED ENTRANCE, UNLOCKED ENTRANCE, and NORMAL PORTAL roles.
• Prevented multiple locked discovery endpoints from using the same portal tag.
• Prevented multiple unlocked discovery endpoints from using the same portal tag.
• Added per-portal marker text options, including custom marker text.
• Added per-portal marker color presets and custom hex colors.
• Added per-portal player-facing hover text overrides.
• Added per-portal locked-glow behavior.
• Added a Portal Information tab with builder, built date, last-used info, unlock history, and world portal counts.
• Added server audit files for portal counts, placements, and discovery unlock history.
• Restricted portal removal so only the builder or an admin can remove a counted portal.
• Clarified that player chat commands go into regular in-game chat, not the F5/dev command panel.
• Updated contact information to the Discord invite.

0.1.3

• Added a first pass at restoring portal particles and lights when a locked portal becomes unlocked or is reset to normal.
• Prevented multiple locked or unlocked discovery endpoints from using the same portal tag.
• Clarified that /portals and /portallimit must be typed into regular in-game chat, not the F5/dev command panel.
• Replaced the README email contact with the Discord invite link.

0.1.2

• Updated the public README title and description to Portal Limit and Discovery.
• Moved discovery portal information closer to the top of the Thunderstore page.
• Added FULL_README.md for downloaded config and server-owner details.
• Added contact information for questions and suggestions.
• Kept the Thunderstore package ID as PortalLimit so this uploads as an update to the existing package.

0.1.1

• Changed the default locked discovery portal text color to orange.
• Added the packaged icon image.
• Included both client and server DLLs in the Thunderstore package for public dedicated servers.
• Added server-side global portal counting across unloaded zones.
• Added portal_counts.tsv for admin-readable portal ownership/count review.
• Hardened server RPC permissions for public servers.
• Fixed admin UI saving for locked/unlock popup message fields.

0.1.0

• Added server-authoritative portal limits per player.
• Added /portals chat command so players can check their current portal count.
• Added admin UI for changing server settings in game.
• Added admin-marked discovery portals with locked and unlock entrances.
• Added UNLOCK ON OTHER SIDE marker with per-portal color choices.
• Added marker text choices for UNLOCK ON OTHER SIDE, LOCKED, and X.
• Added optional locked-portal glow suppression for clients with the plugin.