Better™️ Cartography Table

Valheim mod that allows precise control over sharing pins via cartography tables. Supports private pins, public pins, and guild pins. Supports NoMap worlds.

Video showcase

(Click on items to show details)

Private and public pins

Astrid and Brynhild are playing together, however Astrid has a tad too many mushroom pins for Brynhild's liking. Thanks to Better™️ Cartography Table, their friendship is safe, as Astrid can selectively decide which pins to share on the public cartography table.

https://github.com/nbusseneau/BetterCartographyTable/assets/4659919/e13e6267-88ad-4aee-bdfe-f78e807bc2f8

Real-time collaboration

Astrid and Brynhild are planning their next expedition. Thanks to Better™️ Cartography Table, they can collaborate in real time on the cartography table.

https://github.com/nbusseneau/BetterCartographyTable/assets/4659919/e535a301-994f-4129-b9ec-3e51685bab2c

Guild pins

Thanks to Better™️ Cartography Table, guilds can privately share pins amongst members. Brynhild is a member of The Ground Shakers guild, and Astrid does not have access to their cartography table. Astrid creates The Mushroom Enjoyers guild so that she can share a Super Secret Hideout with other mushroom enjoyers, which Brynhild will never know about.

https://github.com/nbusseneau/BetterCartographyTable/assets/4659919/421e90b4-f00f-4047-b9ce-3839ac499035

Features

Pins are private by default, and can be individually shared on a public cartography table.
- You can now safely go ham and pin all those nice berries / copper veins / whatever floats your boat, without worrying about cluttering another player's map.
When multiple players are interacting with the same cartography table, changes are reflected in real time for all of them.
- This allows collaborating over the map in real time, especially useful when planning the next expedition.
Cartography tables can be public (default) or restricted to a guild (if Guilds is installed).
- For when you want to share super secret guild hideouts with your mates. Not that it ever happens. Definitely don't look for super secret guild hideouts on your servers. Nope...
If using the NoMap world modifier, map will be accessible only through a cartography table.

But why?

The vanilla cartography table is quirky and often leads to frustration on multiplayer servers: it only stores the pins of the last player that wrote to the table, completely replacing what was previously recorded.

This often results in situations where shared pins seem to disappear / reappear constantly when multiple players interact with the table on a regular basis (and it also never updates cross off status...).

On top of that, since the cartography table is "all or nothing" both ways, some players might refrain from interacting with the table (e.g. when someone is meticulously pinning all berries / copper veins / etc., or when they do not want to share some super secret pins they would prefer to keep private).

And of course, the vanilla cartography table is completely useless in NoMap runs.

Vanilla cartography tables, but Better™️

The goal is to stick close to the vanilla experience and keep cartography tables relevant (or in the case of NoMap runs, give them a purpose). We are not bypassing cartography tables: sharing map data (both pins and exploration) still requires players to interact with the same cartography table on a regular basis to synchronize progress.

How it works:

When interacting with a cartography table:
- Synchronize map exploration (same as vanilla).
- Retrieve table pins currently stored on the table.
- Open the map:
  - Private pins can be interacted with, and can additionally be stored on the table, becoming table pins (either public or guild pins, depending on the table mode).
  - Table pins can be interacted with, and can additionally be unstored from the table, becoming private pins. If multiple players are currently interacting with the same cartography table, changes to table pins are reflected in real time for all of them.
When opening the map without interacting with a cartography table:
- Private pins can be interacted with.
- Public or guild pins previously retrieved from a cartography table can be displayed / hidden, but cannot be interacted with.

Compatibility with non-modded vanilla clients

Table pins are stored in a custom ZDO key under the cartography table's ZNetView's ZDO, thus non-modded vanilla clients and modded clients can both interact with the same cartography tables without conflict. Limited one-way sharing is provided, as modded clients also write public pins to the vanilla shared data, allowing non-modded vanilla clients to receive public pins seamlessly. However, non-modded vanilla clients are not able to contribute back: modded clients can only receive pins from other modded clients.

Install

This is technically a client-side mod, and is not strictly required server-side. Yet, it is strongly recommended to install the mod server-side so as to enforce that all clients have the mod.

Exception: do not install the mod on servers intended for Xbox crossplay, otherwise Xbox players will not be able to join anymore. Note that non-modded vanilla clients will not be able to share any of their pins with modded clients (see above for details).

Thunderstore (recommended)

[Prerequisite] Install r2modman.
Click Install with Mod Manager from the mod page.
[Optional] Install Guilds for guild support.

Manually (not recommended)

[Prerequisites]
- Install BepInExPack Valheim.
- Install Jötunn, the Valheim Library.
Create a new directory nbusseneau-Better_Cartography_Table in your BepInEx/plugins/ directory.
Download nbusseneau-Better_Cartography_Table-0.4.0.zip.
Extract the archive.

Move all files to your BepInEx/plugins/nbusseneau-Better_Cartography_Table directory. It should look like this:

BepInEx/
└── plugins/
    └── nbusseneau-Better_Cartography_Table
        ├── BetterCartographyTable.dll
        ├── CHANGELOG.md
        ├── icon.png
        ├── manifest.json
        └── README.md

[Optional] Install Guilds for guild support.