Procedural Roads

Generates a network of roads throughout the Valheim world. Increases world generation time.

Features

• Adds road networks throughout the world.
• Configurable road amount, width, and pathfinding iterations.
• Roads are generated per island. The IslandRoadPercentage setting controls what percentage of islands the mod will attempt to generate roads on, starting with the largest islands first.
• API for mod developers to register their locations for road network connection.
• Support for custom locations from Expand World Data or other mods.
• Anonymous analytics to help improve the mod (opt-out available in config).
• Required on both client and server.

Road generation process

• Road generation starts after all locations have been placed.
• First we detect all the islands in the world.
• Get the users island percentage config, i.e if 50% islands then we select 50% of total islands to give roads.
• For each selected island, we select generate a road network within the island locations.
• Within the island, we find locations and build a network of roads between them. Some locations are prioritized over others, such as bosses and dungeons. Some locations are excluded entirely.
• Once we have locations, pathfind between the locations using A* pathfinding, avoiding rivers, steep slopes, and water.
• Once road is defined, paint the road as stone path or dirt path. Then smooth each point of the road to fit the surrounding terrain.

Instructions

• Roads will automatically generate for new worlds.
• Please make a backup before adding roads to an existing world!
• To add roads to an existing world, use the road_generate command shown below. You can validate using the road_pins command to see where roads were placed. Then you can use road_clearpins to remove the road_pins on your map.
• Please note, I have not done extensive testing on how roads impact terrain within or around player builds. Roads could potentially generate directly through an existing build.

Configuration

Why some islands have no roads

Even with IslandRoadPercentage set to 100, some islands may not receive roads. This setting controls which islands the mod attempts to place roads on, but road generation can still fail for several reasons:

• Not enough key locations — Roads are built between recognized points of interest (bosses, dungeons, crypts, etc.). If an island has fewer than 2 recognized locations, no road network can be created.
• Terrain is impassable — The pathfinding algorithm avoids rivers, deep water, steep mountain slopes, and highly variable terrain. If there is no viable path between two locations, that road will not be generated.
• Pathfinding iteration limit — Complex or long-distance routes may require more iterations than the PathfindingMaxIterations config allows. Try increasing this value if you notice roads failing to generate.
• Island is too small — Very small landmasses are not detected as islands during the island detection phase.

To improve road coverage, try increasing PathfindingMaxIterations and adding location names to CustomLocations.

Console Commands

All commands require cheats enabled (devcommands).

Donations/Tips

I make mods because I enjoy it and want to make Valheim more enjoyable for everyone. If you feel like saying thanks you can tip me here.

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Source Code

Source code is available on Github.

Github Repository:	Procedural Roads