SharedDiscovery
Shares item and material discoveries between players in the same Valheim world with multiplayer synchronization and per-world persistence.
About this mod Author’s original text
SharedDiscovery
SharedDiscovery is a Valheim multiplayer mod for shared item/material discoveries per world.
When one player discovers an item or material, the discovery is sent to the server, stored as world progress, and synchronized to the other players. Each client applies the discovery through Valheim's native Player.AddKnownItem flow, so Valheim itself decides which recipes become available and displays the original vanilla discovery notifications.
Features
- Shared item discoveries
- Server-authoritative progression
- Offline player sync through snapshots on join/spawn
- Per-world persistence using ZNet.GetWorldUID()
- Vanilla recipe logic
- Vanilla discovery notifications
- Multiplayer host and dedicated-server-oriented architecture
- r2modman and package structure
Important
SharedDiscovery does not force recipes, crafting stations, boss progression, costs, or recipe visibility. It shares stable item prefab IDs and lets Valheim process recipe unlocks normally.
The mod does not import every known item from an old character when joining a new world. Only new discoveries made while connected with SharedDiscovery active, plus discoveries already saved by SharedDiscovery for that world, become shared world progress.
Requirements
The server and every client should install the same SharedDiscovery version.
Build references required locally:
- Valheim managed assemblies
- BepInEx
- Harmony from BepInEx
SharedDiscovery uses Valheim's native ZRoutedRpc API.
The plugin target framework is net462, matching the common Valheim/BepInEx mod target. The core library also targets net8.0 for local tests.
Installation
For r2modman development:
- Copy Environment.props.example to Environment.props.
- Set VALHEIM_INSTALL to the Steam Valheim install folder.
- Set BEPINEX_PATH to the r2modman profile's BepInEx folder.
- Set MOD_DEPLOYPATH to the target plugin folder.
- Run:.\build.ps1 -Configuration Release -CopyToProfile
Manual install:
BepInEx/plugins/SharedDiscovery/
SharedDiscovery.dll
SharedDiscovery.Core.dll
Build.\build.ps1
or:
dotnet build.\SharedDiscovery.sln
The build script validates required local assemblies before compiling.
Package.\package.ps1
The package ZIP is written to dist/SharedDiscovery-0.1.0.zip.
Inspected Valheim APIs
The local Valheim installation inspected for this project stores the main game types in:
Valheim/valheim_Data/Managed/assembly_valheim.dll
Relevant real APIs found:
- Player.AddKnownItem(ItemDrop.ItemData)
- Player.IsMaterialKnown(string)
- Player.OnSpawned(bool)
- ObjectDB.GetItemPrefab(string)
- ObjectDB.GetItemPrefab(ItemDrop.ItemData.SharedData)
- ZNet.GetWorldUID()
- ZNet.GetWorldName()
- ZNet.IsServer()
- ZNet.OnWorldSaveLoaded()
- ZNet.OnNewConnection(ZNetPeer)
- ZRoutedRpc.Register(string, Action)
- ZRoutedRpc.Register(string, Action)
- ZRoutedRpc.InvokeRoutedRPC(...)
- ZPackage.ReadInt/ReadString/Write(int)/Write(string)
Persistence
Server-side world state is stored under:
BepInEx/config/SharedDiscovery/worlds.json
The loader tolerates missing files, empty files, duplicate entries, invalid entries, and parse/read failures without crashing the server.
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.
Install these first, or the mod will not work: