Sponge

Sponge

Harvest sea sponges, dry them over a cooking fire, and use them to create small, reusable dry-water areas.

Experimental release. Water removal is approximate: animated waves can remain visible inside dry zones. This version does not provide watertight underwater rooms.

How it works

1. Collect marine sponges supplied by RtDOcean to obtain Wet Sponge.
2. Dry a Wet Sponge at a vanilla wooden Cooking Station to obtain Dried Sponge. Drying time is based on a vanilla meat recipe and can be configured.
3. Equip a Dried Sponge, aim, and place a dry area. One Dried Sponge becomes one Wet Sponge.
4. Equip a Wet Sponge and select an existing dry area to remove it and obtain a Dried Sponge.

The default area is a 1 metre cube. Zones retain their position and yaw through world saves. Existing zones show blue holograms while either sponge is equipped.

Controls

| Input | Action | | --- | --- | | Left mouse button | Dry an area or refill the selected dry zone | | Q / E | Cycle Auto, Top Center, Bottom Center, Side Center, and Free snapping | | Mouse wheel | Rotate placement in 22.5 degree steps | | Left Alt, held | Bypass water-height anchoring for free-height placement | | Escape | Cancel placement |

Auto selects the face of the dry block under the crosshair. Explicit Top and Bottom modes place above or below that block without requiring the player to approach its destination face. Reach and water validation still apply.

Requirements

• BepInExPack Valheim
• Jotunn
• RtDOcean, for harvestable ocean sponges

Use the same Sponge release on the server and every connecting client. Visual settings are local preferences; this release does not automatically synchronize gameplay configuration. Keep area-size settings consistent between peers: loaded zones can be resized by their network owner.

Installation

Install using a Thunderstore-compatible mod manager. For manual installation, place these files together:

BepInEx/plugins/Sponge/
  Sponge.dll
  spongeassets
  assets/
    WetSpongeIcon.png
    DriedSpongeIcon.png

Keep spongeassets beside the DLL, with no extension. Do not install multiple Sponge DLL versions together. Restart the game after installation or updates.

Configuration

Launch the game once to create BepInEx/config/alkin.Sponge.cfg.

| Setting | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | AbsorptionSize | 1 | Cube side length in metres | | PlacementDistance | 0 | Follow player build range; positive values override it | | Snapping | true | Enable snap assistance | | DryingTimeMultiplier | 1 | Scale drying time | | Weight | 1 | Sponge item weight | | FollowWaterSurface | true | Anchor unsnapped surface placement to water height | | HeldModelScale | 0.12 | Held sponge scale; requires restart | | HeldModelOffset | (0, 0, 0.06) | Hand attachment offset; requires restart |

The Hologram Colors section offers separate dry/wet palettes, opacity multipliers, and border toggles. Hex colours accept #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA, where 00 alpha is transparent and FF is opaque. Opacity multipliers range from 0 to 1 and multiply the hex alpha. These UI settings are client-side and apply live when edited through a compatible Configuration Manager.

BepInEx alone does not provide an F1 configuration menu. Install a separate compatible Configuration Manager for an in-game editor, or edit the config file while the game is closed.

Known limitations

• Waves can visually enter dry zones; water-shader clipping is not implemented.
• Water mesh deformation is approximate, especially at boundaries, for small zones, and for overlapping or densely packed rotated areas.
• Many dry zones can increase CPU/GPU work. Performance has not been benchmarked.
• Changing AbsorptionSize resizes loaded zones and changes their affected volume.
• Gameplay configuration is not server-authoritative in this release. Avoid mismatched sizes between peers.
• Compatibility with other water, equipment, input, or HUD mods has not been established.

Troubleshooting

• White or pink sponge: verify the matching spongeassets bundle is installed beside the DLL. Check material-resolution diagnostics in BepInEx/LogOutput.log.
• No harvestable sponges: confirm RtDOcean is loaded and its sponge prefabs are available.
• F1 does nothing: confirm a Configuration Manager is installed in the active mod profile.
• An old cube size persists: check your saved AbsorptionSize; updating the mod does not reset existing config values.

Credits

Sponge by AlkiProductions. Built with BepInEx, Harmony, and Jotunn; harvesting integrates with RtDOcean by Soloredis. Development assistance from OpenAI ChatGPT. Not affiliated with Iron Gate.