TheFloods

The Floods: The Broken Cycle

> Watch the horizon. Prepare the coast. Survive what comes ashore.

New in v0.16.3 — Earthquake & Wildfire Update

Built and tested for Valheim 1.0.20. This update brings a brand-new disaster - earthquakes that tilt the world - and completes the wildfire overhaul: fires that spread for real, fill the sky with smoke and scar the land, while staying smooth to play.

🌍 NEW: Earthquakes that tilt the world

• The land leans: every now and then the ground lurches and, for 4–5 minutes, the whole landscape tilts - hills, trees and buildings lean around 10 degrees one way, a different direction every time, swaying as the quake rolls on. Two to four times in each quake the land heaves much further - over 30 degrees - for several terrifying seconds.
• Gravity stays true: while the land tilts, you, other players and creatures stay standing upright, the sea stays level (so the water runs up the low side of the land and pulls back from the high side) and the sky and horizon stay put. It really looks like the ground has shifted under you.
• Real footing: walking and running are never slowed. But gravity is real: where the tilt makes the ground steeper than you can stand on (its own slope plus the tilt - the same 38 degrees at which you slide on any Valheim hillside), you lose your footing and slide, just like on a cliff side. Gentle tilts never move you; a heave while you stand on a hillside facing the wrong way just might. Dropped items, fallen logs and carts feel the shifted gravity too - they stay put on gentle tilts and slide or roll when it gets steep - and every hard jolt makes them hop.
• Shaking and rumbling: Valheim's own camera shake trembles the whole time and kicks hard at each jolt, under a real recording of the earth cracking and grinding - soil and stone splitting - that rolls on for the whole quake and bursts out close by at every jolt.
• The forest comes down: trees crash to the ground all through the quake - one or two at every jolt, more and more in between, and a whole lot during the heaves. They topple downhill, and a falling log hurts whatever it lands on, so keep your eyes up. No tree falls right on top of you without warning (trees within 7 m are spared), and trees near your buildings are never felled.
• Dust in the air: every jolt kicks clouds of dust up from the ground all around you, and each heave cracks the earth open with a huge burst.
• When they strike: on their own every one to two and a half hours of play, and often during the omen of a Flash Surge (65%) or Great Flood (80%), sometimes with other events too. Everyone in multiplayer feels the same quake.
• Your choice: tilt angle, shake, slide, sound and how often they happen are all in the [Earthquakes] config section. Prefer no tilting? Set EnableTilt = false for shaking and rumbling only.

🔥 Wildfires, completed: you can see, smell and run from them

• A living fire front: every wildfire races outward in every direction from where it catches, sweeping through meadows and forests at about a normal running pace (0.55x your sprint speed by default). Keep moving and you can always get away; stop or get cornered and you are in serious trouble. It flows around obstacles, keeps burning across land that isn't even loaded around you, and stops dead at rivers, lakes and the sea. Fire never burns on water.
• The sky fills with smoke: walk towards a wildfire and the air turns into a brown-orange haze, the fog closes in and the sunlight goes a sickly orange. At night the smoke glows instead of going grey.
• Ash and embers fall around you: grey ash flakes drift down through the smoke and glowing embers ride the hot air past your face.
• Smoke columns on the horizon: tall pillars of dark smoke rise from the fire and lean with the wind. You can spot a wildfire from far away and decide whether to run towards it or away.
• Heat shimmer: get close to the flames and the air ripples with heat, using Valheim's own Ashlands heat-distortion effect.
• Scorched earth: the land the fire passes over is left as bare, blackened ground with the grass burnt away, then slowly heals over about one in-game day (sleep and it recovers overnight). It is visual only and never saved to your world, so paths, farms and terrain edits are untouched.
• Falling trees: roughly one in ten trees the fire burns through comes crashing down.
• Fire bites: flames deal 10 damage a second to players and creatures. Being properly wet protects you. If you stand in fire and take no damage, a message tells you why (debug-flying, god mode, wet, or in water).
• A fire season, not a one-off: every wildfire is a series of 3 fires that burn one after another. Each catches 40–120 m from you, burns for its share of the event (about 8–9 minutes), then dies down as the next one starts nearby. Want them burning together? WildfireStartLocations sets 1–3 fires at once.
• Burns from the first moment: a wildfire spreads from the very start of the event (the omen phase), not after a quiet warning period.
• Built to stay smooth: fewer, wider-spaced fire points; flames beyond 120 m aren't drawn (they still burn, spread and hurt, and appear as you approach); burnt ground is painted a little at a time; smoke columns are kept light on the graphics card. Every effect can be tuned or switched off in the [Wildfire Atmosphere] config section, and strong PCs can turn on FullFireEffects for every effect layer on every fire point.

🌊 Natural tides