MerchantSignposts

Merchant Signposts

Valheim's no-map mode makes the travelling merchants nearly impossible to find without looking up the seed. Merchant Signposts places fingerpost signs along trails leading to Haldor, Hildir and the Bog Witch, so exploring the right biome is rewarded with a physical marker in the world instead of a map pin.

What it does

• Trails of signposts. Around each merchant's candidate camps, the server plans

trails of signposts from the world seed. Each signpost is a vanilla post with a vanilla sign board that names the merchant and points at the next sign along its trail; the innermost sign points at the camp.

• Themed per merchant. Haldor's signs use a core-wood post with gold lettering,

Hildir's a wood post with pink lettering, and the Bog Witch's a darkwood post with green lettering.

• The first trail found chooses the camp. Come within 30 m horizontally of a

planned signpost and the server marks it seen. If the merchant still has several possible camps and none has spawned, it keeps that sign's camp and discards the others. The camp spawns normally when a player approaches; its trails remain.

• Found signs leave a readable landmark. If a seen sign's camp is discarded,

its board changes to "Haldor has moved on" (or the merchant's name) in its usual colour. The post and board stay in place and keep their direction. Unseen signs toward discarded camps are removed. A found sign also stays if a changed plan drops its point, or its merchant leaves [Merchants] Table, while its camp survives. If a moved-on sign's camp exists in the world again and its merchant is in the table, the sign returns to its usual text.

• Trails avoid competing camps. Planned signs stay at least 480 m from other

possible camps of the same merchant, to avoid spawning a different camp first.

• Self-repairing. When the world loads, the server removes stale signposts and

restores missing ones in generated areas. Player-built posts and signs of the same kinds are never touched. Edits to automatic boards, including found and moved-on signs, are undone on the next sweep. The merchants restore the configured words and clear the editor’s name. Sweeps follow world load, zone generation or a sighting; invalid Placement settings pause them. Hand-placed test signs keep their text.

• Not a material farm. Breaking a signpost drops part of its materials once. By

default the server does not rebuild a signpost that a player, creature, fire or collapse destroyed, and removes the other half of the pair without drops. That memory stays while the merchant camp exists, even if the merchant table or trail settings change and are later put back.

• Clear of natural obstacles. After rocks, ore deposits and trees generate, the

server checks the complete sign and reading space. An obstructed automatic sign moves to the nearest suitable tested point within 50 m without removing the object.

• Out of player bases. Automatic signs keep clear of the build area around

workbenches and other crafting stations, plus 5 m of reach. A sign nobody has found moves out of a base built around it, or is removed if there is no clear spot nearby; a sign players have already found is left where it stands. Bases on worlds without the workbench requirement, and ranges widened by station upgrades, are not detected.

Signposts use only vanilla pieces, so they replicate to every player like any other build piece and are saved with the world.

Installation

Server-side only. Install it on the dedicated server, or in the profile of the player who hosts the world. Players who join do not need it and see the signposts without it; a joining client that also has it does nothing extra. It requires BepInExPack for Valheim 5.4.2351 or later.

Upgrading to 0.2.0

Stop the game or server and back up the world and configuration before upgrading. Keep only one installed copy of MerchantSignposts. In particular, remove hand-installed 1.x builds and internal 0.2.1–0.2.30 builds: their higher version labels can take precedence over 0.2.0. Internal testers should remove the old local package and its cached copy before importing 0.2.0, then verify the installed DLL against the candidate's recorded SHA-256. Public 0.1.0 users can update normally through their mod manager.

Existing configuration values are preserved. To adopt the new defaults, edit these entries while stopped, preserving any other merchant overrides you intentionally use:

• [Signpost] PolePrefabs: change Haldor's entry to Vendor_BlackForest=wood_pole_log.

The old Dvergr post otherwise remains configured and can drop Mistlands materials.

• [Placement] LocationMargin: set to 16 metres.
• [Placement] Biomes: use Hildir_camp=Meadows|BlackForest|Plains for Hildir's trails.
• [Trigger] Enabled: keep false outside trusted disposable test worlds.

New settings use their defaults, including DestroyedSignRestoration=Never. The first sweep can rebuild existing signposts and remove unseen signs that no longer fit the plan. Existing 0.1.0 signs start unseen. Finding a sign can permanently choose its merchant's camp when the world is saved. Removing the mod does not undo that choice; restoring the pre-upgrade world backup is the rollback for saved-world changes.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/com.valheim.merchantsignposts.cfg holds the merchant table, the post and sign pieces, per-merchant colours, and trail density. Placement settings apply after a restart. The defaults suit a standard world.