ValBall

ValBall

Capture creatures in a rune-bound orb, release them wherever you like, and grow your Val Master skill to catch ever more dangerous beasts.

How it works

1. Craft a ValBall at the workbench: 4 Resin, 2 Leather scraps, 1 Flint.
2. Equip it and aim at a creature: the capture chance (or the Val Master level you still need) shows under the crosshair.
3. Throw it (attack button). On success the creature vanishes into the orb and a full ValBall with glowing runes lands in your inventory. On failure the creature breaks free and the ball shatters.
4. Equip the full ball and throw it. The creature pops out where the ball lands and you get the empty ball back.

The orb remembers the creature's type, stars, health, tamed state, pet name and saddle. The tooltip of a full ball shows what is inside. Full balls can be stored in chests, dropped, handed to friends and carried through portals.

Val Master skill

A new skill in your skills list. It rises every time you capture a wild creature (and a little when one breaks free).

• Tameable species (boar, wolf, lox, chicken, asksvin...) and creatures that are already tamed are always caught, no skill needed.
• Every other wild creature belongs to the biome it naturally spawns in. Each biome needs a minimum Val Master level and has its own base chance.
• Each star multiplies the chance by 0.6.
• Val Master multiplies the chance, from x1 at level 0 up to x6 at level 100.
• Wounded creatures are easier to catch, up to x2 near death.
• A creature that has been in a ball before is bonded to you: catching it again always works (and gives no experience).

| Biome | Val Master needed | Base chance | At required level | At level 100 | Experience | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Meadows | 0 | 50% | 50% | 100% | 20 | | Black Forest | 10 | 35% | 52% | 100% | 36 | | Swamp | 20 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 50 | | Mountain | 30 | 20% | 50% | 100% | 64 | | Plains | 40 | 15% | 45% | 90% | 80 | | Mistlands | 50 | 10% | 35% | 60% | 96 | | Ashlands | 60 | 7% | 28% | 42% | 110 | | Deep North | 70 | 5% | 22% | 30% | 124 | | Ocean | 25 | 15% | 33% | 90% | 60 |

Chances are for a 0 star creature at full health. Experience is per 0 star capture; every star adds the same amount again. Biomes are read from the game's spawn tables, so creatures added by other mods are sorted automatically; creatures that only live in dungeons or camps count as the biome they stand in.

Ball tiers

Better metal, better odds. Every tier is its own pair of items (empty and full) with straps of that metal, and a full ball always gives back an empty ball of its own tier.

| Ball | Capture chance | Recipe (Forge, makes 2) | | --- | --- | --- | | ValBall | x1 | Workbench: 4 Resin, 2 Leather scraps, 1 Flint (makes 1) | | Iron ValBall | x1.5 | 2 ValBall + 1 Iron | | Silver ValBall | x2 | 2 ValBall + 1 Silver | | Blackmetal ValBall | x3 | 2 ValBall + 1 Black metal |

The multiplier is applied on top of biome, stars, Val Master and wounds, and the chance under the crosshair already includes the ball you are holding. The Val Master level a biome requires stays the same for every ball.

Companion growth

Companions get stronger with every kill, and the numbers are always visible.

• Each kill is worth growth points: 1 in the Meadows, +0.5 for every harder biome, +50% per star of the victim, x5 for a boss.
• Vitality: +1% maximum health per point (up to +200%). Strength: +0.5% damage per point (up to +100%).
• Look at a companion to see its Kills, Vitality and Strength under its name; the tooltip of a full ball shows the same. A short message tells you when your companion has grown.
• Growth lives on the creature and inside the ball: a veteran stays a veteran.
• A creature rests inside the ball: it recovers 5% of its maximum health per minute of world time (the tooltip shows its current health).

Companions and orders

• Monsters the game cannot tame (greydwarfs, trolls...) take orders like a wolf once a ball has tamed them: Use toggles follow / stay (the hover text shows "Follow me" or "Stay here"), Shift + Use gives them a name. Who they follow is remembered across reloads.
• Wolves and other vanilla pets keep their normal orders. Farm animals (boar, lox...) take no orders unless you enable CommandFarmAnimals.
• Tamed animals from a ball are ordinary tamed animals: feed them and they breed as usual. Time stands still inside the ball, so a fed or pregnant animal comes out exactly as it went in.

Companions on the map

• Your companions show on the map and the minimap as green orbs with their name.
• While a companion is near you its pin moves live. When it is far away the pin stays at the last known position, which is where it still stands: nothing moves in unloaded parts of the world. Pins survive restarts.
• A pin disappears when the creature is caught again or dies.
• The large map has a Companions toggle next to the game's own toggles, and F8 does the same from anywhere (key is configurable). PinnedCreatures = AllTamed also pins animals tamed the normal way, PinSize changes the size of the orbs.
• In multiplayer you only see the companions you released yourself.

Fodder Trough

A new building piece (Hammer > Misc, needs a workbench): 10 Wood, 2 Resin.