Valheim – Full basic guide

Overview

A full guide about Valheim. Find usefull information about Valheim and how it works.

Introduction

Welcome warrior! In this guide you will find usefull information about Valheim and how it works.

I’ll be adding more content as I discover new things ingame or answering questions in the comment section. If you are missing information or something is wrong in this guide let me know in the comments below.

Remember that if you have questions or want to find people to play you can join the Official Valheim Discord:[discord.com]

Remember to rate this guide if it has been useful for you. Thank you!

Craft system and how unlock recipes

Craft system:

There are four ways to craft items in this game:

• Basic crafts from your TAB menu.
• Crafting from a workbench or forge.
• Placing structures using the hammer.
• Processed items from smelter, charcoal kiln, cooking station.

How to unlock new recipes:

To unlock different recipes or structures you have to get at least one of the necessary items to make the craft. For example, if you want to get the recipe to craft a flint axe you need to find flint and wood first.

Sailing basics

There are at least three ships in the game:
– Raft: Small slow basic boat.

– Karve: Larger and faster than raft. You can unlock it when you gather Fine Wood from birchs.

– Longship: Much bigger than Karve.

The raft is the boat you are going to be using until you unlock the Karve.

You use W to increase speed and S to decrease speed in the rudder indicator.
You use A or D to turn the rudder left or right.

There are two indicators in our UI which will help us to sail.

1. Rudder indicator:

• Shows rudder direction. You can turn left or right 90º.
• Shows your speed indicator.

2. Wind indicator:

• Shows wind direction and if the wind is moving your ship. If the wind icon is white and is hitting the gold part of the circle the ship is getting enough wind to move. Gray wind and hitting the black part of the circle your ship will be not able to move using the sail.
• Shows your speed indicator.

Speed indicator info:
1. Small arrows in the wheel icon:

• One arrow up: Rowing speed forward.
• Two arrow up: Low sail speed.
• Three arrow up: Full sail speed.
• One arrow down: Rowing speed backward.

2. Icon above the wind circle:

• Oar: Rowing speed.
• Raised sail: Low sail speed.
• Lowered sail: Full sail speed.

If you fall out of your boat you can jump in again looking for the ladder in the back of the raft or in the left side of the Karve.

Bosses

List of different bosses in the game, where you can find them and which items you need to summon it:

The Elder Temple:

Bonemass temple:

Moder temple:

Thanks to Meng

There are more bosses in the game but I didn’t fight or find them yet. I will update this section when I find more information.

How to find bosses runes

Special thanks to Meng

When you find a boss rune a boss mark will spawn in your map, this allows you to easy find the summon temple.

1. Elder:
– Rune is in Burial chambers.

2. The Elder:
– You will find this rune inside a dungeon in Black forest.

3. Bonemass:
– You will find this rune inside a Swamp Crypt.

4. Moder:
– You will find this rune in stone settlement at the border of mountain biome.

5. Yagluth rune (Thanks to InfernoFPS)
– You will find this rune in Plains biome. Just surrounded by rocks.

Surtling Core and how to get them.

Surtling core are very important in early game as they allow you to craft the Smelter and the Charcoal kiln which allows you to melt ores and craft cooper, iron and other better weapons and tools.

You need 10 Surtling core. 5 to craft the Smelter and 5 to craft the Charcoal kiln. I recommend to craft the Smelter first as you can get some coal from cooking station burning food.

You can find this item in:
– Random chest: This has very low drop since I didn’t find any in a chest yet.
– Inside dungeons. Aroung 0-9 In just one dungeon. There are some dungeons which are empty and there are large dungeons with a lot of them.
– Surtling mob drop: Fire mobs which drop it.

If you break one of those building you will get your 5 Surtling Core back, so don’t worry about it.

Swamp key and Sunken Crypts

You can get a Swamp key after defeat The Elder boss. This key allow you to open a Sunken Crypts that you can find in the swamp biomes.

You can use the Swam Key to unlock one of these crypts.

Inside the crypts you will have to break some Muddy scrap pile to be able to keep going and exploring the crypt, these pile will give you iron an other items.

To break a Muddy scrap pile you need a pickaxe.

Inside the crypt you also will find some chest with items and strong enemies so be ready to fight.

Wishbone and how it works

Wishbone is a drop item you will get killing Bonemass. Turning on/off this item you will get a wishbone buff will allow you to find hidden treasures.

When you have your wishbone on you will see some shining sparks coming from your body when you are close to a hidden treasure.

Also, you will listen a bip bip sound which will sound faster as you are closer to the treasure. When is fast enough get your pickaxe and begin to dig until you find the treasure.

Treasures you can find:

• Chest with some valuable items inside.
• Silver ore deposits.

Artisan table

You will unlock the artisan table after kill the 4th boss.

You need 10xWood and 2xDragon Tears to craft it.

– Spinning wheel

– Windmill

– Blast furnace

How to add markers on the map

You can add 5 different markers in your map. This markers are local so if you are playing with some friends they won’t be able to see them.

To select one marker you have to left click on it, you can find the markers on the bottom right corner of the map.

To place a new marker double left click on the map, write the name of the marker and press enter.
To remove a marker right click on it.

If you left click on of your marks you will add a red cross over it.

If you press middle button on the map you will send a ping visible to everyone in the server.

Biomes

List of different biomes you can find in the game:

• Starting area.
• Full of trees, stone, deers…
• Not very dangerous.

• Second area you will explore.
• Full of pines, stones, mushrooms, Greydwarfs and Trolls.
• More dangerous than Meadows. Have care with Trolls.
• You can find copper and tin here.

• Permanent blizzards make you freeze (damage over time debuff).
• You need close to a firepit or wear warm clothes.
• Full of wolfs. They are very dangerous so be ready.
• You can find small drakes, werewolfs and an ice giant.
• You can find dragon eggs in this biome.
• You can find iron, obsidian and silver here.

• Full of slimes, skeletons, draugrs and dangerous creatures.
• More dangerous than Black Forest.
• You can be poisoned.
• You can find iron here.

• If you sail far away from the coast you will move into it.
• Sea serpents can attack you.
• You can find “small island” with chitin.

• You can find Fulings and Fulings villages here.
• Deathmosquitos in this area, be careful.
• You can get Black metal scraps from Fulings.

• You can find giant trees and big skulls here.
• Spider webs.

More information coming soon.

Information coming soon.

Information coming soon.

Merchant

You can find a traveler merchant in the Black Forest. The spawn location is random but when you are close you will be able to see a bag icon in your map.

You can buy and sell some items to this merchant.

Harvesting

To be able to harvest your own food you need a Cultivator, you can craft it in the forge:

With this tool you will be able to open a new menu where you can choose diferent options:

• Cultivate: Prepare the ground to be able to plant seeds.
• Grass: Set grass in the ground.
• Carrot: Plant carrots. Need 1 carrot seed.
• Carrot seed: Plant carrot seeds. Need 1 carrot.
• Plant trees: You can plant 3 diferent type of trees. You need the right tree seed.

When your crops are ready you can get close and pick them.

Keep in mind that seeds need some space to grow so don’t plant them close to each other.

Cooking and potions

Basic cook:

1. Place a campfire.
2. Place a cooking station over it.
3. Press E close to the campfire while you have some meat on your inventory.
4. Wait until changes color.
5. Press E again to take it before it burns out.

There are three main crafting items you can use to cook and make potions:

Cooking station:

• Needs a fire under it.
• You can place two in the same campfire.
• You can cook two pieces of meat, fish and tail in each cooking station.
• You can craft it using Wood x2

Keep in mind if you don’t take the food when it’s ready it will burnt out and you will get coal.

Cauldron:

• Needs a fire under it.
• You can place one cauldron in a campfire.
• You can cook: Carrout soup, queens jam, sausages and mead base to make potions.

Fermenter:

• Needs empty space over it.
• You can use mead base obtained from the cauldron to get different potions:
  • Frost resistance.
  • Medium healing.
  • Minor healing
  • Poison resistance
  • Minor stamina
  • Tasty
    
• To use the fermenter put the base inside it and just wait until is fermented.

Fishing

To be able to fishing you need a fishing rod and fishing bait that you can buy in a merchant.

How to fish:

1. Equip your fishing rod and get some bait in your inventory.
2. Look for fishes in the sea, lake or similar. Don’t randomly throw your hook in to the sea.
3. Left click using the fishing rod. Longer you hold left click further away the hook will go. You will spend one bait every left click.
4. Wait until a fish hit your hook, when the hook goes down press right click and hold it until the fish is close enough to be able to pick it pressing E.

Taming

You can tame some animals in the game this allow you to make a little “farm” and multiplicate them to get more food.

The following guide on how to tame animals it’s made by Judaspriester. Special thanks to him:

Material needed:

• Hoe
• Wood (30 should be enough)
• Vegetables (berries, shrooms etc. preferable 20+)

Steps:

1. Use the Hoe in order to make a plane space for your pen.
2. Build a pen with Roundpole Fences. It doesnt need to look fancy, but it should not contain holes.
3. Add a door to your Pen in order to enter and leave it.
4. Drop the Vegetables inside the Pen.
5. (The difficult path) Find some wild boars and make them attack you (getting close enough is usually enough). Now run to your pen and make sure they follow you.
6. Once they are in, make sure to get out and close the door without them leaving.
7. Wait, it will take like one hour to tame them, but you can do other stuff in between.
8. Once they are tamed, you can pet them in order to keep them happy. for further feeding just drop food on the ground.

Mining and Smithy

Ores/Basic resources:

Basic craft stations:
First thing you have to build, even before the Forge, is the smelter to able to turn ores into ingots and use them in the Forge.

To get the Surtling cores check the Surtling Core and how to get them section.

Smelter needs coal and ores in order to work. It will consume 2xCoal and 1xOre to get an ingot.

To get coal you can overcook food in the Cooking station or build a Charcoal kiln

Charcoal kiln needs wood in order to work.

Forge
This is the first craft station you have to build to be able to use ingots and craft better weapons, armors, tools and items.

You can improve your Forge using different furnitures.

To be able to smelt black metal scraps you need to use a Blast Furnace. You will unlock it when you get craft the Artisan table (Check Artisan table section).

This furnace needs coal to work too.

Workbench and Forge upgrades

To be able to unlock new recipes you need to find the items who allows you to craft the recipe itself but also you will need to upgrade your craft stations.

Workbench is level 1 by default. You can raise the level by one using one of each objects below. Max level is 5.
You have to place different furnitures, if you use 2x Tanning rack the level only will increase by one.

Chopping block:

Tanning rack:

Adze:

Tool Shelf:

Forge is level 1 by default. You can raise the level by one using one of each objects below. Max level is 7.

Anvils:

Forge cooler:

Smith’s anvil:

Forge bellows:

Grinding wheel:

Forge toolrack:

Portals

Portals allow players to travel long distance instantly. You need two portals named with the same tag.

You need to have a Workbench in range or the portal won’t work.

There are some items which can’t be teleported so if you have one of these in your inventory you won’t be able to use the teleport. These are:

• Tin ore
• Tin
• Copper ore
• Copper
• Bronze
• Silver ore

Crafting list (Outdated)

List of differents items available for crafting:

Reminder: Most of the crafts which needs a Hammer also needs a nearby Workbench to be able to place them.

You can use CTRL+F to search for an item on this list.

Basic items:

Ships:

Tools:

Weapons:

Armor:

Resources

Console commands

To hide UI press CTRL+F3.

To open the game console press F5 and type “help” to show all available commands.

If you type “imacheater” in console to turn On/Off cheat mode and then “help” you will be able to get another list of commands. Like teleport, freeview, godmode and more.

I highly recommend don’t use cheat commands to don’t ruin your ingame experience. This commands could be usefull if you get stuck: Use “pos” or “goto [x,z]” to teleport yourself and get unstuck.

Guide changelog

Information about the updates in this guide to help you find new information added if you already have read the guide.

Updates:
21/02/21
+ Added Workbench and Forge upgrades section.
11/02/21
+ Added Mining and smithy section.
+ Added chiting, core wood, leather scrapts in resource list.
+ Added Artisan table information.
+ Added some information about Yagluth (5th boss). Thanks to Meng
+ Added “How to find bosses rune” section. Thanks to Meng
07/02/21
+ Moder boss added in Bosses section.
+ Added Wishbone and how it works section.
+ Added Mistlands and Plains biome in Biome section.
+ Merchant sell list.
06/02/21
+ Added info about ladders in Sailing basics section.
+ Added Cooking and potions section.
+ Added Fishing section.
+ Added Longship recipe in Sailing basics section.

To do:
– Update the craft section.
– Update the resource section.
– Info about how decay system works.
– Basic info about how to go to the mountain for first time.
– Sea serpents info.

Final note

If you are missing information or something is wrong in this guide let me know in the comments below.

If the guide has been useful, it is appreciated that you rate it. Thank you!