This guide will teach you some novice to advanced construction tips that will make your home in Valheim more safe and enjoyable. No longer deal with GreyDwarfs, Trolls, other crap attacking you or your camp at random! Live a safe life and essentially expand as much as you want!
Trenches, Moats, Mass Graves, The Big Hole
Note: Credit goes to Croc The Terrible
As this section’s title suggests, we will be talking about holes. No, Not my hole or your hole. But the hole your about to spend 20 minutes digging around the land you decide to make into a plot of land to build your house on. You should select an area that is already a little higher than the water level of the map.
Since there is no hydro-physics in Valheim, water will fill a hole that is dug past the watershed level. The watershed level is the level of water that exists on the map. This level is uniform for the entirety of the map. So when choosing a plot of land to build a trench or moat on, it is important to consider the watershed level and your relation to it. Building plots of land in the Black-forest or in the Meadows is the best idea for anyone regardless of skill level. As these places generally have a great distance from the watershed level. I for this guide and for my own play-through chose to build in the Meadows, a short walk from the Black forest. So I still had issues with GrayDwarfs attacking from the Black forest. So lets begin
First you will select your plot of land that you wish to trench off from the rest of the map. It is important to leave yourself room for expansion when you eventually plan to expand later, but you can also just raise the land that you have trenched out at a later date and just expand your trenches like I have in my own play-through.
Once you have selected your plot of land you will need a Antler Pickax, This pickax will allow you to terraform the ground beneath you, any pickax will do but this is the earliest pickax that you obtain in the game, also the pickax I used to make my trenches and still use during the writing of this guide.
Once you have obtained your Pickax, it is time to start your trench, Dig a shallow trench around your home to plan the initial layout of your plot. This will allow you the ability to jump in and out of the trench to change and alter the direction of your trench without dying. Please see below the shallowest part of my trench that is currently under construction below.
When you have completed your outline of your trench it is important to make it deeper, I am unaware of the actual height needed to prevent passage of monsters. However I find that its just best to make it as difficult as possible and it usually works with 100% success at preventing Mobs from traversing the terrain. Below is a example from my deep trench (giggity).
After your trench has been dug and completely encircles the plot of land that you have selected, its time to make a walkway that only humans can use. I went with a half bridge that should be built on the side of the trench that your plot of land is on. See below:
If you did not notice in the picture above, the walkways I built do not reach the other side of the trench, this has to be built this way, if you connect the two pieces of land, mobs will use this walkway as a breach point, and attack your home. However this part in between the walkway and the land opposite my plot is not large enough to be an issue, and even without stamina a small bunny hop will allow a player to safely clear the space in between. See here below another angle of the first plot I build yesterday.
I also recommend putting up palisade walls around the outer perimeter of your plot of land, this prevents mobs from throwing rocks at objects from across the trench, It also protects anything you have outside your home that could get damaged, such as beehives etc.
And the most important thing to preventing monster spawning inside your plot of land regardless of size: Till your f soil! Get a hoe, till that soil, remove all grass! Grass spawns mobs! Remove all grass. Remove all grass. Remove all grass. Build a simple hoe. Remove all grass. All of it. Remove all the grass inside your plot. Do you understand me. Say what again. Remove all the grass bro!
This has been trench building 101. Please continue to the next section of the guide.
Supports Aren’t Just for People in AA
So as this title probably implies this is a very quick section about support beams in your home.
They are important. Don’t skimp on them, don’t overuse them, don’t build on un-flattened land.
Here is the reason. Depicted below is half of my home built on stilts on non flattened land.
This has caused the walls and roof on that side of my house to become unstable regardless of the fact that I have placed support beams in the area.
The roof tile is red indicating that it could collapse at any time.
Tiles indicate how close they are to collapsing by a series of color indicators.
- Blue indicates the object is the foundation object and will not collapse at all.
- Green indicates the object is second level to the foundation object and will not collapse at all.
- Yellow indicates that the object is third level to the foundation object and any other additions may be slightly unstable.
- Orange indicates that the object is unstable and it is unwise to add further objects to this object.
- Red indicates that any additional objects will collapse if added to this object.
Having too many dark colors (orange and red) close together can cause random partial building collapses. In order to avoid situations such as these and losing half your home. Always build with supports and on flat stable ground.
An example of correct building can be seen in the pictures above(Blue through yellow). From the ground to the ceiling support. it should look like that while it is possible through the use of cross sectional framing you can make an even more stable build, this one does the job I require and keeps my roof up without the risk of collapse if I were to lose sections of the house from a random attack. (not that that could happen anymore because of the trench)
So please use supports for your homes, Core wood is needed to build the log supports, but they are very much worth it in the long run. also remember: Remove your grass to prevent mob spawns. Remove that dang grass you fool! Dangit bobby remove that grass or ill give you the biggest beating of your life boy! Get that hoe and remove that grass!
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