Valheim base placement on a shared server

On a shared Valheim server, put each player's base at least a few hundred metres from the next one, keep the shared portal hub out of the middle of any base, and build on ground that is already flat. Those three rules come from one mechanic: the game only simulates the zones around players, and the player who arrives first in an area simulates everything there for everyone. Two bases built close together are, from the game's point of view, one very large base that gets loaded and run every time anyone goes home. Spread out and each player carries only their own place.

The rest of this post is the reasoning, the distances, and the layout choices that follow from it - plus the things that do not matter as much as people think. It assumes a running server and some familiarity with why Valheim lags; Valheim server lag: zone ownership and desync is the background, and this post applies it to the map.

Zones, active areas and who owns what#

Valheim divides the world into square zones of 64 by 64 metres. Around each player, the game keeps a block of zones active: the zone the player stands in and a ring of zones around it are fully simulated, and a further ring beyond that is loaded so you can see it. The exact radius is an internal setting rather than something you configure, but the practical shape is roughly a couple of hundred metres across that is alive, centred on you, moving with you.

Inside that area, every object - building piece, chest, creature, plant, smelter, dropped item - has an owner, the peer that simulates it and tells everyone else its state. When you walk into an area nobody is in, you become the owner. When somebody else is already there, they stay the owner until they leave. Areas with no players around are not being run at all; their objects sit in the world file and in the server's memory until someone comes back.

Three consequences shape how you should lay out a shared world:

1. Nearby bases load together. If your base is inside the active area around mine, then every time I go home, your base is loaded and simulated too - by me.
2. The owner pays. Whoever arrives first runs the fires, the smelters, the animals and the plants. If that is the player with the weakest PC or worst connection, everyone nearby feels it.
3. Empty places are free. A huge base nobody is near costs disk space and memory, not simulation. Spreading out is not only fair, it is cheaper.

How far apart player bases should be#

The aim is that standing in one base does not activate another. With a 64-metre zone and a block of active zones around each player, the active areas of two players stop overlapping once they are a few zones apart.

Three hundred metres is a sensible minimum to aim for, and more is fine. Treat these as rules of thumb rather than precise boundaries: the active radius is fixed by the game, and how much of a base sits at its edges depends on how sprawling the base is. A compact hall and a sprawling estate of farms and pens at the same centre point are very different neighbours.

Valheim's map has no scale bar, so measure in zones instead of metres. A workbench's build radius is the easiest reference most players already know by sight; several of those between two bases' edges is a reasonable gap. A minute or so of running is another informal guide. Agreeing on rough spots before anyone lays a floor saves arguments later.

The main base and private bases#

Most groups end up with one shared main base and some private ones. The main base is where smelting, crafting stations, storage and the portal hub tend to live. It will be the biggest, busiest place in the world, and the one most often loaded by several players at once.

That makes it the place where layout decisions pay off most.

• Build on naturally flat ground. Terraforming is stored as terrain modifications, and a hilltop levelled by hand carries a lot of extra data that every visitor loads. Meadows and Plains have plenty of flat land; use it.
• Spread the station clusters slightly. A smelting row with kilns and smelters, a farm and an animal pen do not need to sit inside one hall. Separate them by a few dozen metres and they are still one base, but the heaviest parts are not all rendered in one view.
• Keep animals to what you need. Tames run their AI wherever their pen is, and an over-bred pen is the most common reason a main base lags. A few breeding pairs feed a group.
• Put things in chests. Items on the ground are physics objects. A tidy base is a fast base.

Private bases follow the same rules on a smaller scale. A player who builds a giant cathedral alone is fine as long as nobody else's base is inside its active area - they pay its load, and only when they are there.

Which biome to build in

The Meadows and the edge of the Black Forest are the classic main-base locations: flat ground, weak raids early, and nothing around that is expensive to draw. Bases in the Mistlands or Ashlands are possible and look striking, but every visit means rendering the surroundings, which is much heavier than the base itself. Valheim performance by biome explains the difference. For late-game work, a small outpost with a portal back to an early-biome main base is the usual compromise.

Portals: hubs, outposts and arrivals#

Portals change the map's geometry: they let you put bases far apart without making them far to reach. That is a good reason to spread out further than you would otherwise.

A sensible portal layout on a shared server:

1. A shared hub a short walk outside the main base, not in its centre. Arrivals then load the hub and the edge of the base, rather than the whole thing.
2. One portal per destination, each with a clear name and a sign.
3. Each private base gets one portal back to the hub, tagged with the owner's name to avoid collisions.
4. Nothing heavy around the hub - no farms, no pens, no forest of torches.

The tagging rules matter here - duplicate names on a shared server pair portals in ways nobody intended. Valheim portals: tags, pairing and teleport rules covers that in full, including what metal can and cannot be carried, which affects where a smelting outpost should stand.

Smelting and the metal problem

On default portal rules, ore and bars do not go through portals. That one rule decides more about base placement than any performance concern: smelters end up where ore can reach them by boat or cart, which usually means a coastal base with a dock. If your group runs with -modifier portals casual, the main base can be anywhere, and a lot of groups put smelting in the main base and portal everything home.

Either way, put the smelting row on the side of the base away from the hub and the beds. It is busy, it is noisy, and when raids come it is the part that tends to get hit.

Things that keep running while you are away#

People worry that a base far from everyone else is "not running". For most things that is fine, because Valheim works out progress from time when an area loads again.

The exact catch-up behaviour for each station has changed a few times over the game's life, so check in game if something seems off - but the general rule holds: far-away bases still produce. What does not happen far away is taming and breeding, because creatures only act while somebody has their zone loaded. That is a reason to keep the animal pen at the base where people spend the most time.

Raids and base placement#

Raids happen near players, and they target areas the game considers a player base - places with workbenches, fires, beds and similar pieces. Two placement points follow:

• Remote solo bases see raids too. The world's raid list applies to every base, so a lone player far from the main hall faces the same events with a fraction of the defenders.
• Close neighbours share raids. If two bases are close, a raid on one is a raid on both, and whoever owns the zone runs the whole fight.

How a raid picks its target and which raids the world can roll are covered in raids and events on Valheim servers. The world's raid frequency can be lowered with -modifier raids less if a group keeps losing remote bases while nobody is online.

Wards, claims and fairness#

A ward marks an area as belonging to its builder and the players permitted on it. It is the closest Valheim has to a land claim, and on a shared server it is worth placing one in every private base. It prevents casual mistakes like someone else's portal hub growing into your garden.

Wards are not a substitute for spacing, and they have limits a determined player can work around. Valheim wards and griefing explains what a ward stops and what it does not, and how admins handle disputes.

The social part is simpler than any mechanic:

1. Agree where the main base goes before the first workbench.
2. Keep a shared map with a cartography table, and mark each player's base and outpost on it.
3. Ask before building near someone else, and if you do build near them, keep it small.
4. Tear down abandoned outposts or rename their portals, so the map does not fill with old, half-loaded clutter.

Moving a base that is in the wrong place#

Sometimes the base is already there and it is the problem: two players built too close, or the main base sits on a terraformed mountain and lags every evening. Moving it is a real project, but it is cheaper than fighting the lag forever.

1. Take a backup first. Stop the server cleanly, make a manual backup, and keep it. On RE:NODE that is a button on the Backups tab, and the backup can be locked so rotation does not remove it - see the backups guide.
2. Build the new base before demolishing the old one. Move stations and storage gradually.
3. Deconstruct rather than abandon. Pieces left standing still cost the world file and still load when anyone passes.
4. Do not raise the ground back. Undoing old terraforming creates more terrain modifications, not fewer. Leave it.
5. Watch the world file size and the save time. A smaller .db and a shorter World saved time in the log are your evidence that the move helped.

Valheim server backups and world corruption covers how to keep the backup safe during a big change like this.

FAQ#

How far apart should Valheim bases be on a server?

Aim for at least 300 metres between base centres, and more for sprawling bases. At that distance, standing in one base does not load and simulate the other, so each player carries only their own place.

Does a base far from everyone else stop working?

Mostly no. Crops, fermenters, beehives and smelters catch up from elapsed time when the area loads again. What does stop is taming and breeding, which need someone nearby.

Is it better to have one big shared base or several smaller ones?

Several smaller ones, a few zones apart, are cheaper at any given moment, because only the areas near players are active. A shared main base for stations and storage plus private homes is the usual compromise.

Should the portal hub be inside the main base?

Just outside it. Every arrival loads the area around the portal, so a hub in the middle of a heavy base means every trip home loads everything at once. A short walk away keeps arrivals quick.

Does building on a zone boundary cause problems?

Not in any way you need to plan around. Ownership is per object and the active area covers several zones around you, so a base straddling two zones loads the same as one inside a single zone.

Why does our main base lag when two particular players are home?

Their bases are probably inside each other's active area, so the first to arrive is simulating both. Either one of them moves, or the stronger PC and better connection should arrive first and stay the owner.