Upgrading your base (building materials)

[Camp]

So it's been a little while since I have played (did a play through before the frost caves). Starting over now with someone and I know I want to build out of dark wood, but that is a way off... we just beat the first boss, taking it slow since it's his first time. Someone remind me, if I build in normal wood, I cannot later upgrade it to dark work, can I? I know in games like 7 Days to Die, Ark and Conan you can upgrade standing bases, but I do not remember that being possible in Valheim. Am I incorrect? Thanks in advance.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Upgrading base buiilding parts is not possible in Valheim. You need to rebuild the whole house.

[esbenmf]

Well, while you can't actually upgrade building parts, you can just rebuild the parts, that you want to change, no need to tear it all down.

[Rhapsody]

It's also possible to get a bit more creative. You can clip items inside others, this way you can for example have your basic wooden wall which hides an iron cage completely inside of it. It requires rebuilding the original piece, but I would consider it an upgrade of sorts even with all the extra clicking.

You won't ever lose materials used for building unless there's some sort of fuel involved (like in case braziers), so you can rebuild something as many times as you like.

[jonnin]

not to ruin your day but dark wood... has new roofs and beams and decorative items. Your walls, floors, doors, and most everything will not change. There is a new door but its ginormous and won't replace normal interior viking tall doors, it replaces the 'gate'.
so apart from re-roofing, 95% of your house is most likely to remain untouched (though the % will be higher if you have an epic roof on a 1 story home)

moving from stone to marble is another story. Not only do you have to replace each block, but the blocks are not 1-to-1 replacements in most cases. This is a heroic effort, and basically either do-over or stone by stone it slowly.

here, the roof, wood poles, and arch pieces on the door are dark wood. The door is the standard 'gate', the walls are standard wood, etc. I think the bird decoration is dark wood, while the dragon is normal, and so on.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924987564

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by jonnin:

moving from stone to marble is another story. Not only do you have to replace each block, but the blocks are not 1-to-1 replacements in most cases. This is a heroic effort, and basically either do-over or stone by stone it slowly.

I'm just slapping some marble on top or in front of stone. Nothing wrong with the good old-fashioned rock walls, and marble only adds some depth feature to them. Same thing with iron cages.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2931228522

[Foxglovez]

If you use tarred items more as decoration then swapping out or adding bits and pieces is easy. The roof is a vast improvement over thatch. Marble on the other hand looks so out of place in this game - like the carnival came to town and dumped rubble which doesn't fit with anything else, too garish and shineee. I give the fountain the fugly item of the year award. Ugh. So many options and that's what they landed on. Shakes head. Guess it looks best in ML but then building there seems mostly counterproductive which is sad. My opinion, your mileage may vary.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

The roof is a vast improvement over thatch.

That's actually not the case... They have the same amount of HP but different resistances. Thatch roof is actually a better choice in mistlands since it's less vulnerable to fire than tarred roofing is. The advantage is purely cosmetic, which is a bit of a shame since you'd think tarred shingles were at least more resistance to ice or such.