Sea Serpents in daytime?

[MyUrp1]

Is this a thing now? I recently came back to the game, got my dark forest gear going, made a raft and hopped aboard and sailed off to kill the Elder, and on the way a sea serpent decided to sink my raft in the middle of the day.

Only reason I didn't die was my raft just barely held up long enough to get to shore. But wtf, I thought daytime sailing was supposed to be safe?

Only thing I can think of is that a storm popped up just before I finished my crossing, maybe storms allow for day serpents? But seriously, this game is very punishing for explorers, it's kind of annoying.

[hallaloth]

Pretty sure sea serpents have increased spawn rate in storms. Personally would never recommend using the raft unless there is literally no other option.

[Zep Tepi]

They can show up during the day. There are just more of them at night or in storms. It's like the night spawns in other biomes.

[southcabeza]

yes storms create serpents at any hour, happened to me in my first run 2 years ago

[kaypy]

I believe it works like this:

Serpents will spawn at night or in a storm. Not all will spawn close enough to notice you though.

Serpents that spawn at night will unspawn during the day. Storm serpents will not though.

So if you travel on or near the ocean during a storm, then the serpents that spawn at a distance will linger until you come close enough to get their attention, even if that later time is sunny.

[MyUrp1]

So if serpents spawn in storms, that explains it. I guess that means the karve is the only safe way to travel. Glad there's enough black forest on the starting island to support that, but it's even more grinding before leaving.

I'm just amazed at my luck of having a storm and a serpent spawn on my first ocean outing, and that crossing only a tiny ribbon of true ocean.

[Tangoblue]

When traveling in the ocean I always use the Longship I leave the karve for coastal/river traveling.

And yes, Sea Serpents can spawn during the day but it's not a common occurrence.

[Zep Tepi]

They can show up in daytime without storms as I said earlier.

After sunrise, no storm. The ocean was still and foggy all night. However, this was the only daytime serpent I've seen so they are rare. (I don't sail much if I can help it though.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2893458770

[sarteck]

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

They can show up in daytime without storms as I said earlier.

After sunrise, no storm. The ocean was still and foggy all night. However, this was the only daytime serpent I've seen so they are rare. (I don't sail much if I can help it though.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2893458770

They actually can't. That one must have spawned during a storm.

[Tangoblue]

Originally posted by sarteck:

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

They can show up in daytime without storms as I said earlier.

After sunrise, no storm. The ocean was still and foggy all night. However, this was the only daytime serpent I've seen so they are rare. (I don't sail much if I can help it though.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2893458770

They actually can't. That one must have spawned during a storm.

Yeah, they can and do spawn during the day, no storm needed. Like I said, rare but it happens.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2709255451

[sarteck]

Originally posted by Tangoblue:

Originally posted by sarteck:

They actually can't. That one must have spawned during a storm.

Yeah, they can and do spawn during the day, no storm needed. Like I said, rare but it happens.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2709255451

No, they cannot. Check your Unity logs when you think this happens. You will see no "spawned serpent" message. They are leftovers from the storm.

Screenshots are irrelevant here (unless you're screenshotting your unity log). It doesn't tell you when they spawned.

[EDIT] And I should add it's not "storms" specifically, but any rainy weather.

[hallaloth]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

I'm just amazed at my luck of having a storm and a serpent spawn on my first ocean outing, and that crossing only a tiny ribbon of true ocean.

RNG World generation at its finest. Sometimes the Ocean is practically at the shoreline, other times you can go far beyond land before it decides to stop being a black forest underwater.

I swear someday I am going to see a stranded troll and knowing my luck, the wind will not cooperate and it will throw rocks until I die/the boat breaks.

[Happy]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

Is this a thing now? I recently came back to the game, got my dark forest gear going, made a raft and hopped aboard and sailed off to kill the Elder, and on the way a sea serpent decided to sink my raft in the middle of the day.

Only reason I didn't die was my raft just barely held up long enough to get to shore. But wtf, I thought daytime sailing was supposed to be safe?

Only thing I can think of is that a storm popped up just before I finished my crossing, maybe storms allow for day serpents? But seriously, this game is very punishing for explorers, it's kind of annoying.

Assuming vanilla game, yes they do spawn during the day. Exceptionally rare, however, so consider yourself really unlucky all things considered.

Most people don't notice day spawns that much because the Serpent spawn rate for calm weather is incredibly low, but never zero but it will happen from time to time.

Spawn rates only increase tenfold during a storm or during night time, or both - also the best time to go hunting for them (when you have access to a better ship).

Night spawned serpents will despawn if they loose aggro or you loose sight of them, but storm serpents will remain, if you are in the area, so you could have bumped into either one storm serpent (from a previous storm) or a day serpent spawn also.

[sarteck]

Originally posted by Happy:

Assuming vanilla game, yes they do spawn during the day. Exceptionally rare, however, so consider yourself really unlucky all things considered.

"Exceptionally rare" == 0%. They do not spawn unless it's raining or unless it's nighttime.

See the official wiki page[valheim.fandom.com] .

Each ocean tile (see this wiki page[valheim.fandom.com] for what is considered an "ocean tile") has two spawn points for serpents. One is for daytime during rain/thunderstorms, one is for nighttime.

Each spawn point has a 5% chance to spawn a serpent every 1000 seconds.

If the spawn check is successful, the serpent will spawn 40-80 meters away.

The spawn will automatically fail if there's another Serpent within 50 meters of the spawn point.



[EDIT] And before someone comments "muh wiki can be edited by anyone," check out the Talk page about the Devs having confirmed spawning behavior on Discord[valheim.fandom.com].

[MyUrp1]

Yeah, this was definitely a storm serpent -- and I was surprised by the storm.
Hmmm, maybe it's not so much bad luck as being on a really slow boat. Lots of time for unlikely things to come together, I was out there for a good 10 minutes making my passage. Rafts may just be a really bad choice for ocean voyages. (added points for realism?)

[Mjarr]

Originally posted by sarteck:

"Exceptionally rare" == 0%. They do not spawn unless it's raining or unless it's nighttime.

Whatever the devs intend may take backseat if the code or logic how it checks weather does not seem to work always as intended or has odd oversights as I have also encountered serpent spawns in broad daylight and in just foggy weather traveling to area nobody has been before, both on listen and dedicated servers (given I hosted the server myself for convenience on old PC) 100% completely vanilla game, and every player is as vanilla as it can get.

Unless the game really stores serpents for stupidly long time in memory that there was a storm and it spawned at the very edge where it can spawn and when you return there way way way later on a broad daylight in spite of it's been couple of days IRL days before anyone even continued on the server again, I still consider sea serpents exceptionally rare spawns in daylight. But that's probably spaghetti code overflowing into next level buggyness rather than working entirely as intended.