Mob Spawning and Zones

[Awen]

Trying to wrap my head around how mob spawning/zones works when playing on a multiplayer server.

We have two small groups playing on the same server, at different times usually due to schedules, a "night" group and "day" group.

Since this started, when people from the "day" group login, we're finding things in our base area that indicate time is passing, e.g. torches/campfires out of fuel, damaged buildings, and in a couple of cases, a troll beating its way through the walls.

Even though the "night" group's base and players is a fair distance across the map, probably a quarter day's sprint away, would their presence cause mob activity in the "day" group's area while no one there was logged in?

Thanks!

[Soma]

Yes, If one person is logged on, the entire world is active.

The groups could build a perimeter of workbenches or buried camp fires to help with close by monster spawns, but the torches burning out/ rain damage theres nothing you can do without mods.

[Veseljko]

The whole world is “active” if there is at least one player on the server. This means your torches and campfires will burn out the fuel, your veggies will grow etc. however if no one is in the area, mobs are inactive. They will not attack bases and there will be no base raids.

[Pat Fenis]

Player needs to be near for monsters to spawn and trash your base. The other group is coming near your base. Time will pass for fuel consumption if anyone is logged in, near or not.

[Awen]

What roughly is the distance a player would need to be away for an area to be inactive from mob purposes? This wiki article describe a radius of roughly ~300 meters, with a meter being roughly a step, that seems pretty close.

https://valheim.fandom.com/wiki/Zones#Inactive_zones

Does this seem accurate?

[Pat Fenis]

128m laterally or 181m diagonally is the extreme safety limit to keep your base zone inactive. It would be possible for a mob to spawn and be active if someone came within that.

[Awen]

If there were hostile mobs outside while a player was making a zone active and they left or logged out, would the mob despawn or would it "freeze" until the zone became active again?

[Pat Fenis]

Wouldn't despawn, it would lose aggro but still be there if the area activates again. If base structures or players are in it's line of sight it will start attacking them again.

[Awen]

Originally posted by Pat Fenis:

Wouldn't despawn, it would lose aggro but still be there if the area activates again. If base structures or players are in it's line of sight it will start attacking them again.

So I wonder if that's what's going on. I myself have logged in twice now to our meadow base (on the edge of some black forest) to see a troll right outside the wall, hitting structures. I was the only one in the server when I logged in.

If someone logged out while the troll was around, he'd be right there when someone new logged in? We've excavated some anti-troll trenches around the perimeter, but there is some "day team" vs "night team" friction due to finger pointing around who is responsible for the great boar pen slaughter of March 22.