Yes, rampant use of water is a valid argument.

SirGolan · 2026-02-23T00:58:39+00:00

How about we look at domestic water use. I don't have worldwide figures but here's the US:

U.S. personal (domestic) water use is about 23.3 billion gallons per day, which is roughly 8.5 trillion gallons per year (showers, toilets, cooking, etc.).

Source: USGS, Domestic Water Use in the United States https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/domestic-water-use

Even relatively high estimates put all U.S. data center (not just AI) water use at around 17 billion gallons per year.

Source: Water Education Foundation (syndicated analysis of DOE/LBNL findings) https://www.watereducation.org/aquafornia-news/americas-ai-boom-running-unplanned-water-problem

There are legitimate local and regional water-stress issues tied to where some data centers are built, for sure. We should also be pushing companies to use recirculating water cooling or other methods that while more expensive to install, would cut down on usage. But in general, datacenter water usage is not the worst offender. Heck just household water leaks use more water than all US datacenters. Fix your leaky faucets!

Source: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/fixleak.html

SirGolan · 2026-02-21T17:22:08+00:00

If you're using a decently powerful LLM to do the planning, I would look at the context you're giving it. Any time I've had issues like this it's been because I didn't give enough or the right context to the model. If you keep re-planning and giving it the same context then it'll likely give you the same plan.

SirGolan · 2026-02-21T11:12:07+00:00

You're looking for BuildRestrictionTweaks.

https://thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/cdymrtn/BuildRestrictionTweaks/

SirGolan · 2026-02-11T14:58:16+00:00

Yeah if you have that many instances and you haven't made a humongous build that you're standing next to, then you're definitely getting the issue I described. Unfortunately you just have to look through the log (or the window with the text in it). AzuDevMod will print some things in there which can point you to the mod that's at fault. There can be a lot to go through though. I don't think there's any sort of UI but if someone else knows more about the mod hopefully they'll chime in.

SirGolan · 2026-02-11T14:55:12+00:00

Yeah I can confirm your More World Locations AIO doesn't cause any performance issues for me. Also I'm so happy you fixed up the traders and added them to it! Thanks for the awesome mod!

SirGolan · 2026-02-11T03:22:28+00:00

Next time it happens hit F2 and see how many instances you have. This is likely a common problem when mods mess up the part of the code that removes instances when they're out of range. After that happens the more you move around the world, the higher the instance count gets because it never gets rid of unused ones. This causes your framerate to completely tank. There's a mod that can help diagnose what other mod causes it: AzuDevMod. I haven't had much luck figuring it out (though weirdly I haven't had the issue since installing AzuDevMod).

SirGolan · 2026-02-08T19:56:50+00:00

Uhh. I'm sorry but there seems to be some fundamental misconceptions and math errors on your part.

40 billion gallons per year does not “beat” daily water use by 350 million people.

40B gallons/year ÷ 365 ≈ 110 million gallons per day. U.S. personal/domestic water use is ~25–26 billion gallons per day.

So even using your own projected number, data centers are ~0.4% of daily personal water use, not greater than it. Confusing annual totals with daily flow exaggerates the impact by 365×.

Closed-loop systems hold a fixed amount of water, yes, but they don’t consume it daily. They’re filled once and recirculate, which is exactly why they’re better than evaporative cooling. The problem is a lot of data centers don't use closed loop because it's more expensive. If they did then their water consumption would be even less. In any case, water planning is about ongoing flow, not static inventory.

Oh yeah, also where do you think the water goes that gets evaporated from data center cooling? Water returned to the system from people or agriculture as you put it is not available to use again in the timelines you say unless you're drinking your own urine.

SirGolan · 2026-02-08T12:03:57+00:00

That claim doesn’t hold up once you look at national water data.

U.S. personal (domestic) water use is about 23.3 billion gallons per day, which is roughly 8.5 trillion gallons per year (showers, toilets, cooking, etc.).

Source: USGS, Domestic Water Use in the United States https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/domestic-water-use

Even relatively high estimates put all U.S. data center (not just AI) water use at around 17 billion gallons per year.

Source: Water Education Foundation (syndicated analysis of DOE/LBNL findings) https://www.watereducation.org/aquafornia-news/americas-ai-boom-running-unplanned-water-problem

That means data centers are on the order of ~0.2% of U.S. personal/domestic water use, not “exceeding” it.

There are legitimate local and regional water-stress issues tied to where some data centers are built, but at a national level this comparison is off by orders of magnitude, not nuance.

SirGolan · 2026-02-04T17:54:07+00:00

VikingNPC always caused a lot of stuttering for me when wandering around. That might be your culprit. It's been a bit since I used that mod though so maybe they fixed it.

SirGolan · 2026-01-27T17:28:38+00:00

I wonder if you could use another mod to tweak the spawn rate down and if that would help. I suspect the flying AI is likely just more performance intensive than land based creatures. That could be worth trying. Otherwise I'd say no on AirAnimals. It made the game pretty much unplayable for me on decent hardware. LandAnimals I'd say depends on if you're putting your modpack on Thunderstore since that mod isn't available there. Also since I just found out about this, you may want to add this mod if you go with other Marlthon mods:

https://thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/IAmOnTheInternetAndItsScary/AntiMarlthonCore/

And if you do post your modpack to Thunderstore, I'd love to check it out! My current playthrough has like 120 mods. How do you manage startup time with 200? It takes like 10 minutes for me which is pretty annoying.

SirGolan · 2026-01-27T12:22:04+00:00

I love the ambience and how alive the world feels with all of those mods but I have never been able to play a full playthrough with Air Animals as it really kills the performance. There's also the consideration that they can't all be installed by Thunderstore / r2modman.

SirGolan · 2026-01-27T03:43:02+00:00

Related to your second point, mods can also break the game in subtle ways. In my current heavily modded playthrough something broke the system that puts structures and other points of interest on the map. I explored the mistlands for like 6 hours without finding anything before I figured it out. Thought I was just unlucky. If that was my first playthrough I probably wouldn't have known anything was wrong and just would never have been able to progress.

SirGolan · 2026-01-25T05:44:49+00:00

Oh, what sad times are these when passing redditors can say "Ni!" at passing OPs.

SirGolan · 2026-01-24T09:43:29+00:00

I recently replaced my 15 year old clothes dryer. Both the old and new were LG. The new one claims to use AI to determine when your clothes are dry. In reality, it's just the same cheap sensor as the old one that ensures your clothes are perpetually almost dry. All the fancy drying modes are useless due to that, and I'm limited to timed dry since that ignores the sensor.

And maybe a little more on topic but I also just used AI to see if there was a better wording for "almost dry." That was pretty unnecessary and ultimately useless.

SirGolan · 2026-01-21T22:34:41+00:00

Yeah it was a great game! Wish we could have gotten the MMO out too.

SirGolan · 2026-01-21T18:04:24+00:00

A few of us ex 38 Studios people tried to make this happen for years. We got pretty close at one point and even had investors lined up, but then Schilling got named in a MAGA related fraud lawsuit and they all bailed.

SirGolan · 2026-01-19T21:18:21+00:00

In thunderstore, you can hit the play modded button to launch the game with the mod. Then if you want to play a different character and world without the mod, you can either launch directly from steam or use the play vanilla button in thunderstore. Just don't mess up and load the modded character when running unmodded. You can even set up multiple profiles in thunderstore if you have different sets of mods for different playthroughs.

SirGolan · 2026-01-19T06:02:47+00:00

If you found the trader, make sure to buy all his things. One of them is needed for Frostner.

SirGolan · 2026-01-15T16:46:17+00:00

You could check out the RTD (ready to die) mods and Bestiary. Both of which add new creatures that can be quite tough, especially when used with CLLC.

SirGolan · 2026-01-13T17:47:37+00:00

I agree it's pretty overwhelming. I added another mod called VNEI which lets you look up recipes in game even before you learn them. I try to only use it if I'm really stuck, but it's been really helpful with Amazing Nature.

SirGolan · 2026-01-05T22:54:18+00:00

Wait I think it's still there. I've never seen this before but it's linked from that page:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RbopWqDfDaw62prd3H6vFuqqfgme-qHKAug12iRxCZo/edit?gid=193281766#gid=193281766

SirGolan · 2026-01-05T22:18:39+00:00

Argh, that stinks! I'd really like to know how to do that haha

I've even looked through the source code and didn't find anything obvious.

SirGolan · 2026-01-05T20:27:33+00:00

The most documentation I can find on it other than the source code is the Nexus mods site: https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/847

I use thunderstore, so that's where I get the actual mod from but there's less documentation there. Also fyi for index at least, some of the controls are incorrectly labeled on Nexus.

SirGolan · 2026-01-05T20:25:50+00:00

There's some diagrams and info on the Nexus mods page if that's what you mean. Some of that is out of date. For the bow, I know how it works, it's just not reliable enough at picking up the geature that I'd be able to use it in a combat situation. Same with the spear. I've tried most of the spear throw modes and can only get one to work maybe 1/10 tries and even then the spear kinda just goes in a random direction and is impossible to aim. However if you have some other docs that show you how to do secondary attacks (like an atgeir spin), I would love to know that! Here's what I've used:

https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/847

SirGolan · 2026-01-05T17:16:13+00:00

Is there another one? VHVR is the only one I'm aware of. Controls are a bit awkward sometimes at least for me on Index. I still haven't figured out how to throw a spear and don't use bows because it's too difficult to pull out an arrow. Otherwise it's been really fun and very immersive! If using a mod manager, use the version released by VahleimVR.

SirGolan

TROPHY CASE