Teragon is a map (world) generation tool for 7 Days to Die developed by Pille. It lets you control terrain, rivers, biomes, roads, towns, and POIs in finer detail than the vanilla Random World Generation (RWG), so you can craft carefully tailored maps. On the other hand, the UI packs in a lot of information, and it’s easy to feel like you “don’t know where to start.” So in this article, we’ll focus narrowly on just getting your first map to output.
First, the key concept: Teragon runs on a “preset + sequence of commands”
Teragon’s world generation is made up of a list of commands executed in order from top to bottom (the Command Queue). Build terrain → draw rivers → place biomes → roads → towns → POIs… A “preset” is these steps stacked up as commands. Once you understand that this is the heart of it, the way the screen looks suddenly falls into place.
- The EXPERT (F2) tab … the body of that command sequence. All the fine-grained control lives here.
- The BASIC (F1) tab … a “simplified mode” that turns just the “parts you touch often” into easy switches.
At first, touching only the switches on the BASIC tab is plenty. Once you get comfortable, move on to tweaking individual commands in EXPERT — a two-stage approach.
Installation and initial setup
- Get Teragon itself, and launch the executable inside the unzipped folder (it’s a portable format that requires no installer).
- On first launch, the Initial Setup screen appears. Here you set the Game Version, the location of the game itself (Game Directory), and the AppData and User Data paths. You can change these later via
Tools → Initial Setup. - The paths you set here can be used within presets as tags (variables) called
[gamepath],[appdata], and[userdata]. When you distribute or share a preset, using these tags instead of real paths means whoever receives it doesn’t have to fix the paths.
Note on version compatibility: A21 maps require v0.43.2 or later. If you’re reusing an older A20 preset, you’ll need to update the POI Property List.
Steps to output your “first map”
Right after launch, a default preset is loaded. Let’s just output one map as-is first. Set the following on the BASIC tab.
- Output Directory … set this to
[userdata]GeneratedWorlds. This is where the game reads from. If you leave it as your Downloads folder, it won’t show up in the game, so be sure to change it. - World … enter a world name (e.g.,
MyFirstWorld). If left blank, nothing is output. - World Seed / World Size … optional. We recommend 8k to start. 16k takes about 4 times as long to generate as 8k.
- Press RUN at the bottom left. Progress and errors scroll by in the Console (F7) below, so watch it while you wait.
When generation finishes, a full set of map files is output to [userdata]GeneratedWorlds<world name>, and you’ll be able to select that world name from the game’s “New Game” menu.
Little tricks to speed up trial and error
Map generation takes time, so while you’re searching for terrain you like, the following tips help.
- Keep Rivers and Erosion off until the terrain is settled. Turn them on at the end.
- Roads last. Start with just Main Roads, and once you’re happy, add Side Roads.
- Once you have terrain you like, Export it and load it via Import from then on, and disable the terrain commands, so you don’t have to regenerate every time.
How the temporary preset works (so you don’t break anything)
What’s loaded at startup isn’t the saved preset itself, but a temporary preset that won’t break the original no matter how you mess with it. Only when you want to commit your changes do you use File → Save. Conversely, when you want to return to the saved version, use Load (at which point the temporary preset is overwritten). Thanks to this design, you’re free to try all sorts of things without worry.
Next, in “The Complete Guide to Teragon’s Screens (Tabs),” we’ll organize the role of each tab and button. Settings for specific kinds of worlds you want to build will be compiled in “Reverse-Lookup Recipe Collection: The World You Want → Where to Touch.”