Horizon Expandinator May Be Contender for Worst Item

[YouKnowWho142]

This is probably a common topic. I'm not sure what it is with the scrap items and being consistently kind of awful. I've been advocating for a Warbis buff almost since they released, I'd love if they removed the enlightened shard cost and moved it closer to dreadstone armor in progression, but that's another topic. However, I don't think any scrap item is treated as badly as Horizon Expandinator.

Horizon Expandinator is realistically Scrappy Werepig's only unique drop. It expands how far you can zoom your screen to make exploring easier. You know, after already exploring the ruins and killing 2 bosses. It cannot be repaired so you'll have to eventually kill the boss again, drains your sanity at night, and is dropped by a boss that most people would not reasonably be able to kill sooner than day 30. I'm also going to ignore the existence of camera zoom mods which invalidate its only purpose on the spot. 

Scrappy Werepig is already a bit of a tricky boss, so it isn't made really made to help new players, and it is way too late to obtain to be great for exploration. Its singular effect is also new a feature of one of WX's new circuits, which only costs one notch. The only reasons most people would interact with Scrappy Werepig is to kill it so that Nightmare Werepig can respawn or to get the electric fence blueprint. The electric fence is particularly funny, since as a further punch in the face it doesn't even require you to kill Scrappy Werepig to obtain despite being arguably one of the most gamebreaking structures in the game. That really should've been the Scrappy Werepig drop in honesty. 

It really only has a niche use for ocean exploration, which isn't particularly useful due to the astral detector and message in a bottles leading you to anything you would otherwise need to find in the ocean. Maybe for moon quay, I guess, but they usually find you before you find them so in most cases it's not hard to get a general sense of where they are.

I don't really know how to fix it, I just thought it was funny how many things work against it. I'm pretty sure I've gotten more value out of phlegm than the horizon expandinator. If it isn't the worst item in the game, it is definitely top 5.

[Milordo]

Yeah, the progression balancing of this item is all over the place.

The same goes for both werepigs in general.

[Well-met]

make it drop terramite repairers on deconstruct

Edited March 25 by Well-met

[Ar_Cloudy]

Also, we have to protect him to get more Scrap.

It is really boring to watch him throw them to the houndius shootius.🙄

[Ridley]

I use it to help me find the Klaus sack. If there was more things like that then I could see this being useful, but the Klaus sack really annoys me and I don't know if I want scenarios were the Horizon Expander is useful.

[Curly Bill]

How would a function similar to ShipWreck's SpyGlass, that lets you reveal parts of the map. Would be really helpful for scouting out the ocean, which typically always takes forever, even after you get the scrappy werepig fight

 

https://dontstarve.wiki.gg/wiki/Spyglass#

Edited March 26 by Curly Bill

[Cheggf]

It's like they looked at how many people are cheating by zooming out to reveal the entire map and they wanted to add official implementation of that (like they did with Geometric Placement), but they don't understand the reason that people are doing that is because they just want to cheat. No official implementation would ever be used by those guys since it isn't cheating. 

[Cuernito.]

I agree and i think the whole werepig saga feels really weird, im just assuming klei is gonna finish it with a final round against the pig and maybe after that he is gonna turn into an NPC that sells some of his drops(like blueprints) as well as other valuable things for that stage of the game. it could a good end for that funny boss.

And about Warbis I highly agree too, that armor is so usless and i tried to use it once in a Winona run cause i think it fits winona but it was a really bad armor even with her. So maybe a way to get the blueprint early and a change to the recipe and adding the option to upgrade the armor using the horizon expandinator and the chapauldron would make it more appealing. 

[wormwood123]

The item is not bad. But when you get it is. You should be able to get one from rummaging in the teetering junk pile aswell

[BeeClops]

have you seen the other head slot item dropped by Scrappybro? 

[ChintzyGnat]

Had the idea of combing the horizon expandinator with the bandana and other possible hats, would make it useful for ocean exploring and combine 2 hats. 

[Nikki Darks]

15 hours ago, Cheggf said:

It's like they looked at how many people are cheating by zooming out to reveal the entire map and they wanted to add official implementation of that (like they did with Geometric Placement), but they don't understand the reason that people are doing that is because they just want to cheat. No official implementation would ever be used by those guys since it isn't cheating. 

Very disingenuous to brush it off as "they just want to cheat". If there was a zoom out item as good as the mod I'd use it, but Klei refuses to make an item as good as it. (Not talking about that extra, extra zoom out mod, I use the regular one.) It's insane that Klei saw how many people use the zoom out mod and then gave us the worst possible version of it as an item.

[Seero]

i mean it's not a spectacular item, but the worst item...?

man do any of you actually play DST genuine question no shade 

[Captain_Rage]

23 hours ago, Cheggf said:

It's like they looked at how many people are cheating by zooming out to reveal the entire map and they wanted to add official implementation of that (like they did with Geometric Placement), but they don't understand the reason that people are doing that is because they just want to cheat. No official implementation would ever be used by those guys since it isn't cheating. 

The devs wrote that the item was added as a pity on the console players who cannot use mods. Something along those lines. At least they didn't go overboard with the official implementation. Not the worst item in the game but it seldom warrants to be in the head slot from my experience.

[Hungry French]

Just give him normal stats... I don't need anything else... Maybe the appearance of a boss at the beginning of the game?

[Milordo]

On 3/26/2026 at 4:30 AM, NekoSoulx said:

I agree and i think the whole werepig saga feels really weird, im just assuming klei is gonna finish it with a final round against the pig and maybe after that he is gonna turn into an NPC that sells some of his drops(like blueprints) as well as other valuable things for that stage of the game. it could a good end for that funny boss.

I hope but I don't think so.

They had big plans for him and his counter-part shark boi, in terms of game design for Rifts and world building "I found it! It's mine mine!" but went all in the trash bin when the community opposed so hard for Rifts and skill trees during 2023/2024 (for good reasons) and after that Klei making that post of excuses. 

I really don't think werepig and shark boi will have a bright future but only a bad forgotten one, staying as, for me, the first ever "slop content" in Don't Starve. I do really hope I'm wrong tho.

18 hours ago, Seero said:

i mean it's not a spectacular item, but the worst item...?

man do any of you actually play DST genuine question no shade 

Yes, from top to bottom. Atleast me. Never alone, constantly with friends and people.

I don't engage that much with Werepig, especially his second form. I defeated him circa 5 times since 2023. It feels a waste of time and generally not fun. I like its method of unlocking it tho, especially in blind runs. I hate heavily that whatever lore they wanted to build with it, went nowhere.