Valheim, being a Viking inspired game couldn’t exist without sea travel. One of the most prominent parts of Viking history was the amazing boat constructions that allowed them to raid and trade across the seas. In Valheim, there are 4 different boats that the player can currently acquire in the game. Although the game is in early access and this information is likely to change with the third major update for the game titled ‘Ships and the Sea. We will talk about the 4 ships and how you can get them in this article.
Contents
The Raft
How to Craft the Raft
How to Drive the Raft/All Ships
Karve
How to Craft the Karve
How to Drive the Raft
Longship
How to Craft the Longship
How to Drive the Longship
Trailer Ship/Trader’s Boat
How to Get the Trailer Ship
The Raft
The raft is the most basic ship you are able to craft in Valheim. It is a basic vessel with a wooden base and a small sail. You can pilot the raft by using the rudder which is located at the back. The raft also has a ladder which can be interacted with at the back. Players can use this to be transported back onto the raft if they fall into the water. See the image below.
The raft is probably the first sea vessel you will craft in the game, unless you have a very lucky spawn. Players must not build the raft before the second ship, the Karve if their starting island has access to a black forest with tin, copper and surtling cores and also Eikthyr.
Crafting The Raft
The raft is crafted by using the hammer’s building menu when near a workbench. The raft is found under the ‘misc’ tab of the hammer. When first created, the raft will be built in the air and fall down to the ground, (hopefully into water).
The materials needed to craft the raft are 20 wood, 6 leather scraps and 6 resin. You will also need to be within the building range of a workbench of any quality. Then, simply place the raft over water when you have all of the required items in your inventory.
Driving/Controlling the Raft
There are a few basic controls for the raft (and all ships for that matter) that the player will have to learn to become the king of the seas. All ships are controlled from the rudder and the player has the ability to change the speed of the ship and control the direction of travel. Some of the symbols that appear when sailing can be seen below.
The three images above show the three speed settings that are available to the player when controlling the boat. When the W key is pressed once, the boat will begin to be propelled by the player. This can be the slowest moving way to travel but if you plan to travel against the wind, you will have to pull the sail down and row in this first setting.
The second setting will hoist your sails at half mast. This is good if you want to travel in the general wind direction but don’t want to go at full pace.
The third setting, when the W key is pressed three times), will allow the player to travel at full mast. This is the fastest way to travel by ship if you have the wind at your back. You can check which direction the wind is blowing by looking at the white arrow in your minimap.
To turn the ship in a different direction the player uses the A and D keys for left and right respectively. The ship will slowly start to turn in either direction. The player will have to have the ship moving in order to turn effectively.
Keen in mind when moving backwards the turning direction will be reversed. See the image above to see the turning indicator.
Karve
The second tier of boat travel in Valheim is the Karve. The Karve is the first real ship you are able to craft in the game. This ship features a larger size than the raft, a bench to seat three other passengers and a small storage container to keep some items in. The Karve has the controls located at the back-right of the veseel and a ladder to get back on-board which is located on the left side of the boat, (when looking from the drivers seat).
The Karve is faster than the raft in all speed settings, regardless of how mush weight is on the boat. You will have to have travelled to the black forest in order to find the materials to craft this ship. You will also have to have defeated Eikthyr. It is possible to create this ship even before you craft a raft.
How to Craft the Karve
The Karve is the first real ship you will craft. Being the first real ship, you will need some real materials to build it! The player will have to have crafted a pickaxe in order to craft it and have access to fine wood. The crafting materials needed for the Karve are; 30 Fine Wood, 10 Deer Hide, 20 Resin and 80 Bronze Nails. The player will once again build this ship using a hammer and will need to be within building radius of a workbench of any quality level.
You can create bronze nails by taking a piece of bronze to the forge and crafting them. Each piece of bronze will create 20 nails, meaning you will need 4 units of bronze to create the Karve. I will include some helpful guides in order to get some of the materials mentioned above. Keep in mind that you will have to have defeated the first forsaken, Eikthyr in order to get the materials to craft yourself a Karve.
- How to Get; Copper, Tin, Fine Wood.
- A guide to Eikthyr
Controlling the Karve
The Karve is controlled in the same way as the raft and all other vessels. Click here to jump to the section about controlling the ships.
Longship
The best ship that can currently be accessed in Valheim is the Longship. The Longship is a large vessel fit for a whole clan of raiding Vikings! It has an extended cargo space and a ladder on each side of the ship. Great for when you find yourself jumping from a leviathan with low stamina and need to get on the ship quick! There are 4 stools for passengers and the ability to gran onto the mast.
The Longship is the fastest ship with the largest amount of storage available in Valheim currently. You can fit the most amount of Vikings on this ship. This one is end-game currently. You will first need to have ventured into the swamps and gotten your hands on some iron to craft this one.
How to Craft the Longship
Crafting the Longship is no small feat. You will have to progress pretty far in the game in order to get the resources to craft this one. The Longship is crafted, as with all of the other ships, by using the hammer tool.
The materials you will need to craft the Longship are; 100 Iron Nails, 10 Deer Hide, 40 Fine Wood, 40 Ancient Bark. As you will need iron for this one, unless you are very lucky and manage to find some outside of crypts, you will need to defeat The Elder in order to access the sunken crypts of the swamp. You will also be able to get ancient bark by cutting down the trees in the swamp.
I will include some helpful guides below on some of the materials and subjects involved in creating a Longship.
How to Control the Longship
The Longship is controlled the same way as all other vessels in the game. To jump to ship controls, click here.
Trader Ship/Trailer Ship
The 4th ship that you can currently get in Valheim is an unnamed ship. The ship is known in the game’s code as ‘trailer ship’. This is most likely due to the fact it was only created to be included in a trailer for the game which can be found below. At around the 26 second mark you can see the ship for a brief moment appearing in the game. The boat appears again at the 1 minutes mark although in both instances it does not appear that anyone is driving the ship. You can check out the trailer here:
The ship shares a lot of characteristics with the Longship. It appears to use the same model as the Longship, with the same size and features. The ship also has an identical stool layout and storage layout to the Longship. The storage container is useable and holds the same amount of things as a Longship.
The ship features a lot of static furniture objects. There are storage boxes, barrels and tarp used as a makeshift roof. There is also a lantern which provides light hanging from the mast. Staying under the roof will not award the player with the sheltered status.
The ship cannot actually be driven at all. There is no option to interact with the rudder of the ship, although it does have the same physics in water as the other ships of the game.
We are not sure if the ship is intended to be released in a later version of the game, or if the asset was merely created to be used in the trailer for the game. As the third major update planned for Valheim is called ships and the sea, if there is content related to the trader ship which is planned to be added, it is expected to be released then.
How to Get the Last Ship, the Trader Ship
There is no way to craft the trailer ship in the game of Valheim currently. As the ship is not indented to be used, the player cant actually drive the ship around. The only way that the player can get this ship is by spawning the object using the game’s console commands.
As of patch 0.148.4 you will need to enable the command console from the launch options for the game. For a guide on how to do this, click here.
To get the ship the player will first have to open up the console by pressing F5 in a single-player game and enable cheats by typing the following phrase into the console:
devcommands
After pressing enter a message will print in the console telling the player Cheats=True. Now that cheats have been enabled we will be using the spawn command in order to have this ship spawn in front of the player. The ship will spawn in whatever direction the player is facing, whether on land or not. To spawn the ship type the following phrase into the console using the correct spacing and keen in mind the code is case-sensitive.
spawn Trailership
This is currently the only way to get this ship in the game.
Related: Is Unarmed Viable in Valheim? | Does the Wind Carry Scent in Valheim?