Water Walking Boots

Version 0.3.11 for How to Fish / BepInEx 5

Water Walking Boots let you walk, run, and jump across the ocean surface as if it were solid ground. They are a reusable item with a custom low-poly model, a clean hotbar icon, and a simple ON/OFF control.

Buy the boots, place them in your hotbar, hold them in your hands, and press E to turn water walking on. A green indicator shows when the effect is active. The boots support only the player wearing them, so you can stand in boats and move near loose items without pushing or launching them.

The Water Walking Boots as they appear when dropped and ready to pick up.

How to use the boots

Buying requires one free inventory slot. The F8 test-spawn shortcut has been removed, so the boots are obtained through the Island 4 StoreClerc.

How water walking works

When switched on, the boots create a small invisible walking surface directly beneath the wearer's feet at the waterline. It follows the player closely enough for normal movement, sprinting, and jumping while leaving boats, dropped objects, held items, NPCs, and other players unaffected.

The effect works near the water surface and turns off when you press E again while holding the boots. It does not change normal movement while you are travelling on land.

Item features

• Custom dark-blue and cyan low-poly boots model with straps and gold buckles.
• Matching model while held or dropped in the world.
• Transparent, tightly framed hotbar preview.
• Green hotbar indicator while water walking is active.
• Normal item dropping, pickup, inventory, and vendor-sale behavior.
• Safe movement around boats and loose objects.
• Compatible renderer setup for Better Oceans.

Multiplayer

Each player who wants to use the boots should install the mod. The water support applies locally to the wearer and does not act as a moving platform for other players or world objects.

Changelog

0.3.11

• Removed the F8 test-spawn key and its configuration so it cannot conflict with boat mods.
• Water Walking Boots are now obtainable only through the Island 4 StoreClerc purchase.
• Reduced the invisible water support from 4x4 metres to a compact area beneath the player's feet.
• Made the water support ignore boats, loose and held items, NPCs, and other players so it cannot push or launch them.
• Preserved normal walking, sprinting, and jumping on the water surface.

0.3.10

• Fixed sprinting while standing on water with the boots active.
• Fixed normal ground jumping from the water surface.
• Registered the invisible water support as jumpable ground.
• Prevented the swimming movement state from overriding boots-supported movement.
• Raised the support height slightly so the player no longer rests partly inside the water.

0.3.9

• Fixed a multiplayer third-person issue that could stretch one of the holder's arms across the map.
• Removed stale hand IK references inherited from an unrelated vanilla item prefab.
• Kept the custom 3D boots model, pickup, drop, vendor sale, and water-walking behavior unchanged.

0.3.7

• Removed the separate hotbar icon and green status-effect overlay objects.
• Displays the transparent boots image through the slot's own built-in image surface.
• Clears the boots' hidden 3D preview mesh so it cannot render a white or missing-material artifact.
• Captures and restores every slot's original texture, material, UVs, color, and input state when the boots move.
• Tightened the icon framing while retaining a narrow transparent safety margin.

0.3.6

• Replaced the hotbar artwork with a clean transparent 3D-style boots preview.
• Reset the custom hotbar image material and UVs whenever a slot receives the boots.
• Water Walking Boots can now be sold through a money vendor for $7,500, half their purchase price.

0.3.5

• Renamed the model hierarchy and materials so Better Oceans no longer adopts the boots as stray water surfaces.
• Added a material keeper that restores the original boot materials if another renderer system replaces them.
• Added the required Item tag to the pickup trigger so dropped boots are detected by the normal hand scanner.
• Explicitly keeps the custom item pickable and ignored by seagull and money-NPC item handling.
• Removes stale custom hotbar overlays immediately when an inventory slot is reused.

0.3.4

• Replaced the generic blue box with a low-poly pair of water-walking boots.
• Added separate uppers, soles, glowing water treads, cuffs, straps, and buckles.
• Uses the same 3D model when held and when dropped in the world.
• Kept the 0.3.3 pickup fix, item behavior, vendor, controls, hotbar icon, and water-walking mechanics unchanged.

0.3.3

• Fixed Water Walking Boots becoming un-pickable after being dropped.
• Added dropped-item state keeper.
• Re-enables pickup trigger whenever boots are not held.
• Re-enables physical world collider whenever boots are not held.
• Restores rigidbody gravity, collision detection, non-kinematic state, and wake state.
• Refreshes dropped-item state immediately after SetSyncedHolder changes.
• Water-walking mechanics and v0.3.2 visuals are unchanged.

0.3.2

• Left working water-walking physics unchanged.
• Added dedicated first-person Water Walking Boots visual.
• Hidden item's broken runtime renderer while boots are locally held.
• Held visual now uses the same blue box + boots-art design as the purchased/dropped item.
• Added fixed first-person held position/rotation/scale.
• Disabled the game's broken custom-item preview only on boots hotbar slots.
• Added clean static boots icon overlay to the hotbar slot.
• Restores vanilla item preview when the slot no longer contains boots.
• Replaced green ON indicator's default UI Image with a generated 1x1 RawImage texture.
• Intended to eliminate white/glitchy hotbar artifacts.
• Vendor, price, toggle controls, dropped model, and water walking are unchanged.

0.3.1

• Added actual water-surface footing while Water Walking Boots are ON.
• Added invisible 4x4 support collider that follows the local player at water height.
• Added player-feet correction to lift partially submerged players onto the surface.
• Added downward-velocity suppression near the water surface to prevent sinking through the support.
• Left normal land movement untouched.
• Replaced broken custom-item hotbar preview with a separate static boots-icon UI overlay.
• Static icon does not overwrite the existing hotbar texture.
• Kept the small green ON indicator above the boots slot.
• Kept E activation/deactivation overlay.
• Kept Island 4 StoreClerc vendor and $15,000 price.
• Kept blue-box dropped item model.

0.3.0

• Added E-key Water Walking Boots ON/OFF toggle while the boots are held.
• Added held-item overlay showing E: Activate Boots / E: Deactivate Boots and current ON/OFF state.
• Removed custom hotbar texture replacement that was corrupting the hotbar visuals.
• Added a tiny green ON indicator above the boots' hotbar slot.
• Indicator is hidden while boots are OFF.
• Reworked dropped world item into a plain blue cube with boot-art icon faces.
• Added visual keeper to keep dropped/held boots from being replaced by the moving-water-looking renderer/material.
• Island 4 StoreClerc vendor target and $15,000 purchase remain unchanged.
• F8 host test spawn remains available.

0.2.3

• Fixed v0.2.2 compile failure.
• Restored TryPurchaseBoots().
• Restored SetPurchaseStatus().
• Restored InstallVendorHoverPatch().
• Restored interactable hover callbacks.
• Exact Island 4 StoreClerc targeting is unchanged.
• Purchase price remains $15,000.
• F8 test spawning remains available.

0.2.2

• Removed generic vendor/shop/merchant detection.
• Removed the temporary F7 vendor scanner.
• Vendor purchase is now restricted to the exact Island 4 main-shop clerk.
• Exact target: IslandHolder/NPCs/StoreClerc NPC in scene Island4.
• Added camera-raycast matching based on the successful diagnostic scan.
• Added a small proximity fallback that still requires the exact Island 4 clerk.
• Casino, grill, gun shop, unrelated NPCs, and other islands no longer qualify.
• Purchase remains [9] Buy Water Walking Boots - $15,000.
• F8 host test spawning remains available as a development backup.

0.2.1

• Added F7 vendor/NPC diagnostic scanner.
• Scanner reports the hovered interactable when available.
• Added camera-raycast fallback for NPCs that do not expose the normal hover reference.
• Added nearby-NPC fallback when neither hover nor raycast resolves a target.
• Scanner logs scene name, GameObject name, position, hierarchy path, layers, tags, parent components, and child components.
• Existing F8 test spawning and generic vendor purchase logic remain unchanged.

0.2.0

• Added Water Walking Boots vendor purchase option.
• Shows [9] Buy Water Walking Boots - $15,000 while at a shop/vendor.
• Added shop/vendor detection through the game's Interactable hover system.
• Added proximity fallback for shop stands when hover focus is temporarily lost.
• Added affordability check using MoneyManager.Money.
• Successful purchase deducts $15,000 with MoneyManager.AddMoney.
• Purchased boots spawn through ItemManager.Instance.SpawnNewItem.
• Purchased boots are placed directly into the local player's hands with SetSyncedHolder.
• F8 host test spawning remains available as a development fallback.

0.1.1

• Fixed build failure caused by the missing Unity input assembly.
• Added UnityEngine.InputLegacyModule.dll to the project references.
• Added UnityEngine.InputLegacyModule.dll to build.ps1.
• No gameplay behavior changed from the v0.1.0 item test.

0.1.0

• First custom-item foundation test.
• Added runtime registration for Water Walking Boots.
• Added host-only F8 test spawn.
• Added custom Water Walking Boots inventory/hotbar artwork.
• Simplified dropped world item to a blue cube using the boots texture.
• Assigned the item a $15,000 cost/value for the future vendor implementation.
• Water walking, vendors, toggling, and glow are intentionally deferred until the item itself is verified.