Skeid

There is a muscle car in Valheim now.

I know. It makes no sense. A Viking survival game about chopping trees and fearing the swamp, and I have put a '67 American muscle car in it, with a handbrake and a boost and a stereo that plays YouTube. It does not fit. It was never going to fit.

I made it anyway, because the idea of four of us piling into a car to go and get killed by a troll was funnier than any argument against it. Then the driving turned out to be genuinely good, and now it is my favourite way to cross the Plains.

Skeið is Old Norse for a race or a course, and also a class of longship. So there is at least a thin excuse for the name.

What it does

Real suspension on all four corners, a handbrake you can slide on, a boost, and an engine note that answers the throttle. It fells any tree it hits, crushes the rocks and bushes that would otherwise stop you dead, and picks up anything you drive over rather than destroying it.

It floats if you put it in water. It takes no damage itself, which is fortunate, because you will hit things.

Two seats. The first person in drives, the second rides. Nobody gets in without a key.

Getting a car

Everything is admin-only for now. Open Highseat, go to the Skeid tab, and press Spawn. The car appears in front of you and you get a key.

To let somebody else in, hold Use on the car. A list of nearby players comes up. Click a name to give them a key, click it again to take it back. Keys live on the car, so they survive a server restart, and taking one back turns that player out of the seat.

The same things have console commands:

skeid spawn        put a car in front of you
skeid remove       remove the nearest one
skeid removeall    remove every car loaded on your machine
skeid keys         open the keys list for the nearest car

Driving

Attacking also gets you out, because the game treats that as leaving a seat.

If you land it on its roof, get out and hold Use on it to flip it back over.

The stereo

Press F while in the car, or standing next to one you have a key to, and paste a YouTube link. Direct MP3, OGG and WAV links work too, and so do internet radio streams.

The sound comes from the car and fades with distance, so it carries to whoever is nearby instead of playing inside your head. Valheim's own music ducks out of the way while it plays, and fades back in as you walk away.

Anyone with a key can change the track, and everyone hears the same thing at the same point. Turn up halfway through a song and you join where everybody else already is.

There is a volume slider on the menu.

YouTube specifically needs Odin on Demand installed, because that is what brings along the pieces that can decode it. Without it the stereo still plays anything the game can handle on its own.

Settings

The Mods tab under Skeid has the handling: top speed, acceleration, braking, steering lock, grip, handbrake grip, boost length and cooldown. Paint colour is an HTML hex code and changes the bodywork only, so the chrome, glass, lights and tyres keep their own colours.

StereoRange sets how far the music carries, and StereoHotkey moves it off F.

Installing

Everyone needs it, including the server, or the car will not exist for them.

Highseat is required for the tab. The car and the console commands work without it.

Credits

The car is Muscle Car 3D Model by brightretro, from OpenGameArt, used under CC-BY 3.0. It has been converted to a Wavefront OBJ and is otherwise unmodified.

Skeid does not redistribute LibVLC. It uses it where it is already installed, so its LGPL licence stays with the package that ships it.

Changelog

0.5.1

Fixed

• The Driving skill's description ran outside its tooltip and over the skills behind it.

0.5.0

Added

• A motorcycle: a classic two-stroke with one rider, who sits on it in the open.
• The rider holds the handlebars.
• It holds itself upright and will not fall over.
• A Motorcycle Key, and a fourth prize for Huskarl's gambling.
• skeid out, which gets you out of any vehicle. It works for everyone, not just admins.

Fixed

• Everybody who got out of a vehicle was left sitting down in everyone else's game.
• Removing a vehicle with somebody in it left them stuck, still counted as driving it.
• A vehicle going away for any reason now puts its rider down first.

0.4.0

Added

• An aeroplane: a WW1 biplane with one seat, which flies.
• Double-tap Jump to take off, again to come down, and touching the ground lands it.
• In the air it handles like a car: the throttle moves it, letting go holds it where it is, and the direction keys turn it. Looking up or down climbs and dives.
• An Aeroplane Key, and a third prize for Huskarl's gambling.
• The Highseat tab has a spawn button for each of the three. It only ever spawned the coupe.
• skeid spawn low and skeid spawn plane, and skeid key plane.

Changed

• Skeid lists any setting you have changed from its default when the game starts.
• Hovering an aeroplane says Aeroplane rather than Skeid, and the lowrider says Lowrider.

Fixed

• A lowrider parked near a dungeon could be deleted when that dungeon reset. Only the coupe was ever protected from it.
• A full car said it was full when it still had empty seats, because it only looked at the first passenger seat.

0.3.0

Added

• A Driving skill that levels as you drive. It appears in the skills window and stays with you between sessions.
• At Driving 100 a car is 20 mph faster and pulls much harder out of corners and up hills.
• A speedometer at the bottom of the screen while you are in a car, marking the speed only the boost reaches and how much boost is left.
• skeid skill to see what your level is worth, and skeid skill 100 to set it.

Changed

• The lowrider's hydraulics hop far harder, and the default strength is up from 5.5 to 9.

Fixed

• The lowrider's hop always lifted the nose, so a car stuck at the back was pushed further down into whatever it was caught on. It now lifts whichever end is buried.

0.2.0

Added

• A second car: a 1964 Impala lowrider, with the top down and four seats.
• Riders are visible in the lowrider, since it has no roof to hide them.
• Car Key and Lowrider Key items. Use one to bring your car out, and again to put it away. Any key works, and each one only answers for its own car.
• Spray cans. Stand by your car, pick from fourteen colours, and press Paint It. Clicking a colour tries it on first, so nothing is used until you choose.
• Your key remembers the colour, so a car comes back the way you left it.
• Hydraulics on the lowrider. Press Space to hop it off anything it has beached on.
• skeid seat to move between seats without getting out.

Changed

• Cars now come out of a key. An admin hands out keys rather than cars.
• A car cannot be put away with somebody sitting in it, or from more than twenty metres away.

Fixed

• Cars stopped responding after driving at speed for a few seconds.
• Crashing nose-first into a bank left a car unable to drive at all.

0.1.1

Changed

• Rewrote the readme so it reads like something a player would want to read.

0.1.0

First release.

Added

• An admin-spawned racecar, from the Highseat Skeid tab or the skeid console command.
• Two seats. The first person in drives, the second rides, and both need a key.
• Keys given out by holding Use on the car and clicking a nearby player. They survive a server restart, and taking one back turns that player out of the seat.
• Arcade handling with suspension on all four corners, a boost on Shift and a handbrake on right mouse.
• Wheels that steer, spin at road speed and ride the bumps.
• Fells any tree it hits, and crushes the rocks and bushes that would otherwise stop it dead.
• Picks up loose items it drives over instead of destroying them.
• Ramming a creature hurts it, scaled by speed and credited to the driver.
• Floats and paddles on water.
• Takes no damage and never despawns on its own.
• Hold Use on an upturned car to flip it back over.
• A synthesised engine note that answers the throttle.
• A car stereo on F. Paste a YouTube link, a direct MP3, OGG or WAV, or a radio stream.
• Stereo sound comes from the car and fades with distance, and everyone hears the same moment of the same track.
• Valheim's own music ducks while the stereo plays and fades back in as you walk away.
• Paint colour and every handling figure are configurable.
• The car model is a plain OBJ file next to the mod and can be swapped for another.

Notes

• Everyone needs Skeid installed, including the server, or the car will not exist for them.
• YouTube needs Odin on Demand installed. Without it the stereo still plays anything the game can decode on its own.