Seamanship

Makes Valheim sailing feel more like real sailing without changing how the game plays. Small numbers throughout: boats are about as fast and as handy as in vanilla, but the wind now has a strength you can read, shifts you can see coming, and consequences for carrying too much sail.

What it adds

• Wind strength levels. Light, Moderate, Fresh, Strong and Gale, read from the weather, the water you are in and the vanilla wind roll.
• Gradual wind shifts. The wind veers and backs slowly instead of snapping to a new direction, with the occasional sudden shift. A change of weather arrives with a shift.
• Gusts from Fresh upward.
• Easier upwind. A little more drive close-hauled, about 10% better progress to windward. Dead into the wind still stops you.
• Windage. While someone is at the helm the wind pushes the hull to leeward, turns the bow off the wind, and slows a boat pointed into it. The more sail is up, the more wind she catches.
• Overpressing. Full sail in a Strong wind or a Gale stresses the hull. You get creaks, camera shake and a warning first; damage is slow, repairs normally, and never sinks the boat on its own.
• Seamanship skill. A livelier helm, pointing higher, less windage, a rig that rides gusts better. Earned at the helm: sailing, sailing close-hauled, tacking and riding out gusts.

Reading the ship HUD

Everything is added to the vanilla wind indicator; there is no extra panel.

• Speed in knots under the boat, with a green or red arrow while it is changing.
• Course arrow on the boat icon, pointing where the boat is actually travelling. Its angle off the bow is your leeway. It gains an arrowhead for every 4 knots.
• Wind level named beside the wind icon, coloured by strength. It flashes white in a gust.
• Shift arrow beside the wind icon, pointing the way the wind is swinging. Red and blinking for a sudden shift.
• Hull stress reddens the boat icon, and pulses when it is dangerous.

Settings

Every number is in BepInEx/config/com.stuco.seamanship.cfg, including a master switch ("Enabled") that returns the game to vanilla. Gameplay settings are synced from the server. An admin can change them in game with a configuration manager, or by editing the file on the server while it is running.

Multiplayer

Required on the server and on every client, at the same major.minor version; connections are refused otherwise. Wind direction is computed from the world seed and game time, so everyone sees the same wind.