Boats are broken

[Mordiicai]

This is the third time now that one of my boats have flipped upside down and broke itself. It happened twice with the karve and just now the third time with the longboat. Wouldn't be so bad if half the mats didn't sink. I was up in the mountain for the first time in this playthrough getting silver and ran back down with a stack to put in the boat to find it over turned and taking damage. What is causing this? It's incredibly irritating. Also, devs listen, don't make mats sink if your not going to allow me to swim beneath the water. Give us something here! Either make all mats float or allow us to dive for them.

[Ulmace]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Originally posted by Ulmace:

Sometimes you can recover the mats on the bottom by raising it with a hoe, if you are at the shore ofc.

The last time I tried that the raised ground buried the sunken materials.

Originally posted by Leftcoast:

Does the random boat damage glitch still exist in multi player games?

Yes, it does.

raise it a bit more, it should pop up

[Sprocket66]

I've never seen a boat flip in close to 500 hours of single player. Is this just a multiplayer issue or have people had it happen in SP? There's a setting in Valheim + that keeps the mats from sinking.

[jonnin]

there was an old bug that flipped and killed boats upon load in or portal to a boat that was left parked. I haven't seen in a while, but still best is to destroy and remake between saves/teleportes/anything.

[Malnaur]

I'm not sure what the random damage glitch is but there are a constant series of silly damages while sailing, even in calm seas and not very fast. One form is random damage as if hitting a rock when there is clearly nothing to hit. The second appears to be a 'fly error' where the game decides you are not on the surface and drops you a short distance with damage. Both will destroy your ship long before a real ship would have broken down. Constantly having to pull in to shore and build a bench to repair the ship is tedious.

[Bobucles]

It's very difficult to build a safe port for boats. They'll get attacked by swimming monsters, crashed into the shore by the tides, and usually die in dumb ways. It doesn't help that the safer deep water also makes the metal parts of a boat sink and unrecoverable.

The safest place for a boat is to aggressively dismantle it and stuff the materials in a box.

[Eradan]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

It's very difficult to build a safe port for boats. They'll get attacked by swimming monsters, crashed into the shore by the tides, and usually die in dumb ways. It doesn't help that the safer deep water also makes the metal parts of a boat sink and unrecoverable.

The safest place for a boat is to aggressively dismantle it and stuff the materials in a box.

It's not that hard, but you need to do it in the right place, basically in a bay, or cove or besides a wave breaker.
A bay is the most secure: it's a largish body of water nearly enclosed. Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2905669452

A cove is the next best thing; it goes a bit into the land, so you don't get the big waves. Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2905670490

If you don't find a bay or a cove, you can use a wave breaker: a big rock jutting into the sea with a bit of depth. That way, your boat won't slam against the bottom and you can board it easily, and you won't get lateral hits. Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2905673857

If you can't find any of those, your last resort is to beach your ship. Find the most shallow area you can, enter it as slowly as you can, and leave it there. You'll need to repair it from time to time (mostly after a storm), and you'll have to push it back into the sea, but if it ever breaks you'll only walk to the mats. Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2905674843

And remember to approach the coast slowly in all cases.

[knighttemplar1960]

I beach my boat even closer than you do. I'll just keep paddling until the highest wave hits and the boat gets stuck on land. If its stuck so that you can't push it even sprinting your pick can still free it enough for you to push it.

[stvlepore]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

My way around this is to dock. Build a work bench, a portal, and a couple of chests. Make sure that you have room and weight in your inventory to hold all the items to make the boat. Make sure auto gather is on. Then stand on the mast and take your axe to the boat until it breaks. As you drop into the water the materials that went into making the boat will go into your inventory. Portal back to your base and put the boat materials away.

Tale the portal back to your ore source/new island and go mine. Fill the chests by the portal with your ore, portal any other goods back to your base, repeat until the ore vein is tapped out or you have enough ore to fill your boat all the way up. When you portal non-ore goods for the last time grab your boat materials and portal back through.

Rebuild your boat at that island and fill it with ore then decide if you are done at that particular location on that island and if you are dismantle the chests, then the portal, then the work bench and sail the ore home. If you decided you aren't done with that island or you want to continue exploring from that point leave the portal and the work bench and after you have unloaded the ore break the boat down again and portal back.

Rebuild the boat at that location, tear down the portal and then the work bench and sail to your next location and repeat from the top.

Always keep a portal open at your home base for exploration (and it doesn't hurt to have an emergency portal set up too.)

It is a work around but really, boats that can survive the storms they sail through should be ok vs a neck.

[Eradan]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I beach my boat even closer than you do. I'll just keep paddling until the highest wave hits and the boat gets stuck on land. If its stuck so that you can't push it even sprinting your pick can still free it enough for you to push it.

The goal was to make a quick screenshot, not to spend 10 minutes beaching the ship then 10 more minutes launching it again :p

[Sunny]

Another thing that can kill your boat is on a server if somebody is unsynced in range of it, and idk if they've fixed the syncing issue or not yet. Basically if you have two players in roughly the same area, the boat can sync to one and the water to the other, and then the boat damages itself while sitting at dock by going thunk thunk thunk like it would if it were in a storm.

Safest to just put the mats in a box. ^^

[Tanyon]

Can;t trust the game. I always have a portal with me when exploring. I thankfully have only lost one ship so far this playthrough.

[6h0$t942]

Use equipment in water mod and floating items mod. Because solo hunting sea serpents is nearly impossible and if draugr can shoot you from underwater, why not use your knife or sword?

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by CPCEradan:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I beach my boat even closer than you do. I'll just keep paddling until the highest wave hits and the boat gets stuck on land. If its stuck so that you can't push it even sprinting your pick can still free it enough for you to push it.

The goal was to make a quick screenshot, not to spend 10 minutes beaching the ship then 10 more minutes launching it again :p

Fair enough.

Originally posted by Sunny:

Another thing that can kill your boat is on a server if somebody is unsynced in range of it, and idk if they've fixed the syncing issue or not yet. Basically if you have two players in roughly the same area, the boat can sync to one and the water to the other, and then the boat damages itself while sitting at dock by going thunk thunk thunk like it would if it were in a storm.

Safest to just put the mats in a box. ^^

That also happens solo if you didn't check your beaching area for a partially buried stone or log.

[queen's gambit]

this has to be a multiplayer thing. I play this solo and I've only had one or two broken boats of any kind and it was always to random mobs and being left unattended - i just happened to be there to see them finish it off. I've never walked up to wherever the boat was parked to find it wrecked without being there to see the mobs wrecking it. All i do is beach them where they won't bump into rocks. I've never returned to a broken longship either; I anchor those in the shallows (actual land biome) never the Ocean even if it's close to shore.


p.s. you can start a solo game without selecting "start server". seems kind of obvious to me, but ... i can see how that might not be common knowledge.