⛵ Balrond Shipyard – Mod Documentation

Overview

Balrond Shipyard expands Valheim’s naval gameplay with new ships, ship upgrade systems, custom crafting stations, waterproof shipyard building pieces, a Fishnet Trap, and a collection of sailor-themed items.

The current release includes a full ServerSync-backed configuration system for ship recipes, station recipes, every ship-upgrade schematic recipe, cargo inventory dimensions, per-ship base physics/stat profiles, and configurable Oars behavior.

Ship upgrades are handled through Schematics crafted at the Scribe’s Table and applied at the Shipyard station.

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⚠️ Important Warnings

• Major update warning: versions 1.3.0 and 1.4.0 introduced large ship and cargo changes.
• Before updating, empty your ship inventory if possible to reduce the risk of item loss.
• If you change a ship's inventory width or height, empty that ship first and reload/re-enter the world after changing the config so the container can be recreated safely.
• If you are upgrading a ship, keep only the intended ship close to the Shipyard station to avoid the wrong ship being detected.
• Ship-stat configuration in 1.8.0 changes the base values used by supported ships. Extreme physics values can make a ship unstable; change propulsion, damping, mass, steering, and sail-force offset carefully.

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🧰 Key Features

• 🚢 Three New Ships
  Adds Knarr, Holk, and Snekke alongside support for several vanilla ships.

• 🛠️ Two Crafting Stations

  • Scribe’s Table – used to craft ship Schematics.
  • Shipyard – used to apply upgrades by placing a schematic into the station and pulling the lever.

• ⚓ Ship Upgrade System
  Ships can receive thematic upgrades such as Shields, Lamp, Anchor, Tent, Armor, Oars, Ropes, and Nameplate, depending on the vessel.

• 🎨 Visual Ship Customization
  Supported ships can use multiple sail colors/patterns, shield patterns, and ship-specific visual swaps. Applying a different sail schematic replaces the currently selected sail appearance.

• 🌊 Water-Resistant Building Set
  Includes a shipyard-themed set of structural build pieces designed to resist water and rain damage.

• 🎣 Fishnet Trap
  A placeable fishing structure that can catch biome-appropriate fish more effectively when supplied with the correct bait.

• 🧳 Expanded Ship Utility
  Cargo sizes, attach points, comfort behavior, and several ship functions are expanded or adjusted depending on ship type.

• ⚙️ Server-Synchronized Configuration
  Ship recipes, Shipyard/Scribe’s Table recipes, all schematic recipes, cargo dimensions, base ship statistics/physics, and Oars behavior are configurable and synchronized through ServerSync.

• 🚤 Per-Ship Base Stat Profiles
  Supported ships can independently configure base health, mass, sail/paddle force, steering, damping, impact damage, Ashlands readiness, and weather-wear behavior without replacing Shipyard upgrade bonuses.

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🔧 How to Use

1. Craft a Scribe’s Table.
2. Create a Schematic for the ship extension or customization you want.
3. Build the Shipyard station.
4. Place the schematic into the Shipyard container.
5. Dock the target ship as close as possible to the Shipyard.
6. Pull the lever on the Shipyard to apply the upgrade.

Notes

• If more than one valid ship is within range, the first detected compatible ship may be upgraded.
• If a ship already contains a non-replaceable upgrade, the station may try to detect another valid ship nearby.
• Sail color/pattern upgrades are replaceable: applying another valid sail schematic changes the current sail appearance.
• Best practice: keep all other ships away and dock only the ship you want to modify.
• Extensions work for vanilla ships and the custom ships added by this mod.
  Raft is excluded from the general extension system, but it has its own default bag extension.

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⚙️ Configuration & ServerSync

Balrond Shipyard creates its configuration file after the mod is loaded:

BepInEx/config/balrond.astafaraios.BalrondShipyard.cfg

The current configuration uses the following groups:

• 1 - General
• 2 - Ship Recipes
• 3 - Station Recipes
• 4 - Schematic Recipes
• 5 - Ship Inventory
• one 6 - Ship Stats - <Ship> section for each supported ship
• 7 - Ship Upgrade - Oars

1 - General

Lock Configuration

• 1 – the server/host configuration is authoritative for synchronized gameplay settings.
• 0 – synchronized settings are not server-locked.

For multiplayer and dedicated servers, keeping this at 1 is recommended so every client uses the same gameplay configuration.

Allow Ships To Be Destroyed Using Hammer

• true – supported ships can be dismantled with the Hammer Remove action.
• false – Hammer Remove is disabled for supported ships.

This setting is local only. It is intentionally not synchronized through ServerSync and is not controlled by Lock Configuration.

2 - Ship Recipes

Construction recipes can be configured independently for:

• Raft
• Karve
• Knarr
• Snekke
• Longship
• Holk
• Ashlands Drakkar

Recipe format:

Prefab:Amount,Prefab:Amount

Example:

FineWood:30,BronzeNails:90,LeatherScraps:16,DeerHide:10,CoalPaste:20

The Raft uses default by default, which keeps its normal Valheim recipe. It can still be replaced with a custom recipe.

Invalid recipe strings fall back to the mod's built-in/default recipe instead of silently creating an incomplete recipe.

3 - Station Recipes

The construction costs of both custom stations are configurable:

• Shipyard Station Recipe
• Scribe Table Recipe

They use the same Prefab:Amount recipe format.

4 - Schematic Recipes

Every upgrade/customization schematic has its own configurable recipe.

The current release exposes 113 individual schematic recipe entries, including ship extensions and visual customization such as sail variants.

These values control the material cost of crafting the schematic at the Scribe’s Table. The schematic is then consumed/applied through the Shipyard workflow.

5 - Ship Inventory

Cargo dimensions can be configured independently for all seven supported ship types:

• Raft
• Karve
• Knarr
• Snekke
• Longship
• Holk
• Ashlands Drakkar

Each ship has:

• Inventory Width
• Inventory Height

Valid configured dimensions are 1–20.

A value of -1 or 0 means:

Keep the cargo dimensions authored in the ship prefab.

When changing cargo dimensions, empty the ship first and reload/re-enter the world before using the existing ship inventory again. Inventory dimensions are the main config category that should be treated as requiring container recreation.

6 - Ship Stats - <Ship>

Version 1.8.0 adds synchronized base-stat profiles for every supported ship.

The sections are:

Ship	Config section
Raft	6 - Ship Stats - Raft
Karve	6 - Ship Stats - Karve
Knarr	6 - Ship Stats - Knarr
Snekke	6 - Ship Stats - Snekke
Longship	6 - Ship Stats - Drakkar
Holk	6 - Ship Stats - Holk
Ashlands Drakkar	6 - Ship Stats - AshlandsDrakkar

The following base values are configurable independently for every ship:

Config entry	Controls
Base Health	Base WearNTear health before Shipyard extension bonuses
Base Mass	Base Rigidbody mass before extension-derived mass
Sail Force Factor	Base sail propulsion factor
Override Sail Force Offset	Enables an explicit sail-force application offset
Sail Force Offset	Sail-force offset used when the override is enabled
Paddle Force	Base rowing/paddling force
Rudder Speed	Base steering/rudder response
Turn Force Sailing	Base turning force while sailing
Turn Force Paddling	Base turning force while paddling
Forward Damping	Forward movement damping
Sideways Damping	Sideways movement/drift damping
Angular Damping	Angular/rotation damping
Water Impact Damage	Base damage caused by hard water impacts
Upside Down Damage	Base damage while the ship is overturned
Ashlands Ready	Controls the ship's Ashlands-ocean readiness flag
No Roof Weather Wear	Controls no-roof/weather wear behavior

For the normal numeric stat entries, -1 means:

Keep the value authored in the original ship prefab.

Override Sail Force Offset = false keeps the authored sail-force offset. When enabled, Sail Force Offset becomes the explicit configured value.

For Ashlands Ready and No Roof Weather Wear:

• -1 – keep the prefab value
• 0 – false
• 1 – true

How base stats interact with Shipyard upgrades

The 1.8.0 stat system deliberately uses this order:

1. Authored prefab value
2. Shipyard base-stat config
3. Installed Shipyard upgrades/extensions
4. Temporary runtime modifiers, such as Oars and compatible Sailing-skill effects
5. Vanilla ship physics

This means a configured Base Health or Base Mass does not replace health/mass added by installed Shipyard extensions. The configured value becomes the base and the extension bonuses are applied afterwards.

Likewise, steering and propulsion bonuses from Oars or compatible Sailing skills are applied as temporary runtime multipliers rather than being permanently written back into the configured base value.

The authored prefab baseline is captured separately from live ship state. Config refreshes therefore do not accidentally absorb an already-installed upgrade or a temporary Sailing/Oars multiplier and apply it a second time.

7 - Ship Upgrade - Oars

The Oars upgrade now has its own synchronized behavior configuration.

Config entry	Default	Behavior
Steering Multiplier	1.10	Base steering multiplier while Oars are installed
Steering Bonus Per Additional Crew	0.05	Additional steering multiplier for every player aboard after the first
Forward Row Multiplier	1.0	Paddle-force multiplier while rowing forward
Reverse Row Multiplier	1.0	Paddle-force multiplier while rowing in reverse
Row Bonus Per Additional Crew	0.0	Additional paddle-force multiplier per extra crew member
Maximum Additional Crew Count	8	Caps only the crew contribution used by the multiplier calculation

The first player aboard is the baseline crew member. Crew scaling counts additional players after the first and never limits the actual number of passengers.

With the default values, Oars preserve the established steering bonus while forward/reverse propulsion remains unchanged unless the administrator enables additional row multipliers.

Oars modifiers are injected only during the ship physics update and restored afterwards. They are not permanent writes to the ship's base steering or paddle values.

ServerSync

Balrond Shipyard uses ServerSync v1.20 for synchronized gameplay configuration.

The following gameplay settings are synchronized:

• ship construction recipes
• Shipyard and Scribe’s Table recipes
• all schematic recipes
• ship inventory width/height settings
• all per-ship base stat/physics profiles
• all Oars behavior settings

With Lock Configuration = 1, the server/host values are authoritative for these synchronized settings.

Allow Ships To Be Destroyed Using Hammer is the explicit exception: it remains a local client preference.

Balrond Shipyard is configured as a required synchronized mod, so multiplayer clients should use the same Balrond Shipyard version as the server.

ServerSync is bundled/internalized into BalrondShipyard.dll with ILRepack. You do not need to install a separate ServerSync DLL.

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📌 Important Gameplay Changes

• Ships and new build pieces use Coal Paste instead of resin where defined by the mod.
• Coal Paste is crafted at Workbench level 3 by mixing resin with coal.
• Ship construction recipes are configurable.
• Base cargo sizes were adjusted for several ships and can be overridden through config.
• Raft received inventory support.
• Version 1.8.0 adds configurable base ship statistics and handling/physics values for every supported ship.
• Ship stat configs define the base; installed Shipyard extensions are applied afterwards.
• Oars use temporary runtime steering/rowing multipliers and no longer permanently overwrite ship handling values.
• Shipyard does not impose creator/ownership restrictions on sail changes, head decoration changes, ship naming, anchors, switches, or normal Shipyard modification workflows.
• The Nameplate is a ship naming feature, not an ownership-lock system.
• Internal Valheim/ZDO network ownership is still used where required for replication and physics authority, but it is not treated as a player permission system.
• Shipyard runtime sailing logic is restricted to ships managed by Shipyard and does not globally rewrite arbitrary third-party ships.
• Shipyard build pieces use explicit Valheim 1.0 usage/category tags so they appear in appropriate build-menu categories.

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Boat Construction Costs

Below are the default construction costs used by Balrond Shipyard. These values can be changed in 2 - Ship Recipes.

Boat	Default Construction Cost
Karve	30 Fine Wood · 90 Bronze Nails · 16 Leather Scraps · 10 Deer Hide · 20 Coal Paste
Knarr	35 Fine Wood · 120 Bronze Nails · 14 Leather Scraps · 12 Troll Hide · 25 Coal Paste
Snekke	40 Fine Wood · 100 Iron Nails · 30 Coal Paste · 16 Troll Hide · 30 Elder Bark
Longship	45 Fine Wood · 200 Iron Nails · 40 Coal Paste · 12 Wolf Pelt · 4 Red Jute
Ashlands Drakkar	50 Fine Wood · 350 Iron Nails · 25 Tar · 40 Yggdrasil Wood · 40 Ceramic Plate
Holk	50 Yggdrasil Wood · 400 Iron Nails · 50 Elder Bark · 12 Lox Pelt · 20 Tar

Raft: its recipe config defaults to default, which preserves the normal Valheim recipe. You can replace it with a custom Prefab:Amount recipe if desired.

Ship upgrades, extensions, and customization schematics have their own separate costs under 4 - Schematic Recipes.

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🚤 Ship Extensions

🪵 Raft

Included Feature

• Bag – always active by default and adds a 2-slot chest.

Configuration

• Raft construction recipe can remain vanilla with default or be overridden.
• Raft inventory width/height can be overridden; -1/0 keeps the prefab value.
• Raft base health, mass, handling, propulsion, damping, damage, Ashlands readiness, and weather-wear behavior can be configured under 6 - Ship Stats - Raft.

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🛶 Karve

Extensions

• Shields – increases ship health by 200
• Lamp – adds a light source with warmth effect
• Bagpack – adds blunt resistance and +100 health
• Oars – improves steering and can optionally add configurable forward/reverse rowing and crew-scaling bonuses
• Anchor – allows the ship to be anchored in place
• Armor – adds pierce resistance and +100 health
• Nameplate – adds ship naming information; it does not create an ownership or modification lock

Additional Changes

• Added a front attach point
• Default cargo size: 6 slots
• Cargo dimensions are configurable

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🪶 Knarr

Extensions

• Shields – increases ship health by 200
• Lamp – adds a light source with warmth effect
• Bagpack – adds blunt resistance and +100 health
• Oars – improves steering and can optionally add configurable forward/reverse rowing and crew-scaling bonuses
• Anchor – allows the ship to be anchored in place
• Tent – increases ship health by 200
• Armor – adds pierce resistance and +100 health
• Nameplate – adds ship naming information; it does not create an ownership or modification lock

Additional Changes

• Added a front attach point
• Default cargo size: 12 slots
• Cargo dimensions are configurable

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🐍 Snekke

Extensions

• Shields – increases ship health by 200
• Lamp – adds a light source with warmth effect
• Bagpack – adds blunt resistance and +100 health
• Oars – improves steering and can optionally add configurable forward/reverse rowing and crew-scaling bonuses
• Anchor – allows the ship to be anchored in place
• Tent – increases ship health by 200
• Armor – adds pierce resistance and +100 health
• Nameplate – adds ship naming information; it does not create an ownership or modification lock

Additional Changes

• Added a front attach point
• Default cargo size: 18 slots
• Cargo dimensions are configurable

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🛡️ Longship

Extensions

• Shields – increases ship health by 300
• Lamp – adds a lamp and torches with light and warmth
• Barrels – adds blunt resistance and +100 health
• Crates – adds slash resistance and +100 health
• Oars – improves steering and can optionally add configurable forward/reverse rowing and crew-scaling bonuses
• Anchor – allows the ship to be anchored in place
• Tent – increases ship health by 300 and provides shelter while under it
• Armor – adds pierce resistance and +200 health
• Nameplate – adds ship naming information; it does not create an ownership or modification lock

Additional Changes

• Default cargo size: 24 slots
• Cargo dimensions are configurable
• Supports 3 alternative head decorations

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🧱 Holk

Extensions

• Shields – increases ship health by 300
• Lamp – adds a lamp, torches, and a demister-like wisp effect
• Crates – adds blunt resistance and +200 health
• Oars – improves steering and can optionally add configurable forward/reverse rowing and crew-scaling bonuses
• Anchor – allows the ship to be anchored in place
• Tent – increases ship health by 200 and provides shelter while under it
• Armor – adds pierce resistance and +200 health
• Ropes – adds extra rope ladders on the ship’s sides
• Nameplate – adds ship naming information; it does not create an ownership or modification lock

Additional Changes

• Default cargo size: 32 slots
• Cargo dimensions are configurable

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🐉 Ashlands Drakkar

Balrond Shipyard also supports configuration for the Ashlands Drakkar.

Configuration

• Construction recipe is configurable.
• Cargo inventory width/height is configurable.
• Default configured cargo dimensions are 8 × 5 (40 slots).
• Base health, mass, handling, propulsion, damping, damage, Ashlands readiness, and weather-wear behavior can be configured under 6 - Ship Stats - AshlandsDrakkar.

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🎨 Shared Ship Features

Supported upgraded ships can benefit from shared customization and extension systems, depending on the vessel:

• Multiple sail color/pattern options
• Sail appearances can be changed again later by applying a different compatible sail schematic
• Free shield pattern switching after the relevant upgrade is installed
• Most structural/cargo health upgrades also add ship mass.

  The extension mass contribution remains approximately half of the relevant health bonus. Armor is intentionally excluded from extension-derived mass and adds durability without adding this extra mass.

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🪚 Shipyard Build Pieces

These are standard build pieces with a shipyard aesthetic and resistance to water/rain damage. They are styled as dark core wood with rope details.

Shipyard pieces use explicit Valheim 1.0 Piece.m_usage categories rather than falling back to incorrect/default tags, improving placement in modern build-menu/category systems.

Structural Pieces

• Pole 2m and 4m
• Beam 2m and 4m
• 45° and 27° beams
• Ramp / 27° floor
• Floor
• 1m pole

Other Build Elements

• Tar-fueled sconce
• Small cargo crate (4 slots)
• Dock cargo chest (40 slots)
• Small dragon-head standing decoration
• 2m ladder with teleport-to-top interaction
• 2 green cloth banners
• 4 green cloth roofs
• 2 rope ladders
• 3 rope bridge parts
• Hanging wisp lamp
• Fishnet wall
• Fishnet Trap

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🎣 Fishnet Trap

The Fishnet Trap is built on water and can be loaded with biome-appropriate fishing bait.

• Using the correct bait increases the chance of catching fish native to that biome.
• Without proper bait, the trap will still catch basic fish every 2 minutes.

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🧳 Item Prefab IDs

• CapeSailor
• CoalPaste
• HelmetPirateBandana
• HelmetPirateHat
• SwordSaber
• SledgeAnchor
• ShieldSteering

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❓ FAQ

• Are there configs?
  Yes. Balrond Shipyard includes synchronized configuration for ship recipes, Shipyard/Scribe’s Table recipes, all 113 schematic recipes, cargo dimensions, per-ship base statistics/physics, and Oars behavior.

• Where is the config file?
  BepInEx/config/balrond.astafaraios.BalrondShipyard.cfg

• Does the mod use ServerSync?
  Yes. Gameplay configuration is synchronized through ServerSync v1.20. With Lock Configuration = 1, the server/host config is authoritative.

• Do I need to install ServerSync separately?
  No. ServerSync is bundled/internalized inside BalrondShipyard.dll.

• Can I configure base ship handling and physics?
  Yes. Every supported ship has its own 6 - Ship Stats - <Ship> section for base health, mass, sail/paddle force, steering, damping, impact damage, Ashlands readiness, and weather-wear behavior.

• Will changing Base Health or Base Mass remove Shipyard upgrade bonuses?
  No. These entries define the base. Installed Shipyard extension bonuses are calculated afterwards.

• Can Sailing skills or other sailing mods still affect Shipyard ships?
  The 1.8.0 runtime layer is designed so temporary sailing modifiers can compose on top of Shipyard's configured base values. Oars are applied only around the ship physics update and restored afterwards instead of permanently claiming the underlying vanilla stat fields.

• Does Shipyard lock ship customization to the player who built the ship?
  No. Shipyard does not use creator/ownership checks to block sail changes, naming, anchors, switches, or Shipyard modifications. The Nameplate is for naming the ship, not for ownership permissions.

• Can I change a ship's sail more than once?
  Yes. Compatible sail color/pattern schematics can replace the currently active sail appearance.

• Can I configure every schematic separately?
  Yes. Every schematic has an individual recipe entry under 4 - Schematic Recipes.

• Can I configure cargo size for each ship separately?
  Yes. Width and height are configurable independently for Raft, Karve, Knarr, Snekke, Longship, Holk, and Ashlands Drakkar.

• Can I disable Hammer removal of ships?
  Yes. Allow Ships To Be Destroyed Using Hammer is a local-only setting under 1 - General. It is not synchronized and is not affected by the ServerSync lock.

• Are there translation files?
  No. Translation files are not included right now; adding them is planned.

• Do I need a larger build menu?
  Possibly. Because of the number of added build pieces, a Build Menu extension may be useful.

  • Recommended to use with Build Extensions such as:
  • Sears Catalog (ComfyMods)

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🔌 Requirements & Compatibility

• ✅ Requires BepInEx
• ✅ Uses ServerSync-backed multiplayer configuration
• ✅ ServerSync is bundled — no separate ServerSync installation is required
• ✅ Server and multiplayer clients should use the same Balrond Shipyard version
• ✅ Supports vanilla ships and the custom ships included with this mod
• ✅ Uses the Valheim 1.0 publicized assembly baseline for direct access to supported game members and reduced reflection in core paths
• ✅ Oars and ship-stat runtime changes are designed to compose with BalrondExtraSkills Sailing and other sailing systems that use temporary ship-physics modifiers
• ✅ Shipyard does not automatically install upgrades or permanent Shipyard behavior on arbitrary third-party ships
• ✅ Existing ZDO/RPC multiplayer state and Valheim network authority are preserved; 1.8.0 performance work focuses on local caching and reduced polling rather than introducing a new networking layer
• ✅ A Build Menu extension may be recommended because of the number of added pieces

Runtime behavior and performance

Version 1.8.0 reduces unnecessary per-frame work in several ship components:

• Ship extension reconciliation uses a scheduled cached interval instead of a per-frame timer poll.
• Light switch, anchor switch, ship nameplate, and shield painter visual/state checks use scheduled reconciliation instead of running every rendered frame.
• Shield style hierarchy lookups are cached.
• Common ship-extension ZDO keys are pre-hashed while keeping the same legacy hashes/save compatibility.
• Threshold-only movement/distance checks use squared values where appropriate.
• Movement damage is aligned with FixedUpdate/Rigidbody simulation.

These optimizations do not replace Valheim's online authority model and are not intended to change gameplay timing or introduce additional network traffic.

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💬 Community & Support

• Join our Discord: Balrond's Den
• Support on Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/balrond1020

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Take your harbor beyond vanilla — with Balrond Shipyard.