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.

Each of these can be switched off on its own under "9 - Instruments" in the config, as can the rigging warning message and the camera shake. "Show on ship HUD" off puts the vanilla HUD back exactly as it was. These are your own settings, not the server's.

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.