Smooth Sailing

Smooth Sailing

Smooth Sailing is a lightweight, configurable boat and sailing quality-of-life mod for Valheim 1.0, built for BepInEx + Jotunn.

It improves sailing without replacing the core ship experience, with selectable favorable-wind modes, configurable sailing wind intensity, improved rowing, and increased map exploration while traveling by ship.

Features

Favorable Wind

Smooth Sailing can provide a favorable effective wind while controlling a ship at Half or Full sail.

Four sailing modes are available:

• Off - Vanilla wind behavior.
• Dead Astern - Effective wind directly behind the ship.
• +60° Offset - Favorable wind offset to one side of the ship.
• -60° Offset - Favorable wind offset to the opposite side.

The offset angle is configurable and defaults to 60°.

A server administrator can cycle the modes in-game using the configured Admin Toggle Key (default: K):

Off -> Dead Astern -> +60° -> -60° -> Off

The selected mode is synchronized so participating clients use the same sailing behavior.

Sailing Wind Intensity

Smooth Sailing can independently control the effective wind intensity used for sailing while a favorable-wind mode is active.

Three intensity modes are available:

• Vanilla - Uses Valheim's current environmental wind intensity.
• Minimum - Enforces a configurable minimum sailing wind intensity while preserving stronger natural wind.
• Maximum - Always uses maximum sailing wind intensity.

The default intensity mode is Vanilla, preserving Valheim's normal variation in wind strength unless an administrator chooses otherwise.

Accurate Sailing Visuals

When a favorable-wind mode is active:

• The physical sail responds to the effective sailing wind direction.
• Sail cloth strength reflects the effective Smooth Sailing wind intensity.
• The circular sailing wind indicator displays the effective wind direction and favorable-wind state.
• Positive and negative offsets appear on their corresponding sides.
• The minimap wind arrow remains tied to Valheim's true environmental wind.
• Valheim's world/environmental wind remains unchanged.

This allows the ship's propulsion, sail, and sailing HUD to represent the effective wind actually affecting the ship while preserving normal world-wind information outside the sailing system.

Improved Rowing

• Configurable forward rowing speed multiplier.
• Configurable reverse rowing speed multiplier.
• Forward and reverse speeds can be tuned independently.

Ship Exploration

• Configurable map exploration radius multiplier while aboard a ship.
• Makes ocean exploration and coastline mapping significantly more convenient.

Multiplayer & Server Configuration

• Gameplay settings use Jotunn synchronized AdminOnly configuration.
• Server administrators control synchronized gameplay settings.
• Favorable-wind modes can be changed live by an administrator.
• Selected wind modes are synchronized to participating clients.
• Designed for dedicated-server as well as single-player use.

Requirements

• Valheim 1.0.x
• BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2350+
• Jotunn 2.30.0+
• Smooth Sailing must be installed on the server and all participating clients for multiplayer use.

Installation

Thunderstore

Install Smooth Sailing through a compatible Thunderstore mod manager along with its required dependencies.

Manual Installation

Place:

SmoothSailing.dll

inside:

BepInEx/plugins/SmoothSailing/

The mod will generate its configuration file after the game is launched.

Default Configuration

[General]
Enabled = true

[Tailwind]
Tailwind Mode = DeadAstern
Offset Angle = 60
Wind Intensity Mode = Vanilla
Minimum Wind Intensity = 0.5
Admin Toggle Key = K

[Exploration]
Ship Exploration Radius Multiplier = 2

[Rowing]
Forward Row Speed Multiplier = 1.5
Backward Row Speed Multiplier = 2

Configuration

General

Enabled

Enables or disables Smooth Sailing.

Default: true

Tailwind

Tailwind Mode

Controls the effective sailing-wind mode.

Available values:

• Off
• DeadAstern
• PositiveOffset
• NegativeOffset

Default: DeadAstern

Offset Angle

Controls the angle used by the PositiveOffset and NegativeOffset modes.

0 represents dead astern. The default is 60 degrees.

Default: 60

Wind Intensity Mode

Controls the effective wind strength used for ship propulsion and sail visuals while a favorable-wind mode is active.

Available values:

• Vanilla - Uses the current environmental wind intensity.
• Minimum - Uses at least the configured Minimum Wind Intensity, while preserving stronger natural wind.
• Maximum - Uses maximum wind intensity.

Default: Vanilla

Minimum Wind Intensity

Sets the minimum effective sailing wind intensity when Wind Intensity Mode is set to Minimum.

The value ranges from 0 to 1. Natural wind stronger than this setting is preserved.

Default: 0.5

Admin Toggle Key

Allows a server administrator to cycle the Tailwind Mode while in game.

Default: K

Cycle order:

Off -> DeadAstern -> PositiveOffset -> NegativeOffset -> Off

Changing modes displays the selected mode on screen.

Exploration

Ship Exploration Radius Multiplier

Multiplies the normal map exploration radius while aboard a ship.

Default: 2

Rowing

Forward Row Speed Multiplier

Multiplier applied while rowing forward.

Default: 1.5

Backward Row Speed Multiplier

Multiplier applied while rowing in reverse.

Default: 2

Why 60 Degrees?

Valheim does not produce its maximum forward sailing force with the wind directly behind the ship.

The selectable offset-wind modes in Smooth Sailing were inspired by HelmWind by SirRomey, which analyzed Valheim's vanilla sail-force behavior.