Sledding

Sledding – down the mountain, or behind you on a rope

Valheim has whole mountains of snow and no way to slide down them. This mod adds sleds: sit on one and ride down a slope, or pull it along behind you on its rope. There are four of them, from a little wooden sled at the workbench to a great sled for two from the artisan table.

Sleds are mostly for fun. The small ones carry a bundle or two, about what fits on a child's sled. Only the great sled carries a real load.

| Sled | Built at | Cost | Seats | Cargo | Top speed on 30° of snow | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Wooden sled | Workbench | 10 Wood, 4 Leather scraps | 1 | 2 slots | ~86 km/h | | Bronze-shod sled | Forge | 10 Fine wood, 2 Bronze, 2 Deer hide | 1 | 3 slots | ~91 km/h | | Mountain sled | Forge | 12 Fine wood, 4 Silver, 3 Wolf pelt, 4 Leather scraps | 1 | 4 slots | ~98 km/h | | Great sled | Artisan table | 20 Fine wood, 6 Black metal, 4 Lox pelt, 8 Linen thread | 2 | 8 slots | ~93 km/h |

All of them are in the hammer's Misc tab. The later sleds glide better, steer more surely, turn more sharply and take more knocks. The mountain sled, with silver shoes on long runners, is the fastest and nimblest of all.

Riding

Look at a sled and press E to sit down. Then:

| Key | | |---|---| | A / D | steer | | W | kick off with your feet (costs stamina; only helps when slow) | | S | brake: dig in your heels | | Shift | duck down: less air resistance, a little faster | | Space or E | jump off |

Gravity does the rest. On snow and ice a sled runs away with you on even a gentle slope. On grass, earth or moss it needs a real hill. Boards glide a little better, so a ramp of wooden floors works.

Turning is best at a brisk pace. At speed the runners skid when you steer hard: the sled drifts wide instead of spinning round. The sled hisses on snow, scrapes on earth and throws up snow behind it, and anyone nearby hears and sees it.

On the great sled the one in front steers and the one behind just enjoys the ride.

An empty sled left on a slope stays where it is, on any slope you could stand on yourself. A sled lying on its side or back turns itself upright again after a moment.

Pulling

Shift + E takes the tow rope, and the sled follows you through the snow. Pulling it on snow is easy; dragging it uphill or over grass is harder.

You can pull a friend sitting on the sled. Press Shift + E again to let go. Or press E on the sled you are pulling: you let go of the rope and sit down. Pull it up the hill, then ride it down.

The rope slips from your hand if the sled gets stuck far behind you, or when you sit down, travel through a portal or die.

Falls, crashes and steep slopes

A sled is judged the way your legs are: by the speed straight into the ground, not by how far it fell.

• Sliding down a steep mountainside is never a fall. However steep and however fast, as long as the sled runs along the ground, nothing happens. That holds even where you would slip and tumble on foot.
• A real drop onto flat ground is judged by its height. Up to 6 m nothing happens. Between 6 and 15 m the sled takes damage. From 15 m on it breaks apart: the riders are thrown off and hurt, but a sled never kills. Everyone keeps at least 1 health, and a feather cape protects you as usual.
• A jump that lands on a downslope is gentle, just as on skis. The same jump onto flat ground is not.
• Hitting a tree, a rock or a wall at speed damages the sled, and from about 40 km/h on it throws you off.

A broken sled leaves half of its materials behind, and whatever cargo it carried. Taken apart with the hammer, it returns all of them. A damaged sled is repaired with the hammer like any building piece.

The real thing

Sleds are far older than wheels in the north. Runners of sledges from around 7000 BC have been found in Finland and Russia. The Oseberg ship burial in Norway (834 AD) held four richly carved sledges, with posts ending in animal heads. They are the model for the great sled here. People pulled sleds over snow and ice in winter, when the roads were frozen and the bogs could be crossed.

The physics here is simple:

• Snow is slippery. A waxed wooden runner on snow has a friction coefficient around 0.05; metal shoes and good snow bring it lower. On grass it is about five times as much.
• Air drag grows with the square of the speed, so every slope has a top speed where gravity and drag balance. Valheim's gravity is 20 m/s², about twice Earth's, so everything is a bit livelier than at home.
• A rider sits low and leans into the turns. The runners cut into the snow and hold the line until the sideways force is too great, and then they skid.

| Slope (snow) | 10° | 20° | 30° | |---|---|---|---| | Wooden sled | 45 km/h | 69 km/h | 86 km/h | | Mountain sled | 54 km/h | 80 km/h | 98 km/h |

These are top speeds on an endless slope. A real run is shorter, so a sled seldom gets that fast.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/zap.sledding.cfg. The settings under 1 - Sleds are the server's: on a server they apply to everyone, and only admins can change them in game.

• <Sled>Recipe, <Sled>Station, <Sled>Cargo: build cost, crafting station and cargo size (e.g. 4x2) of each sled
• MaxSpeed (28 m/s ≈ 100 km/h)
• SafeDropHeight (6 m), BreakDropHeight (15 m)
• RiderCanBeHurt, CrashThrowsRider
• PushStamina: stamina per second for kicking off

Under 2 - Client each player sets their own ShowControls (key help when sitting down), ShowRunStats (after a long run: its length, top speed and drop) and Volume of the runners.

Multiplayer and compatibility