AtlasPirateShips

Atlas Pirate Ships

Pirate ships now roam Valheim's seas. While you sail, crewed pirate boats appear on the horizon: skeleton rafts early on, Drakkar fleets of Ashlands warriors late in the game. They hunt you down, ram you, fight broadside with archers and fire, or leap onto your deck. Sneak past them, outsail them, or sink them for floating Pirate Spoils.

Works in single player and multiplayer, including dedicated servers.

What this mod adds

Pirate encounters at sea

• Pirate ships appear while you sail, once Eikthyr is defeated: every 1-4 minutes of sailing early on, up to 4.5-8 minutes late game.
• Seven tiers that follow your boss progress, from Tier 1 (Eikthyr) to Tier 7 (Fader). The tier decides the crew and the loot, and the pirate hull matches the boat you sail. Most encounters match your current tier, with some older, easier tiers mixed in.
• Crews made from the world's creatures: skeletons, draugr, fulings, dvergr, surtlings, fryslings, cultists, charred and Jotun witches. Each faction flies its own sail colors and emblem.
• Captains: every ship has a titled Captain at the helm, sometimes with stars. If the captain falls, a crew member takes the helm.
• Single ships, fleets and Pirate Battles. Fleets of 2-4 ships hunt together. In a Pirate Battle, 2-3 rival pirate fleets fight each other and turn on you if you join in.

Stealth: fight or avoid

• Pirates spot you from about 70-100 m (bigger boats are easier to see). Before that they can hear you: a ship under full sail draws them over to search. Half sail and rowing are quieter, and a Raft or Karve is quieter still.
• Alert icons above pirate ships, like vanilla creatures: yellow when a ship is searching, red once it has spotted you. They show while you look at the ship.
• New pirates sail into your path. Hold your course and you'll meet them; change course early and you can slip by.

Ship combat

• Pirates ram you, fight broadside with strafing passes, or board your deck with melee and ranged boarders.
• Pirate crews walk their decks, move to the rail to fight, and defend their ship when you board it.
• Morale: badly damaged ships, or ones that have lost too much crew, break off and flee.
• Jumping ship costs you the boat: leave it mid-fight and the pirates attack it for up to a minute. If it breaks, they come after you in the water.
• You can escape: pirates tack against the wind, their opening burst of speed fades, damaged pirates sail slower, and a pirate that can't close in or land a hit for 60 s gives up.

Rewards

• Pirate Spoils: a defeated ship leaves floating cargo crates. Contents depend on the tier (no late-game materials early) and grow with the ship's size.
• Pirate crew drop their normal creature loot (trophies included), and it floats so you can collect it from the water.

Atmosphere

• Pirate battle music starts when a pirate ship spots you and plays while pirates are around.
• Pirates appear out of a sea mist, and defeated ships break apart and sink.

Breathing room

• Late-game encounters come less often, a hard fight adds extra wait time, and sinking a pirate ship earns you an extra minute of peace.
• The encounter timer pauses near a Sea Serpent, and while you go back for your gear after a death.

Settings and tools

• A difficulty preset (Easy / Normal / Hard) and 60+ settings for fine-tuning (see Difficulty below and CONFIG.md).
• Support for ships from other mods (CustomHullSizes).
• Console commands for testing, spawning and cleaning up pirates.

Changes from the vanilla game

Almost everything here only affects pirates. Normal creatures, bosses, boats, items and the rest of the world behave exactly as in vanilla. These are the changes you'll notice:

At sea

• The ocean has a new threat: pirates can damage and sink your boat, and will attack a boat you've left.
• Pirate battle music replaces the sailing and biome music during a pirate fight. Raid music still takes priority.

Combat

• Pirate crews are always hostile to you, even creatures that are normall