Smooth Sailing
Server-synced Valheim boat and sailing tweaks with favorable wind modes, configurable wind intensity, improved rowing, and expanded ship exploration.
About this mod Author’s original text
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
Install Smooth Sailing through a compatible 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
De
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.
Install these first, or the mod will not work: