Many players are currently looking for a way to cross the ocean in the survival game Valheim . Most are eyeing the raft, which you can build early on and is relatively cheap. However, MeinMMO advises: stay away from it.
What is a raft? Rafts are one of three available ships in Valheim. They are the simplest form of transportation on the sea, and many players will discover the recipe relatively early and want to try it out.
The world of Valheim is vast, even after 50 hours, you only know a fraction of it. It’s clear that the desire to explore the ocean and beyond is strong. Nevertheless, despite all the excitement, you should definitely refrain from using a raft because:
- it is slow and difficult to maneuver
- it costs you leather scraps and resin, which you’ll need better at the beginning
- you must build somewhere by the water or have an outpost
- it can be easily destroyed, and you may lose everything you have
How do I build it? If you still want to build a raft – or need to for any reason – you don’t need too much. Bring the following materials and tools:
- 20 x wood
- 6 x resin
- 6 x leather scraps
- one wooden hammer
- additionally 10 x wood for a workbench
Place a workbench somewhere on the shore of the body of water you want to sail on, and then build the raft directly over the water. It will then fall in, and you can use it. Tip: Repair it briefly before you set off.
Karve instead of raft – take the better ship
What is a Karve? The Karve is the second of three ships. It’s a real boat with a proper sail and even storage space. You need the following for crafting:
- 20 x fine wood (requires a bronze axe)
- 10 x deer hides
- 20 x resin
- 80 x bronze nails (equivalent to 4 bars)
Why should I wait for the Karve? Basically, you need ships to explore new areas. However, you will find everything you need for the beginning on your starting island. Both meadows and dark forests should be plentiful.
In dark forests, you will find copper, tin, and core wood for better tools. With the metals, you can then craft the Karve and have a significantly more stable boat that allows you to cover greater distances. With it, you can explore swamps or more and are no longer dependent on the raft, which you hardly needed by then anyway.
The advantages of a Karve:
- The boat is easier to steer and significantly faster than a raft
- You have 4 slots for storing metals or similar
- Karves are more stable – if a sea serpent attacks you in the ocean, you can kill it before it destroys the Karve. A raft has too few hit points
- On a Karve, more players can fit if you’re playing cooperatively with others
- The material costs are relatively low since you can farm the resources more easily at this point or may even already have some left over
A raft is okay, but only in emergencies
Even though you should particularly avoid a raft as a beginner, it can be useful later in the game. If you die on foreign shores and cannot reach your corpse, you can simply build a raft near the death point.
With that, you can then recover your valuables. By this point in the game, you should already have portals scattered throughout the world and can return to the base near the scene of the accident to fetch the materials for a raft from the storage.
Just be sure not to sail over the open ocean. If a sea serpent attacks you, you will likely die again.
In general, boats are useful and later even necessary to explore the biomes and discover new islands. To find all bosses in Valheim, you will probably have to sail across the ocean several times. In our guide on MeinMMO you will find all bosses of Valheim and how to summon and defeat them.
