Quick answer
But hey, maybe you want to try an alternative method of travel than portals or boats? Title: How to Build the Perfect Dock Valheim 1.0 So, you've built a ship and started exploring the world beyond your starter island, but now you're convinced you need a dock. Perhaps a better example are with boats and carts which can be destroyed and transported. Maybe you've even tried to build one for yourself already and quickly realize just how difficult it can be.
Well, don't worry, because I've designed an organized boat dock that you can use that gives you everything you'll need to make your expeditions a little more convenient. In this video, I'll show you exactly how to build it step by step, whilst sharing a stupid number of building tips that I've picked up after over a thousand hours in the game. And by the end of it, you'll have a boat dock just like this. With all that said, let's get into it.
As with all structures, the first thing you'll need to do is clear out some space so you can actually build the thing. It's around 24 meters from the front to the dock edge and then around 18 m from side to side. Obviously, there will be some additional space on top of that required, but that's all going to be suspended over the water. So, you shouldn't have to clear out any land for that section.
Boat basics
From here, you want to grab your stone floor 2 by two and come down to where you want the edge of your structure to be. So, you can see here I've just lined up the stone floor so that it's in line with the ground. That means I'm not going to have to do too much excavation to this when it comes to actually building the structure itself. So you can see if I grab a stone floor piece and I lock this on here can more or less come all the way along whilst keeping the stone floor fully visible.
No ground is poking through apart from you know maybe here but I can make some minor adjustments. So I'm just going to take this back to kind of like the water's edge here. And then I'm going to use the stone wall 4x two build out one and then we'll come four of these along. If they break, you're going to need to make sure they're supported underneath like this.
And you want this to be four stone wall 4x2s long. Then on the end, you don't want to overlapping with each other. You just want that extra 1 m block tying back into the land. Once you've got something like this, we're going to start extending out into the water.
How to build it
Now, so I like to use the log beams and the log poles for this. So I'll grab the log beam 4 m. Snap it to the top of this wall. And then with the log pole 4 m top snapping point.
I just want to make sure I'm not snapping like this. I'm just snapping so that the top of the pole comes through the beam like this. What that's going to allow us to do is create snapping points so that when we come in with the stone wall 4x two. Now I zoom in a little bit.
So you can see on this on this first part of the build I'm snapping so that the stone wall is on the nearest side of this. Then I can come all the way up until we have nice little extension onto our dock. As you go, make sure to remove all of these sort of construction beams we used. All the wood should float to the surface, so you shouldn't lose any of that material.
Controls and sailing
Now, it is going to be valuable just to see this whole section out in practice because as you get deeper into the water, it does become a little bit more difficult. There's a few more tips that just make this a little bit easier. So, when you get into deeper water, it can be a good idea to use the log pole 4 m to begin with and then switch to the log pole 2 m. And since the stone walls are 2 m high, this is still a perfect sized item for us to create snap points.
They have a top and bottom lock point. You can see we should be able to reach that snapping point at the bottom. Make sure to remove your construction points as you go. And then to finish it off, we'll have the stone arches just like we did previously.
Just gives you that little bit of depth taken off so that if you are struggling to get onto the dock, you have an option. Then we just need to back fill this whole area with stone floor 2 by twos. I've seen a lot of method for people building docks, but I think that this way that I use is much easier than the other ones I've seen. I've used it for years now, and it's never let me down.
Upgrade options
We need to do the exact same thing on the other side. Just remember to begin with you want them to be overlapping and you want them to be on the inner side. So you don't need these middle bits anymore. If you find yourself at a point where you can't actually reach the bottom using just these stone floors, you've got a few options.
So you can build the floors down a little bit from what you've used previously. It's going to just stabilize with the top facing upwards. And you can just walk around the water in your cart. And then you can just come back, grab your stone wall 4x2s, and yeah, I mean, obviously cuz you're so low down in the water now.
I just turn this cart around, you can basically reach anything that is down at that level. And then once you've connected them up, you're going to want three rows sort of behind these dock bits here. And then this is going to be where the structure starts and the sort of dock itself ends. So assuming you're building from this section here, we're going to need to extend another six backwards.
Tips
And this is going to be the footprint of the structure itself. You don't need to have the wood walls in where I've put them. That's just to try and give this floor plan a little bit of context. Otherwise, you're just looking at a huge stone block at this point.
Then come back in with our dark wood arches now. So, you know, if I have them now, I might as well just place them in. So, if you've built the stone floors exactly the same way that I have, this is the easiest way I think it is to do it. Just going to place in a wood floor for me to stand on.
So, two stone floors back, but we're just going to have one rotation out like this. Obviously, we're going to have a stone floor on the top level, but everything underneath. So, all of these ones here all need to be angled ever so slightly out. And then finally once more do the same thing back at the sort of dock level.