Valheim ore logistics: ships, carts and staging bases

In vanilla Valheim, ore, scrap and metal bars cannot go through portals, so every bar your group smelts has travelled by cart, by ship, or on someone's back. The working answer for a group server is: a cart for anything on land within a few hundred metres, a Longship for anything further, a forward smithy wherever the ore is a long way from home, and a portal to bring everything else - fuel, food, tools and finished gear - to that smithy. If the group is spending more evenings hauling than playing, the portals casual world modifier lets ore through, and it is a reasonable choice made together, not a cheat.

This guide covers the rules on what teleports, how carts and ships compare, how to plan a run for a group, the forward-base approach, and how to change the portal rules on an existing world.

What portals refuse, and why it matters#

Portals block metals in every form: ores, scrap, and smelted bars, plus a few other items such as dragon eggs. If any one of those items is in your inventory, the portal refuses you. Crafted gear made from metal does go through - an iron sword, bronze armour and nails are fine.

That rule is the reason the game has ships and carts at all. Iron Gate built the world so that each new metal requires a trip: copper and tin around the Black Forest, scrap iron in the Swamp crypts, silver in the Mountains, black metal in the Plains, the Mistlands' materials, and Flametal in the Ashlands. The distance between a mine and the forge is part of the challenge.

On a group server it also creates a division of labour that some groups love and others hate. Someone has to sail. Whether that is a feature or a chore is a question for the group, which is why the last section of this guide covers switching it off.

Portal rules and teleport restrictions has the full list of blocked items and how portal tags pair; this guide is about moving the metals anyway.

Carry weight: the player as a cart#

The simplest carrier is a player. A character can carry 300 units of weight, or 450 with Megingjord. Ores weigh roughly 10 to 15 each depending on the metal, so a player without the belt can move a couple of dozen ore before being overloaded.

• Overloaded players crawl. They move slowly and cannot run. A short trip to a cart or ship is fine; walking home is not.
• Megingjord is in the utility slot. In the Mistlands that slot also holds the wisplight, so carrying and seeing compete. The Mistlands guide covers splitting those jobs.
• Several players carry more than a cart, briefly. Four players on foot hold a lot of ore for a short run between the mine and the boat. They also make enemies tougher through scaling.

Players are the right carrier for the last stretch - mine to cart, cart to boat. They are the wrong one for a journey.

The cart#

The cart costs wood and bronze nails at a workbench, so it is available from the Bronze Age. It has an 18-slot hold, the same size as a Longship, and no fixed weight limit; weight affects how hard it is to pull, especially uphill.

The cart's weakness is terrain. It flips on rough ground, gets wedged on rocks and roots, and will not go through water. On a group server it can also stutter, because like a ship it is simulated by whoever is pulling it: a player on a weak link drags a jittering cart.

Make cart routes work:

1. Keep cart routes short - a mine to the nearest coast, a coast to the base.
2. Build a road where the route repeats. Flattening a path with the hoe makes a cart route far more reliable. Keep roads narrow; every flattened patch is a terrain change the world stores, and terraforming on servers explains why large flattened areas slow a world.
3. Push from behind on hills. Two players on a cart up a slope is faster than one heroic pull.
4. Do not stand downhill of a loaded cart. A runaway cart hurts.
5. Park it somewhere flat at each end. A cart left on a slope rolls, and one left in a river is a cart you rebuild.

Ships for ore runs#

For anything that crosses water or is more than a few hundred metres away, ships beat carts. Ships do not care about weight - only slots - and the sea is flat.

• The Karve is not an ore ship. Four slots is a handful of ore. Use it for exploring and come back with a Longship.
• The Longship is the workhorse. 18 slots, a full crew, and fast with the wind. Most groups do the iron and silver eras with one or two Longships.
• The Drakkar is the late-game hauler, with nearly twice the Longship's hold. It needs ceramic plates from the Queen's drop, so it arrives late, and it is the ship that crosses to the Ashlands.

The crew's inventories add to the ship's hold. A Longship with four players aboard carries its own 18 slots plus whatever each player can hold, which is how groups bring home an entire Swamp crypt in one trip.

At sea, the helmsman's connection decides how smooth the trip is for everyone - sailing and ships in multiplayer explains why and what to do about it. On an ore run with a heavy hold, avoid storms and shallow rocks: a ship destroyed at sea spills its cargo, and you have a limited time to fish it out.

Planning a group ore run#

A run that works on a group server, from the Swamp era on:

1. Scout first. One player explores and marks the target: a crypt, a silver vein, a cluster of copper. Share the map at the cartography table so everyone sees the marks.
2. Put a portal at the site. Anything that is not ore - food, tools, a workbench's materials - comes by portal.
3. Sail the ship there once. One or two players bring the Longship; the rest come through the portal.
4. Mine and stack. Miners fill a chest at the site, carriers move ore to the ship, one player guards.
5. Sail home with the minimum crew. Two players are enough to sail. The rest portal home and get on with something else.
6. Unload into the smelter queue. Agree beforehand who feeds the smelters so the ore is not just dumped in a chest.

Ore run roles for a group of fiveScout:     marks the target, places the portalSailors:   two players, the ship out and backMiners:    two players, pickaxes and a chest on siteGuard:     whichever miner has the best bowHome team: anyone else - smelters fuelled, coal ready

For distant metals - silver in particular, or anything on another continent - that one sailing trip per load is what keeps the game's logistics bearable.

Two habits make the difference over a long world. First, keep a written list of open sites in the group's chat: which crypt is half-cleared, which silver vein still has ore, where the chest of unhauled scrap sits. Without it, people sail to empty places. Second, take the ship home the same evening. A Longship left at a distant mine is a ship nobody can use for the next run, and the next person to want it has to portal out and sail it back before they can start.

The forward smithy#

There is a second approach that avoids most of the sailing: take the forge to the ore.

Because portals block metals but allow nearly everything else, a group can build a full set of smelting and crafting stations next to a rich mine. Fuel, cores, wood and leather all come through the portal. The ore goes straight from the mine into the local smelter. Bars become gear on the local forge, and the finished gear walks home through the portal.

The catch is that the stations themselves need metal to build and upgrade. The first smelter, forge and anvil at a forward base cost bars you have to bring in by ship or smelt on site from the first ore. After that, it is self-sufficient.

The forward smithy suits groups well because it gives the home base a lighter load: smelting and crafting happen in another zone, owned by whoever is there. Base placement for shared servers covers why spreading busy builds across zones helps, and shared storage and the crafting base covers the home side. The downside is that bars made at the forward base still cannot come home, so it works best for metals that are mostly turned into gear on the spot.

When to switch on teleport-everything#

The portals world modifier controls what portals allow, and casual lets ores and metals through. On a dedicated server it is a launch argument:

# Allow ores and metals through portals-modifier portals casual# The other values, for comparison-modifier portals hard      # no boss item portals-modifier portals veryhard  # no portals at all

Because modifiers are stored in the world and applied at launch, you can change this on an existing world: stop the server cleanly, add the argument, start it again. Nothing already built changes. To go back, restart with the value you want rather than assuming that dropping the argument resets it, and test with a single piece of ore at a portal after the restart to confirm which rule is active.

When it makes sense:

• The group plays a few hours a week. Sailing ore every session eats most of the evening.
• The group has done the voyages before. On a second or third world, the logistics are not new.
• People are quitting at the Swamp or Mountains. If the hauling is why, take it away.

When to leave it off:

• The group enjoys the logistics. Ships and staging bases are half of Valheim's middle game for some players.
• It is a community server with long-standing rules. Changing it mid-season is unfair to the people who sailed.

Either way, decide as a group, ideally before the first swamp trip. World modifiers and presets covers the modifier and its neighbours, and it is worth taking a backup before restarting with new arguments.

On RE:NODE the modifier goes into the server's startup settings rather than a command line, and Restart sends a clean stop so the world saves first. Backup slots on every Valheim plan mean you can take one before changing the rules - the guides page shows how.

Troubleshooting ore transport#

The portal will not let me through. You are carrying ore, scrap, bars or another blocked item. Empty your inventory into a chest and try again; the item that blocks you is usually the one you forgot.

The cart keeps flipping. The route is too rough. Flatten a narrow road, or carry ore to the coast instead.

The cart stutters when one player pulls it. It is simulated on their machine. Let someone with a better connection pull.

The ship broke and the ore is in the water. Swim for it quickly; items float for a while. Then repair or rebuild the ship.

We switched on portals casual and nothing changed. The argument did not apply - check the startup settings for typos, restart, and test again with one piece of ore at a portal.

FAQ#

Can bars go through portals if ore cannot?

No. Bars are blocked too. Only crafted items made from metal - weapons, armour, nails and the like - go through.

Is the Karve good enough for moving ore?

Not really. Its hold is only four slots. It is a good exploration boat; for ore, wait for the Longship.

Does a cart through a portal work?

No. Carts and ships stay on the near side of a portal. Carry the ore by ship or build a forward smithy.

Does portals casual change anything else?

Only what portals accept. Builds, bosses and other modifiers are untouched. It changes how the middle game feels, so agree on it as a group.

Why does the cart lag on our server but not in single-player?

Because on a server it is simulated by the player pulling it, and the rest of the group sees their copy. A weak connection on the puller shows up as a jittering cart for everyone.