Valheim, or like people like to call it, The Viking Simulator, is a game where you get to explore a vast procedurally generated purgatory made up of different biomes. Each biome has its own resources, aggressive creatures, weather, and bosses, so to fully experience everything Valheim has to offer, you’ll need to explore them all.

And while each world seed in Valheim is vastly different, generally, you’ll spawn on an island that has one or two biomes in it. This pushes players to explore around and, since each piece of land is divided by the ocean biome, you’ll need to build a boat and learn how to sail. Of course, the boats will have different characteristics depending on what type they are. In Valheim, there are only three types of vessels: Raft, Karve, and Longship. Since the Raft is the first one you can build, it is an excellent option to start out, but it won’t hold up in the long run and shouldn’t even qualify as a proper ship. So take a look at the remaining options to see which one is better suited for you.

10 General Speed: Longship

The first thing that you should measure when comparing boats is their speed. Despite being larger and therefore heavier, its large sails make the Longship the fastest boat, generally speaking, reaching a speed of up to 33.5 km/h at full speed.

This makes it the ideal vessel for hunting serpents in the ocean biome or for escaping them, although the Karve can also accomplish the latter, but only if it has the wind in its favor.

9 Paddling Speed: Karve

As mentioned above, the Longship is usually the fastest. Still, without the power of its sails and with the wind against it, the best ship in terms of paddling speed is undoubtedly the Karve, which can reach a paddling speed of 11.5 km/h, that paired with its small size makes it stand out in this category.

8 Storage: Longship

As well as being the fastest, the Longship also has the largest storage, 18 slots available for all kinds of items that the player needs to transport through the sea. And the Karve? Well, that one only has four slots available.

7 Crafting Difficulty: Karve

Just looking at the recipe for each one is enough to know that the Longship’s materials are more difficult to get than those needed for the Karve. Still, both require the player to have a Smelter beforehand.

The Karve requires x30 Fine Wood, 10x Deer Hide, 20x Resin, and x80 Bronze Nails, which means that the player must move through the Black Forest and Meadows Biomes, kill a lot of Greydwarves and deer, mine a lot of Tin and Copper Ore to create Bronze, craft a Bronze Axe to get the Fine Wood and make Bronze for 80 Bronze Nails. It is a recipe that requires effort but compared to the Longship recipe (x40 Ancient Wood, x10 Deer Hide, x40 Fine Wood, and x100 Iron Nails and a trip to the Swamp Biome), it is easier to do.

6 Design: Longship

Although the Karve has its charm, no one can deny that the one with the best design is the Longship; this one feels and looks like an authentic Viking ship, with the wood-carved details and the stripes you see in its sails, ready for battle and for conquering new territories.

5  Materials Recovery: Karve

In Valheim, you can deconstruct many objects with the hammer, except for boats. So once you build them, there’s no way you can get your materials back. However, there is an alternative. You can destroy your boats using the axe, and the materials will automatically float so you can pick them up, or they will sink in the water. But be careful! Never do this in deep water, or the precious materials will be lost forever in the deep ocean.

In a Longship’s case, the feeling of helplessness that comes by losing 100 iron nails is something you’ll want to avoid. Re-collecting the missing materials would undoubtedly be easier with the Karve, and therefore with this ship, it is less risky to try this technique.

4 Durability: Longship

Unfortunately, the ships that are created in Valheim are not forever. They all have a specific amount of health. In this aspect, and due to its rarer and more resistant materials, the Longship has 1000 HP, which means that it will last longer, resisting the onslaught of the tide and waves. Contrary to the Karve that only has 500 HP.

3 Price: Karve

Here it isn’t about the price in coins that the materials may have, which cannot be bought, but about the figurative price of all the effort involved in making the boat from scratch. Ships take damage all the time, usually unexpectedly.

So, taking into consideration the difficulty in crafting, the Karve is the best option for its lower cost. Even if you want to have multiple ships, the ratio of Karves is twice the ratio of Longships, so the player can own one just for this reason. The loss of a Karve is not as painful for the Viking spirit as the loss of a Longship.

2  Size: Longship

This attribute can be somewhat subjective, as there will surely be players who will prefer the smaller ship, but if size matters, then the Longship wins by a long shot.

This one is the largest of the three ships currently available in the game, measuring 22m long x 6m wide, twice a Karve’s size, which only has 10m long x 3m wide.

1 Protection: Karve

Because the ships won’t last forever, every player’s worst nightmare is seeing the object they spent all that time crafting reduced to nothing. That’s why when choosing a type of ship, you should take into consideration how easy it is to protect it.

If the player comes up with different ways to protect their boat, such as building a kind of fortress around the dock, the Karve wins in this category since it has a smaller size, and it will be a much easier boat to protect compared to the way bigger Longship.

NEXT: Valheim: 6 Things You Didn’t Know About Ulf