Valheim Cart Guide - Don't Get Metal Without It

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Emily is a gaming aficionado who has written for The Gamer, Gamerant, GamerBolt, and Valnet, but she has found a home here at Ready Game Survive. She adores writing about Ark: Survival Evolved among other great survival titles, and outside of traditional survival, she loves Legend of Zelda, League of Legends and Fable.

What is a Cart in Valheim?

Materials to Craft – 20x Wood, 10x Bronze Nails
Crafting Station – Workbench
Durability – 500
Weight Limit – None
Slots – 18

A cart in Valheim is a mode of transportation for heavy items and materials. A player can pull it by attaching themself to the cart and running it in the direction they want to take the cart. There are a few things that affect how easy, fast, and steady the cart is when pulling it. Such as the weight of the items, the incline/decline of the hill, and the roughness of the terrain in general.

The cart cannot be destroyed by the hammer. Instead, you must hit it to destroy it. Melee weapons work best. The stronger the weapon, the faster you can destroy it. When you do destroy the cart, the items in it will not be lost. They will be dropped in crates. Whenever you retrieve the items in the crates, the crates will disappear.

How Do You Build a Cart in Valheim?

To build a cart in Valheim, you need to get a Workbench as you need one nearby to craft the cart. However, you need to use a Forge to make the Bronze Nails that will be used to hold the cart together. Wood is easy to get; it’s the nails that are difficult to acquire early game. Go through these steps to get your first Bronze Nails.

Defeat Eikthyr and Craft a Pickaxe

Before you can build a cart, you have to defeat Eikthyr so you can craft a pickaxe. Eikthyr is the first – and easiest – boss in the game. He is a deer boss located near the starting area in the Meadows. For a full boss guide, check out this guide that breaks down how to defeat each boss.

After defeating Eikthyr, you can craft an Antler Pickaxe with ten wood and one hard antler – which the boss drops upon defeat. He will drop a minimum of three hard antlers. I don’t recall Eikthyr having strengths and weaknesses as he is the first boss. His primary purpose is to prepare you for other boss fights.

Gather Surtling Cores

You need Surtling Cores to craft a Smelter. To get them, you can randomly find them in the Plains or random chests. However, I highly recommend visiting Burial Chambers in the Black Forest. You may find a dozen cores in one chamber.

The chambers are marked by stone structures with fog around them. They may have ghosts, skeletons, and more inside, so be careful and try to clear the chamber so you can ensure you get everything. You can also find treasures in these chambers that you can sell to the merchant for gold.

Mine Copper and Tin

After you have your cores ready, take them back to the base, as they are heavy. Then, get your pickaxe and go to the Black Forest. This is where you will find both copper and tin. Tin is located near water sources, and there are only small deposits. The copper looks like large rocks, mostly underground. This time around, I suggest only getting a few of each metal. When you come back with the cart, you can get more.

Build (and use) a Smelter and Forge

Build a Smelter with the cores and a Forge with the smelted metals. You only need six smelted copper to build a forge. The rest is easy to get. To get coal, consider building a kiln. You can use wood to fuel it, and it will turn the wood into coal, which is great fuel for most other stations.

Once you reach the Swamp biome, you can make a Surtling Core farm. All you have to do is dig out an area around Surtling spawners. Then, you can watch the Surtlings fall in and die when they touch the water. Each of them will drop cores. Leave a portal nearby, and you can come to get cores almost any time.

Craft Bronze Nails

After you get two copper and one tin smelted, you can make one bronze. You can use one bronze to craft 20 nails. You only need 20 nails to craft a cart. Don’t build the cart at the base. Instead, wait until you get to your destination.

Although you can’t take metal through portals, there is a trick to get your cart through one easily. You can take nails through portals, so if you build a portal near a node of metal, you can easily get there and back to the base as long as you aren’t toting metal.

How To Use A Cart In Valheim – Tips and Tricks

It is easy to use a cart in Valheim – although it might not seem that way at first – there are a few things you can do to make using it even easier. Follow these tips and tricks to make the most out of your Valheim cart.

Keeping the Cart in One Piece

The faster you travel, the more damage the cart will take if you run into something. At 5 meters per second, the cart will start receiving max damage. However, you can stop to repair a cart anytime as long as you build a workbench nearby. This makes traveling much easier.

Every time you see that the cart is starting to break down, just detach yourself, build a workbench, and repair it. Then continue on your journey, avoiding rocks and stumps when possible.

Retrieving Materials

If the cart breaks, don’t worry. You can retrieve your materials by picking up what is left in little crates on the ground. The materials for the cart will also be dropped, so you can pick them up and rebuild the cart as long as you have a workbench nearby.

However, keep in mind that the materials that the cart dropped are probably much too heavy for you to carry all at once. So, build the cart and then move the items over a few at a time unless you build it right next to you. Then, you can probably get by with grabbing everything and shoving it in the cart before you run out of stamina.

Increase Player Weight

To make traveling even easier, you can add a belt to your player. You can buy a belt from the merchant Haldor. He is located in the Black Forest. He can be on any of the Black Forest islands that aren’t near the edge of the planet. The belt costs 950 gold, but it increases your carry weight by 150. This is significant, and it’s the first thing I buy with the gold I earn in Valheim.

Roll It Down

This technique only works with Mountains – when getting silver – but I find it is the fastest method. All you have to do is load up the cart and then drag it to the edge of the cliff facing your base. Then, shove the cart down the hill/cliff. It will break as it falls but hopefully not until it reaches the bottom. After you reach the bottom, you can grab your stuff, rebuild the cart, and start from flatter ground rather than pulling the cart down the mountain the old-fashioned way.

Pave the Way

Always keep a Hoe on you when getting metal. You can use it to pave a path in the dirt. I suggest leveling the ground rather than using stone to make a paved path. All you have to do is click with it as you walk. You can wield it while you are using the cart. This way, you can keep walking without getting stuck on stuff, as you can always walk on level ground.

How Much Can a Cart Hold?

The cart has 18 slots in it. Each slot can carry one stack with no weight limit. So the amount of materials you can carry with a cart depends on the materials you are carrying with it.

Stone – stacks of 50, weigh 2lbs each. Since there are 18 slots in a cart, you can carry 900 stone in it.
Wood – stacks of 50, weighs 2lbs each. Since there are 18 slots in a cart, you can carry 900 wood in it.
Metal – all metal stacks in 30. The weight for each is different, but you can carry a total of 540 metal in any ratio.
Trophies – trophies have different weights that are fairly predictable. But they can each be placed in stacks of 30. Of course, you can only stack corresponding trophies in each stack. If you max out each stack, you can carry 540 trophies in a cart.
Food – food varies greatly. Some food only stacks in 10 or less while others can stack up to 50. So this is more difficult to dertmine. Luckily, most food isn’t super heavy, so you should be able to carry it.
Coal – stacks of 50, weighs 2lbs each. Since there are 18 slots in a cart, you can carry 900 coal in it.
Chitin – stacks of 50, weighs 2lbs each. Since there are 18 slots in a cart, you can carry 900 chitin in it.
Hide – hide also has different weights and stacks. Troll hide can only be stacked in 20s, but deer hide can be stacked in stacks of 50.
Tar – stacks of 50, weighs 2lbs each. Since there are 18 slots in a cart, you can carry 900 tar in it.
Surtling Cores – cores are heavy and can only be stacked in stacks of 10. This means you can carry 180 in one cart, but it is worth it as cores are difficult to transport otherwise.
Armor/Weapons – each piece of gear can only have one in each slot, even if the gear is identical. So you can only carry 18 pieces of gear in one cart, regardless of what the gear is.

FAQs

Question: Does a Cart Make Metal Weigh Less in Valheim?

Answer: No. The cart doesn’t make anything weigh less; it simply doesn’t have an official weight limit. So you can carry anything in it. Hopefully, this never changes because although it gets heavier with more weight, it is also easier to transport as it won’t flip over so easily as it does when it is lightweight.

Question: Can You Ride in a Cart in Valheim?

Answer: You can’t technically ride in a cart, but you can jump on top of it while someone else is hauling it. Although it isn’t always easy to stay on, it isn’t a bad method a long as the person carrying the cart is careful.

Question: What is the Cart’s Primary Purpose?

Answer: The cart’s primary purpose is to haul materials to your base. I believe that metal as the material in question as wood and stone is easier to find in most biomes. Metal can only be found in specific biomes.

Life Without a Cart in Valheim

A cart is not a necessity, per se, but I would not want to play Valheim for long without one. Metal and other materials are extremely heavy. You need thousands of metal – collectively – to upgrade all of the crafting stations and gear up. It would take dozens of trips to different biomes to get everything you need, so it’s best to make things easier with a cart.

There isn’t much you can’t do without in Valheim, but the game is designed so that you should use everything. The structure and phases of the game were well made, so we don’t have to try too hard to make the game fun. Play it as it was made to be played, and you can get the most out of your Valheim experience.

Valheim Cart Guide – Don’t Get Metal Without It