Ice-breacker on the boat

[K3V3N]

Hello everyone, I share with you an idea that I had for the new sailboat, as you know the ice on the lake can stay for a long time and even in summer and this is very inconvenient for movement, so there could be a new craft that would be an improvement of the sailboats an iron plate in front that would allow breaking the ice while moving, this would solve the ice problems in summer and also allow movement in winter (probably less quickly), it could even have different icebreakers (copper, bronze, iron. steel) that would increase its efficiency (speeds). Thank you for taking the time to read my suggestion and for the developers keep it up, you do such good work. (it's my favorite game)

[Never Jhonsen]

I think that would be a great idea

1 hour ago, K3V3N said:

[...] an iron plate in front [...]

I don't think one plate would be enough though. At least two, maybe 4. A killer to craft, but with how valuable it would be, it'd absolutely be worth it.

1 hour ago, K3V3N said:

[...] it could even have different icebreakers (copper, bronze, iron. steel)

I think it should be tier 4 and up (Iron+). Copper and bronze, at least to me, doesn't seem strong enough to handle breaking ice.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! It may(or may not!) be a bit anachronistic, but I like it. Especially what happened to the sailboat a buddy and I have on our server. It uh...kinda got frozen in place. Completely unusable, although it looked cool. 

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

I don't think one plate would be enough though. At least two, maybe 4. A killer to craft, but with how valuable it would be, it'd absolutely be worth it.

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

I think it should be tier 4 and up (Iron+). Copper and bronze, at least to me, doesn't seem strong enough to handle breaking ice.

Yeah I agree here. An icebreaker attachment would be nice for keeping sailboats more useful in cold weather so that they aren't completely defunct(even if that would be realistic), but that kind of utility should be a significant investment so that the weather remains a challenge to sailing, and not something you can ignore completely by throwing some copper onto the front of the boat.

I'd also add that if the sailboat is pushing its way through ice, it should be at a slower speed than what you'd get from sailing in good weather(that is, little to no ice).

[Jochanaan Fair-Schulz]

I just want to give this post attention again, especially with in-game rivers on the way.

IRL, Icebreakers are just a forward projection of the ships keel; People, especially in the northern hemisphere, have been using them for millennia,

modern day ex:

On 7/9/2025 at 9:07 AM, Never Jhonsen said:

I think it should be tier 4 and up (Iron+). Copper and bronze, at least to me, doesn't seem strong enough to handle breaking ice.

Expanding on what I said above, icebreakers are basically just rams. Historically they would just be wood with a metal wedge on the end. I agree that copper would be too weak, but bronze ship rams were common place in antiquity both for clearing obstacles in the water and for naval warfare (not the main point here but letting the ram do damage based on speed to entities and other vessels would be neat).

That said, for the sake of realism, it is important that the effectiveness of the ice breaker be tied to rowing (after the initial impact, the rate at which the ice breaker clears blocks under sail power should naturally decrease, so, as is the case in real life, breaking the ice with speed requires passengers to spend energy rowing with paddles).

A second element to this, which is really about how far people would like to take the simulation, is considering the density of the ice vs the mass of the boat. Ice formed in Spring and Autumn is not going to be as solid as ice in the deep Winter (and that's before even talking about the differences between ice sheets formed over lakes and rivers vs Sea ice). What I'm getting at isn't about adding a ton of crazy calculations, but rather that, once the temperature in a region goes below a certain level, the icebreaker on our current boat should cease to work until the temperatures rise again: It does not make sense for a vessel of our size to have the physical ability to break deep Winter ice; there is a reason that commercial icebreaker ships are massive.

However, if mass is the main problem, then there is always the option of a bigger boat. Bigger boats than the long ship type vessel we have now existed during the medieval era: like the Cog and Caravel, to say nothing of Carracks. Having some optional upgrades to the current boat model (say adding a fore and/or aft castle or cabin) would not only provide more storage space and attachment points, but also leave us with a ship just credibly big enough to, with a little elbow grease, smash its way through even deep winter ice sheets.