BuildExtend - mass building by stretching

Build walls, floors, roofs, fences and whole boxes of them in one go: hold LMB on the build ghost and look around - the piece stretches as a grid that follows your aim. Let go to build. Inspired by Windrose's drag building.

Client-side BepInEx mod for Valheim. Works on its own, no dependencies besides BepInEx.

Features

• Stretch building - hold LMB on the ghost, look aside, up or away, let go. A short click still places one piece.
• Axes that fit the piece (read from its snap points, so pieces of other mods work too): walls - aside and up; floors - aside and forward; roofs and stairs - along the ridge and down the slope (the game's own snap step); diagonal beams - along themselves.
• Shapes (E while stretching): plane · box (walls round a rectangle; for roofs - a gable roof) · cylinder (a round tower; for floors - a round floor) · arch of beams · dome of walls or floors.
• Floors (mouse wheel or Shift+wheel while dragging), gaps (Ctrl+wheel: every 2nd, every 3rd, checkerboard).
• One sheet: the whole stretch keeps the height and tilt of the first piece, pieces meet edge to edge and hold each other up like a grid built by hand. No holes: pieces also go into the ground and through creatures.
• Hologram preview like Windrose, coloured by future strength using the game's own support rules (pale blue - full, green → orange - weaker); red - can't be built or not enough materials; violet - replaces a standing piece (doors and windows along a wall).
• Resources: the build panel shows the cost of all segments, how many you can afford and what exactly is short. As many segments are built as you can pay for. Nearby chests count if your chest mod adds them to the game's own count (ValheimUnified, AzuCraftyBoxes and similar).
• Stretch removal - hold the middle mouse button on a placed piece and look: a zone from that point to your aim - the wall's plane, the floor's plane or a box (E switches); pieces inside glow red; stations, beds, portals and wards are left alone; your own pieces only by default; resources go to your backpack. The zone starts only once you hold MMB and move the aim past RemoveThreshold (1 m); a short click removes just the piece under the crosshair. StretchRemoval = false turns zone removal off and keeps stretch building.
• Undo the last stretch - Ctrl+Z: pieces come down, what they cost comes back.
• Iron hoe - our own item with an iron head, made at the forge from a level 3 hoe and 4 iron. Besides the usual "Level ground" and "Raise ground" it has "Level to height": hold LMB and look ahead - a rectangle along your look (wheel - width, Ctrl+wheel - height over the press point, 0 by default); everything inside goes to that height - cut above, filled below, square, no rounding. Cutting is free, filling costs stone by the volume (short of stone - as much as you can pay for). A click - a strip as wide as the frame. The game's hoe stays as it is.
• Help - a "?" tab in the build menu opens the game's compendium on the "Mass building" entry.
• Three hammer modes - Shift+wheel while nothing is stretched, or the x1 / xN / xF tab next to "?" in the build menu: x1 normal building, exactly as in the game, one piece at a time, for precise building; xN stretching with silhouettes; xF building shapes - the remembered shape (box, tower, gable roof, arch, dome) follows the ghost and a click builds it whole, E picks another shape, hold LMB and look to resize.
• Gamepad: build button / remove button, d-pad for shape, gaps and rows, B to cancel.
• English and Russian, following the game's language.

Controls (build mode)

What is checked

Every segment is placed through the game's own Player.PlacePiece and paid with Player.ConsumeResources (removal: WearNTear.Remove), so pieces are ordinary world pieces seen by everybody, and other mods' hooks see each of them. Kept, for every segment: no-build zones (trader, altars), other players' wards, the piece's biome, and the workbench in reach of where the stretch started. Left out on purpose, so a stretch has no holes: "fully underground", players and creatures in the way, the workbench at every segment. You pay only for what is actually placed. The same piece already standing is skipped. Structural support is the game's. The game's nocost (or AdminMenu's "build without resources") also lifts the workbench, as in vanilla.

Settings

In game: Settings → Graphics, section "Stretch building - BuildExtend" (checkboxes and ‹ › selectors with tooltips). Or BepInEx/config/chistix.buildextend.cfg: Enabled, Silhouettes, Shape, Gaps, Strength, Replace, RemoveOwnOnly, StretchRemoval (on), RemoveThreshold (1 m), UndoKey/UndoModifier, HammerMode (Normal / Stretch / Shapes), ModeModifier (LeftShift - the key that turns the wheel into the mode switch; None - off), ToggleKey (none; a key that cycles the mode), MaxSegments (4096), PiecesPerFrame (16), ToolCost (one swing per stretch / per segment as in the game), BeamSpacing (frame / touching), KeyHint; [Hoe] AreaRaise, Width (3), LevelHeight (0), IronHoe (the item on), IronHoeIron (4).

Requirements

• Valheim 1.0.20 (tested on it; built with Unity 6000.0.75);
• BepInEx 5 (BepInExPack for Valheim).

Install

• r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager: install, done.
• Manually: put BuildExtend.dll into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins.

Uninstall: delete the DLL (and BepInEx/config/chistix.buildextend.cfg if you like; versions up to 0.4.2 used local.valheim.buildextend.cfg - its settings are carried over once). Nothing is written into your character or world save except the pieces you built.

Multiplayer and compatibility

• Only the player who builds needs the mod; servers and other players don't. The hoe's area raise is sent to whoever owns that ground (as the game's own terrain edits are); if that player has no BuildExtend, the ground is taken over and raised by the builder after 3 seconds.
• Works with Gizmo / ComfyGizmo and build-camera mods (uses the ghost's rotation and the game camera), PlanBuild (same PlacePiece), ValheimUnified (chest handover before each batch).
• ComfyGizmo also uses Shift+wheel (rotation around another axis): set ModeModifier to another key (or None) if you use it.
• PlanetPrototype by Chistix: the stretch follows the planet's local up; the hoe's area raise works there with PlanetPrototype 0.54.81+, area levelling with 0.54.88+.
• Mods that replace the build menu hide its tab row: they can show the "?" and x1 / xN / xF buttons through the public BuildExtend.Api (BuildMenu by Chistix does, 0.3.1+).
• Ctrl+Z may overlap EquipmentAndQuickSlots (Z - quick slot) or Recycle_N_Reclaim (Ctrl+Z in the inventory): change UndoKey if needed.

Troubleshooting

Log: Valheim/BepInEx/LogOutput.log (lines [BuildExtend]). Turn on [Advanced] DebugLog for details. If the hologram is not visible, set [Advanced] PreviewInstancing = false.

Credits

• Made by Chistix: idea, design, direction and testing. Code written with Claude Code (Anthropic) as an AI coding assistant, under Chistix's direction.
• The icon is drawn by code; no generated art or audio.
• BepInEx and Harmony.
• Idea: drag building in Windrose. Valheim is © Iron Gate AB; this is an unofficial mod.

License

All rights reserved (see LICENSE). You may use the mod, show it in videos and streams, and list it as a dependency of a mod pack; re-uploading, modifying or reusing its code needs the author's written permission.

BuildExtend - массовая стройка протяжкой (по-русски)

Стены, полы, крыши, заборы и целые коробки из них - за раз: зажмите ЛКМ на призраке и ведите взгляд - деталь тянется сеткой за прицелом, отпустите - построено. Как протяжка в Windrose. Клиентский мод BepInEx, работает сам по себе.

• Формы (E): плоскость, коробка (для крыш - двускатная крыша), цилиндр (для полов - круглый пол), арка, купол. Колесо или Shift+колесо во время протяжки - этажи, Ctrl+колесо - пропуски. Вся протяжка - одно полотно на высоте и с наклоном первой детали, без дыр.
• Голограмма окрашена по будущей прочности по правилам игры: голубой - полная, зелёный → оранжевый - слабее; красный - нельзя или не хватает материалов; фиолетовый - замена стоящей детали (двери и окна по стене).
• Ресурсы: стоимость всех сегментов, на сколько хватает и чего не хватает; сундуки учитываются, если их добавляет мод на сундуки.
• Снос протяжкой (зажатая СКМ и сдвиг прицела дальше 1 м: зона от точки до прицела - плоскость стены, пола или куб, E - сменить; короткий щелчок - одна деталь под прицелом; StretchRemoval - выключить снос зоной), отмена последней протяжки (Ctrl+Z), подсказка - кнопка «?» в меню стройки открывает «Вальхеймский компендиум».
• Три режима молота: Shift+колесо, пока ничего не тянется, или вкладка x1 / xN / xF рядом с «?» в меню стройки. x1 - обычная стройка, ровно как в игре, по одной детали, для точной стройки; xN - протяжка с силуэтами; xF - стройка фигурами: фигура запомненного размера идёт за призраком, щелчок строит её целиком, E - другая фигура, зажать ЛКМ и повести - размер.
• Железная мотыга - свой предмет с железным наконечником: кузница, мотыга 3 уровня и железо 4. Кроме обычных «Выровнять землю» и «Поднять землю» у неё есть «Выровнять по высоте»: зажать ЛКМ и вести взгляд вперёд - прямоугольник, колесо - ширина, Ctrl+колесо - высота над точкой нажатия (0 по умолчанию); всё внутри встаёт на эту высоту - выше срезается, ниже подсыпается. Срез бесплатно, подсыпка - камень по объёму. Щелчок - полоса шириной в рамку. Обычная мотыга - как в игре.
• Проверки: зоны без стройки, чужие обереги, биом, верстак у начала протяжки. «Под землёй» и персонажи на пути больше не мешают - протяжка без дыр, платите только за поставленное.
• Настройки: Настройки → Графика, раздел «Протяжная стройка - BuildExtend».
• Установка: BuildExtend.dll в Valheim/BepInEx/plugins. В сети мод нужен только тому, кто строит.

Links

Support me on Patreon

My dev channel on YouTube

My mods on Nexus Mods

Add me on Steam

Watch me on Twitch

Changelog

0.9.3

• Fixed: a single click with the hammer placed several pieces. A stretch now grows by how far the aim moves from where LMB went down (not from the ghost, which the game's snapping can put a piece away from the crosshair), and only after LMB is held a moment and the look moves. A click is always one piece, placed by the game.

0.9.2

• E picks the next shape (or removal zone) during a stretch and in the Shapes mode without also moving the game's snap point on the ghost (the game binds "next snap point" to E as well; Q still cycles it).
• No forced grid: a stretch starts exactly where the game's ghost stands, with the game's own snapping (the grid snap tried in 0.9.1 is removed, it was never released).

0.9.0

• The iron hoe's area tools become one universal "Level to height": everything in the rectangle goes to one height - cut above, filled below - set with Ctrl+wheel over the press point (0 by default, -8 to 8 m). Cutting is free, filling costs stone by the volume. It replaces "Raise an area" (and "Level an area", which did not appear in the menu).
• Setting [Hoe] Height is replaced by LevelHeight (0).

0.8.5

• While an iron hoe area is held, the mouse wheel changes only its width (Ctrl+wheel - height) and no longer zooms the camera.

0.8.4

• "Level an area" and "Raise an area" get their own tiles in the build menu: the game piece's icon inside a yellow dashed frame, so they are not mistaken for the usual "Level ground" and "Raise ground" right before them.

0.8.3

• Fixed: the iron hoe had no build menu in a world (its piece table was lost when the world loaded), so the player punched and kicked with it instead of levelling.

0.8.2

• The iron hoe is made from a hoe upgraded to its last level (3), not any hoe; the forge takes exactly that hoe.
• The game's hoe tooltip no longer carries BuildExtend's line; the recipe and the iron hoe's own description say how it is made.

0.8.1

• The iron hoe gets a real iron head: the game's hoe has a stone one; the copy keeps the wooden shaft and swaps the stone for forged steel (its own texture drawn by the mod, metallic and glossy). No game files are included.

0.8.0

• Iron hoe - BuildExtend's own item: a copy of the hoe with an iron look and 1.5× durability, made at the forge from a level 3 hoe and 4 iron (IronHoeIron). Besides the usual "Level ground" and "Raise ground" (exactly as in the game) it has two pieces of its own: "Level an area" and "Raise an area" - hold LMB and look ahead, wheel - width (Ctrl+wheel - raise height); a click makes a strip as wide as the frame.
• The game's hoe is the game's again: no level 2, its pieces work as in vanilla.
• Settings [Hoe] Upgrade / UpgradeIron are replaced by IronHoe / IronHoeIron.
• Only players with BuildExtend can see or pick up the iron hoe.

0.7.3

• A short MMB click removes only the piece under the crosshair, as in the game, even when aimed at its edge (before, the zone from that point to the piece's middle could catch the pieces behind or under it).
• The removal zone starts only after the button is held a moment and the aim has moved further than RemoveThreshold (1 m by default) from where you pressed. Until then the panel says "release MMB to remove one piece".
• New setting StretchRemoval (cfg / F1): turn stretch removal off and keep stretch building; MMB then removes one piece at a time, as in the game.

0.7.2

• The hoe's tooltip tells about its area tools: at level 1 - how to upgrade (workbench level 2, iron) and what it gives, at level 2 - how to use them.
• Shift+wheel (and the mode key) no longer switch the hammer's modes while the hoe or the cultivator is in hand; the hammer's mode hint is not shown for their pieces.

0.7.1

• Hoe: level an area. With the level 2 hoe, "Level ground" works over an area too: hold LMB and look ahead - a rectangle along your look, wheel - width. Release: all ground inside goes to the height of the point you pressed - cut above, filled below, square, no rounding or smoothing, painted as the game's levelling paints. Free, as the game's levelling is (filling included). A short click is the usual levelling. On the PlanetPrototype planet it works through PlanetPrototype 0.54.88+ (PlanetApi.LevelArea, the tangent plane); with an older one the hoe levels as in the game there.

0.7.0

• Hoe: raise an area. The hoe gets a level 2 (upgrade at the workbench level 2 for 4 iron). With the upgraded hoe and "Raise ground": hold LMB and look ahead - a level rectangle turned along your look, from where you pressed to where you aim; wheel - width, Ctrl+wheel - height of the top over the press point. Release: all ground below the top is raised to it - square, no rounding, no smoothing. Stone is paid by the volume (as the game's own raise costs for what it can raise); the price is in the build panel before you let go, and if you are short, as much is raised from the press point as you can pay for. A short click is the usual raise. On the PlanetPrototype planet it works through PlanetPrototype 0.54.81+ (its own ground and sync, the top on the tangent plane); with an older one the hoe works as in the game there.
• Stretching is one sheet. The whole stretch keeps the height and tilt of the first piece; pieces meet edge to edge and hold each other up like a grid built by hand. "Walls on the ground" (Shift+E, FollowGround) is gone.
• No holes. Segments are no longer refused for being underground or for a player or creature in the way; the workbench must reach where the stretch started, not every segment. Other players' wards, no-build zones and the piece's biome are still checked. You pay only for what is actually placed.
• Smoother aim. A plane seen nearly edge-on no longer throws the stretch far away (what the look hits is used instead), nothing reaches past 64 m, and a cell boundary holds a little so the hologram does not flicker between sizes. The shapes mode ignores the ghost's tiny jitter.

0.6.0

• Stretch removal reworked: hold MMB on a placed piece and look - the zone goes from the point you pressed on to the point you aim at:
  • wall - the plane of the wall you pressed on (along it and up);
  • floor - the level plane through that point;
  • box - a 3D box up to whatever your aim touches. The face you press on picks wall or floor; E switches between all three (box, once chosen, stays the first pick). Pieces inside glow red, a red box shows the zone. A short click still removes one piece as in the game. Stations, beds, portals and wards are left out of zones.
• For other build menu mods: a public BuildExtend.Api (ShowHelp, NextMode, ModeLabel, ModeTooltip, HelpTooltip) to put the "?" and x1 / xN / xF buttons on their own bar.

0.5.0

• Three hammer modes, switched with Shift+wheel while nothing is stretched (or the x1 / xN / xF tab in the build menu, or an optional key):
  • x1 normal building - exactly as in the game, one piece at a time, for precise building;
  • xN stretching - silhouettes and arrows, hold LMB and drag (as before);
  • xF building shapes - the remembered shape (box, tower, gable roof, arch, dome) follows the ghost and one click builds it whole; E picks another shape; hold LMB and look to resize (the size is remembered).
• While dragging: wheel or Shift+wheel - floors (rows); gaps moved to Ctrl+wheel.
• New settings: HammerMode, ModeModifier (LeftShift; None turns the wheel switch off).

0.4.3

• Plugin GUID is now chistix.buildextend (was local.valheim.buildextend). The old settings file is carried over once, if there is no new one yet.
• License: all rights reserved (see LICENSE).

0.4.2

• Help: a "?" tab in the build menu opens the game's compendium on the "Mass building" entry (added each time the compendium opens, never saved into the character).

0.4.0

• Undo the last stretch (Ctrl+Z): its pieces come down without drops, what they cost goes back to the backpack.
• Stretch removal: hold the middle mouse button on a placed piece; plane, box or cylinder; game checks; own pieces only by default; resources to the backpack.
• Strength preview: the hologram is coloured by future support, computed with the game's WearNTear rules.
• Gaps (every 2nd, every 3rd, checkerboard), walls on the ground, gable roof, arch, dome.
• Replacing standing pieces (doors and windows along a wall).
• What is short, per material ("enough for 9, short: Wood 12").
• Gamepad controls.
• Fully standalone: other mods (chests, planet) are only looked up at run time if present.

0.3.1

• Roofs and stairs: the slope step is the game's own snap step (thick roofs no longer drift).

0.3.0

• Windrose-like hologram (own shader in an embedded bundle): fill, glowing rim, ribs on each segment, GPU instancing; gizmo arrows on the axes the piece can be stretched along; dashed path.

0.2.0

• Stretch with held LMB (a short click still places one piece); silhouettes beside the ghost; shapes plane / box / cylinder; floors with snap points on both faces stretch as floors; free building with nocost and world modifiers.

0.1.1

• Fixed per-frame FieldAccessException spam on Unity 6; beam spacing setting.

0.1.0

• First version: stretching a piece as a grid, preview, resource panel × N, batched placing through the game's own calls, per-segment checks, ValheimUnified chests, spherical planet support.