DigDug - Precision Excavation & Terrain Building Tool

DigDug is a Valheim mod designed to make large-scale excavation and terrain building easy, fast, and precise. Instead of chipping away at the ground piece by piece, you can dig flat-bottomed pits, trenches, lines, or build protective earth walls of any size, aligned exactly with your look direction.

Features

• Draggable & Repositionable UI: Freely click and drag the window anywhere on screen from any frame or background area so it never blocks your blue preview ghost or HUD. Window position is clamped to your display bounds and automatically saved across sessions.
• Pickaxe Integration: Triggers naturally by right-clicking while holding any pickaxe.
• Precision Alignment & Cardinal Snapping: Shows your precise yaw angle in whole degrees and compass direction at the top of the screen and window. Includes one-click Snap to Cardinal (N/E/S/W) and Snap to 45° buttons to instantly align your excavation flush with the world grid and building pieces.
• Configurable Rotation & Toggle Keys: Smoothly rotate your character, camera, and the blue preview outlines in clean 1° increments (hold to rotate continuously at 30°/second) for micro-adjustments using your configured keys (default: Left/Right Arrow keys). Optionally configure a custom MenuHotkey to toggle the menu.
• Excavation & Building Modes:
  • Line: Digs a long, straight line of custom depth, length, and width.
  • Rectangle: Digs a flat solid rectangular pit of custom depth, length, and width.
  • Trench: Digs a hollow perimeter trench (2 meters thick) of custom depth, length, and width around a base plot, keeping the inner ground untouched for quick defense perimeters.
  • Wall: Raises a solid flat-topped dirt wall/mound of custom height, length, and width.
• Smart Painting Options: Automatically paint the excavated floor with Dirt, Paved Stone, Grass, or leave it as No Change.
• Real-Time Resource & Cost Calculation:
  • Shows estimated pickaxe swings, stamina costs, and total pickaxe durability (accounting for and utilizing all pickaxes currently carried in your inventory).
  • Dynamically calculates the Stone Cost for raising terrain or building walls.
• Terrain Height Modification Safety & Limits:
  • Performs a pre-scan validation to prevent stamina, pickaxe durability (across all carried pickaxes), and resource loss if you try to dig or build beyond Valheim's limits where no actual height changes are possible.
  • Clamps the UI depth/height fields dynamically based on the configurable MaxTerrainOffset limit (default: 8.0m).
• Creative Mode & Mod Compatibility:
  • Natively integrates with chest-building mods (like Craft From Containers). If you have enough resources in nearby chests, they will be used and consumed automatically.
• Vanilla Restriction Integrity:
  • Automatically respects system-generated no-build zones (such as spawn/Forsaken stones, boss altars, and trader bubbles). Attempting to modify terrain inside these areas is blocked and displays the native "A mystical force in this area stops you" HUD warning.
  • Automatically respects active player-placed Wards. If you do not have permission, DigDug blocks excavation and displays the native "The ward stops you" HUD warning.
  • Blocks terrain modification inside dungeons and caves.
  • If any check fails, the DigDug UI automatically closes to flash the HUD warning clearly.

Workstation Dependencies

To keep gameplay balanced, building actions require local workstations:

• Wall Mode: Requires a Stonecutter bench nearby.
• Raising Terrain (negative depth): Requires a Workbench nearby.
• Excavation (positive depth) / Trench: Does not require any workstation.

Controls

1. Equip any pickaxe.
2. Right-click (or use your custom MenuHotkey if set) to open the DigDug Excavation window.
3. Move/Reposition Window (Optional): Click and hold on any frame or empty background area to drag the window anywhere on your screen. The new position is automatically saved.
4. Align your facing direction:
   • Use your configured rotation keys (default: Left/Right Arrow keys) to rotate your character, camera, and the blue layout preview box in 1° increments.
   • Click Snap to Cardinal (N/E/S/W) to lock directly onto the nearest North, East, South, or West direction.
   • Click Snap to 45° to snap to diagonal angles.
5. Set your desired dimensions:
   • Length: Bounding size forward/backward.
   • Depth/Height: How deep to dig, or how high to raise the wall.
   • Width: Bounding size left/right.
6. Choose your alignment Direction (Forward, Backward, or Centered relative to your position).
7. Click Dig! or Build! to execute.
8. Press Escape or click Cancel to close the window without making changes.

Configuration

The configuration file is located at BepInEx/config/com.antigravity.valheim.digdug.cfg (or accessible through r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager):

General

• EnableStaminaDrain (default: true): If true, performing a batch dig/build will consume player stamina.
• IgnoreDurabilityLoss (default: false): If true, pickaxes will not lose durability when batch digging.
• IgnoreStoneRequirement (default: false): If true, raising terrain will not consume stones from your inventory or nearby chests.
• StoneCostMultiplier (default: 1.0): Multiplier for the amount of stones required to raise terrain.
• MaxTerrainOffset (default: 8.0): The maximum height/depth change limit in meters from the original base height. Vanilla Valheim is 8.0m. Increase this if you use mods that extend terrain height limits.

UI

• WindowPositionX (default: -1): Screen X coordinate for the DigDug window. Set to -1 to automatically center horizontally. Automatically updated when you drag the window.
• WindowPositionY (default: -1): Screen Y coordinate for the DigDug window. Set to -1 to automatically center vertically. Automatically updated when you drag the window.

Keybinds

• RotateLeftKey (default: LeftArrow): Key to rotate player, camera, and preview counter-clockwise.
• RotateRightKey (default: RightArrow): Key to rotate player, camera, and preview clockwise.
• MenuHotkey (default: None): Optional hotkey to toggle the DigDug menu while holding a pickaxe (in addition to right-click).

Installation

1. Install BepInEx for Valheim.
2. Extract DigDug.dll and place it in your BepInEx/plugins/ directory (or install directly via r2modman/Thunderstore).

Discord

Join our Discord Server for discussion, suggestions, and bug reports!

Changelog

1.0.8

• Updated the UI Interface to be more in line with the Vanilla Aesthetic.

1.0.7

• Reassignable Menu Key (Restores Pickaxe Combat):
  • MenuHotkey now defaults to Mouse1 (Right Mouse Button) as a full replacement instead of an additional key.
  • If reassigned to any keyboard key (e.g. G) or other button, Right-Click is no longer intercepted, fully restoring the pickaxe's native blocking and dodge roll mechanics for combat.

1.0.6

• Draggable & Repositionable UI:
  • The DigDug excavation window is now fully draggable. Click and hold on any frame or empty background area to move the window anywhere on your screen so it never obstructs your preview box or HUD.
  • Window movement is clamped to screen boundaries to prevent dragging the window off-screen.
  • Automatically saves and persists your chosen window position across gaming sessions.
• Window Position Configuration:
  • Added WindowPositionX and WindowPositionY configuration options under [UI] in the configuration file.
  • Set to -1 (default) to automatically center the window horizontally and vertically on any screen resolution.
• Redesigned Compact Layout:
  • Streamlined window layout to be significantly more compact, freeing up screen space while keeping all font sizes and controls legible.
  • Symmetrically organized input fields into two paired rows: Length & Depth/Height on row 1, and Width & Direction on row 2.
  • Optimized grid button widths, margins, and padding to prevent text clipping and provide clean breathing room across all modes.

1.0.5

• Fixed post-excavation terrain modifications:
  • Ground modified by DigDug (dirt, paved, grass) can now be normally tilled, cultivated, paved, or re-grassed with vanilla tools (Hoe and Cultivator).
  • Cleaned up paint channel and mask encoding to match Valheim's native terrain shader conventions.
• Fixed chunk boundary seams:
  • Synchronized boundary vertices across adjacent terrain chunks to prevent mesh tears or open holes into the void.
  • Added multi-chunk heightmap regeneration so all neighboring chunks stitch together seamlessly.
• Restored rapid arrow key rotation:
  • Holding down Left or Right Arrow keys now smoothly and continuously rotates the player and preview box.

1.0.4

• Updated to comply with the Valheim v1.0 (1.0.7) update.
• Fixed terrain compiler compatibility with Valheim 1.0's updated data structures and save routines.
• Updated ward protection checks to use the new PrivateArea validation methods.
• Added array boundary safeguards to prevent errors when modifying terrain in regions with complex or deep snow paint masks.
• Added integer-degree alignment and quick-snap buttons:
  • Added Snap to Cardinal (N/E/S/W) button for aligning digs and raised walls flush with the world grid and building pieces.
  • Added Snap to 45° button for precise diagonal cuts.
  • Arrow key rotation now rotates in clean 1-degree increments so your actual facing matches the displayed degrees.

1.0.3

• Added protection zone verification checks:
  • Blocks terrain modification inside Private Areas (player-placed Wards) where access is not permitted.
  • Blocks terrain modification inside system-generated protected zones (Spawn/Forsaken stones, boss altars, trader bubbles, etc.) with localized HUD messages.
  • Blocks terrain modification inside dungeons and caves.
  • Closes the excavation UI and flashes standard in-game HUD alerts on failed checks.
• Removed pickaxe skill progression raise to match vanilla Valheim rules.

1.0.2

• Added automatic ZNetView ClaimOwnership requests for modified TerrainComp objects to fix digging/building failing when other players are in the active sector.
• Fixed an issue where digging/building did nothing in unmodified sectors on clients by automatically instantiating the sector's TerrainComp if it doesn't exist yet.

1.0.1

• Added support for configurable rotation and menu toggle keybinds using BepInEx KeyboardShortcut.
• Updated UI legend to show keybinds dynamically.
• Cleans up text field focus when configured rotation keys are pressed.
• Added validation check to prevent pickaxe durability, stamina, and resource loss if no terrain height changes are possible (e.g. at height limits).
• Added MaxTerrainOffset configuration option (default 8.0m) to enforce and clamp UI inputs based on the maximum allowed terrain change limits.

1.0.0

• Initial Release.