Magic Hammer 1.0.1

Build with your normal Hammer using materials from nearby chests. Includes an optional icy-blue glow while you hold it.

Built against the locally installed Valheim 1.0.16 and BepInEx 5.4.23.5 / Valheim pack 5.4.2350. Harmony is included with BepInEx. Reliable Crafting 0.1.0 is optional but needed for action-time remote chest access without visiting the chest. The update package contains a plugin DLL and documentation; preserve your existing config.

Validation: compiled without warnings; 28 planning/config/rollback checks and 22 static checks of the installed game's API/IL passed. Multiplayer behaviour and coexistence still require further in-game testing. No in-game performance benchmarks are available.

Install

1. Exit Valheim.
2. For a new manual installation, extract BepInEx/plugins/MagicHammer/MagicHammer.dll into the game folder. When updating, replace your existing MagicHammer.dll with the supplied DLL. Keep exactly one copy: if your current DLL is directly in BepInEx/plugins, replace it there rather than also installing a second nested copy. Preserve BepInEx/config/au.tyvalheim.magichammer.cfg; a new install generates it.
3. Start Valheim with your existing BepInEx loader. Look for Magic Hammer 1.0.1 loaded in BepInEx/LogOutput.log.
4. Equip your normal Hammer. Put building materials in a closed chest nearby, then build normally.

Magic Hammer can be used alongside Reliable Smelting. Disable other mods that replace building costs or pull building materials from chests before testing this one; two such mods can double-charge or conflict with the build hooks.

How it works

• Default radius: 20 metres, approximately the ordinary workbench building radius. Measured in 3D from the player to each chest, not from the workbench or placement ghost.
• Uses carried materials first, then the closest eligible chest, then farther chests until the whole cost is covered. You can reverse the inventory/chest preference.
• Can combine several chests and your inventory in one build. Backpack capacity and carry weight do not limit these direct payments.
• The build menu and its material availability colours count accessible chest materials. Recipe discovery, workbench/station requirements, stamina, hammer durability, DLC checks, and placement restrictions remain the game's responsibility.
• Checks all required materials before withdrawing anything. If a normal placement is rejected, restores the reservation, preserving item references, positions, and metadata, including equipped gear.
• Uses actual recipe costs, so new and modded building materials work without a whitelist.
• Operates only with the normal Hammer. Crafting, upgrading, repairing, hoe/cultivator work, and other tools are not extended. Vanilla no-cost modes do not draw from chests.
• Materials already marked as cheated retain the game's normal cheated-material handling. The mod does not clear those flags or bypass achievement rules.

Chest access and multiplayer

By default, uses player-built wooden, reinforced, and black metal chests. Personal chests are optional and still require normal access. All chests must be within range, closed and accessible under ward permissions. Preview counts now include permitted remote-owned chests. Actual payment still requires this client's confirmed network ownership. Network ownership is separate from who built a chest.

Graves, dungeon loot, carts, and boats are excluded by the default prefab allowlist. Remove a prefab from that list to exclude a chest type. You may add a modded chest's exact prefab name; it must still be a player-built Container and pass the same access checks.

The mod does not force ownership or issue unacknowledged remote withdrawals. With Reliable Crafting enabled, the first build action can request access through Valheim's normal chest-open handshake. Wait briefly and explicitly retry building; no piece or payment is committed while waiting. Multiple source chests may require multiple retries. Another player's busy chest and wards are always respected. Without Reliable Crafting, stock still appears correctly, but a remote-owned chest requires opening/closing it first and the build message explains why. Ownership can later change again.

Client installation is required for each builder. Valheim handles the hammer's build action and inventory checks on that player's client. The same DLL may be installed on a dedicated server and will load harmlessly there, but a server-only installation cannot provide chest-assisted building or glowing hammers to unmodded clients. Other players do not need the mod merely to join or see the resulting structures. There is no custom network protocol or automatic config synchronization.

Loaded chests only: the mod does not keep distant areas loaded. Transfers use ordinary game persistence and are not atomic across a process crash. If another mod throws after piece spawning has started, Magic Hammer retains the reservation and disables assistance rather than risk refunding a piece that already exists. The log will explain the failure. Test multiplayer ownership changes and your other mods before relying on it for expensive structures.

Configure

Edit BepInEx/config/au.tyvalheim.magichammer.cfg in a text editor. Changes normally reload within two seconds; restart if automatic reload is disabled. Invalid material/reserve entries disable chest assistance until corrected and restarted, with details in the log. Native building from your inventory remains available.

Prohibited materials

The config includes 520 commented prefab examples read from your installed game's material, trophy, valuable, consumable, and miscellaneous asset categories, including current release resources. All are allowed by default. Some catalogue entries are decorative or otherwise unused in building; the list does not add recipes.

Remove # from entries you wish to protect:

[ProhibitedMaterials]
FineWood = true
RoundLog = true
Iron = true

RoundLog is core wood. Names are internal prefab names, not translated display names; comparisons are case-insensitive. Alternatively, use Prohibited = FineWood,RoundLog,Iron in the Materials section. A true entry or a name in the comma-separated list blocks withdrawal.

Prohibition affects chest withdrawals only. If you intentionally carry those materials, you can still build with them. Set an entry to false, comment it out, or remove it to stop prohibiting it (and remove it from the comma-separated list if present there too).

On world load the mod adds commented examples for any additional material or Hammer-recipe resource it discovers, including modded resources. It preserves existing comments. Use a text editor: a generic BepInEx config manager may rewrite the file and discard the commented catalogue or the custom sections.

Leave a stock reserve

Uncomment or add entries under ReserveAmounts to override the global reserve for that material:

[ReserveAmounts]
Wood = 50
Stone = 100
Iron = 10

These quantities remain in each chest, counted across its stacks. A chest with 60 wood and a reserve of 50 contributes up to 10 wood. Carried materials have no reserve. Prohibition takes priority over reserve settings.

Hammer glow

Enabled by default for your own held hammer. Uses a small shadowless point light and adds emission where the existing hammer shader supports it. No new item or asset bundle is needed. The original materials are restored on unequip, disable, or reload, and temporary material copies are cleaned up.

[Glow]
Enabled = true
Colour = #66CCFF
LightIntensity = 1.2
LightRangeMeters = 3
EmissionIntensity = 1.5

Set Glow / Enabled to false to turn it off. Set LightIntensity to 0 for emission only; set EmissionIntensity to 0 for light only. Colour accepts HTML hex colours. It is a local cosmetic effect, not synchronized to other players. Their clients must implement their own visuals; this version only glows the local player's hammer.

First in-game checks

Use a test world or a backed-up save:

1. Build a wooden wall with wood only in a closed chest within 20 metres. Confirm its exact cost disappears once and the menu shows availability.
2. Split the cost across your inventory and two chests. Confirm inventory-first and nearest-chest ordering; repeat with inventory-first disabled.
3. Fill your backpack, then build using chest-only materials.
4. Attempt an invalid placement and a recipe missing one ingredient. Confirm no materials are lost and the hammer/armour remain equipped afterward.
5. Test a prohibited material, per-chest reserves, outside-radius chests, an open chest, a personal chest, and a ward you cannot access.
6. Ensure a required workbench is still required; verify ordinary crafting does not pull from chests.
7. Equip/stow the hammer, change glow colour, and toggle glow off/on. Check normal hammer rendering returns without extra lights remaining.
8. With two clients, put materials in the friend's closed chest without first visiting it. Confirm permitted stock appears. With Reliable Crafting, request access by building and retry when ready; verify exact single payment. Busy/warded chests must be excluded. Without Reliable Crafting, verify the clear access-required warning.
9. Save/reload and confirm material counts persist. Test alongside your preferred mods after the isolated checks pass.

Troubleshooting / removal

If a nearby chest is ignored: close it, check distance/ward/personal-chest rules, confirm its prefab is allowed, check prohibited/reserve settings, and consider network ownership. Enable LogChestConsumption for successful withdrawal details.

If startup reports an unsupported IL layout, a game update or another building mod has changed a patched method. Assistance will remain off instead of installing a partial build/payment hook. Preserve LogOutput.log for diagnosis.

To remove: close Valheim, remove MagicHammer.dll, and optionally remove its config. No custom pieces or permanent world components are added.

Credits

Mod development: Gomisan. This mod was coded with the assistance of ChatGPT 6.0. BepInEx, Harmony and HarmonyX contributors; Iron Gate for Valheim. Game and framework DLLs are not bundled.

Promo artwork: OpenAI image generation; illustrative artwork, not a gameplay screenshot.

Media

AI-generated promotional artwork from the original Nexus release, not a gameplay screenshot. Any older version label in this illustration describes the artwork; this package is 1.0.1.

View the Nexus gallery.

Thunderstore installation

Install BepInExPack Valheim and this package through your mod manager, or follow the manual instructions above. The DLL is byte-identical to the public Nexus 1.0.1 release. No gameplay changes or version bump were made for packaging. OpenAI Codex assisted with packaging and documentation; separate AI metadata preserves the original DLL.

Discord and feedback

Questions, feedback and bug reports are equally welcome on Nexus or Gomisan's Mods Discord. Use whichever is easier; no need to cross-post. New members should join through the invite first, then open the Magic Hammer feedback post.

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