SmarterHoe

A comprehensive terrain-editing overhaul for the Valheim hoe. SmarterHoe replaces vanilla terrain placing with a full suite of precision tools — from laser-flat plateau leveling to multi-waypoint road carving — while staying fully balanced for survival play.

Features

🔒 Altitude Lock — Laser-Flat Ground

Press [L] to toggle locking your elevation. Every subsequent hoe click levels terrain to that exact height, guaranteeing a perfectly flat surface no matter the slope. Middle-click any placed building piece to snap the locked altitude to that piece's floor height.

⬛ Instant Plateau — 1-Click Razor-Flat Flattening

A dedicated hoe build-menu tool that instantly flattens the entire brush area to the elevation directly under your cursor in a single operation. No repeated clicking needed. Choose it from the hoe build menu alongside the original gradual leveling tool.

〰️ Smooth Ramp — Multi-Waypoint Road Auto-Carver

Place waypoints ([K]) across your terrain to define a road path. Press [H] to instantly auto-carve a smooth, graded road corridor through all waypoints using Catmull-Rom spline interpolation. Supports curved switchbacks, dynamic slope angle visualization per segment, and cart-friendliness color coding on the guide spine:

• Green: ≤20° — cart-friendly ✓
• Yellow: 20–25° — steep for carts !
• Red: >25° — too steep for carts ✗

🌀 Soften Terrain

Gently blends terrain without sharp edges. Good for cleaning up rough patches and natural-looking transitions.

↩️ Restore Terrain

Resets terrain within the brush radius back to its original unmodified world-gen state — removes all digging, leveling, and painting.

🪓 Clear Debris

Instantly removes trees, logs, stumps, rocks, boulders, and ore deposits within the hoe radius. In Balanced Survival mode, requires an Axe for trees and a Pickaxe for rocks — the hoe won't cheat your survival progression.

Brush Options

• Circle / Square toggle — Press [G] to toggle between circular and square brush geometry. Square brush rotates with your player direction.
• Radius adjustment — Hold [Alt] and use the Mouse Scroll Wheel (or press [Alt] + [ / [Alt] + ]) to resize the brush radius (0.5m – 15m).
• Ramp width adjustment — Press [ / ] to adjust the road corridor width (1m – 20m).
• Vanilla paving radius — Vanilla mud_road and paved_road hoe pieces are also scaled to match your current brush radius.

Balanced Survival Mode

SmarterHoe ships balanced by default — all terrain operations cost resources and stamina just like vanilla building:

Press [B] at any time to toggle between Balanced Survival and Freebuild (no costs) mode. The current mode is shown in the HUD panels while wielding the hoe.

Controls & Hotkeys Summary

Configuration

Config file: BepInEx/config/com.jubaroo.smarterhoe.cfg

All settings are configurable in-game using the BepInEx Configuration Manager ([F1]) or by editing the config file directly. Key settings:

Compatibility

• Client-side only — no server-side component required. Works on servers without the mod installed.
• Multiplayer — terrain operations use Valheim's native ZDO/Heightmap networking; other players see changes in real time.
• Known conflicts — Mods that also patch Player.UpdatePlacementGhost or deeply override hoe piece behavior may conflict.

Credits

Built by Jubaroo.
Valheim terrain system research inspired by the broader Valheim modding community.