♻️ Quad's Recycler

Build a Recycler with the hammer and turn old gear back into a share of the materials it was made from.

Source code · Report a bug · Discord

✨ Features

• Look at the Recycler and press E: pick a weapon, armor piece or tool from your inventory, see what it would return, and recycle it.
• You get about half of the materials back (50% by default; leftovers are a chance of one more). Recycler Presses built within 8 m raise this to 60% and then 70%.
• The gear must be one you could craft, and the crafting station it was made at (and its level) must be nearby. Equipped or upgraded gear asks for a second click. Items locked with L are skipped.
• The Recycler needs only bronze-tier materials (fine wood, bronze and stone), so you can build it as soon as you have bronze. Each Press costs iron, bronze and stone, so the better refunds come with iron. Restart the game after installing or updating it.

📸 Screenshots

The Recycler

🧩 Other mods

Known clashes

• Adventure Backpacks (or any mod that refuses to let an item go): a backpack that still holds things gives nothing back, because it never leaves your inventory.
• Epic Loot and other mods that keep data on items: such gear (enchantments, a bag's contents) asks for a second click, because recycling destroys it.

Works with our mods

• Quad's Quality of Life: items locked with L can't be recycled.
• Our chest mods never treat the Recycler as a storage chest.

Battle idols are never handed back, and levels gained at the upgrader station return nothing.

Found a clash with another mod? Tell us which one and what happened.

👥 Multiplayer

Who needs it: Everyone, and the host above all: a game without the mod deletes the pieces when their area loads. Restart after installing or updating them.

The host decides: the share returned, Press bonuses, chance rounding, the crafting-station rule and which gear can be recycled. While you play on their world their values replace yours (your file isn't changed); a host without the mod leaves everyone their own.

⚙️ Settings

In BepInEx/config/com.quad.recycler.cfg, made the first time the game runs with the mod. r2modman and Thunderstore Mod Manager edit it under Config editor.

General

Refund

Rules

🤖 Made with AI

Made with the help of Claude (Anthropic), with Claude Code: designed, written and checked together, and tried in the game.

🧪 About Quads Lab

Quads Lab is where Quad H (HardHeadHackerHead) builds software with AI, of every kind: these Valheim mods are one of its projects. Each mod is designed by a player, written with Claude Code and tested in our own world, with bobisme as our tester.

• 🌐 quadslab.io
• 🧰 All Quads Lab mods on Thunderstore
• 💻 Source code on GitHub
• 💬 Discord
• 🐞 Found a bug? Open an issue on GitHub

📜 Recent changes

• 1.1.2 A clearer page: what it does, who needs it in multiplayer, how it gets on with other mods, and where to report a bug. The game itself is unchanged.
• 1.1.1 A new id, com.quad.recycler (it was com.dhack.recycler): your settings move over by themselves the first time it starts, and the old settings file is kept as a backup. Restart the game after this update. If an old copy is still installed beside it, this one stands down and says which file to delete, so the two never both run. The DLL now says it was made with AI, as Thunderstore asks.
• Fix: the Recycler handed out battle idols and gave materials back for levels gained at the upgrader station; it no longer does. Fix: an item another mod refused to let go of (a backpack with things in it) was still paid for, so recycling made copies; now nothing comes back unless the item really left your inventory. Gear carrying other mods' data (enchantments, a bag's contents) asks for a second click. The window uses the game's fonts and scales with the screen. In multiplayer the server decides the share returned and the rules.

Every change is on the Changelog tab.

1.3.3

• On a server without Recycler, the Recycler and the Recycler Press are gone from the hammer, and a message says why: the server would delete them if built there. Server owners can change what they cost ("Building", RecyclerCost and PressCost; defaults as before: 10 fine wood, 8 bronze and 10 stone; 15 iron, 10 bronze and 10 stone); in multiplayer the server's cost applies, and a cost with a mistake in it keeps the last good one. Settings: edits to the config file now apply while the game runs (a server owner no longer has to restart), and a server's admins can change the server's settings from their own game with Configuration Manager, where other players see them greyed out. Your config file always keeps your own values while you play on a server (saving it there could write the server's in). Players on an older version still get the server's settings. They're no longer counted as storage in the game's own building records (they were copied from a chest). The Recycler and the Press snap by the corners of their base now (to floor corners, wall ends and each other); hold the alt-place key (Shift) to place them freely. The build menu says what share the Recycler gives back, and with one or two Presses, from the settings (the server's in multiplayer).

1.3.2

• Its windows no longer fill the log with "The LiberationSans SDF Font Asset was not found": each text is given the game's font before it starts (it looked for TextMeshPro's default font, which the game doesn't have, every time a text was made). Nothing changes on screen.

1.3.1

• Its build piece now also clears destroyed pieces left in the hammer's list by other mods when it registers: after a mod is reloaded at the main menu, a leftover one made every change to your bag throw an error half-way (crafting gave the item without taking the cost) until the game was restarted.

1.3.0

• Now in your language: English, Russian, German, Chinese (Simplified), Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, French, Polish and Turkish, following the game's own Language setting. The game's own names are used for its things (items, creatures, lands, stations). The translations were made with AI: to correct a line, or add a language, put a file in BepInEx/config/translations/com.quad.recycler/ named after the game's name for the language (German.json...) with only the lines you change, copied from translations/English.json on GitHub. The Recycler and the Press have translated names and hover texts too.

1.2.1

• Tab no longer opens your inventory under the Recycler's window (it closes the window, as it closes a chest), and the chat and map keys stay quiet while it's open.

1.2.0

• The Recycler's window is now part of the game's look: the crafting screen's wood panel and title, your gear in the inventory's own cells (icons, durability, quality, what you wear, the game's tooltips), the materials you get back in cells with their amounts, and the game's own button. E closes it again, as it does a chest.

1.1.2

• A clearer page: what it does, who needs it in multiplayer, how it gets on with other mods, and where to report a bug. The game itself is unchanged.

1.1.1

• A new id, com.quad.recycler (it was com.dhack.recycler): your settings move over by themselves the first time it starts, and the old settings file is kept as a backup. Restart the game after this update. If an old copy is still installed beside it, this one stands down and says which file to delete, so the two never both run. The DLL now says it was made with AI, as Thunderstore asks.

Earlier

• Fix: the Recycler handed out battle idols and gave materials back for levels gained at the upgrader station; it no longer does. Fix: an item another mod refused to let go of (a backpack with things in it) was still paid for, so recycling made copies; now nothing comes back unless the item really left your inventory. Gear carrying other mods' data (enchantments, a bag's contents) asks for a second click. The window uses the game's fonts and scales with the screen. In multiplayer the server decides the share returned and the rules.

• Fix: after a fresh game start the Recycler and Press were not registered until the mods were reloaded, so the game deleted any it found standing in the world. It is now registered as the world loads. Ones already lost can't be brought back; build them again.

• The build menu now shows the Recycler and the Press themselves instead of a chest.