PlanBuild: How to install and basic usage

VERSION 0.19.0

• PlanBuild does not need HookGenPatcher any more. If you installed it just for PlanBuild you can remove it - leave it in place if another mod still asks for it.
• The mod was adapted to Valheim's new build menu. Please make sure to check out the documentation and the changelog for everything that changed.

PlanBuild installation and basic usage

PlanBuild is a Valheim mod for planning, copying and sharing your buildings, with additional terraforming features, GUI components and immersive additions. Follow this instructions if you want to install and use PlanBuild to share your creations on Valheimians. For a more in-depth overview of the features of PlanBuild check out this article about the mod.

Using a mod manager

The simplest way to install the mod and its dependencies is to use a mod manager. All required files are hosted on Thunderstore, so you can use either ThunderstoreModManager or r2modman for downloading and installing the mods. Usage should be self-explanatory, but there is online help available for each of the managers, too.

These three mods are required for PlanBuild to function:

• BepInExPack for Valheim
• Jötunn, the Valheim Library
• PlanBuild

After installing everything via the mod manager, you can proceed with the Start Valheim part of this tutorial.

Manual install

If you would like to install everything manually, follow the instructions provided. Download all of the zip files of the mods from the previous step manually and extract them into a separate directory. It should look like this when finished:

Open your Valheim installation folder

Browse to your Valheim's local file. Boot up Steam. Go to your Library, then select Valheim. To the way right, below the Valheim banner you will see a gear. Click the gear then Manage>Browse Local Files. This will pop up a window and show you where your Valheim folder is.

Copy the BepInExPack

Inside the extracted BepInExPack folder is another folder "BepInExPack_Valheim". Copy all files included in there into your Valheim install folder. Your game folder should look like this now:

Browse inside the newly created folder "BepInEx" in your Valheim installation folder:

Copy the Jötunn and PlanBuild files

Copy all folders you find inside your extracted mod files inside the BepInEx folder of your Valheim installation - today that is a folder named "plugins" for each of them. Windows will ask whether to merge the folders, which is exactly what you want: all files need to be in their respective counterparts inside the "BepInEx" folder of your game install for the mod to function.

Start Valheim

When everything was installed correctly, you can start Valheim and will see a console window popping up with some text running while starting the game. This means BepInEx is loaded correctly and you successfully installed the mods to the game.

Crafting the Blueprint Rune

PlanBuild uses an actual in-game item to access the functionality of the mod. After picking up your first stone with a new character you will learn the recipe for the Blueprint Rune. If you use an existing character you likely will learn the recipe immediately after loading a world. It costs a single Stone and can be crafted inside the Player's crafting menu. No crafting station is needed.


Planning and blueprinting are two distinct tools: the rune does the blueprints, while the Plan Hammer - crafted from a single Wood - is used to plan structures before you gather the materials. You don't need the hammer to capture and place blueprints, so this guide sticks to the rune. See the in-depth article to learn what the hammer does.

Using the rune to create a blueprint

Equip the rune and open the build menu. The rune brings its own categories: Tools for creating blueprints and terraforming, Clipboard for the blueprints you copied during this session, and Blueprints for everything saved on disk.


The first tool is used to create blueprints. You will see a circle shaped selection marker in the world. Everything inside this marker will be saved into the blueprint. To have a visual clue on what will be captured by the rune, press and hold Ctrl on your keyboard. Pieces that will be captured will be displayed in green color. Use the Scroll Wheel to change the size of the marker. When you are happy with the selection, click the left mouse button to capture all pieces. A dialogue will appear where you can name your blueprint to whatever you like.


When a circle is too coarse for what you want to capture, use the Selection tools instead. They let you add and remove single pieces, whole connected structures or everything in a radius, and the Edit Selection tool (or the selection.gui console command) turns that selection into a saved or copied blueprint.

Building your blueprints

After you captured your first blueprint you should see an icon for every blueprint inside the "Blueprints" category of the build menu of the rune:


Select a blueprint and you should see the structure as a "ghost piece" just like when building "normal" pieces of the game. You can also rotate the structures like you would do normally. When you are satisfied with the positioning, press the left mouse button to place your blueprint.

Per default PlanBuild will place a "planned" version of the blueprint. This means you have to gather all resources and finish building the structure manually. Hold Ctrl while placing to switch to the other mode for that one placement, or set Default build mode to "Direct" in the configuration to make it the default.

On a dedicated server this is the admin's call: building blueprints without materials only works when Allow direct build is enabled in the server's configuration. Admins may always use it.

Changing the configuration

Jötunn used to bring its own "Mod Settings" window, but that was removed - to change settings in-game you now need the BepInEx ConfigurationManager. It is a separate plugin, available on Thunderstore so you can install it with your mod manager just like the mods above. Once installed, press F1 in game, find the PlanBuild section and change what you need:


Without it you can still edit the config file directly. It is created on the first start of the game with the mod installed and lives in your Valheim folder under BepInEx/config/marcopogo.PlanBuild.cfg.

Finding your blueprints

The blueprint files of your captured structures can be found in your Valheim installation folder under BepInEx/config/PlanBuild/blueprints:


This is also the place where you can copy your downloaded .blueprint or .vbuild files to when you want to use them in the game. The mod scans your whole Valheim folder for those files, so they are picked up from other locations as well.

Further reading

PlanBuild offers a lot more tools and settings for you to explore. Read all about it on the in-depth article about PlanBuild.