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Knox Buildworks

Interface tour

This page walks through both Knox Buildworks screens element by element. The figures mirror the real in-game window layouts; only the item icons are documentation stand-ins - in game every entry shows its actual item or sprite icon, with full tooltips.

Opening the interface

Section titled “Opening the interface”
  • Press F7 (rebindable under Mod Options > Knox Buildworks > Open Knox Buildworks).
  • Use the Build button drawer on the left-side game toolbar. With the sandbox option ReplaceBuildMenu enabled, the Build button opens Knox directly; otherwise vanilla stays primary and Knox lives in the hover drawer.

The world context menu does not open the catalogue. Blueprint items and plain paper have inventory context actions for importing, updating, or drafting blueprints.

The catalogue window

Section titled “The catalogue window”
  1. Title bar - the main window. It can be moved and resized; scrollable panes keep their own scrollbars and never draw over the header or resize handles.
  2. Search - filters the current catalogue content as you type. The mode selector next to it decides whether the text matches recipe names, required items, or everything.
  3. Sort and view - switch between natural registry order and alphabetic A-Z; pinned recipes always stay first. The list button swaps between the icon Grid and the Detailed list (clearer names, categories, status, favorites and pins).
  4. Scope chips - All shows everything, the star shows your Favorites, Recent shows entries you selected or built lately. Favorites and recents are stored per player.
  5. Plans and collapse - Plans opens the blueprint list, and the arrow button collapses the window into a compact layout.
  6. Category row - paged category buttons with previous/next arrows. All categories is the default scope.
  7. Filter row - three dropdowns narrow the content by subcategory (All types), material metadata (All materials) and required skill (All skills).
  8. Buildable cards - the current result set with icon, name and a green ■ Ready marker; the selected card is highlighted. Each card exposes its pin (top-left) and favorite star (top-right) directly.
  9. Inspector and footprint preview - the selected buildable’s description, build time and conditions (for example Requires light), plus a sprite preview tagged with the footprint size (here 3x3x1 tiles). Grouped buildables add a level carousel here, and Variant, Material set and Finish dropdowns appear whenever the buildable has alternatives.
  10. Readiness status - green Ready to build or Requirements not met. In multiplayer this line can also read “Waiting for server definition validation…” until the integrity handshake confirms your definitions match the server.
  11. Requirement sections - Skills & knowledge (skill levels, learned recipes) is listed separately from Materials & tools. Each row shows the item icon, your count against the needed amount (0/1), and its rules: consumed, kept (tools) or drained by uses, alternatives, the accepted item tag, and degrade chances.
  12. Actions - Build starts the placement cursor for the exact selection; Place Plan plants it as a non-blocking ghost instead.
  13. Ingredient drawer - selecting a requirement row opens the Available Ingredients / Possible Items browser: the input’s rules and recipe use at the top, your real matching inventory stacks under Available Ingredients, and every acceptable item and Build 42 item tag under Possible Items. Selecting one alternative records your manual choice for that input.

More detail on searching, favorites and manual alternatives lives in Using the catalogue.

Planning Mode

Section titled “Planning Mode”
  1. Knox Planning Mode window - Planning Mode is its own mode with two floating windows over the world; leave it with Exit planning mode. If a server disables the sandbox option EnablePlanningMode, the mode reports itself as disabled.
  2. Blueprints panel - the selected blueprint with its level, room and placement summary. Rename it via the name field, create (New), Duplicate or Delete blueprints, toggle Hide ghosts, Pin the totals to the HUD, and Export / Import / Copy JSON to share a design. Export writes a .json file to Zomboid/Lua/KnoxBuildworks/exports/ using an ASCII-safe name (knox_blueprint_(name)_(id).json); Import lists the .json files in that folder by the blueprint title stored inside each file (drop files there by hand to bring designs in from other players or saves). Imports also come from a drafted blueprint item.
  3. Z level controls - -Z / +Z plan one floor lower or higher, the current level is shown (Z 0), and Use my level snaps back to your character. The Access line summarises the current sharing state (default scope, players, factions); Manage access opens the full permission window.
  4. Blueprint totals - placements/rooms count plus the combined Materials & tools and Skills & knowledge the whole blueprint needs. Build starts construction from the plan.
  5. Room tools - name a room, pick its zone colour from the palette, then Draw room drags the rectangle. Erase room removes room zones without touching plans; Update room and Delete selected room manage the Rooms list.
  6. Cursor and queue tools - Erase tool removes planned buildables one at a time; Build tool lets you click individual ghosts to build them; Gather area drags the container/vehicle area used for material counting and fetching; Move blueprint picks a new origin tile and the whole blueprint follows; Build all queues every ready ghost; Stop tool / Stop queue cancel the active cursor or queue run.
  7. Planned buildables - every ghost in the blueprint with its stage and world position. Selecting an entry highlights it; the Ghost opacity presets control how strongly ghosts render.
  8. World view - ghosts render at the blueprint’s selected Z level; rooms and the gather area draw as coloured zones. When several plans stack on one tile, press the rotate key to cycle through them.
  9. Planning catalogue - the same registry content as the main window, filtered for planning, with per-row readiness, pin and favorite. Pick what the next ghost placement will be.
  10. Selected plan setup - stage, variant, material set and finish that get saved into the planned ghost. A planned wall can therefore already carry its future paint or wallpaper. Plan selected buildable starts the ghost cursor.

Deeper coverage: Planning Mode and Blueprints, sharing and access.

Mod Options

Section titled “Mod Options”

All client-side options live under Mod Options > Knox Buildworks:

Option Values What it does
Open Knox Buildworks Keybind (default F7) Opens/closes the catalogue window.
Debug logging On / off Verbose Knox log output for troubleshooting.
Pinned alignment Auto, Left, Right, Center Horizontal alignment of the pinned recipe HUD tracker.
Pinned position Auto, Manual Manual lets you drag the tracker anywhere; a reset action clears it.
Pinned opacity 15-100% (default 85) Background opacity of the tracker.
Pinned accent bar Left, Right, Top, None Where the tracker’s accent bar is drawn.
Pinned content Icons, Text Whether tracked requirements render as text or text plus item/skill icons.

The same pinned-tracker settings are reachable in game from the tracker’s own settings popup.