Craft, build, refuel and feed machines from deliberately named nearby chests.

Unlike mods that treat every nearby container as one giant inventory, this mod only uses chests whose custom names match the station, tool or machine you want them connected to. The tags used for stuff are fairly logical, workbench for workbench, forge for forge, cauldron is cauldron, mead cauldron is mead cauldron, hammer is hammer etc. All of them can be seen in the mod's config and also changed. "Refuel" means connecting a chest to stuff like refuellable light sources, campfires, bonfires, hearths, the hot tub etc. https://imgur.com/a/BN3TRma

How it works

Your player inventory is always used first. Only correctly named nearby chests are used after that. Chest-name matching is case-insensitive. Every route has three configurable name alternatives; unused ones can be left blank. One chest can connect to multiple nearby stations of the same route, and one station can connect to multiple matching chests. Normal Valheim access rules still apply, including wards and chests currently being used by another player. Resources are removed from the real chest inventory, so everybody sees the same contents.

Connection visuals

Hover a crafting station or refill/feed object to see every connected chest in range. Hover a connected chest to see every compatible crafting station or refill/feed object in range. Hammer, Hoe, Cultivator and Serving Tray connections are shown only while that tool's build/piece menu is open.

Multiplayer

The server does not need to have this mod installed.

You can join a completely vanilla/unmodded server with the mod installed on your client and use its features normally. The server does not reject you, and players without the mod can continue playing normally.

On an unmodded server:

Modded players use their own local chest-name aliases. Players without the mod do not get craft/refill-from-chest functionality. Items removed through the mod are removed from the actual networked chest, so all players see the same resulting chest contents. Normal multiplayer chest access and wards are respected. A chest currently being used by another player is skipped under normal vanilla rules.

If  MultiUserChest is installed for the server and players, chests that another player currently has open remain usable. This mod uses MultiUserChest's synchronized chest-removal path for that concurrent-use case instead of stealing ownership or closing the other player's chest.

If the server also has this mod installed: The server's chest-name aliases are synchronized to modded clients. Modded players therefore use the same routing names. Clients without the mod are still allowed to join; they simply do not get the mod's features.

This makes the server install optional: install it on the server when you want shared/authoritative routing configuration.

Chest priority

If several matching chests are in range, their names determine which chest is used first using the mod's deterministic Windows-like title order.

Pieces that do not have a normal refill interaction are not included just because they emit light.

Chest naming

Chest names only need to contain one configured alias for the route.

Examples:

1 Smelter Ore matches Smelter Main Building Mats matches Building Kitchen Food Table Ingredients matches Food Table Matching is case-insensitive, but spaces inside an alias are literal. An alias can belong to only one route. If you enter an alias already used by another route, the new field is automatically cleared. Existing duplicate aliases in the config are also resolved automatically on startup.

Configuration

Use BepInEx Configuration Manager or edit:

BepInEx/config/wire.valheim.balancedcraftfromnearbychests.cfg

You can change all three aliases for every crafting station, build tool and refill/feed route, as well as the chest-renaming and connection-visual options.

Disclaimer: the code is AI assisted since I barely know C#. Not fully AI nor human. also the description on this mod specifically is mainly AI cus it's a lot to explain. Donations