Chef’s CookBook

CookBook is a quality-of-life mod for Risk of Rain 2 that provides a structured, searchable, and expandable view of craftable items and their possible crafting paths.

Instead of mentally tracking multi-step recipes or juggling Wiki tabs, CookBook presents crafting information in-game with a clean, scalable UI designed for large inventories and complex recipe graphs.

Feedback and Issues

• Have ideas or suggestions? Post them in the Feature Suggestions discussion
• Encountered performance issues? Create a performance issue report
• Encounted a bug? Create a bug report

Features

Frontend

• Lists all currently craftable results based on your inventory, grouped by result type, rarity, and quantity
• Live filtering via a search bar
• Each recipe row can be expanded to reveal all valid crafting paths
• Highly configurable via ROO settings integration for your performance needs
• Paths are displayed hierarchically, showing exact ingredient requirements
• Accordion-style UI keeps only one recipe expanded at a time to reduce clutter
• Rows grow and collapse naturally with content
• Support for repeatedly executing a specific craft chain N times in a single automated sequence
• Automatically calculates and displays the "Max Affordable" repetitions for any selected path, physically clamping user input to current inventory limits
• Event system to prompt other mod users if someone is requesting their assistance in a recipe!

Backend

• Robust against other mods
• Highly encapsulated, doesn't touch any external logic
• Automated sequences include logic to orient active equipment slots and sets
• Backend cleanly separates data, logic, and UI for extensibility
• Optimization layer that kills redundant crafting chains early if a more efficient path (based on item weighting) is already discovered for the same result
• Recipes are culled early in the compute phase using IsCausallyLinked to prevent the generation of circular or impossible crafting paths
• Hooks specifically monitor permanent item stacks and equipment sets, ignoring temporary buffs and activations
• Affordability logic accounts for the entire team's potential by tracking scrapable drones and allied inventory trade limits

Controls

• Configure various keybinds and crafting features in the Mod's settings menu
• Click a recipe row to expand or collapse its available crafting paths
• The search bar filters results in real time
• Expand a recipe row, select the path you want, then select craft
  • The Objectives panel will be updated to visualize the status of the craft chain
  • Hold left alt to cancel an in progress craft

Technical Overview

• Extensive use of templating to maximize rendering performance
• No prefabs baked into the scene
• Minimal layout group usage for predictable behavior

UI Architecture

• Dynamic layout groups
• Content size fitting for automatic row expansion
• Explicit hierarchy control for stable rendering
• UI logic structured to avoid per-frame allocations (no performance dips)

Future updates may introduce pooling for recipe rows if necessary.

Development Status

This mod is under active development!

Planned features include:

• Visual polish and UI refinements for UI frontend (this is my first mod, and Unity UI is painful)
• In-Progress run recipe tracking
  • An in-progress view to view all recipes and their completion status, accessed by holding tab (inspectable so that the game can be paused while reading)

Compatibility

• Does not modify gameplay logic
• Does not interact with networking (no host required!)
• Entirely client-sided, other players are NOT required to have the mod installed.
• Should be compatible with most content mods that introduce new items or recipes

Changelog

Dates are listed in MM/DD/YY format.

v1.2.10 — 1/7/26

Fixed

• Fixed drone list not updating after drone death.
• Drone tier is now properly factored into its itemweight calculation.
• Added many safety guards in state controller.
• Fixed Mathematical Value Drift in the planner that caused deep-crafting paths to be culled as inefficient.
• Fixed Signature Collisions by switching to a non-canceling additive hash.

Changed

• Simplified InventoryTracker to only hook oninventorychangeglobal rather than both local and global
• Reduced the complexity of the efficiency culling logic minorly. Tested with all items + quality mod + 5 depth, 650 ms -> 570 ms.
• Hardened crafting logic to protect deeper chains, now properly respects intermediate item surpluses.
• Craftable rebuilds gated to only occur if the dirtied drone index actually contributed to chains.
• Completely rewrote the backend of the crafting handler, now follows vanilla semantics 1:1.

Added

• Added a toggle to visually display the voided item you will receive if you crafting an item you already own the void version of
• added a toggle for debug mode to add some extra prints at the crafting execution stage so you can see how a craft chain looks step-by-step.
• Added a simple integration with cleanerchef to turn off hiding corrupted recipes if cleanerchef is enabled.

v1.2.9 — 1/2/26

Fixed

• Hardened Stage transition logic as it was throwing exceptions due to abort trying to fire on a null craftingcontroller (oops).

Added

• Added cool little indicators for the category selection button (yippee!).

v1.2.8 — 1/1/26

Changed

• Stage entry logic now checks for an existing craftingcontroller (ie a chef) rather than relying on stage transitions.

v1.2.7 — 1/1/26 🎉

Changed (many optimizations)

• Now uses a commutative hash to cheaply cull permutations EARLY.
• Added final pass in recipeprovider to validate and cull all recipes that are permutations of one another, as well as remove all malformed recipes (those that use uncraftable items).
• Moved the logic from IsChainEfficient into IsCausallyLinked to cull chains early.
• Implemented Dominance Culling to kill chains early if a better path exists based on item weighting.
• Updated inventorytracker hook to only fire on real inventory changes (no longer fires from using equipment or gaining/losing temp items).
• Figured out how to change the active equipment slot in a client-safe fashion, automatically happens before the craft is attempted (MUL-T included!).

Added

• Added support for controlling where equipment recipe rows go in the tiermanager sorting.
• Added support for controlling the sort order by index.
• Added support for repeatedly executing a craft chain N times via a text box next to the final craft button.
• Added protection against crafting illegal items (if you own a voided item, blocks using the non-voided version in chains). Toggleable in settings.

v1.2.6 — 12/31/25

Added

• Added sorting support to craftUI to sort based on item type (visual only to avoid recomputation).

v1.2.5 — 12/29/25

Fixed

• Added inter-client confirmation via networked commands so that non-modded users can still participate. It sends the objective in raw text via chat!
• Muted command audio to not play the annoying chat blip on send.
• Further optimized craftplanner backend.

v1.2.4 — 12/29/25

Changed

• Err... I may have accidentally been attempting to call a networked event from the client, which explains why crafting wasnt working on non-host clients in multiplayer... Fixed now!
• Finalized chat-based networking! invisible to the player, and completely avoids the messy ror2 netcode!

v1.2.3 — 12/28/25

Changed

• Added tint for ingredient sources to differentiate self sourced items from traded items. Cleaned up ingredient icon templating to eliminate runtime costs, just instantiation now.

v1.2.2 — 12/28/25

Added

• Multiplayer pooling support, please provide feedback on this. it relies on the SPEX npc to transfer items between allied players.
• Added Risk_Of_Options integration for configuring crafting depth, multiplayer pooling, and other relevant features. Please suggest any other configurable settings that are missing.

Changed

• Further optimized the craftexecutionhandler to now only handle iterating through the steps generated by the craftplanner. The craftplanner now properly adds drone scrap and/or trading steps.
• To provide more choice for the user , item trades and Drone Scrap paths are now shown in parallel rather than exclusively preferring a specific route type.

v1.2.1 — 12/28/25

Fixed

• Refactored the craftplanner backend filtering to be more lenient on potentially useful crafting chains (ex:4x drones -> 4x green scrap -> 2x regen scrap -> red scrap), while still culling wasteful chains before ui time.

Changed

• RecipeProvider now consolidates bulked recipes (recipes with more than 1 of an ingredient), allowing cheaper chain traversal as we dont need to iterate over all individual ingredients.

v1.2.0 — 12/27/25

Added

• Added Drone scrap support.
• Added Objectives to make Crafting State more clear to the user.
• Added a hotkey for aborting a craft. Currently set to holding left alt. Will be configurable eventually once I get around to it.

Fixed

• Replaced usage of massive int arrays with sparse dictionaries to greatly reduce memory usage. (11 GB game usage -> ~3.6 with identical inventory).
• No longer fully rebuilds paths on inventory change, preserves unchanged paths from previous snapshot.
• Reduced menu rendering time by nearly a factor of 4 in typical scenarios via sparse reads.
• Fixed the pathrow buttons consuming scroll actions (no one mentioned this somehow :sob:)

Changed

• Reduced pressure on garbage collection from reinitializing a bunch of arrays for calculating chain costs,. Now uses a "scratchpad" that just repeatedly gets cleared (no repeated initialization calls).
• Reworked path planning to take a lazy approach to reduce passive mem usage.

v1.1.0 — 12/18/25

Fixed

• Updated README to include visuals (Why doesn't Thunderstore allow edits?)

v1.0.0 — 12/18/25

Release

• First stable public release
• Core UI, crafting logic, and backend systems finalized

v0.7.2 — 12/17/25

Changed

• Combined pickup logic refactor completed
• Crafting control logic finalized and stabilized

v0.7.1 — 12/16/25

Changed

• Fully working version prior to backend refactor for combined pickup logic

v0.7.0 — 12/15/25

Added

• Completed automated crafting system
• Crafting automation now relies on user pickup events rather than fixed delays

Changed

• Removed naive time-based polling for inventory checks

v0.6.1 — 12/15/25

Changed

• Hardened autocrafting logic
• Craft chains now wait for the user to collect produced items before continuing

v0.6.0 — 12/15/25

Added

• Fully implemented backend for sending craft chains to CraftingController
• Crafting logic now obeys all internal network constraints
• Imitates local user actions for reliability

Compatibility

• Reliable in multiplayer scenarios
• No host-based dependency

v0.5.3 — 12/14/25

Changed

• Optimized menu rendering to avoid reattaching modified UI on repeat renders
• Prevented UI duplication during craft chain execution

Added

• Crafting chain support directly in the UI (visual polish pending)

v0.5.2 — 12/13/25

Changed

• Major backend overhaul of CraftPlanner
• Clean indexing-based planning logic
• Proper aborts on circular, recursive, or redundant recipe paths

Performance

• Cached all major UI references at template creation
• ~20% UI rendering performance improvement

v0.5.1 — 12/11/25

Added

• Proper dropdown event handling
• Isolated CookBook UI via its own canvas

Changed

• Reduced menu stutter
• Implemented simple time slicing for row rendering to eliminate menu-open hitching

v0.4.0 — 12/11/25

Added

• Initial implementation of dropdown menus

Changed

• Frontend UI refactor

v0.4.2 — 12/08/25

Changed

• Updated UI icon prefab

v0.4.1 — 12/08/25

Added

• RecipeCount field to recipe chains
• Recipes producing different quantities are now treated as distinct entries

Changed

• Partial CraftUI update
• Planned migration toward RoR2-native prefab styling

v0.4.0 — 12/07/25

Added

• Seamless insertion of CookBook into vanilla crafting UI
• Dynamic resizing based on vanilla UI dimensions
• Recipe list populated directly from CurrentCraftables events

Performance

• Cached each built row for fast, render-only searching
• No row recomputation or culling required

v0.3.3 — 12/04/25

Changed

• Hardened UI positioning against resolution scaling
• All layout derived from base UI dimensions

v0.3.2 — 12/04/25

Changed

• Reduced debug and print verbosity for proven systems

v0.3.1 — 12/07/25

Fixed

• Edge case where Chef UI could fail to detach on stage transitions

v0.3.0 — 12/04/25

Added

• Began prototyping UI layout and injection for custom features

Changed

• Cleaned up Chef NPC dialogue hooks

v0.2.4 — 12/03/25

Removed

• Several external dependencies
• Removed R2API entirely
• Removed all reflection usage

Changed

• General codebase cleanup

v0.2.3 — 12/03/25

Changed

• Refactored overall architecture
• Plugin now handles initialization only
• Introduced StateController to manage events and UI interaction

v0.2.2 — 12/03/25

Fixed

• Minor bugs in TierManager

Changed

• Proper initialization of tier manager
• Reduced verbosity in state controller (logic proven stable)

v0.2.1 — 12/03/25

Changed

• Hardened CraftPlanner logic

v0.2.0 — 12/02/25

Added

• Inventory tracking logic
• Complete recipe provider
• Tier manager for clean sorting and UI organization

v0.1.0 — 12/01/25

Added

• Initial DFS-based dictionary generation
• Fast-read backend foundations