StationItemReturn
Return stored input items and fuel from supported stations one item at a time.
About this mod Author’s original text
Station Item Return
Returns stored items from supported Valheim stations one at a time without destroying the station.
The support rule follows the station's native destruction behavior: a stored item type is exposed only when Valheim can determine and return that same item when the station is destroyed. Existing vanilla actions remain responsible for already-accessible finished products.
Controls
Hold Alt Place (Shift by default) and press Use while looking at the relevant station interaction point.
A return hint is shown only when all of the following are true:
- the corresponding server-controlled feature is enabled;
- the local player has access to the station piece;
- the station currently contains an item that can be returned;
- the station's return-on-destruction rules identify the exact item type;
- the configured cheated-queue policy allows the operation.
If any condition fails, the mod leaves the original interaction unchanged.
Supported returns
| Station type | Interaction point | Returned item | Default |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cooking station / oven | Food input | Last uncooked input item | Enabled |
| Cooking station / oven | Fuel input | One remaining unit of the station's fixed fuel item | Enabled |
| Smelter / kiln / refinery | Material input | Newest queued input item | Enabled |
| Smelter / kiln / refinery | Fuel input | One remaining unit of the station's fixed fuel item | Enabled |
| Fermenter | Station body | Original ingredient while fermenting | Enabled |
| Turret | Station body | One loaded ammunition item when m_returnAmmoOnDestroy is enabled | Disabled |
Completed cooking items, smelter output, and ready fermenter products already have native extraction actions and are not replaced by this mod.
Fuel precision
Cooking stations and smelters store fuel as a floating-point amount even though the UI presents it as whole fuel units. A station starts consuming the final unit immediately, so its stored value can be between 0 and 1 while the UI still shows one remaining fuel item.
The mod treats every positive fuel amount as one returnable remaining unit:
- return is available whenever stored fuel is greater than 0;
- one interaction subtracts 1.0, clamped to 0;
- the final partially consumed fuel unit can be returned as one item.
If another mod permits alternative fuels but the station still stores only a numeric fuel amount, the return produces the station's fixed m_fuelItem. The mod does not guess which alternative item was originally consumed.
Fireplaces are not supported because Valheim does not return their stored fuel when the piece is destroyed. Shield generators are not supported because they accept multiple fuel item types but store only an aggregate fuel amount, so the original item type cannot be reconstructed reliably.
Smelter input order
Smelter input is always returned from the tail of the queue, newest first. The final remaining queue entry can also be returned. When the queue becomes empty, the smelter bake timer and queue-level cheated marker are reset.
Smelter cheated-queue policy
Valheim stores one ZDOVars.s_cheatedQueued flag for the complete smelter queue rather than one flag per queued item.
Smelters / Allow marked queue return controls the unavoidable ambiguity:
- false (default): returning input is blocked while the queue is marked as cheated;
- true: returning input is allowed and the returned item is marked as cheated. The remaining queue keeps its current marker. The marker is cleared only when the queue becomes empty.
Cooking skill credit
Valheim awards 0.4 Cooking skill only when the normal default-item interaction inserts an item. Selecting an item through the contextual radial menu does not award that credit.
The mod records the author and credit state for each cooking slot. Returning an item reverses 0.4 only for the original player and only when that exact slot received the vanilla credit.
Turret ammunition
Turret return is disabled by default. It is
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.
Install these first, or the mod will not work: