tehAon’s Material Tracker – Loot and Resource Finder (Client-Side)

# Nexus Mods upload sheet — Tracked Materials Finder
Paste-ready copy for the Nexus upload form. Nexus renders **BBCode**, not Markdown.
- **Mod name:** Tracked Materials Finder
- **Game:** 7 Days to Die
- **Version:** 0.2.0
- **Author:** tehAon
- **File:** `TrackedMats_v0.2.0.zip` (extracts to a single `TrackedMats/` folder)
- **Category:** Miscellaneous / Gameplay
- **Tags:** quality of life, crafting, storage, UI, DLL mod
- **Requirements:** 7 Days to Die 3.0 · EasyAntiCheat **OFF** (DLL mod)
- **Permissions:** MIT — reuse/modify freely with credit.
---
## Summary (short, one-liner field)
```
Track a recipe and the storage boxes holding the materials you still need get compass/map markers — and those items light up when you open the box.
```
---
## Description (BBCode — paste into the Description tab)
```bbcode
[size=4][b]Track a recipe. The mod finds the mats.[/b][/size]
Track a recipe the normal way and let the mod do the fetching legwork:
[list]
[*][b]Box markers[/b] — every storage box within range holding a material you [i]still need[/i] gets a green marker on the compass and map. The marker label lists which needed materials are inside.
[*][b]In-box highlight[/b] — open a marked box and the slots holding needed materials are tinted, so they jump out at a glance.
[/list]
It reads the game's own [b]tracked recipe[/b] (the one you set in the crafting window), so there is no new UI to learn. Materials you already have enough of are ignored, and markers and highlights clear themselves as you gather what you need.
[size=4][b]Install[/b][/size]
This is a DLL mod, so you must [b]launch with EasyAntiCheat OFF[/b] (run 7DaysToDie directly, or pick the EAC-off option in the launcher).
Extract the [b]TrackedMats[/b] folder into your [b]Mods[/b] folder:
[code]7 Days To Die/Mods/TrackedMats/[/code]
[size=4][b]How to use[/b][/size]
[list=1]
[*]Open the crafting window and [b]track[/b] a recipe (the vanilla track button).
[*]Green markers appear on nearby storage boxes th…

# Nexus Mods upload sheet — Tracked Materials Finder
Paste-ready copy for the Nexus upload form. Nexus renders **BBCode**, not Markdown.
- **Mod name:** Tracked Materials Finder
- **Game:** 7 Days to Die
- **Version:** 0.2.0
- **Author:** tehAon
- **File:** `TrackedMats_v0.2.0.zip` (extracts to a single `TrackedMats/` folder)
- **Category:** Miscellaneous / Gameplay
- **Tags:** quality of life, crafting, storage, UI, DLL mod
- **Requirements:** 7 Days to Die 3.0 · EasyAntiCheat **OFF** (DLL mod)
- **Permissions:** MIT — reuse/modify freely with credit.
---
## Summary (short, one-liner field)
```
Track a recipe and the storage boxes holding the materials you still need get compass/map markers — and those items light up when you open the box.
```
---
## Description (BBCode — paste into the Description tab)
```bbcode
[size=4][b]Track a recipe. The mod finds the mats.[/b][/size]
Track a recipe the normal way and let the mod do the fetching legwork:
[list]
[*][b]Box markers[/b] — every storage box within range holding a material you [i]still need[/i] gets a green marker on the compass and map. The marker label lists which needed materials are inside.
[*][b]In-box highlight[/b] — open a marked box and the slots holding needed materials are tinted, so they jump out at a glance.
[/list]
It reads the game's own [b]tracked recipe[/b] (the one you set in the crafting window), so there is no new UI to learn. Materials you already have enough of are ignored, and markers and highlights clear themselves as you gather what you need.
[size=4][b]Install[/b][/size]
This is a DLL mod, so you must [b]launch with EasyAntiCheat OFF[/b] (run 7DaysToDie directly, or pick the EAC-off option in the launcher).
Extract the [b]TrackedMats[/b] folder into your [b]Mods[/b] folder:
[code]7 Days To Die/Mods/TrackedMats/[/code]
[size=4][b]How to use[/b][/size]
[list=1]
[*]Open the crafting window and [b]track[/b] a recipe (the vanilla track button).
[*]Green markers appear on nearby storage boxes th…

NEW: Finds materials in the world, not just in containers.
- Dropped items and loot bags now get markers. A stack you tossed on the
ground, or a death/loot bag holding a needed material, is marked with that
item's icon, same as a container. On by default (scanGroundItems,
groundRadius=50).
- Harvestable blocks now get markers. Trees for wood, boulders and ore for
stone and metal, plants for fibers. Track a wood recipe and nearby trees
are marked; track stone and boulders light up. A block is only marked if
what it drops is something you still need. On by default (scanBlocks).
- Blocks are clustered into area markers, so a forest or a grass field is a
handful of markers instead of thousands. Matching blocks within
blockClusterSize (4 m, double for grass) collapse into one.
- Grass and small plants are included (scanGrass), on a tighter grassRadius
(12 m) since they're dense and only yield fibers. Turn off with "tm grass off".
- Blocks are map-only by default (blocksOnCompass=false) so they don't bury the
compass; the map still shows them. Ground items stay on the compass.
- Built to not cost frames. Block scanning resolves which block types can drop a
needed item once, up front; reads only a thin band around the ground surface in
loaded chunks; and rescans only when you move (blockRescanMoveDist=4 m), on a
slow timer (blockRescanSeconds=8 s), or when a nearby block is mined — not every
frame. A mined tree's marker clears as you harvest.
- New caps and toggles. maxGroundMarkers and maxBlockMarkers (24 each, nearest
kept) bound each source; the overall maxMarkers still caps everything. New
console commands: tm ground on|off, tm blocks on|off, tm grass on|off. tm status
now reports the ground/block sources.
- Still client-side only. Dropped-item contents and block types are both data your
client already has from any server, so this works on a vanilla dedicated server
with nothing installed on it.
- Note: only loaded chunks near you are scanned, and unopened POI crates …

**`/mat where <item>` — every way to get something, ranked, from wherever you are.**
Every other part of this mod answers a question about the world you are standing in: what is in this box,
what is that tree worth, which nest is nearby. All of it needs the answer to be within scan radius. But the
moment you most need to know where duct tape comes from is the moment there is none of it anywhere near
you — and that is exactly when the markers have nothing to say.
```
/mat where duct tape
[Materialist] Duct Tape — where to get it, best first:
Zombie loot bag — 31.2% per container, ≈4 to open each
Rolling Toolbox — 9.43% per container, ≈11 to open each
Garage Storage — 8.2% per container, ≈13 to open each
Cars — 5.37% per container, ≈19 to open each (e.g. School Bus, White Minivan +4)
Collapsed Workbench — 4.38% per container, ≈23 to open each
Tool Box — 3.77% per container, ≈27 to open each (e.g. Shelf, Toolbox)
… and 21 more source(s).
```
It reads the game's own loot tables, block drop lists and animal harvest tables — the same three families
the scanners read, through the same perk gate — so what it says can never disagree with what it marks. A
perk-gated drop you can't earn isn't listed, and an item that nothing in the world drops says so plainly
rather than printing an empty list. `/mat source` is the same command.
**Odds now come with the work they cost.** A percentage is a fact; the number of cars you have to break
open is a decision. Every odds line in the mod gained the effort figure it implies — `5% per harvest, 1
each, ≈20 harvests each` — on `/mat track`, `/mat status`, the F2 hover key and the new `where` output. A
drop that already yields one per attempt on average says nothing extra, so a 110-wood tree stays quiet.
Naming took the most care here. A loot list is a category (`cars`) and the blocks using it are its members
(`School Bus`, `White Minivan`), so naming a row after one member is actively misleading — a player told
"School Bus" goes looki…

- **Verified on game 3.2 — `GAME_VERSIONS` widened to `V3.0.0-V3.2.0`.** Every external member the
DLL binds to resolves against 3.0.0, 3.0.1, 3.1 and 3.2.0, checked with a refcheck that compares
parameter TYPES rather than counts; the mod was then loaded and exercised on a real V3.2.0 (b10)
client.
- **`/mat dump` reaches players for the first time here.** It is written up in the 0.10.0 notes
below, but it landed after the 0.10.0 zip was cut, so no published build has ever carried it.
Nothing about it changed — it is repeated here so upgraders actually find it.
- **Verified on game 3.1 — `GAME_VERSIONS` widened from `V3.0.0` to `V3.0.0-V3.1`.** The old label
meant "the last version anyone got round to checking", not that 3.1 was known bad. Anyone on
3.1 was being told to skip a mod that works. Three checks, none of which needs the mod to be
played: every external member the DLL binds to resolves against 3.0.0, 3.0.1 and 3.1; the
xpath in `mod/Config/` still resolves against 3.1's shipped `Data/Config`; a headless 3.1
dedicated server loaded the mod, applied its Harmony patches and reached `StartGame done` with
no exceptions and no dropped XML patch.
- **`package.sh` now refuses to build a zip whose label it cannot back up.** New
`tools/check_game_versions.py` reads `GAME_VERSIONS`, finds a game build for each version
named, and resolves every reference in the DLL against all of them — a claimed version with
no build available fails too, rather than quietly passing. It also compares `GAME_VERSIONS`
against the same claim spelled in C#, so the zip name and the line the mod prints at startup
cannot drift apart.
This is the check that would have caught DroneAutomation v0.7.3, which shipped labelled
`V3.0.0-V3.1` and could not run on 3.0.0 at all: it was built against a newer game, which
moved `AddItem` onto a base class 3.0.0 does not have. Build against the **oldest** version
you claim — a reference made on a derived type still resolves on newer builds, but one made
…

- Works on game 3.3. Game 3.3 rebuilt how every container, the backpack and the toolbelt hold their items, and changed how an item stack is read. On 3.3 that made 0.11.0 throw an error from every ingredient row in the crafting window and the tracked-recipe overlay, and left the scanner, the loot highlight and Take Needed dead. Materialist now reads all of those in a way that works on every game version from 3.0.0 to 3.3.0, from one download.
- If a later game update moves them again, Materialist says so once in the log at startup and switches itself off, instead of logging an error per ingredient row.
- Not yet used in a 3.3 game.