AutoScaffold

Fills in the missing foundation when you place a building where vanilla wouldn’t let you — over a cliff edge, above a lower rooftop, across a gap. The moment you click, AutoScaffold queues platform blueprints to support the building, picks sensible tiers based on what you’ve researched, and prompts for research on the spot if you haven’t unlocked the right platform yet.

• Lock the altitude. Press SHIFT and the ghost stops snapping to terrain. Its Z freezes at whatever it was when you pressed the key. Drag the cursor horizontally and the ghost tracks a flat invisible plane at that height — no more fighting the camera as the ghost jumps across valleys and cliff tops.
• Stay anchored. Whatever was directly under the ghost at press time (a rooftop, the ground, or both) becomes an anchor. As you drag, at least one footprint cell must stay over that anchor — the ghost "sticks" at the last valid position rather than flying off across the map.
• SHIFT + F flips and SHIFT + R rotates clockwise while SHIFT is held, so you can orient the ghost without releasing the lock.

Release SHIFT and you’re back to normal ground-snap behaviour.

• Auto-plans scaffolding. For every footprint cell that would reject placement due to missing support, AutoScaffold computes a column of vanilla platforms from the first solid block up to the building’s base. Tallest-unlocked-first, greedy bottom-up (3+1 for height 4, 3+2 for height 5, 3+3+1 for height 7, etc.).
• Respects research. Only uses platform tiers you’ve unlocked. If a column can’t be built with what’s unlocked but could be with a locked tier, the game’s native research-unlock dialog fires for that tier; confirm and the placement proceeds.
• Faction-matched. Folktails buildings scaffold with Folktails platforms, Iron Teeth with Iron Teeth, and any modded faction that ships its own platform templates works automatically.
• Cost preview merges with vanilla. When a placement needs scaffolding, the existing cost widget’s count bumps up to include the scaffolding’s resources (e.g. "6 Plank" on flat ground becomes "16 Plank" when hanging off a cliff needing a 2-tall scaffold). No duplicate icons, no separate line.
• Red-ghost visual feedback. If something blocks the scaffold column (a plant, an obstruction, or terrain that won’t accept platforms), the full stack renders as red ghosts from the obstacle up to the building’s base so you can see what’s in the way.
• Cascade-cancel. Cancel or demolish the top building while its scaffolds are still blueprints and the unbuilt scaffolds are removed too. Scaffolds that already finished building are left alone as regular platforms.
• Save/load safe. Jobs persist; cascade-cancel still works after reload.

• Doesn’t change any base-game placement rules. AutoScaffold only engages for buildings that need ground or stackable support, and only when the vanilla game would otherwise reject placement. Tubes, paths, decorations, and anything else are completely untouched.
• Doesn’t invent new platform types. Only vanilla Platform, DoublePlatform, and TriplePlatform (1/2/3-tall, 1×1 footprint) are used. Horizontal decks like MetalPlatform3x3 are excluded by design.
• Doesn’t override the game’s own placement rules. Anything vanilla would reject for a platform — terrain the platform can’t sit on, cells blocked by solid obstacles, etc. — AutoScaffold also rejects. When a column can’t be built, you’ll see it in red instead of green.
• Doesn’t bypass research. You either have the tier unlocked or you confirm the research prompt at placement time. No free platforms.
• Doesn’t add new UI panels. One inline hint line ("Hold SHIFT to anchor…") and the modified cost count are the only UI changes.
• Doesn’t provide builder access paths (stairs, ladders). It only handles structural support. If builders can’t physically reach the scaffolded spot, they can’t build it — just like vanilla. Planning reachable placements is still on you.

• Harmony

AutoScaffold delegates its support checks to the game’s own validator, so whatever answer vanilla gives (possibly patched by another mod), AutoScaffold adopts. That means the mod should coexist with:

Load order does not matter.

If you find a mod that does misbehave with AutoScaffold, an issue report with both mod names and a screenshot is welcome.