Plan your alliance hive

The Hive Planner works best when you separate three jobs: map the real world, build a layout, and assign players. Save only after checking the result, and keep a named Snapshot before trying a risky change.

Anchor the map

Open Hive Planner and click New Plan. An empty plan opens in Map mode with the Anchor your map panel.

1. Pick the season first. Season rules change the alliance structure and blast sizes; for example, Season 2 uses a 5×5 Furnace while other seasons use the Alliance Center shown by the planner.
2. Choose the known building: Alliance Center, Furnace, or Marshall Guard.
3. Pick 120 for one alliance, or 240 / 360 for a mega hive.
4. Enter the building's displayed in-game X,Y coordinate and click Place & center.

Coordinates run from 0 to 999. Building labels show their center coordinate, matching the game map. Later, use Map to change the season, center coordinate, or grid size, and type an exact X,Y or player name into Search to find it again.

Build and edit the layout

Switch to Place. Keep Draw active, choose an object such as HQ or Terrain, then click its center cell on the grid. For a fast first draft, place an Alliance Center or Marshall Guard and use Auto Generate to pack HQs around it.

Use Select (E) when you need to change existing work. Click an object, Shift-click to extend the selection, or drag a selection box. You can then move the selection, recolor selected HQs, or delete it. Undo and Redo remain available while you refine the layout.

Save and branch with Snapshots

Saving is manual. Save overwrites the currently selected named Snapshot with the layout, assignments, season, and map position now on screen. When the button reads Saved, that Snapshot matches the server; Save does not create a new historical version.

Before experimenting, click the + beside Snapshots, name the new plan, and confirm. The new Snapshot copies the current on-screen layout — including unsaved edits — and opens as the active plan, leaving the previous Snapshot unchanged. This is the safest way to test a new formation.

Duplicate copies the chosen Snapshot's last saved state but does not open the copy automatically. Save first if you want the duplicate to include recent edits, then select the copy. Use Set as Default on the plan you want FarmOps to open first.

Group and lock stable shapes

In Place → Select, choose two or more objects and click Group selected. A group selects, moves, recolors, and deletes as one formation. Use Ungroup selected when its parts need to move independently.

Use Lock selected for objects whose positions are settled. Entity locks are stored when you Save and prevent the locked shape from being moved, recolored, deleted, or ungrouped; unlock it before changing those properties. Player assignments on a locked HQ can still be updated.

The toolbar's general Lock is only a temporary guard for the current session. View is useful for panning, searching, and exporting without the normal placement controls. Neither creates a recoverable version, so use a named Snapshot for that.

Assign members to HQs

Switch to Assign. Pick Power, Kills, or THP to sort the roster, then drag a member from Available onto an HQ. Drag between HQs to swap players, or drag an assigned player back to the roster to remove the assignment. Clicking an HQ also opens its member picker.

Use Auto-fill HQs to choose an Alliance Center or Marshall Guard anchor, HQ colors, member source, placement strategy, and ranking metric. It assigns at most one member per HQ and leaves extra HQs empty.

Use Reset Assignments to clear every HQ in one undoable action, or open an HQ color pill to clear only that color. A player who left the alliance remains visible under Assigned in amber as Unknown (left alliance); remove that stale assignment with its X button. Save when the roster is correct.

Recover from mistakes

Use Undo (Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z) and Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z or Cmd+Shift+Z) before leaving the current plan. Undo history belongs to the open editing session and resets when another Snapshot loads or the page reloads.

If you switch Snapshots with unsaved changes, FarmOps asks whether to save first. Accept the prompt to preserve those edits. Dismissing it still switches plans and discards the unsaved changes. If the change is risky, create a new Snapshot before making it instead of relying on Undo, the temporary Lock, or View mode.

Export and review on mobile

Use the Export menu for PNG, JSON, or CSV. PNG is best for alliance chat, CSV lists positions and assignments, and JSON is the portable backup format. The alliance planner currently imports external cpt-hedge files, not its own JSON export; the free Hive Planner can upload a FarmOps JSON file when you need to reopen that backup in a browser.

On a phone-sized screen — including an installed PWA — Hive Planner is read-only. You can switch between saved Snapshots, inspect the map preview, and download exports, but creating, editing, assigning, and saving require a desktop or wide-screen layout. Finish and Save on desktop before handing the plan to mobile reviewers.