It works out of the box without requiring any configuration. Everything can be customized.

It is meant to make spacing, symmetry, and adjacency placement easier.

Main features:

• World grid anchored from your first building placement. (reset possible)
• Every value customizable; colour/style settings are saved automatically.
• Hover reveal while placing buildings. It is based on the same calibrated world grid.
• Vision-grid display around your selected builders

Quick Demo:

How it works:

• The first building sets the grid anchor.
• The build mode / selecting an engineer will show the calibrated grid.
• If the first building was misplaced, use Reset Anchor and try again.

Settings window:

A Toggle Build Grid Panel hotkey action is available in FAF key bindings under the Build Grid category.

Disclaimer:

This mod was developed with Codex, then manually reviewed and adjusted in-game.

Notes / Limitations

• Can the Shift build overlay be enabled permanently?

  No. The in-game build overlay is hardcoded. Keeping it active would require engine modifications. And simulating a key press would interfere with hotkeys.

• Not every mex / hydro spot fits perfectly on the grid?!

  The map author has placed them with a different grid offset. You can either re-anchor the grid near those affected, or kindly ask the map author to make the whole map a little more grid-friendly.

• Is it terrain sensitive?

  Not yet. The grid uses a fixed height for every line, so hills and slopes may cause minor visual issues. Height support needs more testing.

Credits:

Thanks to @c0rtex and @nomander for sparking the idea and providing feedback.

Bugs? Report, please!