Site preparation

Clearing the footprint and laying a foundation before the first block.

Before a build places its first block, the crew prepares the site: it removes what stands where the schematic has air, then fills the gap under the floor down to the ground. A house built on a slope or in a forest comes out as it looked in the schematic, not with trees through the living room or floating over a hollow.

The boss bar reads Preparing the site while this runs.

Clearing

Every cell the schematic leaves empty is cleared, from the top layer down so nothing is left hanging.

Block found there	What happens
Air	Nothing
Water or lava	Left alone; draining it mid-build only floods the site
Unbreakable (bedrock, barriers, portal frames)	Left alone
A container	Removed, its contents dropped on the ground
Anything else	Removed without drops

Clearing costs no material and no money. It counts toward the job's speed and the server's shared budget like any other block.

Foundation

For every column of the schematic's bottom layer that holds a block, the crew fills downward from just under the floor until it reaches ground, up to maxDepth blocks. Air, liquids, grass, flowers and snow count as gaps; anything solid ends the column.

Columns where the bottom layer is empty (a porch roof, an overhang) get no foundation.

The foundation goes below the box the protection check covered, so each column is asked about on its own before anything is placed under it. A column the owner may not build in is skipped. With the warehouse on, each foundation block is charged like any other block.

Players on the site

While a build is going up, a player standing in its footprint is moved just past the nearest edge, onto the ground there, and told so in chat. Blocks go in without physics, so one placed where a player stands would trap and suffocate them. Creative and spectator players take no suffocation damage and are left where they are, so staff can watch from inside.

Settings

Key	Default	Meaning
`sitePreparation.clear`	`true`	Clear the schematic's air cells
`sitePreparation.foundation.enabled`	`true`	Fill gaps under the floor
`sitePreparation.foundation.block`	`minecraft:dirt`	The block used, with optional states
`sitePreparation.foundation.maxDepth`	`6`	The deepest gap filled under one column
`sitePreparation.movePlayersOut`	`true`	Move players out of a footprint while it builds

Notes

Preparation only runs before the first building block. A job paused during it picks up where it was; a job that has started building never prepares again.
A schematic saved with /builders admin save keeps the air in its selection, which is what tells the crew what to clear. A schematic whose air was stripped on export clears nothing.
A foundation block that does not parse is logged once and foundations are skipped.

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