How does the hoe actually work?

[Wig Bang]

I've read some reddit posts and some wikis and the all spout some nonsense about pressing (or holding) shift and though I can see the behavior when holding shift is different than the behavior when not holding shift, nothing seems consistent.

At all.

Does holding left shift lock the height that the hoe will raise/lower ground to or not?

If so then why does pointing the hoe at terrain above my feet, holding shift and running over to level ground have the targeting circle move down to my feet level.

Nothing about it seems consistent and I've learned that with games like this, the "experts" on reddit and the "expert advice" in wikis is almost always wrong.

[avatar.zero]

The default target altitude of the hoe is the altitude of the terrain under the character's feet (not the level of the feet themselves, in case you're working from on top of a structure) and affects a 2-meter radius from where you're pointing. Terrain cannot be "leveled" to no greater than a 1-meter change up or down from where it was without using the level ground function (leveling is tracked separately from grand terrain changes so anything more requires the raise ground function of the hoe [up] or pickaxe [down], then level ground to smooth it out).

Holding shift changes the target altitude to that of the terrain being pointed to by the cursor.

Ground is not necessarily leveled all at once and may sometimes require multiple clicks in the same spot to get (near-)perfect leveling. This also allows you to create grades rather than flats by picking/raising steps and then smoothing them together with shift+level (targeting the edge of the step to bring the middle of the flat downwards and the middle of the vertical upwards).

Also keep in mind that terrain is managed like a bitmap - there are discreet points marking 1-meter by 1-meter blocks with the block corners being what's manipulated by the tools. This also means that you can't make a perfectly vertical earthen wall as the bottom will always be offset from the top by a meter.

[Rodos]

Personally, the left shift button on the hoe is best used to soften slopes between two separate heights; the height you're standing on, and the height where your indicator is.

Here's where I found out most of what I know about terraforming:
https://youtu.be/GzshydsyIJg?si=oWtz6pOZp4Gomg14

[Salty]

when you use the hoe you gotta make sure you stand in the one spot. work all around your as far out as you can but don't move your feet. the tool will try to make all the ground the same level as the ground you are standing on. if you see low spots that won't come up then you need to raise the ground there, using that feature, and then level it off again.
holding shift makes the ground flat but DOES NOT CHANGE THE ELEVATION of the ground to match your feet. that feature is useful when making roads or paths that follow uneven terrain like up a hill. it is a good idea to make roads if you are using carts to haul ore from a dock/ship area up to a base.