Zombie Miner

The Zombie Miner is the station that turns the mine into an income rather than an errand. A zombie stands in it and produces one Iron Ore and two Coal every eight seconds, for as long as the game is running and wherever you happen to be.

It costs two Wooden Planks and four Bricks at the mine build desk, which is nothing next to what it replaces. The work is in the technology in front of it and in the one thing nobody tells you: it stops after a single craft unless something carries the ore away.

The node is not in the tree until you clear two blockages

Look for Zombie Mining early and it is not there. The node is hidden at the start of the game and no amount of spheres or prerequisites will bring it out, which is why players hunt the Metallurgy branch for it and conclude the wiki is wrong.

Once it is visible, Zombie Mining costs 60 red and 10 blue. It hangs off Iron Smithing, which hangs off Iron Forge, so the bill from the start of the iron branch is 145 red and 10 blue.

Both buildings arrive together and both cost two Wooden Planks and four Bricks, so a working mine is four planks and eight bricks in total. Build them at the same desk on the same trip, because a miner without the porter station produces one Iron Ore and then stands still.

One ore and two coal, and why the ratio matters

Every cycle is eight seconds and pays one Iron Ore and two Coal. That second number is the one worth planning around, because coal is what the furnaces burn and almost everything in the yard goes through a furnace.

Smithy I turns one Iron Ore and one Coal into one Iron Ingot. So a single miner feeds a single smithy exactly, at the same eight second rhythm, and hands you a spare coal every cycle on top. That spare is what pays for the brick and glass lines running beside it.

Read down that column and the plan writes itself. One miner and one Smithy I on iron is self-sufficient, and the coal it banks covers a second smithy making Bricks or Glass from Clay and Sand a digging zombie is producing elsewhere.

By hand, Furnace II is the other route: three Iron Ore and thirty Fuel for three Iron Ingots, or four with the Fireman perk. It is the better rate per ore, and it needs you standing at it, which is exactly the trade the miner exists to remove.

The gem is a perk, not part of the cycle

Plenty of pages will tell you the Zombie Miner produces Gems. It does not, not on its own. The gem is a separate roll that only happens if that particular zombie has bought Magpie’s Eye, and it pays one time in ten per rank rather than every cycle.

Five hundred red is a serious price on a zombie’s own Building track, and the zombie earns those spheres itself at the bench rather than spending yours. Worth it on a miner you intend to leave running for the rest of the game, and pointless on one you are about to move.

A fresh zombie mines at full rate

There is no training to do first. A zombie raised this morning with no talents and no tool is lifted to whatever the job asks before its swing is worked out, so it mines at the full rate immediately and never fails a craft.

Mastery above that point buys speed, in whole cells per swing, and it stops paying at three times what the job asks. Mining asks for one, so three is the ceiling and everything past it is wasted.

Why it produces one ore and then stops

This is the thing that makes people think the station is broken. A worker finishes its craft, the output sits on the station, and the zombie will not start again until somebody takes it. With nothing to clear up after it, a Zombie Miner produces exactly one Iron Ore and then stands there for the rest of the game.

The fix arrives with the same technology. The mine porter station costs the same two Wooden Planks and four Bricks, and it moves finished goods out of the station so the miner keeps working. A Zombie Supplier Station does the same job for benches that need feeding rather than emptying.

Where the iron ends up

Iron is the spine of the mid game. Iron Ingots become nails, details, kits and the Iron Anvil itself, and the anvil is what opens the second half of the smithing tree.

One route is worth knowing because it turns the miner into a money printer. One Iron Ore and one Philosopher Stone at the Formulation Bench make a Gold Nugget, and gold is the best value chain in the game. A miner running unattended is the cheapest supply of the ore half of that trade.