Wooden Plank

Wooden Planks are the most demanded item in Graveyard Keeper 2. Eighty three things call for them and sixty seven of those are buildings, so the list runs from the first Simple Chest you throw together to the Bellows you bolt onto your Furnace much later.

You will be making them from your first day to your last. The chain that produces them changes three times as you unlock things, and each change is a real jump in output, so it is worth knowing which stage you are on and what the next one needs.

Start with an Axe

Everything here begins with a tree, and a tree will not give you anything until you have an Axe equipped. The Rusty Axe you start with is enough for the ones around your yard, and you will not need better until you are clearing far from home.

A felled tree drops Log. A Log is carried overhead rather than stacked in your bag, one per trip, which is the part of the early game that feels slowest.

The early route: Sawhorse and Workbench

The first way you will make Planks goes through Boards. A Sawhorse cuts one Log into four Board in five seconds, and the Woodworking Workbench I turns each Board into one Plank in four.

Neither is available from the start. The Sawhorse is unlocked by The Concept of Wood and costs 2x Board and 4x Stick to build; the Workbench comes from Woodworking I and costs 8x Board and 4x Bronze Nails. Both sit early enough that you will have them before the first real building project.

This route gives four Planks per Log, which is the same yield you get later, so nothing is wasted by starting here. What it costs is your attention: one craft at the Sawhorse, then four separate crafts at the Workbench, for every Log you carry home.

The upgrade: Circular Saw

The Circular Saw deletes the middle step. One Log goes in and four Planks come out in a single four second craft, with no Boards to make, carry or store. It is built from 10x Wooden Plank, 2x Bronze Gear and 10x Iron Nails, so it is a mid game purchase rather than an early one.

Owning the materials is the easy half. The technology costs 35 and 10, and it sits behind 40 reputation with Jack, the Shop Foreman whose boat you supply with Bronze Detail, so the Saw arrives on his schedule rather than yours.

It is also the only Plank recipe a perk touches at all. Carpenter sits on the Building talent track and improves the Saw for whoever is working it, so a Zombie posted there brings its own carpentry rather than yours.

Carpenter adds two Planks per rank to the Saw recipe, so one rank takes a Log to six Planks and two ranks take it to eight, off the same Log and the same four seconds. Energy does not move with it, since both routes cost a flat two a tick, so the perk is pure yield.

Automating the wood

The last stage takes you out of the loop entirely. A zombie posted to the Lumberjack stand produces Logs from nothing at all, one every eight seconds, for as long as it has somewhere to put them. It costs 2x Wooden Plank and 6x Brick, which by that point is nothing.

A technology sits above it in the tree. Zombie Lumberjack wants 75 and 10 and follows the Circular Saw, so automation is the far end of the wood tree. The stand itself sits behind an unlock that no technology ever grants, the same gap the buildable Study Table has.

The stand and the Timber stockpile both go down at the Abandoned Sawmill rather than your yard, from that location’s own build menu. The stockpile is 4x Wooden beam and 12x Bronze Nails, and it gives the stand somewhere to put what it cuts, which is what lets the pair run unattended.

Every cycle also drops two Stick. That is worth knowing on its own, because Sticks feed forty things across the game. Felling a tree drops them as well, so they are never scarce for long, but the stand is the only thing that keeps making them while you are somewhere else.

Pair the stand with a Stockpile and a Saw and the whole chain runs without you. That is the point the Plank problem stops being a problem.

What eats your Planks

Buildings account for the large majority, which is why the shortage always arrives as a building queue rather than a crafting one. The early ones are cheap and relentless: Chests, Tool Racks, the Potter’s Wheel, the Stonemason’s Workbench.

One quest asks for Planks outright, Jack’s five for the boat, and the rest of the story’s demand arrives as gates rather than requests. Clear the blockage is the one that strands people: it wants three Planks and three Bronze Detail before the dungeon under your house will open any further, and it is what stands between you and the Study Table. The rest of the recipes turn Planks into something sturdier, most often the Oiled Plank.

Thirty in a Chest covers nearly every building you will be offered before the mid game. Below that you spend the run walking back to the Saw.