How to Automate Wood With Zombies in Graveyard Keeper 2

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You automate wood in Graveyard Keeper 2 by unlocking the Zombie Lumberjack technology, building a lumberjack stand and timber stockpile at the forest sawmill, and assigning a zombie with an axe to the stand. A porter station then carries the logs to the Factory’s wood heap. The unlock and build requirements below come from current community reference pages, not official developer documentation, so check them against your own technology tree if your results differ.

Open both Old Mine routes first

The gathering technologies, including Zombie Lumberjack, may not appear in the tech tree until the Old Mine is open from both ends. A community unlock guide says entering from only one side is not enough. The two blockages are:

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• The collapsed Quarry cave. The guide says to blast it open with dynamite once the relevant forest progression is complete.
• The Factory-to-mine passage. The guide says to clear the Factory-side blockage, which it lists as requiring 4 Building Kits I, 1 Reinforced Beam, and Building Mastery 8.

If the lumberjack technology is still missing after both routes are open, the gate is most likely elsewhere in your progression. The exact prerequisite chain is community-reported and may have changed with updates.

Unlock Zombie Lumberjack

A community sawmill reference lists Zombie Lumberjack at 75 red and 10 blue technology points. Those costs are taken from the game-data reference for the build it was extracted from, so they may differ in a later patch.

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Build the sawmill setup

The sawmill sits in the forest southwest of the Quarry. A community sawmill reference lists three structures for wood gathering. They serve different jobs, so each one matters:

The stockpile and the porter station do different things. Without the porter station, the zombie still gathers, but the wood stays at the sawmill.

Assign the worker and start the cycle

Once the structures are placed, set up the zombie and the delivery route in this order:

1. Equip one zombie with an axe. The lumberjack needs the tool to work.
2. Assign that zombie to the lumberjack stand.
3. Confirm the timber stockpile is in place so gathered material has local storage.
4. Build the porter station and assign it so logs travel from sawmill storage to the Factory wood heap.

The sawmill reference says the zombie repeats its work cycle on its own once it is set up. You do not need to re-issue the task after each cycle.

What the setup produces

Each lumberjack work cycle yields 1 Log and 2 Sticks and adds one red technology point, according to the same community sawmill reference. No verified cycle duration or hourly throughput has been published, so any figure you see elsewhere should be treated with caution. Measure your own output over a few in-game days if you need to plan a production target.

Turning wood into boards, beams, and kits

Gathering logs is only the first stage. The timber stockpile supports local sawmill output, which is a separate system from the Factory assembly lines. If your goal is processed boards, beams, or building kits, you need further Factory recipes, stations, power, inputs, and staffing. Those depend on what you have unlocked and how your Factory is built.

A community factory guide recommends a short, inspectable line that you can extend later, because no single layout has been proven best. When a line stalls, check it one segment at a time: conveyor direction, inputs at each station, the correct tool and zombie at each station, and whether items are collected at the endpoint.

Troubleshooting

• Zombie Lumberjack is missing from the tech tree. Confirm both Old Mine entrances are open. Then check the technology points you have against the 75 red and 10 blue cost.
• The lumberjack has stopped. Check that the assigned zombie carries an axe and is at the lumberjack stand. A cycle that is set up correctly repeats automatically.
• Logs pile up at the sawmill. Build and assign the porter station. Local gathering works without it, but nothing moves to the Factory without it.
• Wood does not reach the Factory. Inspect the route segment by segment, starting at the porter station and ending at the wood heap. Factory layout advice is community guidance and covers the processing stage after gathering, not the sawmill itself.

What is and is not established

Graveyard Keeper 2 is out now. Steam lists the release date as 22 September 2026, with Lazy Bear Games as developer and tinyBuild as publisher. The automation premise, including building machinery and automating production, comes from the developer’s Steam announcement.

The specific unlock gates, material costs, sawmill output, and porter behaviour described above come from community reference pages rather than developer documentation. No published study or official statistic on wood automation was found. The developer’s broader figure about zombies laid to rest across the whole game refers to combat progression, not wood gathering, so do not use it as a benchmark for sawmill output.

These details may change with updates. If the in-game tree or structures differ from the descriptions here, trust what the game shows you.

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