Sep 29, 2026

Graveyard Keeper 2: Automation Guide

Mahmud Munazil Rahman

Automation turns out to be one of the most useful progression systems in Graveyard Keeper 2. After unlocking zombies and having access to the mine, forest, garden upgrades, and underground factory, it is possible to slowly get rid of all routine manual activities. Zombies can chop down trees, mine stones, coal, and iron, cultivate crops, deliver resources, use crafting machines, and perform deliveries for the orders of the town.

The systems take time to unlock and most of them need several quests, technologies, tools, and zombies, but once set, they will work continuously without using your energy. This guide shows you how to unlock and create automated systems.

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Requirements before getting started

Most automation systems of the game require the same progression system. You need to complete First Sludge, and this way you gain access to the liberated town. Further, move on with the forest quests until you get to the Forest Pass and complete the quest line to unlock the mine.

The forest quest line requires the following tasks:

Into the Forest
Forest Pass
Go Wild in the Wildlands
Can’t See the Forest for the Iron

Two characters from the forest will give you the required explosive material to unlock the mine. Then, continue progressing with the mission until you have enough material to clear out the rubble of the upper part of the mine. You require multiple Builder Kits and a Reinforced Beam to unlock the back end of the mine. When it is unlocked, you get access to most automation systems of the raw materials. Further, you need access to the zombies. Complete the corresponding quest line until you get to the Plague Doctor and complete the Sweet Dreams quest to get your own zombies.

In order to get better zombies, you will have to move through the Nun questline and finish Bronze and Brains, which provides better corpse sources. Zombies with more red skulls can be given more perks, hence becoming suitable for automation tasks that need more work. Five red skulls are enough to begin automation systems. You will also need to move through the related technology tree since there is particular technology for each automation system.

Automating Wood

One of the first resource sets to automate is wood, since cutting down trees manually uses up lots of energy. After the mine is open, and after reaching the required technology level, you can set your zombie to gather logs from the forest.

Required Technologies

Go to the Buildings tab in the technology tree and develop past the circular saw to reach the technology which allows:

Zombie Lumberjack
Lumberjack Stand
Timber Stockpile
Porter Station

It will also be necessary to pass through the required part of Jack’s quest line. It will be necessary to pass Workshop Hours and give the town iron. It will not be necessary to complete Jack’s Back in Business to set up this particular wood automation. It will also be necessary to have a Bronze Axe for the lumberjack zombie. The technology of Bronze Tools allows you to craft the axe with the use of Wooden Anvil and its additional tool.

Setup for the Lumberjack

Construct the following buildings near the sawmill:

Lumberjack Stand
Timber Stockpile
Porter Station

At this point, you might already have the timber stockpile and the chest, so build only what is missing. Set a zombie who has at least a Bronze Axe to the Lumberjack Stand. With this tool, the zombie has sufficient mastery level to work with trees. Next, the lumberjack goes into the forest, crosses the bridge, cuts trees, and takes logs back to the timber stockpile.

Adding the Porter

The lumberjack will not take the logs to the yard personally. Set one more zombie to the Porter Station. This zombie will not need any tool. Enable the respective storage and porter options. Then, the porter will take logs from the timber stockpile and carry them into the mine. In the mine, the porter will load the logs onto the transportation machinery. This machinery moves the resources back to your yard. Once the rear area of the mine becomes automated, your yard will have designated areas for storing the automated raw materials.

These will be:

Coal
Ores
Marble
Clay
Sand
Stone
Logs

The flow of the wood automation will be as follows:

Forest → Lumberjack → Wood Stockpile → Porter → Machinery of mine → Storage in the yard

Once this automation is done, you no longer have to cut down trees manually. It will provide you with an almost continuous supply of wood, albeit at a relatively slow pace.

Automating Stone

Stone also follows the same principle, although the arrangement is slightly different.

To start the stone system, you will require the following zombies:

The stone miner
The supplier
The porter
Required Technology

Zombie Mining should not be confused with the technology required for producing stone outdoors. Zombie Mining takes care of the mining processes which are done indoors like the coal and iron. To start the stone system outdoors, open the Building tab of the technology tree and proceed to Stone Carving. This unlocks the technology for Zombie Stone Mining, and also the stone quarry and porter system. Should you wish to automate marble production too, just keep unlocking more technologies until you get Zombie Marble Mining and the marble quarry.

Building the Stone System

From the build menu in the rear area automation of the mine:

Build: Zombie Supplier Station
Build: Stone Quarry
Build: Porter Station
Build: A chest

The stone quarry can only be built once, thus, it will no longer appear in the build menu. Designate a zombie for the Stone Quarry, and equip the designated zombie with an appropriate pick axe. The miner will start mining the stone; however, it is essential to note that the miner will not automatically give the stone to the porter. First, the stone must go to the chest.

Adding the Supplier

Construct a Zombie Supplier Station and add a second zombie to it. This supplier will wait until the stone mining is completed. After the mining is done, the supplier takes the stones and puts them inside the chest. Now the porter can get the stone from this chest.

The entire process is as follows:

Stone Quarry > Stone Miner > Supplier > Chest > Porter > Mine transportation > Yard

Ensure that the correct storage and transport are selected. Now the porter will take the stone up in the mines and place it inside the automated raw material storage facility at your yard. As soon as this system is up and running, the stone is collected on its own without needing your effort. The same system can later be applied for marble as well.

Automating Coal and Iron

Coal and iron have a more straightforward mining system as compared to stone used outdoors. After unlocking Zombie Mining, you can allocate zombies for work in the mining structure located within the mine.

What you need for it is:

Zombie miners
Porter station
Pickaxes
Storage

Assign zombies equipped with pickaxes for the mining stations. They mine both iron and coal and transfer them to the corresponding processing zone using the porter. The mining system is not as complicated as the stone quarry because it doesn’t require a supplier-and-chest combination.

In such a way, you get the following flow of resources:

Mine → Miner (zombie miners) → Storage → Porter → Factory/processing

Automating Farming

Zombies can also fully automate the process of crop cultivation. A farming zombie can cultivate, harvest, and re-cultivate the crops without stopping.

Unlocked Zombie Farming

Move through the farm technology line until you unlock:

Garden Upgrade
Zombie Farming
Gardener’s Stand

The particular garden upgrade needed can vary depending on your advancement, but the point is to unlock an extra garden setup where you can allocate different kinds of crops to the rows. Moreover, you will need a zombie and a bronze shovel. The bronze shovel is available through the Bronze Tools technology and needs the relevant wooden anvil extension as well as the Hardening Bucket technology extension.

Building the Gardener

Put a Gardener Stand close to your garden and place a zombie there. Equip the zombie with a Bronze Shovel. That’s not enough just to put a zombie in a stand. Without orders, he will simply sit there without doing anything useful. You should place some tablets in the rows of the garden.

Assigning Crops to Rows

Tablets determine which crops to plant on a certain row.

For instance, you can configure:

Row 1: Wheat
Row 2: Carrots
Row 3: Beets
Row 4: Flax

The order of rows depends solely on your choice. With the tablets set up, the zombie is aware of which crops to cultivate and harvest.

The zombie:

Cares for the specified row.
Collects the ripe crops.
Gathers seeds from the collected crops.
Brings the resources to the Gardener Stand.
Stores the gathered resources in the chest.
Returns to the garden.
Planting and repeating the whole cycle once again.

Make sure to place a chest near the gardening station. Otherwise, the zombie collects crops in his/her own inventory. If this inventory gets full, he/she stops working efficiently. The gardener works all day long and all week long, meaning that you don’t have to bother with crops’ cultivation anymore.

Making Money From Automated Crops

You do not have to hold on to all crops that you harvest. Wheat, carrots, and beets can be sent to the right village trader and sold. You gain more income and you also boost Town Gratitude, which will help you with your sermon and Faith. Flax can likewise be part of your crafting economy. Therefore, automated farms will give you a ready source of resources and even income.

Unlocking the Underground Factory

Underground factory represents a new level of automation. Unlike the simple system of wood, stone, farming, and other techniques, factory technology allows building several machines and zombies within a production line.

Its one of the most helpful applications is automating the process of completing the repeatable orders from town.

Requirements for the Quest Progression

You should have completed:

First Sludge quest
Gone to the town
Passed through the forest
Unlocked the mine
Built all the necessary paths to the factory
Passed sufficiently far into Jack’s story to unlock the factory technology

Jack progress helps to unlock infrastructure for factory automation.

Required Technologies

The factory setup requires technologies including:

Smithy Hammer
Conveyors
Assembly Bench
Crates
Zombie Delivery
Zombie Mining

The Smithy Hammer technology allows you to produce iron through the factory’s processing system. The relevant Building technologies unlock conveyors, the assembly bench, crates, and zombie delivery.

Preparing the Factory

As you first enter the factory, there are several sections blocked. Four blockades need to be cleared in order to get to the appropriate production area. However, the good thing about these blockades is that the materials used for building them are similar in nature and hence it is advisable to build one big supply of these materials instead of creating the materials for each blockade individually.

Construct the following items at the factory entry point:

Porter Station
Supply Pallet

In addition, there is a need to revive the Zombie Carousel. This is an important item because it provides factory power. A minimum of two zombies need to be appointed to the carousel and the base configuration offers a minimum of 10 factory power. The conveyor belt needs factory power.

Building an Automated Iron-Supply Factory

The basic automated iron-order system combines mining, transportation, smelting, assembly, and delivery.

You need:

Zombie Carousel
Zombie miners
Porter Station
Smithy
Smithy Hammer Workbench Extension
Assembly Bench
Supply Station
Supply Porter
Supply Pallet
Conveyor Belts
Pickaxes
Hammer
A large supply of raw materials

Step 1: Mine Coal and Iron

Mine the ores using the pickaxe equipped zombies at the mining stations.

The miners extract:

Iron ore
Coal

Then the porter moves these mined resources to the factory. The porter requires no tool.

Step 2: Smelt the Iron

Construct the Smithy and install the Hammer Workbench Extension. Provide a zombie at the Smithy with a hammer. Conveyor belts will move the coal and iron automatically to the correct machines. The Smithy zombie smelts the ores into iron ingots.

Step 3: Assemble the Supplies

Move the iron ingots along a conveyor into the Assembly Bench. Assign another zombie to the assembly station and give that zombie a pickaxe. The assembly zombie converts the iron ingots into the required iron supply crates. Once enough ingots have been processed, the completed crate appears at the end of the assembly process.

Step 4: Deliver the Crates

Locate the Supply Station at the end of the production line. Provide for a Supply Porter for this purpose. The supply porter will take the finished crate and deliver it to the Supply Pallet. From there, the supply porter will move the crate to the town warehouse.

The complete production chain is:

Iron Ore + Coal → Miner → Porter → Smithy → Iron Ingots → Conveyor → Assembly Bench → Supply Crate → Supply Station → Supply Porter → Supply Pallet → Town Warehouse

Setting Up Conveyor Belts Correctly

The direction of conveyors is extremely important. All conveyors have arrows indicating the direction of movement of materials. Make sure that your arrows make a continuous path from where you get your raw material to the machines processing them.

The conveyor layout path for the basic setup discussed here would consist of:

One conveyor moving up
One moving to the right
One moving up once more

This basic setup requires the use of seven conveyor belts in all. Never install a conveyor just because you happen to find space for it. First look at the arrows. A single wrong conveyor could bring your entire production line to a grinding halt.

Automating Town Orders

After the factory starts functioning, proceed to the warehouse in town. On the right purple day, interact with the town order board. The repeatable orders will have the repeatable-order icon. The orders need several deliveries. For instance, the order can need five deliveries. All the supplies should be delivered to complete the order, which will then wait until the next town-order day comes to get completed.

Completion of the repeatable order results in gaining Town Gratitude. However, from the transcript, the orders can give some cash too, although the exact amount of cash that repeatable orders give was not known. The Town Gratitude gives yet another reason to keep the factory alive since it plays a role in the town and sermon progression system.

Increasing Factory Production

The first factory layout is intentionally slow. Zombie workers have a low productivity speed, but gaining more proficiency through mastery increases the ability of the zombies as they get more perk points. However, the greatest improvement is the growth of your factory. More zombie carousels mean that you have more factory power. Factory power allows for building longer conveyor belts and using more machines. Also, more supply pallets allow the supply porter to make more deliveries. The critical limiting factor is your zombie population.

On the right green day, you can resurrect up to four zombies as long as you have the following:

Reanimation Liquid
Zombie Collars

While doing so, the zombies you select for factory work should have as many red skulls as possible. FIVE red skulls are sufficient for your first factory automation process.

Keep Production Queues Full

Automated production is most useful when you stop treating it like a manual crafting station. When you have the required materials, queue large quantities rather than returning every few minutes to start another batch. For example, loading hundreds of units into the production queues keeps the factory operating for much longer without intervention.

The zombies will continue working through the queue automatically. The same principle applies to your raw-material storage. When a storage area reaches capacity, the relevant workers stop because there is nowhere to put the additional resources. At that point, either consume the materials, move them into your own storage, or expand your production and storage capacity.

Making Money With Automated Paint Production

But automation is not just limited to harvesting and crafting. There are other ways you can utilize the system within the game to produce items inexpensively and earn profits from their sale. Making Paint becomes an excellent way to generate money once you have gained all the necessary progression levels.

Necessary Progression

First, do First Sludge and reach the town. Then, continue the port progression until you unlock interaction with the necessary trader.

You will require the following technologies:

Tier 1 Garden Improvement
Glass Blowing
Paint from Anatomy and Alchemy

Also, you will need access to the Plague Doctor progression level, your own zombies, and the crafting towers.

Making Paint

First, go to the Garden Well. Drawing water provides 20 water each time. Next, you will require sand and firewood. An infinite amount of sand can be obtained on the bridge that lies left from the yard. Collect sand and mix it with firewood in the furnace to make glass. Craft alchemy flasks using the glass. Then go to the laboratory and use the Study Table along with your Science Kit and Science Points. Study water to get the necessary green rune.

Then use the laboratory equipment to combine: 2 Water → Paint

The process does not consume your energy, so you can produce large quantities without exhausting your character. Alchemy Flasks can be prepared in bulk, allowing you to manufacture large batches of paint.

Selling Paint

Return to the port and speak to the trader. You can sell the completed paint directly.

The process requires relatively inexpensive materials:

Water + Sand + Firewood → Glass → Alchemy Flasks → Paint → Gold

Common Automation Problems

Check that the zombie has the required tool.

Typical requirements include:

Job	Required Tool
Lumberjack	Bronze Axe
Stone Miner	Pickaxe
Mine Miner	Pickaxe
Smithy Worker	Hammer
Assembly Worker	Pickaxe
Gardener	Bronze Shovel
Porter	None
Supplier	None
Supply Porter	None

Also check that the required technology has been unlocked and that the correct station is assigned.

A Gardener Is Sitting Idle

A gardener needs more than a Gardener Stand and shovel. Place the appropriate crop tablet on the garden row. The tablet tells the zombie which crop it should maintain. Also make sure a chest is available for harvested materials.

A Miner Is Frozen

Remove the zombie from its station and assign it again. This can reset a worker that has become stuck during the delivery or mining process.

A Factory Production Line Is Not Moving

Check the conveyor arrows. Every belt must point toward the next machine.

Also check:

Factory power
Zombie assignments
Required tools
Raw-material supply
Storage capacity
Production queues
Supply stations

Workers Stop Producing

Check the relevant storage. If a timber stockpile, chest, or yard raw-material storage is full, the worker may have nowhere to place the next resource. Free up space or increase storage capacity before assuming the automation has broken.

The most critical investment is that of your zombie workforce. The more zombies with good red skull capabilities you have, the more they can be assigned to do certain tasks without having to keep changing the same zombies from one station to another. With the system working, most of the tedious work of gathering and production can run throughout the day without using up your character’s stamina.

This is the true power of automation in Graveyard Keeper 2: instead of doing everything yourself, you create a network of systems that work together to gather resources for you.