Coal Thumpers are one of the most useful buildings in Frostpunk but are surprisingly difficult to use effectively. The large structure is the player’s first “renewable” source of Coal and remains useful throughout most of Frostpunk’s various Scenarios.
Players gain access to the Coal Thumper after researching it in the Workshop. It costs 10 wood to research and 15 to build. Thumpers are the most flexible resource building, not requiring any nearby resources to operate. This advantage is partially offset by the building’s size and workforce requirement.
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Frostpunk’s basic Coal Thumper requires 10 Workers or Engineers and produces 560 units of Coal per standard shift. However, unlike other resource buildings, the Coal Thumper does not add its Coal directly to the Stockpile. Instead, it produces a large Coal Pile for up to 15 Workers or two Gathering Posts. That means it actually takes 25 to 30 Workers to operate one Coal Thumper.
While it may be tempting to save space by only constructing the Coal Thumper, the Gathering Posts offers some advantages. The biggest is that they provide a degree of protection against the elements, reducing the number of Workers stricken with cold-related illnesses. Players can also upgrade Gathering posts to improve Insulation and gathering efficiency.
The Coal Thumper itself has upgrades available at technology levels 2 and 5. The first allows players to replace their Coal Thumpers with costlier but more efficient Steam Coal Thumpers. The second, Coal Thumper Injectors, adds +15% efficiency to all Coal Thumpers and Steam Coal Thumpers. The description of the Steam Coal Thumper says that it produces enough for four Gathering Posts. However, that may or may not be true depending on the player’s strategy down each building’s upgrade path.
Frostpunk players should make a point of periodically checking up on their Coal Thumpers to make sure the Coal Pile isn’t getting too high or too low. If the Coal Pile runs out, the gatherers will have to wait while the Thumper produces more. If the Coal Pile gets too big, the Coal Thumper will stop functioning for a time. Neither is a particularly strategic use of the City’s limited manpower.
Players should also be careful about using Automatons on the Coal Thumper or its Gathering Posts. While Automatons don’t work as quickly as humans, they can operate for nearly 24 hours straight, stopping only briefly to refuel. This means they get much more done per day, allowing them to frequently deplete or overload the Coal Piles when working with human crews.
Frostpunk is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and is in development for Android.