Frostpunk takes place in an alternate timeline where volcanic eruptions caused a worldwide volcanic winter. This game will have you play as "The Captain," a person whose whole mission is to lead a group of people into a new city and help them survive. Of course, this means you'll be the one making tough decisions and the first person everyone will blame if things don't work out.
One of the keys to surviving in Frostpunk is keeping an eye on valuable resources like Coal, Wood, Food, or Steel. At the beginning of the game, you'll find these lying outside your city, but you'll have to find new ways to obtain these materials as the days pass.
If you're looking to raise your Coal numbers, look into building a Coal Thumper, this building will pump pressurized water underground to wash Coal from Coal deposits into the surface. Here's everything you need to know about these structures.
How To Get Unlock Thumpers
The first thing you'll need to do is have an operative Workshop where you can research new technologies. Open the Resources Tab and select Coal Thumper. This fundamental research will cost you 10 Wood, while making the building costs 15.
Once you have the building, you can click on it to:
- Change the shift's length (if you have signed the Emergency Shift law).
- Turn on the heater.
- Send a foreman to make sure all the workers are doing their best. This action will cost you 10 food rations, but it will increase workplace efficiency by 40%.
How To Use Coal Thumpers
There are a few things you should know before going ahead and building these structures. For example, these buildings can be placed anywhere but are rather big, so keep that in mind. Moreover, the Coal you get from Thumpers won't be immediately added to your Stockpile, so you should really consider building Gathering Posts near them to stock the resource.
Building these posts is a good way of keeping workers warm while on the clock, reducing the chance of your workers getting sick due to the cold weather.
- Coal Thumpers will produce 560 Coal per workday.
Also, you should keep an eye on the rate the Coal is being produced vs the rate it's being collected, sometimes you'll need more manpower collecting the Coal piles than working in the Coal thumper.
Who Can Work In Coal Thumpers
Basically, everyone, you can use 10 workers or engineers. However, since Coal is such a valuable resource, using an Automaton might be the best idea for this building.
Automatons have a 60% efficiency (lower than you would get using the maximum amount of humans for the building), but they can work for 24 hours straight without complaining, getting sick, or decreasing Hope and Discontent. Also, you can later use the Workshop to research upgrades for the Automatons to increase their efficiency.
Still, Automatons need Coal to operate so make sure you always have enough Coal to keep both, the robot and the Generator, working.
Coal Thumpers Upgrades
There are two upgrades available you can get for these buildings. You can upgrade Coal Thumpers into Steam Coal Thumpers (after properly researching the building via the Workshop), making 1120 Coal per workday instead.
Also, you can research the Coal Thumper Injectors technology, which will improve both Coal Thumpers and Steam Coal Thumpers, making them produce more Coal per day, 658 and 1317 respectively.