Coal Thumpers

[Agent Hunk]

Is there some kind of pro trick I'm missing to this, or are my coal thumpers just bugged? Mine never produce any coal whatsoever no matter how close or far away from a coal deposit they are. And yes, there's power and roads running to them with plenty of workers in them.

[Jackn1fe]

I think you need a gathering post? Something of the sort. I havent done it, but I was looking at it and it "drops" coal, so I'd assume you would need to gather it. (I could be wrong)

[Nosh2O]

My understanding from reading the description is that they "exposed" coal sites. The work done in them doesn't harvest coal directly, if my interpretation is correct. Maybe someone else will chime in soon as well.

[Valkyrur]

thumpers make coal piles, you need gathering posts to collect said piles, they dont send the resources directly to your stockpile like the coal mine

[Agent Hunk]

Originally posted by WintersCloak:

thumpers make coal piles, you need gathering posts to collect said piles, they dont send the resources directly to your stockpile like the coal mine

Well, that pretty much solves it.

[Hard Rooster]

I have a follow up question about them, I'm doing my first playthrough and I'm not quite sure where exactly to place it. It seems logical to place them in or overlapping the little square in front of the coal deposit, though the mouseover says it'll block an important resource or something to that effect. Should I simply ignore the warning, or does it go completely outside the highlighted square area?

[malloric]

Coal washes up directly under the pressure hoses so directly in front of it basically. I put my gathering shacks on the side of it. Not sure about the upgrades one if it just pops up more piles or anywhere else. They're basically awful, just the stop-gap between getting mines. Space becomes an issue later on if you're trying to get any meaningful amount of coal out with thumpers.

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by Hard Rooster:

I have a follow up question about them, I'm doing my first playthrough and I'm not quite sure where exactly to place it. It seems logical to place them in or overlapping the little square in front of the coal deposit, though the mouseover says it'll block an important resource or something to that effect. Should I simply ignore the warning, or does it go completely outside the highlighted square area?

No need to place them near coal deposits. They'll extract coal from anywhere. Try not to place them where they'll destroy resources, but if a couple trees get caught up under one it's not the end of the world. (That already happened.)

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by malloric:

Coal washes up directly under the pressure hoses so directly in front of it basically. I put my gathering shacks on the side of it. Not sure about the upgrades one if it just pops up more piles or anywhere else. They're basically awful, just the stop-gap between getting mines. Space becomes an issue later on if you're trying to get any meaningful amount of coal out with thumpers.

Guess I need to double-check my tech tree, but as long as you have the manpower / automatons to keep 4 gathering posts going for each thumper, they're putting out easily 2-3x as much coal as an equal number of coal mines.

I started with the coal mines and very quickly they weren't keeping up with demand, all the while hogging steam cores I'd rather use on other things.

[Yograin]

The two coal deposits are for coal mines. Thumpers can be placed anywhere and can be harvested with a camp or directly as you harvested resources when you started.Thumpers create a deposit and then do nothing until you harvest the deposit.

[Artisan Alex]

Thumpers are great if you have the man/bot power for the various buildings (basic is 10 for the thumper, and 20 for both of the gathering posts I believe), whereas mines just have the one building and you're done

[Mac Tonight]

Wait... so the people can gather coal from the thumper with or without a gathering post? Or did I misread something?

[thebugmancometh]

Originally posted by Artisan Alex:

Thumpers are great if you have the man/bot power for the various buildings (basic is 10 for the thumper, and 20 for both of the gathering posts I believe), whereas mines just have the one building and you're done

Just finished the main campaign on the default difficulty. 2 steam thumpers and 7 automatons (really just 6, since I sent one away later without the reserves dropping), kept me topped off on coal with the genny going at the highest setting.

(Got the bots up to 90% efficiency and had all the genny efficiency research complete).

It was a bit tense, but completely doable.

[gabgab01]

Originally posted by Bad Mr. Frosty:

Wait... so the people can gather coal from the thumper with or without a gathering post? Or did I misread something?

yep.
all a gathering post does is giving the people an opportunity to stay warm while they gather up some ressource pile. (or allows you to put more people/automatons on a ressource pile)

since the coal thumpers have a "built-in coal pile", that grows when it works, putting a gathering post next to it would be the same as putting a gathering post next to any ressource pile.

also, since it's a ressource pile, you can send people there like any other pile. but they will probably get sick from the cold.