A zombie uses the discipline of its workstation, not a general work level. An orange Building specialist does not carry that mastery across to a red Smithing recipe just because both stations are in the yard.
Match the discipline
| Discipline | Typical work |
|---|---|
| Building, orange | Woodworking, sawmill and stone work |
| Smithing, red | Furnace and anvil |
| Farming, green | Garden and kitchen |
| Writing, yellow | Writing Desk and Printing Press |
| Anatomy, blue | Formulation and alchemy work |
A tool bonus applies to its own discipline. An axe does not improve the worker at the Writing Desk. The worker also needs the specific tool requested by its gathering station, such as a pickaxe at a mine or quarry, or a shovel for digging.
Equip before spending training points
Common axe, pickaxe, shovel and hammer tiers add +1 rusty, +2 bronze, +4 iron or +6 steel in the extracted equipment reference. The current firsthand walkthrough confirms an Iron Pickaxe giving a worker +4 Building mastery.
That bonus can qualify an otherwise untrained worker for an early recipe. Check the recipe with the correct equipment before spending the worker’s personal points on permanent mastery. Training an unrelated branch may use red-skull slots without solving the blocked job.
Points belong to the worker
When the Keeper crafts, technology points drop for collection. When a zombie operates the station, that zombie receives its points instead. Each worker keeps its own pool; transferring it to another station does not transfer the saved points to the Keeper or another zombie.
Red skulls limit learned perk slots. Bronze collars support up to 5 red skulls, Gold 10 and Steel 99. A higher-capacity collar does not directly add mastery; it permits a body with more slots when the corpse actually has those red skulls.
Access, quality and transport
Meet the recipe’s minimum mastery first. A worker who cannot start does not solve the problem by waiting longer. Quality-sensitive recipes can also need higher effective mastery for their better result, while many metal and sawmill outputs have no quality tier.
Porters and current Carousel power serve different jobs from skilled crafting. Preserve specialist equipment and training for stations that use it, then check supplier coverage when a qualified worker still lacks inputs.
Sources
- Saint ArchI: zombie talents and equipmentStation disciplines, personal technology points and matching tools; old Carousel power is superseded by later patches.
- Razeg’s completed-playthrough field guideFirsthand progression, workshop, farming, sermons and combat examples.
- Marbur’s German progression walkthroughCurrent walkthrough with an explicit 1.011 correction for zombie assistants.
