Graveyard Keeper 2 smithy: town shop or factory station?

What to check, in order

1. 01

   Read the quest or recipe: is it asking you to buy an item, or to craft it?

2. 02

   For a purchase, check that the town Smithy is built and which tier it has reached.

3. 03

   For crafting, check the Smithy station recipe and its technology in the Metallurgy tree.

4. 04

   Keep coal in stock; nearly every Smithy station recipe uses it.

5. 05

   Put a hammer-equipped zombie on the station once it is running.

6. 06

   Only upgrade the shop when you actually need its next tier of stock.

Two buildings, one name

Graveyard Keeper 2 reuses the word Smithy for a shop and a workstation, and the game does not go out of its way to explain the difference. The shop belongs to the town rebuild: you build it on a plot with kits, then talk to the trader to upgrade it. The workstation belongs to you: you place it at your base or in Jack’s factory and queue recipes on it like any other bench.

The confusion costs real materials. Upgrading the town shop does not unlock a crafting recipe, and building a second Smithy station will not make the trader stock steel. Write down which one you need before you spend kits.

The town Smithy shop, tier by tier

At tier I the shop sells bronze basics: Bronze Scrap, bronze ingots and details, nails, Polished Bronze, simple weapons and armor, and a tool bag. Tier II adds bronze gear, iron versions of the parts and better battle equipment. Tier III brings steel details, steel screws, engineering details and knight equipment.

The shop buys very little. It takes rusty items, copper trinkets and iron axes and pickaxes, and nothing else. If you are trying to sell a stack of ingots back, it will not show up as sellable. Like every trader, it also runs on a daily purse, so a big sale can leave it broke until midnight.

Every shop you build or upgrade in town adds 2 or 3 to village reputation, which matters early for quests gated at village reputation 10.

What the Smithy station makes

The Smithy station is your coal furnace. It is the documented place to turn ore into iron, and it doubles as an alternative glass and brick maker when you would rather burn coal than fuel. Once a Zombie Miner is running and producing two coal per cycle, these recipes become close to free.

Field note: Glass and bricks also have fuel-based recipes at the Furnace and Kiln. If you have coal and no fuel, the Smithy is the shortcut.

The Smithy in Jack’s factory

In the underground factory the Smithy becomes the head of a production line. It sits near the start, takes ore and coal, and pushes ingots along a conveyor to the next station. Each factory station needs its own zombie with the right tool, which for the Smithy means a hammer.

If you are setting this up for town orders, see the factory layout guide. The short version: prove the Smithy works on its own first, then add belts.

Battle gear: what the numbers mean

Most players first visit the Smithy shop for combat gear, so it helps to know what you are paying for. Damage in a fight is simply the attacker’s damage minus the target’s armor, never below zero. There are no critical hits and no random rolls, which makes each upgrade easy to judge.

Armor goes up one point per material tier. Swords climb more slowly than bows, and a sword swing costs 20 of your 100 stamina against 10 for an arrow. You still need a sword on the toolbar to start a battle, but many players win with the bow once they are in.

Building and upgrading the shop

Town shops are built on signboards that mark ruined houses or empty plots, and construction is instant. Materials come from your backpack or from shared chests in the same area, and they are almost always kits: Building Kits, Wooden Kits and Iron Kits in varying amounts.

Upgrading is a conversation with the trader, not a construction job. Some upgrades ask for items the shop itself does not sell yet, so look at the request before you promise yourself a tier III by Wrath. Each tier also lets the shop post two more town orders on Pride, which is where most late-game happiness comes from.

When to buy and when to craft

Buy when the gap is small and time matters: three Iron Details for a blocked building, a sword before Sloth’s battle, a handful of nails. Craft when the need repeats every week, because shop prices rise as you empty the shelf. Each unit you buy is priced against the remaining stock, so the tenth ingot costs noticeably more than the first.

Battle gear is a good example. You need a sword and armor on the toolbar to enter any fight, and the shop sells both. Making your own pays off later, and the Warmaker achievement counts 50 crafted pieces of battle gear.

Common questions