Monkey Training and Automation
The Monkey Mimic System is what separates The Survivalists from every other survival sandbox. Instead of grinding through repetitive tasks yourself, you train monkeys to do the work. A well-organized team of monkeys can chop forests, mine stone, cook food, craft tools, and fight off orc raids while you explore labyrinths on the other side of the map.
This guide covers everything about how monkeys work: recruitment, the mimic training process, task specialization, combat roles, automation chains, and management strategies for large monkey teams.
Finding and Recruiting Monkeys
Monkeys appear in two places:
- Wandering the wild. You will find monkeys roaming every island. They are passive and will not attack you.
- Caged in vaults. Some vaults contain monkeys locked in wooden cages. Break the cage to free them. Freed monkeys are immediately recruitable.
Taming
To recruit a wild monkey, craft a Foul Meal and offer it to the monkey.
Foul Meal recipe (Campfire):
| Ingredient | Source |
|---|---|
| 3 Petals | Flowers (farmable once you unlock Garden Patches) |
| 3 Long Grass | Tall grass patches |
| 1 Timber | Trees (use Handaxe) |
Walk up to the monkey with the Foul Meal in your hand and interact. The monkey joins your group after eating. It now follows you and can be trained.
Many older guides and community posts refer to this item as "Monkey Meal." That name does not exist in the current game. The correct item is Foul Meal. If you cannot find it in your Campfire recipes, make sure you have Petals, Long Grass, and Timber in your inventory.
Batch-craft Foul Meals before exploring a new island. Carrying five or six lets you recruit every monkey you find without returning to base. More monkeys means faster automation.
Monkey Limits
There is no hard cap on the number of monkeys you can have, but performance can degrade with very large groups (20+). For most playthroughs, 8 to 12 monkeys is the sweet spot. Assign each one a clear role rather than trying to micromanage a crowd.
The Mimic System
The Mimic System is how you train monkeys. It works by demonstration: you show a monkey what to do, and it repeats that action until you tell it to stop.
How to Train a Monkey
- Press Q (PC default) to enter Monkey Mimic Mode.
- Select the monkey you want to train.
- Choose Teach from the radial menu. A banana icon appears above the monkey's head, meaning it is watching and recording.
- Perform the action you want the monkey to learn. Chop a tree, mine a rock, craft an item at a bench, or attack an enemy.
- The monkey records the full sequence of actions.
- Exit Mimic Mode. The monkey now repeats the demonstrated task on its own.
What Monkeys Can Learn
| Task Category | Example Actions | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Gathering | Chop trees, mine rocks, pick up loose items | Give the monkey a Handaxe or Pickaxe |
| Crafting | Use a Crafting Bench, Campfire, or Forge | Give the monkey a Multitool |
| Building | Place blueprinted structures | Give the monkey a Multitool |
| Combat | Attack enemies, defend an area | Give the monkey a weapon (sword, spear, club) |
| Storage | Pick up items and deposit them in a chest | Show the monkey the pickup-to-chest sequence |
| Repair | Fix damaged structures after raids | Give the monkey a Multitool |
Monkeys need the right tool in their inventory to perform their assigned task. A gathering monkey without a Handaxe will stand around doing nothing. A crafting monkey without a Multitool cannot interact with stations. Always check that your monkeys are equipped before assigning work.
Retasking a Monkey
To change what a monkey does:
- Enter Mimic Mode (Q).
- Select the monkey.
- Choose Reset to clear its current task.
- Choose Teach and demonstrate the new task.
You can also use Stop to pause a monkey without erasing its training. Use this when you need a monkey to follow you temporarily (for exploration or labyrinth runs) without losing its assigned role.
Task Specialization
Monkeys perform better when they specialize. They gain experience in the task category they perform most (Gathering, Crafting, Combat), which makes them faster and more efficient over time. Switching a monkey between roles constantly wastes that accumulated experience.
Recommended Team Composition (8 Monkeys)
| Role | Count | Equipment | Task |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gatherers | 2-3 | Handaxe or Pickaxe | Chop trees, mine stone, deliver to storage chests |
| Crafters | 2 | Multitool | Operate Crafting Bench and Forge, produce tools and weapons |
| Fighters | 2-3 | Sword, Spear, or Club | Follow you during exploration, defend base during raids |
| Hauler | 1 | None (bare hands) | Pick up loose items and deposit them in designated chests |
Gatherer Monkeys
Train one or two monkeys to chop trees and one to mine rocks. Place storage chests near the resource nodes. Show the monkey the full loop: chop a tree, pick up the timber, walk to the chest, deposit. The monkey repeats this cycle indefinitely.
Position gathering monkeys near dense resource clusters. If trees or rocks run out in the immediate area, the monkey will wander further to find targets, which slows things down. Relocate the monkey or the chest if the area gets depleted.
Crafter Monkeys
Give a monkey a Multitool and demonstrate crafting at a station. The monkey will continue producing that item as long as raw materials are available in nearby chests or on the ground. This is how you mass-produce rope, tools, and cooked food without touching a crafting station yourself.
Set up a production chain: gatherer monkeys deposit timber and stone into a chest, crafter monkeys pull from that same chest to produce rope and tools. The entire process runs without your input. Check in occasionally to refill raw materials or collect finished products.
Combat Monkeys
Arm a monkey with the best weapon you have available and demonstrate attacking an enemy. The monkey fights anything hostile that enters its detection range. Combat monkeys follow you by default, acting as bodyguards during exploration.
For base defense, position combat monkeys near your walls and set them to defend. They will engage raiders during orc attacks.
| Weapon Type | Strengths | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sword | Balanced damage, fast swing | Good all-around choice for monkey fighters |
| Spear | Longer reach, keeps distance | Useful against enemies with strong melee attacks |
| Club | High damage per hit, slow | Best against armored enemies and vault guardians |
| Bow | Ranged, safe positioning | Monkeys with bows stay back and fire from distance |
Automation Chains
The real power of the monkey system emerges when you chain multiple monkeys into a production pipeline.
Basic Automation Chain
Gatherer Monkey (chops trees) → deposits Timber in Chest A
Gatherer Monkey (mines rocks) → deposits Stone in Chest A
Crafter Monkey (pulls from Chest A) → crafts Rope, Tools → deposits in Chest B
Advanced Automation Chain
Gatherer Monkeys → Raw Materials Chest
Crafter Monkey 1 (Crafting Bench) → Intermediate Items Chest
Crafter Monkey 2 (Forge) → Metal Tools/Weapons Chest
Hauler Monkey → Moves finished goods to final storage
Layout Tips
- Place chests within a few steps of crafting stations. Monkeys walk between the chest and the station for every item, so shorter distances mean faster throughput.
- Keep gathering zones separate from your crafting area to prevent gatherer monkeys from clogging pathways.
- Use walls or fences to create "lanes" that guide monkey pathfinding toward the correct chests.
- Label your chests mentally (or by position) so you know which ones hold raw materials and which hold finished products.
Monkey Inventory Management
Monkeys can carry items, and you can use this as mobile storage. The "mule" strategy involves loading a monkey with a chest, then having it follow you on exploration trips. When your inventory fills up, dump items into the monkey's carried chest.
To set up a mule monkey:
- Give the monkey a chest.
- Enter Mimic Mode, select the monkey, and set it to Follow.
- The monkey trails behind you with the chest, acting as a walking storage unit.
This is especially useful during labyrinth runs, where you collect large amounts of loot and cannot fast-travel back to base.
Monkey Care
Monkeys can take damage and die. Dead monkeys are gone permanently. Protect your investment.
- Keep combat monkeys armed with the best available weapons. A monkey with a stone sword dies fast against orc raiders. Upgrade their gear as you progress.
- Pull combat monkeys out of fights they cannot win. If a labyrinth boss is shredding your monkey squad, retreat and re-engage with better positioning.
- Do not leave unarmed monkeys in areas with hostile enemies. A crafting monkey standing at a bench in the open gets killed by wandering predators. Build walls around your crafting area.
- Assign repair monkeys. Give one or two monkeys multitools and train them to repair structures. After an orc raid damages your walls, repair monkeys fix everything without your input.
If your bed gets destroyed during a raid and you die, you respawn at the island's default location. Your monkeys stay where they were assigned. You may need to trek back across the island to reach them. Protect your bed and keep at least one combat monkey stationed near it.
Co-op Monkey Management
In multiplayer, all players share the same monkey pool. Coordinate who trains which monkeys to avoid overwriting another player's setup. If two players teach the same monkey different tasks, the most recent instruction overwrites the previous one.
Best practice in co-op:
- Assign specific monkeys to each player by visual position or naming convention (if available).
- Designate one player as the "base manager" who handles crafting and gathering monkeys.
- Other players take combat monkeys for exploration and labyrinth runs.
- Communicate before retasking any monkey that another player set up.
Farming Automation
After unlocking the farming system (see Farming and Alchemy), monkeys can handle watering and harvesting crops. This frees you from the repetitive cycle of manually watering Garden Patches every in-game day.
Setting Up Farm Monkeys
- Build your Garden Patches and plant seeds.
- Fill a Watering Can and give it to a monkey.
- Enter Mimic Mode and demonstrate watering a Garden Patch.
- The monkey repeats the watering cycle on nearby patches.
Assign a second monkey to harvest mature crops by demonstrating the pickup and deposit sequence.
Monkey farming AI has known pathing issues. Monkeys sometimes stop watering and stand idle or display "No more rock" dialogue. If a monkey stops working, re-enter Mimic Mode and re-teach the task on a different monkey. Keeping Garden Patches close together and within a short walk of the Watering Can refill point reduces these glitches.
Protecting High-Value Items
Monkeys pull materials from any nearby chest when performing automated crafting. This can be a problem if you store rare resources (Refined Gems, Legendary Weapons, Doubloons) in the same area as your crafting monkeys.
Use Mysterious Chests to safeguard valuable items. Monkeys cannot interact with Mysterious Chests, so anything stored inside is protected from automated crafting chains. Place a Mysterious Chest near your crafting area for items you do not want monkeys to consume.