Whiteout Survival (WOS) State Transfer Guide
Zombie Miner Tips & Tricks
Idle Zombie Miner Beginner's Guide
Welcome to the Zombie Miner Beginner's Guide.
Here you will find a sectioned guide on how to play the game like it was intended to.
The goblin tribe has found an entrance to the ancient goblin homeland! But it’s buried under thousands of rocks, filling a labyrinth of caves. Help those little fellas reach their home by clearing the path cave by cave! The first thing you need is Gold. You have a small amount on hand, just enough to hire your first goblin. Let’s do that! Press the button at the bottom of the screen to hire a goblin worker. Every goblin appears in the barrel (they use barrels as a lifting tool to move down from the higher caverns). Tap on the barrel to release the worker.
Goblins are not the brightest crayons in the box, they will fool around unless you show them what to do and where. Let’s put this little slacker here to work. Drag him to the nearest rock, and he’ll start digging. The lower the number on the rock, the faster he’ll finish his task. When the goblin starts digging, you’ll see a yellow circle bar and a timer. The bar indicates the rock’s durability. You’ll see the yellow bar decrease when your goblin digs the rock. The timer gives you an approximate time before the rock is destroyed.
When the rock is destroyed, the goblin starts digging another rock he finds nearby. If there are no rocks around him, he would chill out and waste his salary until you tell him what to do next. Every rock contains some useful resources inside that are released when the rock is destroyed. This rock left some gold - tap on the coin to claim it.
Now we have more gold, and it’s pretty handy! We need gold to hire more workers! Let’s call our second goblin by pressing the button with a goblin on it.
You have two level 1 goblins now! You can see the level of your goblin as a number over his head. Of course, you can mine two rocks at once or even order two goblins to mine one rock to speed up the process. But you can also merge them to get a more skilled level 2 goblin!
To do that, drag one goblin and move it right onto another goblin.
Level 2 goblin is more efficient than two lower level goblins, so it’s a wise choice.
Zombie Miner - Moving to the Next Mine
The objective of the each mine is to reach the exit and get access to a deeper level. You can easily find the exit - it's a big wooden building at the very end of each stage. Bring some goblins to clear the path and move to the next mine!
Be careful, though. There's no way to return. All unclaimed resources would be lost forever. Moreover, you'll lose all the goblins and gold earned on this stage, starting a new mine from scratch. But your elixirs, gems, cards, and unlocked research bonuses remain with you! They will help you in clearing the following levels!
Zombie Miner - Goblins and Their Levels
There are multiple ways to bring new workers to your mine.
We’ve discussed the first way in the first chapter: just spend some coins to hire a new goblin by pressing the button at the bottom of the screen.
Check the button to see the current level of the goblins for hire and the price for one goblin.
The more goblins you hire, the higher their starting level is! But at the same time, the cost of hiring increases drastically. So choose your strategy wisely! Sometimes it’s better to spend gold on your Forge or Shafts instead.
Price is reduced every time a checkpoint is activated and can be further reduced with the Heavy Discount rare card.
Goblin Cannon, located at the right of your Forge, can also help you with the new goblin power. It shoots Mystery barrels, which contain different resources, including new goblins! Also, the cannon shoots one goblin barrel every 40 mins (for the regular mines).
Another way to get more goblins is to win them on the Spinning Wheel.
Merge your goblins to get the higher-level miners. Remember that goblins should be of the same level to be merged. For example, you can’t merge a level 1 goblin with a level 2 goblin. You’ll have to combine two 1 level goblins first to get another level 2 goblin.
Higher-level goblins use more advanced tools and destroy rocks way faster!
Also, keep in mind that the number of goblins you may keep simultaneously is limited. You can see your current goblin limit at the top right of the screen. If you reach the limit, you won’t get goblin barrels anymore, so merge some goblins or increase the limit using special cards.
Zombie Miner - The Forge
There’s a gold Forge at the bottom of each level. The forge generates gold constantly - it’s your main source of income at the start of every stage. It’s handy when the first mineshafts are not automated and guarantees a minimum income even when idle.
The spinning yellow bar indicates the forge’s work cycle: you get coins with each completed spin. The number of gold created by the forge on each spin is shown at the top of the building.
You can spend some coins to upgrade the forge and increase the amount of gold it generates. To do that, press the green button near the forge. (if the button is grey, you don’t have enough coins right now).
Zombie Miner - Shafts
Starting from the second mine, you encounter abandoned buildings at the cave's sides. Those are very important! You'll obtain a new source of income when they are repaired. To repair the shaft, clear the boulders nearby and bring one of your goblins to its edge. Similar to rocks, you'll see a timer and circle bar indicating how long it would take to fix the building. Tap Activate when the repair is complete.
When the shaft is repaired, it starts generating gold similar to Forge. Each shaft is quarrying one exact type of jewel. Jewels have different values, but that doesn't mean one jewel will always generate more gold than the other! Shafts vary by speed, upgrading cost, and the profit multiplier on each level. So while one jewel might generate significant profit at the lower levels, another might become way more profitable further in the game.
To upgrade your Mineshaft and increase its profit, press the green button at the bottom of the shaft. (if the button is grey, you don't have enough coins right now).
Similar to Forge, you can see a spinning yellow bar, indicating the shaft's work cycle, but unlike forge, it doesn't send gold directly to your treasury at the beginning. You have to gather carts with gold manually, so pay attention to the progress wheel and grab the cart when it arrives!
Of course, it's quite tiresome to collect carts manually. You're the boss here - this type of labor is not for your level of competence. That's why you can automate the process by hiring a Manager to unload carts in your stead. To do that, you need to increase your understanding of the jewel using the jewel research cards (goblin managers are not very bright, they need a detailed manual on operating the shaft). Tap the recursion button at the side of the shaft to see the requirements for hiring a manager. That would be the type of cards you need (common or uncommon), and the level of research required. Even if you don't have enough cards to hire a manager, you can level up the jewel to increase its profit.
Zombie Miner - Building Upgrades
As it was mentioned before, all the useful gold-producing buildings can be upgraded. Unfortunately, you can't merge them, but you can use gold to increase their level and make them more profitable! To level up the building - press the green button with a + on it.
The number on the button shows how many levels you're able to afford with your current gold supply. The upgrading cost is also shown on the button. Using the blue bar above, you can estimate how close you are to the next big income boost. The light blue part of the bar shows the progress you'll get after upgrading. The yellow part shows your current progress.
Plan your budget wisely: upgrading the building for a few levels might not give you the increase you want. When you reach an income boost milestone with your building, you get a small number of bonus elixirs.
Another way to permanently boost the building's profit is by researching more advanced technologies using cards.
Zombie Miner - Resources and Goodies
While exploring the mines, you find different resources and expendables that would help you in your playthrough. These are:
Gold
Your main currency. Use it to hire new goblins and upgrade building. You earn some amount from destroying stones: a higher stone level means more gold. Forge and Shafts are a stable source of gold for your needs. You can also get huge amounts of gold from mystical barrels.
Elixirs
A magical substance required for your magical researches. When you use cards to increase a jewel level or improve other processes in your mines, you have to spend some elixir to proceed with the research. You find elixirs almost everywhere in the game: inside the stones (even regular ones), in chests obtained from checkpoints and shafts, and get them as a bonus when upgrading your shafts. If you're eager to finish some important research ASAP, you can buy the elixir pack from the game's store.
Gems
An extremely rare special currency used to buy items from the store. It can be obtained from specific stones on the map, the events, and from Spinning Wheel. You can also get gems as a reward in special events or buy them in the game store.
Time Potions
Magical items that let you travel in time! The time skips forward, all timers are reduced, and you get the gold that would've been generated in a corresponding timeframe. There are only two ways to get a potion: buy one in the game store, or win in the spinning wheel. Keep in mind that the potion activates IMMEDIATELY! Make sure that everyone is ready for the time skip.
Cards
Unique items used in magical research. Cards are required to upgrade jewels and get your shafts automated. You can also unlock multiple other bonuses! Like improving your forge, goblin cannon, or all shafts at once! You can only drag cards from chests or earn as a reward in special events.
Chests
Useful boxes with lots of precious loot! Usually contain cards and elixirs. Events chests might also contain crowns. Chests are everywhere: hidden in broken shafts, behind checkpoint walls, buried in stones. You can get chests as a reward in special events and buy them in the game's store.
Cards
Cards are special items used in magical research. Cards are required to upgrade jewels, forge, and other technologies. Unlike other boosts, the technologies invented with cards remain with you when you move from mine to mine.
You can find cards in chests: mined on the map, obtained from fixed shafts or cleared checkpoints, or bought in the store. Additionally, you get cards as rewards at the end of events if you’ve gathered enough keys.
What can you improve using cards? Well, everything! Cards are essentially needed to automate your shafts and increase their income. You can also increase the speed of their work to make gold faster. You can boost your Forge to get more gold at the start of each mine. Can increase profit gained from rocks and mystery barrels. Reduce the goblin spawn time and their cost or increase the limit of goblins you can keep. Your goblins will work faster with the crit strike cards. And you can even increase the number of cards in chests!
Some of the cards are more precious and hard to obtain than others.
There are four types of rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary.
Most of the mineshafts’ cards are common and uncommon, while most of the cards that improve your overall progress are rare and legendary (in the event maps, there are only two types of rarity: Common and Rare).
Mineshaft jewel cards
Each jewel has two types of cards for improvement. Uncommon cards require more elixir for research and provide a bigger boost for the shaft’s income. Usually, common cards are enough to upgrade the jewel, appoint a manager and automate the shaft. But some mines have only a small amount of exact jewels, so an advanced level of technology is needed, and only your uncommon cards will be taken into account.
Mineshaft performance cards
These cards will improve the work of your shafts and forge but are not required for automatization.
Mining boost cards
Crit-strike cards can improve the speed of mining. When the crit bonus is unlocked, your goblins will sometimes land a strong hit with amplified damage. The Crit Chance card increases the frequency of crit strikes. While the Crit Damage card multiplies the damage dealt by those strikes.
Goblin Cannon
The cannon is an important source of new workers, useful resources, and dynamite. At the basic level, it fires one new goblin each 40 min. (For the regular mines) The goblin level is indicated on the cannon and increases every few goblins purchased.
The timer is reduced every time a checkpoint is activated. Find the Pocket Watch and the Alarm Clock rare cards to reduce the cannon's timer further.
Goblin Cannon can also provide you with Mystery Barrels once in a while. Keep in mind that mystical barrels, unlike goblin barrels, don't stack. So the new barrel will not appear until you pick up the previous one. Mystical barrels might contain gold, elixirs, goblins, and dynamite.
The amount of gold provided by barrels depends on your overall regular income (from the Forge and automated shafts) and can be increased using delivery cards. The level of goblins in the mystical barrels is your Goblin Cannon level -1. You can increase the level of goblins in barrels using cards. The level of dynamite matches the highest level among your goblin workers.
Dynamite
Dynamite allows you to destroy rocks and clear shafts in one blast! The dynamite has power levels, but it doesn’t mean you can destroy the stone of the same level in one go.
Low-level stones can be easily destroyed, but you might need a few explosions for more sturdy stones of the higher levels. Dynamite takes 5 minutes off as if it were a Goblin at the same level.
You can hold the dynamite over the rock to see in the health radial how much damage it will do before you use it.
You can also merge the dynamite similar to goblins to make more powerful explosives! There’s a limit, though. You can only ever have a dynamite +3 levels above your highest goblin.
Also, you can only have 4 Dynamite out at a time.
Events
At level 8, you unlock the access to special "event mines." Events appear every couple of days and have a limited time to be cleared. Weekday events last for two days, while weekend events are active for five days!
Your goal in the events is not to reach the end but to gather all the hidden keys. The more keys you get, the more rewards you earn when the event is finished!
You don't have to gather all the keys to receive an event reward, though. You get rewards even if you've collected just one key!
Each event map is a challenging puzzle. Some tactics, time management, and wise use of dynamite are required to beat events successfully.
You can see the keys count at the top of the screen. To check the possible rewards, tap on the keys bar.
But that’s not all, you can get even more rewards! Compete with other players on the event Leaderboard!
Leaderboards
This is where the real battle begins! Gather crowns, climb the ranks, compete with other players and earn lots of rewards.
Unlike keys, crowns are hidden everywhere, not just in specific rocks with crowns you can see on the map. Regular boulders might also contain crowns; crowns are hidden in chests from shafts and checkpoints. The amount of crowns melted in rocks varies and is not affected by the boulder’s level.
To check your current rank, tap on the crowned ladder button at the upper-left corner of your event mine screen.
To enter the division and start competing, you should obtain at least one crown. You can keep climbing ranks even when you’ve collected all the keys! Similar to the keys, the leaderboard rewards will be distributed after the event ends.
The Spinning Wheel
Spin the wheel to get rare rewards! Tap the spinning wheel icon at the bottom of your screen to try your luck.
You get one free spin daily and five additional spins that could be unlocked by watching ads. You get one additional ad spin every 2 hours.
The rewards are time potions (please note, they will take effect immediately, so make sure your goblins have something to dig and your shafts are automated) and high-level goblins.
Additional rewards are gems in the main mines and blue elixirs in the event mines.
The Shop and Bonus Rewards
You can spend your gems on useful items in the shop. Buy chest to get rare cards for your research, time skip potions (please note they can’t be stored and will take effect immediately after bought), and elixirs.
Keep in mind that cards and elixirs bought in the event store would disappear after the end of the event and will not be transformed into regular mine resources.
If you would like to receive additional bonuses like spins or huge mystical barrel deliveries without watching the ads, you can buy the “Remove all ads” offer at the top of the store. It removes all the ads from the game (all the ad bonuses are still obtainable, you just don’t have to watch any ads anymore), gives you 500 gems, and a legendary chest!
Free bonuses
You get one free chest with cards and elixirs every 4 hours, and if you’re lucky - it might be an iron chest with rare cards. So don’t forget to check the store regularly! You can get more chests by watching an ad.
You can double the income from your shafts and forge for 3 hours by watching a small ad. To do that - tap on the “boost” button at the left of your main mine screen.
Credit to RHopper for helping put content together.
