Monkey Training and Automation

By Scot·Updated August 8, 2026

Tactical Quick Answer

You train monkeys through the Mimic System. Hold Q to open the monkey menu, put the cursor on a monkey, and press E to throw it a banana. A countdown appears above its head, and whatever you do before it expires becomes the monkey's job, whether that is chopping a tree, loading a bench, or watering a patch. The monkey repeats that action on everything in range. You can befriend 20 in total, which is enough to gather, craft, farm, and defend your base while you explore.

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 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

Most of your roster comes out of cages, not out of the jungle. Monkeys turn up in four places, in rough order of how many you get from each:

• Vaults. Every vault ends with at least one treasure and a cage holding a monkey. This is your main supply. A vault you have already cleared and reloaded contains neither, so crack fresh vaults instead of farming old ones.
• Labyrinths. Caged monkeys sit inside all four labyrinths alongside the boss loot.
• Orcling camps. A solid number of cages sit in Orcling camps, which is worth the fight on its own, because Red Orcling camps are also where you complete the four Totem Pole requests that unlock Alchemy Bench recipes.
• Wandering the islands. A small number roam free. Your starting island gives you exactly one wild monkey and no more, so do not comb the beach looking for a second. Islands 2 through 5 have roaming monkeys again.

Freeing a caged monkey costs nothing. Break the cage and it joins you on the spot.

Taming

A stray monkey names its own price. Walk up to one and it shows you the item it wants in exchange for friendship, and that item changes from monkey to monkey. Six items can be asked for, running from cheap to expensive:

Item	Where you make it
Foul Meal	Campfire. 3 Petals, 3 Long Grass, 1 Timber
Glass Bottle (Clean Water)	Campfire. 1 Glass Bottle (Dirty Water), 2 Charcoal
Glass Bowl	Forge. 4 Glass Sheet
Bucket	Forge. 1 Metal Frame, 2 Metal Sheet, 1 Metal Nails
Slow Cooked Stew	Campfire. 6 Bat Wing, 2 Steak, 2 Makeshift Bowl
Gold Statue	Forge. 1 Gold Nails, 2 Gold Sheet

Hand over the requested item and the monkey joins you. Later islands ask for the pricier items more often, so a stack of Foul Meals will not cover everything you meet. The item was called the Monkey Meal at launch and used a different recipe. Look for Foul Meal in your Campfire recipes.

tip

Stock a spread, not a stack. Carry two or three Foul Meals plus a Bucket and a Glass Bowl before you set out, since the item a monkey wants is fixed per monkey. If you are missing what one asks for, pin its location on your map and come back.

Monkey Limits

You can befriend a maximum of 20 monkeys, and it is a hard cap. Once you hit it the game quietly stops handing them out. Vault and labyrinth cages spawn empty and wild monkeys stop appearing on the islands. That looks like a broken world the first time you see it, so count your roster before you assume something went wrong.

Twenty is enough to run several sites at once. Most players settle around 8 to 12 at a main base and post the rest where they are needed, giving each one a single clear job.

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

1. Hold Q to open the monkey menu (LT on a controller, ZL on Switch).
2. Put the cursor over the monkey you want to train. Hold the key instead of tapping it to widen the selection field and catch several monkeys at once.
3. Press E. You throw a banana at the monkey and a banana countdown symbol appears above its head. You do not need a banana in your inventory for this.
4. Perform the action before the countdown expires. You get a couple of seconds, so stand where you need to be first. Chop a tree, drop an item into a chest, swing at a blueprint, water a patch.
5. Leave the menu. The monkey repeats that action on everything in range and keeps going until it runs out of targets or you order it to stop.

The monkey learns a pattern, not a script. Chop one tree and it works every tree in range of where the countdown ended. Put one item in a chest and it carries every loose item nearby into that chest.

What Monkeys Can Learn

Task	What it does	Requirements
Harvesting	Chop trees and bushes, mine rock	Any weapon works. An axe is fastest on trees, a pickaxe on rock
Gathering	Pick loose items off the ground into a chest	No tool needed
Supplying	Move items from the ground or a chest onto a bench or blueprint	No tool needed
Crafting and Building	Work a station, or raise a placed blueprint	Give the monkey a Multitool
Watering	Water Garden Patches and Orchards	It collects and refills a Watering Can itself
Planting	Sow seeds, crops, and trees	You cannot control which type it plants
Repairing	Fix damaged structures	Give the monkey a Multitool. Structures only, never weapons or tools

warning

Match the tool to the job. A crafting or building monkey needs a Multitool and does nothing without one. A harvesting monkey needs any weapon to swing, and it will chop with a sword or a club, though an axe is fastest on trees and a pickaxe on rock. Gathering loose items into a chest needs no tool at all.

Broken tools stop a monkey just as dead as no tool, and monkeys do not re-arm themselves. Check durability by opening the Journal, or by hovering the cursor over a monkey in the monkey menu. Watering cans are the one exception, since monkeys collect fresh ones from chests and the ground on their own.

Gathering and supplying are separate lessons. A gatherer moves loose items into a chest. A supplier moves items out of a chest and onto a bench. A crafter works the bench and does neither. Teach one monkey and it does one of those three things, so a hands-off production line needs three or four monkeys and not two.

Retasking a Monkey

There is no reset button, because a monkey only holds one job at a time. Teach it something new and the old job is gone.

1. Hold Q.
2. Put the cursor over the monkey and press E.
3. Perform the new action before the countdown expires.

To pull a monkey off a job without giving it a new one, order it to Follow by pressing SPACE with the cursor over it. It drops what it was doing and trails you. Dismiss cancels its orders and sends it away. Neither one saves the old task, so plan to re-teach when you want it working again. Press S in the monkey menu to call in monkeys that are away working.

Task Specialization

Monkeys level five separate skills by doing the matching work, and each one changes something concrete:

Skill	What it raises
Harvesting	Speed, damage, and efficiency cutting trees and bushes and mining rock
Gathering	Movement speed and carry capacity
Building	Speed and efficiency raising walls, doors, windows, and other structures
Crafting	Speed and efficiency at the Forge, Crafting Bench, and Repair Bench
Combat	Damage output, and it lowers the durability each swing costs

Harvesting and Gathering are not the same skill. One governs how fast a monkey strips a tree, the other governs how much it hauls and how fast it walks, so your lumberjack and your hauler build different stats.

Skill levels stay with the monkey. Retraining wipes the job it is doing, not the levels behind it, so a veteran chopper you move to crafting keeps its Harvesting level for whenever you send it back. Specialize anyway, because levels only rise on work actually done, and a monkey that changes jobs every session never gets deep in any of them.

Recommended Team Composition (8 Monkeys)

Role	Count	Equipment	Task
Harvesters	2-3	Axe or Pickaxe	Chop trees and mine stone. Anything they fell drops on the ground
Gatherers	1-2	None	Move loose items off the ground into storage chests
Suppliers	1	None	Move items out of chests and onto benches and blueprints
Crafters	2	Multitool	Work the Crafting Bench and Forge
Fighters	2-3	Spear, Sword, or Club	Follow you during exploration and fight during raids

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. It works that station and keeps producing, and monkeys craft and build considerably faster than you do. What a crafter does not do is stock its own bench or clear the finished goods away, so it needs a supplier feeding it and a gatherer behind it.

tip

A hands-off line runs on three or four monkeys, not two. Harvesters fell trees and the timber lands on the ground. A gatherer sweeps it into a chest. A supplier lifts it back out and loads the bench. Only then does the crafter work. Skip the supplier and your crafter stands at a bench with nothing on it.

Combat Monkeys

You do not train combat any more. Hand a monkey a weapon and it enters combat mode on its own, attacking any hostile that comes near you. That changed in Patch 1.1. In the launch build you taught combat by swinging at an enemy in Mimic Mode. Once the fighting stops, combat monkeys follow you around as bodyguards.

There is no defend order. To leave a fighter posted at your walls, teach it Stay and Emote, which is the game's only way to make a monkey hold a position.

Weapon Type	Strengths	Notes
Spear	Long reach, hits in a line	The best monkey weapon. Monkeys swing slower than you, so reach beats raw damage, even in crowds
Sword	Balanced damage, fast swing	Solid all-around pick. The charged swing slashes in a circle for area damage
Club	High damage per hit, slow	Metal and Spiked Metal Clubs hit hard, but the slow monkey swing rate blunts the advantage
Bow	Ranged	Hand over a bow and arrows. Good against hazard enemies like the Swamp Bog, whose toxic cloud you want to stay outside of

Automation Chains

The real power of the monkey system emerges when you chain multiple monkeys into a production pipeline.

Basic Automation Chain

1. A Harvester Monkey chops trees, and the timber drops on the ground.
2. A Gatherer Monkey moves the timber from the ground into a Raw Materials Chest.
3. A Supplier Monkey carries materials from that chest to the Crafting Bench and loads the blueprint.
4. A Crafter Monkey works the bench until the finished item appears.
5. A second Gatherer Monkey sweeps the finished item into a Finished Goods Chest.

Advanced Automation Chain

1. Several Harvester Monkeys feed one Gatherer Monkey, which stocks the Raw Materials Chest.
2. One Supplier Monkey loads the Crafting Bench for Crafter Monkey 1.
3. A second Supplier Monkey loads the Forge for Crafter Monkey 2.
4. A Gatherer Monkey sweeps both outputs into final storage.

For a longer haul, chain two carriers: teach monkey A to move an item from point 1 to point 2, then teach monkey B to move that same item from point 2 to point 3.

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:

1. Hold SPACE on a chest to pick it up. Any chest works, including treasure chests you find in the field.
2. Walk to a monkey and press SPACE to hand the chest over.
3. Hold Q, put the cursor on the monkey, and press SPACE to order Follow.

The monkey trails you with the chest and you can open it whenever you need it. Take the chest back the same way, then press F to set it down.

Vaults and labyrinths are where you most want a mule and also where it is least reliable, because some monkeys refuse to follow you into caves, vaults, and labyrinths. Confirm your mule came through the entrance with you before you start filling it, and bring a second one on a long labyrinth.

Monkeys also run from you when you sail, and deep water does not stop them. If one bolts, mark it as a favorite and use a Summoning Banana, which calls in your five favorite monkeys. You can buy one from the Mysterious Stranger, find one as a rare palm tree drop, or make one at the Food Processor from 2 Berries.

Monkey Care

Monkeys cannot die. When a monkey loses all its health it drops where it stands, dazed, with cartoon stars circling its head, and it recovers full health on its own after a short while. Nothing you do can permanently lose a monkey to combat, and no hostile in the game can kill one.

That does not make combat free. A knocked-out monkey is a stopped monkey, and a stopped monkey breaks whatever chain it belonged to.

• Arm combat monkeys with your best weapons, because monkeys level Combat and you do not. A higher combat level raises their damage and lowers the durability cost of every swing, so good gear pays for itself twice. Poorly armed monkeys spend raids on the floor instead of fighting.
• Wall off your crafting area anyway. An unarmed crafter flattened by a wandering predator halts your production line until it wakes up, and every monkey downstream of it idles too.
• Watch tool durability, not health. Monkeys do not re-arm themselves, and a monkey holding a broken axe stands still exactly like a knocked-out one. Check durability in the Journal, or hover the cursor over a monkey in the monkey menu.
• Take the chest off a mule before a fight. A knocked-out monkey drops any chest it is carrying on the ground where it fell.
• Assign repair monkeys. Give one or two monkeys multitools and teach them to repair. They fix damaged structures without your input, though never weapons or tools.

tip

Monkeys take no environmental damage from biomes. A monkey needs no protective drink to work the Volcanic biome that would be cooking you, so send them ahead into the hostile ones.

tip

At twenty monkeys you need a filing system. Hover a monkey and press C to color-code it, or hover its name and press Y to rename it. Doing this early is the difference between a workforce and a crowd.

Co-op Monkey Management

In multiplayer, monkeys belong to the player who befriended them, not to the world. Guests cannot command the host's monkeys and have to bring their own from their own save, which travel with the character the same way the Mysterious Chest does.

Best practice in co-op:

• Mark your favorites before you join a friend's game, since those are the ones a Summoning Banana calls in.
• Rename and color-code your own monkeys so you can pick them out of a shared base.
• Agree who is running the base chains and who is taking fighters out, because nobody can cover for anyone else's monkeys.

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

1. Build your Garden Patches and plant seeds, or teach a monkey to plant them. You cannot control which seed type a planting monkey uses, so keep one seed type in the chest it draws from.
2. Leave a Watering Can in a nearby chest or on the ground. You do not need to fill it or hand it over. Monkeys collect available cans on their own and refill them at the nearest water themselves.
3. Hold Q, press E on the monkey, and water one Garden Patch before the countdown expires.
4. The monkey waters every patch in range and walks to water when the can runs dry.

Harvesting crops is a separate lesson, and it needs a weapon or an axe in the monkey's hands.

warning

Watering has a known bug, and it is a refusal and not a pathing fault. Some monkeys simply will not take the lesson when you try to teach them watering. Teach a different monkey, or wait and try again later.

"No more rock" and lines like it are not bugs at all. A monkey works inside a radius centered on where its countdown ended, and that line means it has cleared every target inside it. Move the monkey next to fresh targets and re-teach.

Protecting High-Value Items

Supplier monkeys pull materials from any nearby chest. This is a problem if you store rare resources such as Refined Gems, legendary weapons, or doubloons in the same area as your production line.

Buy the Mysterious Chest from the Mysterious Stranger for 500 doubloons. You get exactly one per character and it cannot be crafted. It holds 36 stacks, the same as a Large Chest, and monkeys gathering or supplying resources will not take from it or put anything into it, so whatever you leave inside is safe from every chain you build.

Two things make it worth more than the doubloons. Its location is marked on your map, which no other chest does, so you can always find it again. And it travels with your character into any multiplayer game you join, contents included, which makes it the only way to carry items between worlds.

You only get one, so treat it as a safe and not a warehouse. Refined Gems, legendary weapons, and doubloons belong in it. Bulk timber does not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you train a monkey in The Survivalists?

Hold Q to open the monkey menu, put the cursor on the monkey, and press E. You throw it a banana and a countdown symbol appears above its head. Perform the action before that countdown expires and the monkey repeats it on everything in range until it runs out of targets.

How many monkeys can you have?

Twenty, and it is a hard cap. Once you reach it, vault and labyrinth cages spawn empty and wild monkeys stop appearing, which looks like a broken world if you do not know why. Most players run 8 to 12 at a main base and post the rest where they are needed.

Why is my monkey standing around doing nothing?

Check its tool and its targets. A crafting monkey with no Multitool cannot touch a station, and a broken tool stops a monkey just as dead, because monkeys never re-arm themselves. If it says something like No more rock, it has cleared every target in its work radius and needs moving. Watering is also known to fail at the teaching step, so try a different monkey.

Can monkeys die in The Survivalists?

No. A monkey that loses all its health drops where it stands, dazed with stars circling its head, and recovers on its own after a short while. Nothing in the game can kill one. Arm your fighters well anyway, since monkeys level Combat and a higher level means more damage and less durability spent per swing.

How do I stop monkeys from taking my rare materials?

Store valuables in the Mysterious Chest, which you buy from the Mysterious Stranger for 500 doubloons. Monkeys gathering or supplying will not touch it. You only get one per character, so treat it as a safe for Refined Gems, legendary weapons, and doubloons and not as bulk storage.

What to Read Next

• Crafting and Combat. Automating the crafting chains monkeys run.
• Farming and Alchemy. Monkey-run farm and orchard automation.
• Islands, Biomes and Labyrinths. Taking monkeys on expeditions.
• Achievement Guide. Monkey-linked achievement conditions.
• Tips and Tricks. The four-monkey chain, broken tools, and the chest they will not touch.

Did you know?

The emote a vault switch wants is painted right beside it

There is no guessing, and only six poses exist: Dab, Praise, Handstand, Sit, Wave, and Snake. Open the emote menu with V, match the wall, and stand on the plate. For a room with more plates than bodies, hold Q, press E over a monkey, then strike the pose yourself.

All The Survivalists tips and tricks