How to Get Science and Tech Points Fast

To get Science in Graveyard Keeper 2, break down Science Kits at the Study Table in the Alchemy Lab: Science Kit I gives 30 Science, Kit II gives 60, loose Clean Paper just 1. Then spend Science studying items, once each, for red, green and blue tech points.

The fast version: turn corpse Skin into paper, add one flask and one Ink for every five sheets, and never feed the table loose paper. One batch turns 5 sheets worth 5 Science into 90. With the right perk, a single Skin ends up as 1,080 Science. Everything below is the how, the numbers, and where to spend the result.

Science and tech points at a glance

Points from a finished craft drop on the floor as orbs, so walk over them before you leave the workbench.

Where is the Study Table in Graveyard Keeper 2?

There is exactly one Study Table and you cannot build a second. It stands in the Alchemy Lab, on the top floor of the Abandoned Tower beside the Keeper’s house at the Inquisition Base. The way in opens with Larry’s errand below your house, Dungeons and… that’s it, probably. You clear the blockage, open the bars into the tower and let the Plague Doctor, Albert, inside.

The lab’s chest is a small welcome present: 1 Science Kit I, 1 Clean Paper and 3 Alchemy Flasks I. That is 31 Science on the spot, plus the glass for your first three kit batches.

How to get Science: every option compared

The whole system hangs on one line of arithmetic. Five sheets of paper are worth 5 Science on their own and 90 Science inside a batch of three Science Kit I: eighteen times more, for the price of a flask and a splash of Ink. Loose paper should only ever reach the table by accident.

The Science Kit I loop, step by step

The techs you need

These eight nodes and their prerequisite chains come to 195 red, 40 green and 7 blue from scratch. That bill assumes you already own the opening basics (planks, stone, bricks and clay plates) that the desk, furnace, crematorium and cube are built from or fed with.

The four writing and glass nodes alone come to 105 red, 25 green and 5 blue. The rest pays for Skin, the desk’s Polished Bronze and the Ink chain, and once the Apothecary opens in Town you can buy Ash and Melted Fat instead of producing them.

Holy Moly! opens the Theology tab and brings Writing Basic with it; if the node still shows a price, it is only 5 red and 5 green. The Writing Desk itself costs 4 Wooden Plank, 6 Bronze Nails and 1 Polished Bronze.

The four production lines

1. Paper. Open bodies at the Autopsy Table I and keep the Skin. At the Writing Desk, 1 Skin becomes 4 Leather Scroll (6 with Paper maker), and each scroll becomes 6 Clean Paper (10 with Paper maker).
2. Ink. 1 Ash, 1 Water and 1 Melted Fat make 4 Ink. Ash comes out of the Crematorium I at 5 per body. Melted Fat comes from the Distillation Cube, where 1 Fat, 2 Clay Plate and 20 Fuel give 4. One Fat therefore covers 16 Ink, and one cremation’s Ash covers 20.
3. Glass. At Furnace I, 3 Sand and 10 Fuel make 3 Glass, and 2 Glass with another 10 Fuel make 2 Alchemy Flasks I. The Glassworker talent raises those batches to 4 Glass and 3 flasks. Count on roughly one Sand per flask.
4. Kits. At the Writing Desk, 1 flask, 5 Clean Paper and 1 Ink make 3 Science Kit I at Book writing mastery 2. Plan a batch of three kits.

Every step pays a few points on the way: Leather Scroll +1 red and +2 blue per craft, Clean Paper +2 red and +3 blue, Ink +2 red and +3 blue, Science Kit I +1 red and +1 blue. The loop feeds your blue pool before the table has eaten a single kit.

Later on, the Paper Press tech (145 red, 65 green and 65 blue from scratch, and behind Gunter’s reputation 20 gate through Newspaper) frees your paper from the morgue. At the Formulation Bench, 12 Flax and 1 Water make 3 Paper glop, and the Paper Press turns each glop into 20 Clean Paper (30 with Paper maker). That one Flax batch is 60 sheets, enough for 12 Kit I batches and 1,080 Science.

What one Skin is worth

Paper is the bottleneck, and Paper maker triples what each body is worth to the table. It sits in the Book writing talent tree right after the first mastery node, and it leads on to Scribe (+4 Book writing at the Writing Desk). If you buy one talent for Science, buy this one (see talents and inspirations).

Science Kit II: when it beats Kit I

Kit II asks for three things. Writing Tools I (80 green, 80 blue) sits behind Gunter’s reputation 20 gate after Books I, so you need Friendship Written in the Stars and Congregation Trouble done. Bellows (30 red, after Iron Forge) unlocks Alchemy Flasks II, made from 3 Alchemy Flasks I and 10 Fuel. Books I gives the Blank Softcover Notebook: 1 Leather Scroll and 4 Clean Paper make 2. On top of the Kit I setup, that is 85 red, 100 green and 90 blue from scratch.

The verdict: Kit II doubles the Science you squeeze out of each body before Paper maker and still adds a third after it, but every batch burns three times the glass. Per Ink the two kits are dead even at 90 Science. When Skin is scarce, switch to Kit II; when Sand and Fuel are scarce, stay on Kit I. Glassworker gives the Flasks II recipe a 50% chance of a bonus flask, which softens the glass bill.

Buying Science instead of making it

Once Town is rebuilt far enough, coins can replace the whole chain. The Alchemist sells Science Kit I from his first level and Science Kit II from his second, 20 of each on the shelf, plus Clean Paper, Leather Scroll, Paper glop and Ink. The Apothecary sells Alchemy Flasks I, Ash and Melted Fat from level 1 and Alchemy Flasks II from level 3.

• Science Kit I is the bargain: 50 bronze base for 30 Science, under 2 bronze per Science. Kit II costs 5 silver for 60, about 8 bronze per Science.
• Never buy Clean Paper for Science. At 20 bronze a sheet it is the dearest Science in Town. A Leather Scroll costs 10 bronze and cuts into 6 sheets.
• Shelves get pricier as they empty. The base price applies to a full shelf and climbs as you buy, so clearing all 20 kits in one go costs more than the sticker suggests.
• The catch: the Alchemist only opens once you research Market Stalls III (150 red and 50 green, 917 red, 87 green and 120 blue from scratch, with Jack’s reputation 50 gate on the way) and rebuild his shop. Buying is a mid-to-late game shortcut, not an opening.

Spending Science: the best studies per point

A study costs Science, energy and sometimes Faith. It pays its tech points once, and you keep the item. When Science is short, rank by points per Science:

Studying all 361 studiable items once pays 4,760 red, 6,100 green and 5,135 blue, and the listed studies add up to roughly 2,770 Science: about 93 Science Kit I, or 31 batches. That averages under 6 points per Science, which is why the items at the top of this table deserve your first kits. It also shows the limit of the table: it covers the tech tree’s green (5,129) and blue (4,132) with room to spare, but less than half its 11,157 red. Plan red with the best research order. Studying steel and Master gear is covered in the steel guide.

Three rules make the budget stretch further:

• Faith is the hidden second price. About forty basic items also cost 1 to 5 Faith: raw Stone, Clay and Sand, ores, foraged plants, organs, Flour, and Honey and Beeswax at 5 each. If your Faith is earmarked for a quest or an inspiration, study the Faith-free items first. Faith income lives in church, sermons and Faith.
• Every grade counts separately. Bronze, silver and gold versions are three studies: Newspaper pays 40, 50 and 75 blue, a Story 20, 30 and 40 blue, Grapes and Wine climb the same way.
• Study first, use later. You keep the item, so study the quest delivery, the gift and the rare catch before you hand it over, sell it or eat it.

Rare fish: study, cook, study, eat

Four rare catches pay twice at the table, and three of them pay a third time on the plate: Kraken Jr at the Port Area, Mythic Carp at the Village, Celestial Salmon in the Forest and Elder Catfish in the Swamp, each on Live Bait. Study the fish (10 Science), cook it at the Kitchen Oven (the fishing guide covers the spots and the Live Bait), study the dish (20 Science), then eat the dish for a lump of points.

One Kraken Jr handled this way is worth 50 red, 40 green and 110 blue for 30 Science. The eating bonuses are the shakiest numbers on this page. The Elder Catfish studies the same way (30 red, 40 green and 30 blue, then 40 green and 30 blue for Elder’s meal, cooked with a Chicken Egg), but what the meal pays when eaten is not confirmed: count it as a pleasant surprise, not a plan.

Blue points: the fastest ways

Everyday gathering pays no blue: stones, trees, bushes, garden beds and graves give red and green. Blue has to come from bodies, books and the table, cheapest first:

1. Autopsies. Opening bodies is your first steady blue. Once a corpse is buried, the blue it held is gone, so the slab comes before the shovel.
2. The writing loop. Leather Scroll, Clean Paper, Ink and both Science Kits pay blue on every craft, and the Paper Press pays 4 red and 4 blue per batch of 20 sheets.
3. Cheap blue studies. Blueberry 20 blue for 1 Science, Blood 10 blue for 1 (possibly with 5 red), Flesh 10 blue for 1, Brain 30 blue for 3, Heart and Guts 20 blue for 3, Tooth 20 for 3, Ink 30 for 5, Dream Dust 50 for 5, the Steel Zombie Collar 70 blue and 30 green for 20. The organs and the Blueberry also cost 1 to 3 Faith each; Blood, Ink, Dream Dust and the collar cost none.
4. Blue Techbooks. Blue Techbook +25, Blue Techbook II +100, printed yourself or ordered from Davy the Dagger (see below).
5. Kraken steak. +50 blue when eaten. Study the fish and the steak before the first bite, since eating uses the steak up.

Red and green: the quick version

Red never balances, because the table pays less than half of what the tree costs: keep a few bulk crafts in your own hands and print Red Techbooks once you can.

When the table runs dry: Techbooks

Science only buys studies, and each item pays once, so the table eventually goes quiet. From then on your paper belongs in Techbooks, printed in whichever colour you lack.

• Self-Help Books (115 red, 85 green, 85 blue from scratch, after Newspaper behind the same Gunter gate) unlocks Red, Green and Blue Techbooks at the Printing Press: 1 Blank Softcover Notebook, 1 Ink and 1 Story make one book worth +25, at Book writing mastery 6. A Story is 3 Faith, 2 Clean Paper and 1 Ink at the Writing Desk.
• Self-Help Books II (265 red, 185 green, 215 blue from scratch) unlocks Techbook II at mastery 10: a Blank Hardcover Notebook (2 Softcover Notebooks and 1 Golden ingot at the Printing Press), 1 Ink and 1 Story for +100. Builds older than patch 1.007, which rebalanced the Techbooks, paid 50 for a Techbook II, so a console still waiting for 1.007 may pay less.
• Davy the Dagger’s looter orders are paid in Keys for Looters, won in the sewer battles such as Sewer Brawl I and the Sewerena, and sold by the Jeweler from his second level. A small order (1 key) brings 1 to 3 Techbooks, a medium one (2 keys) 3 to 6, and a big one (4 keys) 4 to 8 Techbook II. Single-colour orders appear once Closing the Eastern Floodgate: Part I is won; before that, his Techbook order comes in a random colour.

Study Table tips that save energy

• Energy: a study drains 6 to 32 energy. The Researcher talent (Anatomy tree, right after the first mastery node) cuts the ticks per study (6 become 4, 8 become 5) and takes 1 energy off each tick, bringing the range down to 2 to 14. Scientist, further along the same tree, gives each study a 30% chance of a bonus Story or extra points. Take Researcher before a big study session, not after.
• Writing speed: Book writing mastery above a recipe’s requirement speeds it up, and twice the requirement halves the ticks and the energy. Kit I only asks for 2, so Scribe, a Primer, a Dictionary or a talisman in the tool belt turns kit making into a quick chore.
• Runes: studying reveals an item’s alchemy runes, and an ingredient cannot go into the Laboratory I until it has been studied (19 Alchemic Powders come pre-studied); every rune value is in the alchemy guide. Study every new ingredient the day it lands in your pockets.
• Science storage: Science stacks to 999. Kits stack to 50 and wait patiently in a chest, so break them down as you need them.
• Zombie clerks: a zombie can work the Writing Desk, but a zombie keeps the points of the station it works in its own pool. When you are short on blue, write a few batches yourself.
• Patches: 1.005 fixed the table locking up after inserting an item for Science, 1.007 fixed missing Science rewards and items that could not be studied, and 1.008 fixed the table’s window layout. If studies misbehave, update before anything else, then check the known issues. PS4 and Switch were still waiting for 1.007 in early October, so those fixes may not be there yet.

Common mistakes

1. Feeding the table loose Clean Paper. Five sheets give 5 Science alone and 90 inside three Science Kit I.
2. Buying paper by the sheet. Clean Paper costs 20 bronze per Science; a Science Kit I from the Alchemist costs under 2, and a Leather Scroll gives 6 sheets for 10 bronze.
3. Burying the Skin. The Skin is your paper and the Fat is your Ink. Take both at the Autopsy Table first.
4. Skipping Paper maker. It triples the Science every body is worth.
5. Running Kit II when glass is the bottleneck. Kit II triples the flasks per batch. Switch only when paper runs short.
6. Spending a thin supply on the Necronomicon first. At 6 points per Science, it can wait until the cheap high-ratio studies are done.
7. Forgetting the Faith price. Nearly forty studies also cost Faith; check before you spend Faith a quest needs.
8. Handing items in before studying them. You keep what you study, so study first and deliver after.
9. Letting a zombie run every Writing Desk batch while your blue pool is empty. Those points stay with the zombie.