How to get science in Graveyard Keeper 2

What to check, in order

1. 01

   Open the tower lab chest first; it holds the Science for your opening studies.

2. 02

   Use the Study Table’s decompose action to turn spare items into Science.

3. 03

   Craft Science Kits instead of decomposing paper one sheet at a time.

4. 04

   Hover an item before studying to see its Science cost, any Faith cost and the colour of points it pays.

5. 05

   Study ingredients you plan to use in the lab first, so each study does double duty.

6. 06

   If a study pays nothing, check you are on update 1.007 or later.

Two buttons, one table

The Study Table does two opposite jobs, and mixing them up is how most players end up confused about where their Science went. Decomposing destroys an item and gives you Science. Studying spends Science on an item and gives you technology points, plus permanent knowledge of that item’s alchemy runes.

There is only one Study Table, in the tower of the Inquisition Base, and it opens after the Plague Doctor’s first quest in the dungeon. You do not need a second one. Zombies cannot use it either, so every study is your keeper’s own work, which falls under the Book writing branch.

Science Kits are the whole trick

Five sheets of Clean Paper decomposed one by one give you 5 Science. The same five sheets inside a Science Kit give you 30. That sixfold jump is why every experienced player builds kits rather than feeding the table loose items.

A kit takes 1 Alchemy Flask, 5 Clean Paper and 1 Ink, and one crafting run makes three kits, which is 90 Science per run. The Alchemist in town also sells Science Kits, Clean Paper and Ink, which is a handy bridge while your own paper chain is still being built.

Field note: Cremating low-value bodies gives Ash, and Ash feeds the ink side of the chain. Bodies you would never bury well still pay for research this way.

What to study first

Each item can be studied once, and the colour of technology points it pays is fixed. Hover before you click. If blue points are your bottleneck, which they usually are early on, pick items that pay blue.

Organs are the standout early studies. They are cheap in Science, pay a lot of blue, and you get them from bodies you would be processing anyway. The bigger organs add a small Faith cost, so keep a few Faith in your backpack when you sit down to study them.

Science is not the same as blue points

Science only exists to feed the Study Table. Technology points, red, green and blue, are what you spend in the tech tree. A pile of blue points will not pay for a study, and a pile of Science will not buy a tech node.

They do connect, though. Studying is one of the best sources of technology points in the mid game, often better than grinding the matching work, because a single study can pay 20 or 30 points in one go.

Feeding the kits: paper, ink and flasks

Each kit has three inputs, and each one comes from a different corner of your base. Flasks come from the glass side: glass from sand at a furnace or a coal-fired Smithy, and the Alchemist and Apothecary sell flask bottles as well. Ink leans on Ash, which you get by cremating bodies, five Ash and a Salt per body. Paper is the Book writing chain at the Writing Desk, and the Alchemist sells Clean Paper and Paper Glop if you want to skip ahead.

Skin is worth keeping too. A skin turns into four Leather Scrolls at the Writing Desk, which feed the writing side of the game. If you are already taking skins off bodies for graves, you are halfway into this chain without trying.

Start by buying whichever input is slowest for you and making the other two. Most players find paper is the bottleneck, so a few sheets from the Alchemist each week keeps kits coming until your desk catches up.

The launch bugs: check your version

The Study Table had a rough first week. Update 1.005 fixed the table locking up after you put an item in, which stopped research from starting at all. Update 1.007, released on September 28, fixed the table not awarding Science and a set of research subjects that could not be studied.

If your table took items and gave nothing back before those patches, you were not doing it wrong. Update the game, then try one cheap item before you feed it anything valuable. Console versions sometimes receive patches later than Steam.

• Table frozen after inserting an item: fixed in 1.005.
• No Science after decomposing: fixed in 1.007.
• Some items refused to be studied: fixed in 1.007.

A sensible research loop

Once kits are flowing, settle into a loop. Spend a few minutes each in-game day decomposing a kit or two, study whatever new ingredient or organ you picked up, and spend the points in the tree before they pile up. Each colour caps at 999, and anything above that is wasted.

Studies also unlock alchemy. An ingredient you have not studied is invisible to the laboratory, so if you are planning a potion, study its ingredients early. Paying for knowledge and technology points with the same Science is about as efficient as research gets.

Common questions