Every technology in Graveyard Keeper 2 is bought with colored spheres, and the game calls them points as often as it calls them spheres. There are three, they start at zero, and each one caps at 999. Everything you earn past that is thrown away without a message, so a color parked at 999 while another starves is a color you are losing.
The number worth knowing before anything else is what the tree costs. Across its 236 nodes, 199 of them charge you something, and the bill comes to 
11,157, 
5,129 and 
4,132.
The game does not contain enough red
Study every studiable item once, craft every recipe that pays and finish every building, and the whole game yields 6,327. The tree wants 11,157, so you finish nearly five thousand short of unlocking everything.
Studies and crafting together give 6,719 against a tree cost of 5,129, and 5,900 against 4,132. Only red runs out, and it runs out badly. Anything you read about farming points is about farming red.
That shortfall is deliberate, and it is the reason one particular building exists. Most players reach the mid game without ever working out which one.
Where the red goes
Anatomy and alchemy takes 2,072 on top, and it is the only branch with a serious appetite for all three colors at once, adding 1,172 and 1,642. Theology is the balanced one at 930, 795 and 1,120.
Farming barely touches red at all, charging 5 across the whole branch against 2,575. If you are short on red and want progress, farming is where your green goes to be useful.
All twenty nodes in the Cooking branch cost nothing in any color. Whatever gates them, it is not spheres, so there is never a reason to delay one for the sake of saving points.
Studying is where the points come from
Crafting pays, quietly and constantly: 364 recipes award red, 245 award blue and 187 award green, just for being made. It adds up to 1,140, 705 and 382 across everything you could ever build.
The world itself chips in a little. Raising a building pays once as its scaffolding comes down, between 1 and 10 depending on what it was, and the barrels, pots and loose stones you break pay one or two apiece. All of it together is 272, which is not worth a detour.
Studying pays about seven times better overall, and the gap is widest where you need it least: four times on red, sixteen on green. The 374 one-off studies that will ever pay out at the 
Study Table are worth 4,915, 6,280 and 5,195, which is where the overwhelming majority of your points will come from whether you notice or not.
Nineteen alchemy powders begin a new save already studied, which is where the gap between the 393 entries and the 374 payouts goes. Their runes are readable from the first day instead, so the trade is free information rather than free points.
Two branches account for almost three quarters of it. Building alone charges 4,470 and Metallurgy another 3,680, which together are more red than the game gives you from every study and craft combined.
Each item pays only the first time, so the way to earn points is to carry one of everything new you make to the table rather than to repeat anything. The 
Necronomicon is the single best study in the game at 300, four times the next best thing.
Studying costs 
Science, a separate resource earned by decomposing rather than studying. 
Clean Paper returns 1, 
Science Kit I returns 30 and 
Science Kit II returns 60, and those three are the only sources in the game.
Only 148 studies pay red, and nearly all of them are metal
Studying pays all three colors but not evenly. Of the 374 studies, 148 award any red at all, and the pattern behind them is plain enough to act on: red comes from metal tools, weapons and armor.
Every tool ladder pays the same four rungs. Rusty is 10, bronze 30, iron 60 and steel 100, and axes, pickaxes, hammers and shovels each run the full set. Sixteen items, most of which you make anyway, come to 800 between them.
Two of those sixteen are out of reach. A 
Steel Axe and a 
Steel Pickaxe both need a 
Steel Ingot, nothing in the game makes one, and no shop stocks either tool, so 200 of that 800 cannot be claimed. The 
Iron Ingot rungs are where the tool ladder ends.
Swords and armor add a fifth rung. Both climb rusty to steel the same way as the tools and then take a Master grade, and a 
Master Sword or an 
Master Armor pays 150 on its own. The two ladders together are worth 680.
Bows and pikes climb an identical ladder and pay every point of it in green. Small tools do the same. Books, talismans, surgical kits and alchemy kits pay blue.
So the tier list for a red shortage is short: a 
Steel Hammer is worth a hundred and a Heavy Bow is worth nothing.
The rest is scattered across the metallurgy chain. 
Engineering Details pay 70, Steel Screws 60, and the second grade of every kit from Building Kit II to the 
Engineering Kit pays 50.
Techbooks are the only repeatable source
Everything above is finite. You can study each item once and craft each recipe for diminishing attention, and then the tree still wants another 4,830. The 
Printing Press is the answer, and it is the only one.
A 
Red Techbook is worth 25 on use, and its hardcover version 50. The same recipe exists in green and blue, so the press turns writing into whichever color you are short of, which in practice means red.
One Techbook takes a 
Blank Softcover Notebook, one 
Ink and one 
Story II. The notebook is a 
Leather Scroll and four Clean Paper at the 
Writing Desk in six seconds; the Story II is two Stories improved together over twelve.
The expensive half of that bill is the Story II, and one talent hands them out for nothing. Scientist sits four points into the Anatomy track and gives every study a thirty percent chance of dropping a Story alongside its points.
Thirty percent across 374 studies is roughly 112 Stories, and two of them make the Story II a Red Techbook needs. That is 56 books, or 1,400, for one point and no extra crafting.
Researcher sits on the same path two nodes earlier, so the four points that reach Scientist also cut what every study costs in energy.
The hardcover route doubles the return for a 
Golden ingot and two softcover notebooks, which is worth it once gold is flowing and not before. Both are made at the press rather than the desk.
Building the press
The Printing Press costs three 
Oiled Beam, two 
Bronze Gear and six 
Iron Detail. That last ingredient is the gate: iron details need an Iron Anvil, so the press sits behind the whole metallurgy chain rather than behind the writing one.
This is the part worth planning around. The building that fixes your red shortage is itself bought with the branch that consumes the most red, so putting Metallurgy off until you are already short is the trap.
A zombie at the bench keeps what it earns
Tech points go to whoever did the work, and a zombie counts as somebody. Put a crafter on an anvil and every point that recipe would have paid you lands in that zombie instead, where you cannot spend it.
It is not lost so much as spent on your behalf. The 85 zombie level ups are priced in spheres rather than talent points and each zombie pays for its own out of what it has earned, which across the five tracks comes to 12,050, 4,650 and 1,910.
That is more red than your own tree asks for, and it is why a blacksmith zombie has to spend so long at the anvil before its talents open. You pay for that in income you never see.
While you are short, keep the recipes that pay red on your own hands and give the zombies the ones whose points you do not need. A gardener earns green you have a surplus of anyway.
The points a zombie holds cannot be moved, converted or reclaimed. Pulling its organs disables its talents but refunds nothing.
What to do about it
Early on, take everything to the Study Table once. It is free points, it is the largest source in the game, and the habit costs nothing beyond the walk.
Then get the writing chain running before you need it. A Writing Desk producing Stories and a press turning them into Techbooks is the only thing standing between you and the back half of the Building and Metallurgy trees.
Take Scientist before you build the press rather than after. It costs a single talent point, it pays in Stories, and the Story is the one part of a Techbook you cannot buy from anybody.
And spend green freely. Farming asks for almost no red, Cooking asks for nothing at all, and green is the one color you finish the game with a surplus of. Hoarding it helps nobody.
Graveyard Keeper 2 technology points FAQ
How do you get more red points in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Study every metal tool, weapon and piece of armor you make, at every grade, then run a Printing Press turning Stories into Red Techbooks. Studying is finite and Techbooks are the only repeatable source.
Why do I keep running out of red and not green?
The tree costs 11,157 red against 5,129 green, and studying pays 4,915 red against 6,280 green. Building and Metallurgy take 8,150 red between them while the whole Farming branch charges 5.
What is a Red Techbook worth?
25 red when used, and the hardcover Red Techbook II is worth 50. One takes a Blank Softcover Notebook, an Ink and a Story II, which is two Stories improved together.
Do my zombies steal my technology points?
They keep the points for any craft they perform, and they spend them on their own talents. Nothing moves the points back to you, so your income falls as you staff more benches.
Is red the same as red mastery?
No. The red sphere is a technology point spent in the tree. Red mastery is the Smithing skill that a hammer or small tools raise, and the two never touch.
What happens at 999 points?
Everything past it is deleted silently. There is no warning and no overflow, so spend a color down before a long studying session rather than after it.
