Good Heavens Tech Tree Guide: Six Branches and Progression Path

The tech tree in Good Heavens! (developed by Nowhere Studios) features 269 nodes across six branches. Progression does not restrict your character to a rigid class structure. Instead, you unlock workstations, equipment recipes, and stat passives by spending two distinct progression currencies: Blue Essence acquired through gathering and building, and Red Essence collected from slaying hostile creatures.

How the Tech Tree Works: Essences and Unlocks

You access the progression menu in Good Heavens! by pressing T on your keyboard (or navigating to the Notes and Tech menu). Nodes unlock crafting recipes, open access to 25 different crafting stations, or grant passive enhancements such as stamina efficiency and equipment luck.

Blue Essence vs. Red Essence

Progression currency is divided strictly by activity type:

• Blue Essence: Sourced entirely from peaceful harvesting and crafting activities. Chopping trees, mining rock outcroppings with a pickaxe, gathering wild plants, and constructing base components automatically award Blue Essence.
• Red Essence: Sourced strictly through combat. Beasts, wild fauna, wandering trolls, and dungeon bosses drop Red Essence upon defeat.

Beyond direct node spending, certain recipes cannot be acquired through standard tech tree levels. Monsters and quest givers occasionally drop consumable single-use blueprints labeled as Learn Tech items, granting access to specific gear once read.

World Progression Branches (Blue Essence)

General crafting and settlement upkeep require investing in all three world branches simultaneously. Neglecting any of the three halts your workstation progression.

Homesteading

Homesteading manages food, base structures, and raw material conversion:

• Carpentry: Unlocks the Sawmill to turn logs into wood planks, followed by the Carpenter's Table. Storage chests—which are critical for inventory management—are unlocked through this carpentry sub-node.
• Farming and Irrigation: Unlocks the Stone Hoe, soil tilling plots, and the Wooden Watering Can. Crops such as tomatoes, lettuce, and potatoes require manual or planned watering to grow while you explore.
• Cooking: Unlocks food preparation stations, starting with the Prep Table for raw vegetable salads (like Garden Salad) and progressing to the Cooking Pot over a campfire for stat-boosting soups.

Exploration

Exploration handles resource extraction, metal refining, and island traversal:

• Smelting: Unlocks the Furnace, which processes raw stone into refined building blocks such as Woodstone and melts down surface-level ores like copper.
• Wayfaring and Travel: Grants access to traversal utilities, such as the single-use Wayhome Scroll to recall to base, and higher-tier stationary Waypoints that link your home camp to level 3 upgraded cities.
• Foraging & Tools: Expands basic harvesting capabilities and tool durability.

Influence

Influence governs soft goods, character enhancements, and magical refinement:

• Weaving: Unlocks the Loom. This station turns collected grass and fibers into Grass Fabric and rope, enabling early protective gear such as Grass Pants and the Flower Bandana.
• Gem Crafting: Unlocks the capacity to process raw mined gems and socket enchantments onto existing weapons.
• Gear and Stat Passives: Enhances accessory crafting (such as the Ring of Health) and increases base utility stats, including Luck and Magic Find.

Combat Specialization Branches (Red Essence)

Combat branches govern weapon handling, signature defensive abilities, and specialized gear. Unlike the shared world trees, you can choose to specialize deeply into a single combat discipline or spread points across multiple trees depending on your encounter needs.

Warfare

Warfare focuses on direct physical confrontation, melee weapon impact, and survivability:

• Weapons: Starts with the basic Wood Club and advances into heavy weapons such as hammers. Two-handed hammers feature leap abilities capable of knocking down and stunning targets.
• Armor: Grants access to the Armor Bench and heavy protective sets like the Wooden Breastplate.
• Signature Skill: The chest armor slot in this path grants Fortify Armor, boosting overall damage mitigation when surrounded.

Trickery

Trickery provides ranged damage, traps, and hit-and-run tactics:

• Weapons: Begins with ranged slingshots utilizing crafted pebbles as ammunition, advancing into short bows (crafted from branches, rope, bone fragments, and fox tails) and daggers.
• Utility and Mobility: Provides movement accessories such as Chick Boots and combat utility including deployable traps and automated turrets.
• Signature Skill: Trickery's Leather Brigandine chest armor grants a backward dash ability, enabling quick kiting away from melee pursuers.

Sorcery

Sorcery focuses on elemental range, status afflictions, and high-cooldown area damage:

• Weapons: Centers around elemental staves, such as the Icebolt Staff, and elemental spellbooks. Attacks inflict elemental status effects—chill, burn, or shock—which can be followed by empowered attacks for bonus damage.
• Armor: Unlocks light Mage Cloth sets.
• Signature Skill: Mage Cloth features the Mana Shield chest ability, which absorbs incoming damage using energy instead of raw health.

Recommended Early-Game Unlock Order

During the initial island phase, allocate your first batches of essence to secure basic inventory space, mobility, and base sustainability before fighting tough elite camps:

1. Stone Axe (Tutorial Workbench): Use two branches and two stones at your primary totem base to unlock basic tree felling.
2. Weaving (Influence): Spend your first Blue Essence on Weaving. Build a Loom to craft Grass Fabric and Grass Pants so you are not adventuring unarmored.
3. Weapon Path of Choice (Warfare or Trickery): Spend your starting 10 Red Essence on either Melee Weapons (Wood Club) or Ranged Weapons (Slingshot/Bow) at a Weapons Bench. Slingshots offer safe range against hostile wildlife, while melee clubs clear smaller bugs immediately.
4. Carpentry (Homesteading): Unlock Carpentry to construct the Sawmill and the Carpenter's Table. Build a storage chest immediately to offload heavy stacks of stone, wood, and seeds.
5. Irrigation (Homesteading): Unlock the Stone Hoe and Wooden Watering Can to cultivate tomato and potato crops for stamina-boosting food dishes.
6. Smelting (Exploration): Unlock the Furnace using four planks and twenty stone to begin refining Woodstone for advanced tool upgrades.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I unlock chests and storage containers?

Storage chests are located inside the Homesteading branch of the tech tree. You must first unlock the Carpentry node to build the Sawmill and the Carpenter's Table, where the small storage chest recipe is located.

Why are Tier 2 combat and sorcery nodes greyed out?

In demo and preview builds of the game, Tier 2, 3, and 4 tech nodes are locked by progression gates tied to Act 2 biomes, such as the Wicked Forest and Crystal Lands. If your node has sufficient essence but remains unusable, progression is locked until you reach the corresponding island tier or later game version.

Does food affect tech tree progression?

Food does not award tech essence directly, but consuming cooked dishes (unlocked via Homesteading) grants vital stamina regeneration and health buffs. Because Good Heavens! uses food for combat and gathering efficiency rather than a lethal starvation meter, unlocking better cooking recipes directly accelerates how fast you gather Blue and Red Essence.