Graveyard Keeper 2 Formulation Bench — Location, Recipes and Fertilizer

What is the Formulation Bench used for?

The Formulation Bench is the assembly half of the alchemy chain. The Laboratory brews liquids; the bench turns those liquids into something a plot, a corpse or a ritual can use. It is an Anatomy workbench with 36 recipes, and it exists in two places: the Alchemy Lab and the Writing Basement.

That split matters for travel, not for output. Both copies share the same recipe list, so you can brew in the lab, walk upstairs, and assemble without crossing the map. The bench does not replace the Laboratory and the Laboratory does not replace the bench; a fertilizer that stops at the elixir stage is not a fertilizer yet.

The station sits on the Anatomy mastery branch. That is one of the five crafting branches, and the station list records 15 Anatomy stations in total, including the Autopsy Tables, Crematorium and PR Machine line. Anatomy levels come from autopsy work, not from alchemy points, so the bench is a cross-branch station by design: the inputs are alchemy, the station level is anatomy.

Where are the two Formulation Benches?

The first sits in the Alchemy Lab, next to the Laboratory I and the alchemy storage. The second sits in the Writing Basement, which makes it the convenient copy for anything that also needs paper, ink or a writing desk. If you are already running a fertilizer route through the Garden, use the lab copy; if you are processing corpse parts and documents, the basement copy saves a walk.

Neither copy is a separate progression gate. Building or unlocking one does not lock the other, and the recipe list is identical. The crafting stations list records both as the same station record, alongside the other 14 Anatomy stations.

Property	Value
Mastery branch	Anatomy (one of 15 Anatomy station records)
Recipes	36
Locations	Alchemy Lab, Writing Basement
Main outputs	Fertilizers, Organ Improver, Hypno-device, Philosopher Stone

Which fertilizers does it assemble?

Four Laboratory products feed the fertilizer line, and each one maps to a specific booster tier. The rune mixes below are the exact Laboratory recipes; the bench step is the assembly with Peat.

Elixir	Laboratory rune mix	Formulation Bench output
Weak growth elixir	1 red + 2 green	Headstart Fertilizer I, Farming Fertilizer I
Rich growth elixir	1 red + 3 green	Headstart Fertilizer II, Farming Fertilizer II, Miracle growth elixir
Miracle growth elixir	1 red + 5 green	Farming Fertilizer III
Dream Dust	1 green + 1 blue	Crop Boosting Fertilizer I, Fancy Incense

Each assembly outputs two fertilizer items per craft, and the Peat cost doubles with every tier. Peat itself is not made here; it comes from the Compost Pile, an auto-crafting Garden station unlocked by Fertilizers I at 10 green points. The bench only combines Peat with the brewed elixir.

Application is one item per plot, through the plot’s fertilizer slot, before growth begins. Plant first and the slot is closed for that cycle. That makes the bench a planning station as much as a crafting station: decide which beds get the expensive tier before you sow, not after.

The fertilizer guide covers the Peat chain from the Compost Pile, and the growth elixir overview has the full tier mapping.

What else is made at the Formulation Bench?

Fertilizer is the volume product, but it is not the only reason to build the station. Four other outputs matter:

• Organ Improver upgrades corpse parts toward gold quality. The formula brews in Laboratory I from 4 red + 1 green for the red-skull version or 4 green for the white-skull version, then runs at the bench. This is the item behind high-quality organ farming.
• Philosopher Stone is the only Formulation Bench route to a Golden nugget. The stone itself is a Laboratory II craft of 3 red + 3 green + 3 blue; the bench is where it becomes the nugget. No other station in the extract offers that conversion.
• Hypno-device pairs one Hypno-device with one Faith at the bench. The PR Machine line then turns charged devices and newspapers into temporary zombie-limit increases, which is the difference between a full Factory and a queue of idle workers.
• Simple Candle is a 1 red + 1 blue bench recipe used by the zombie mastery chain. Fancy Incense combines Melted Fat, Fragrance and Dream Dust.

That spread is why the bench is easy to underestimate. A player who builds it for fertilizer and never opens the second tab leaves the Organ Improver and the Philosopher Stone route on the table.

How should the bench fit into a production route?

Treat the bench as the last step of three separate chains, not as a standalone workshop. The fertilizer chain starts at the Compost Pile, moves through Laboratory I, and ends here. The corpse chain starts at the Autopsy Table, moves through the embalming stations, and ends here with Organ Improver. The zombie-limit chain starts with Faith and Hypno-devices and ends at the PR Machine.

Put the bench beside the storage that feeds it. In the lab, that means the elixir shelf and the Peat crate within a few steps. In the basement, it means the paper and corpse-part storage. A bench on the far side of the room adds a walk to every one of the 36 recipes, and the fertilizer tier is a repeat craft, so the walk compounds.

Do not build a third copy. The two existing benches already cover both wings, and the station record does not gain recipes from a duplicate. Spend the Building kits on storage or a second Laboratory instead.

Source: gamebalance_full.json — craftDefs[].needItems and station records, build 25509347; recipe counts and mastery values cross-checked against the in-game station panel. Fertilizer tier inputs follow the shipped recipe data summarised in the fertilizer and growth-elixir guides.