Best Ancient Technology and How to Unlock: All 51

Ancient Technology is the locked half of the Palworld technology tree — 51 unlocks that only Ancient Technology Points can buy, and you will never have enough of them at the moment you want them. This guide ranks what to spend those points on first, lists all 51 Ancient technologies with their unlock level and point cost, and shows where the points actually come from.

Ancient Technology at a Glance

Ancient technologies sit in the same Technology menu as everything else, but they draw from a completely separate currency and nothing converts between the two pools. There are 51 of them against 537 ordinary technologies, they run from level 10 all the way to level 80, and buying every one costs 185 Ancient Technology Points. The cheap end is cheaper than people expect — 20 of the 51 cost only one or two points — while the top end is brutal, with the Wing Pack alone charging nine.

Detail	Ancient Technology
Total unlocks	51 (the other 537 technologies use ordinary Technology Points)
Currency	Ancient Technology Points — earned separately, never converted
Unlock levels	Level 10 (Egg Incubator) to level 80 (Wing Pack)
Cost range	1 to 9 points per unlock
Cost to buy everything	185 points (182 after the 1.0.3 discount below)
Cheapest unlocks	6 technologies cost a single point, including the discounted Aquatic Construction Kit
Most expensive	Wing Pack at 9, Ancient Hatchery at 8, Soralite Quarry at 7
Where points come from	Tower bosses and the Ancient Technical Manual

The spread is what makes planning worth it. Five point-cost tiers hold almost the whole tree: six unlocks at 1 point, fourteen at 2, six at 3, six at 4 and fourteen at 5. Anything above that is a single late-game splurge. Because a 1-point unlock and a 9-point unlock sit in the same menu with the same currency, the early cheap ones are effectively free value — you can own the eight best things on this page for under 20 points.

Best Ancient Technology to Unlock First

The ranking below is ordered by how much a point buys you and how early it starts paying. The pattern is consistent: the things that change what your base or your character can do permanently beat the things that make one number bigger. Every entry in the top six costs one or two points, which means the entire list fits inside the first handful of towers you clear. Weapons deliberately rank low here — a Scatter Sphere Launcher is fun, but five points is the same price as a quarry that feeds your base forever.

Rank	Ancient technology	Level	Points	Why it earns the spot
1	Egg Incubator	10	1	Breeding does not exist without it — every egg you find or hatch goes through this one structure, and it is the cheapest unlock in the pool
2	Grappling Gun	12	1	One point for permanent vertical mobility, and it still works when you are over the weight limit and cannot sprint
3	Pal Essence Condenser	14	2	The only way to rank up a Pal past its natural ceiling — permanent stat gains that stack with everything else
4	Hip Lantern	15	2	Automatic night lighting from a hip slot, so it costs you nothing in your hand or your inventory
5	Breeding Farm	19	2	Pairs with the incubator to turn breeding into a background base task instead of an expedition
6	Ore Mining Site	24	2	Passive ore at your base instead of running laps around the 1,632 ore nodes on the map
7	Homeward Thundercloud	22	2	Craftable free travel back to base, which quietly doubles your carrying trips per hour
8	Dimensional Pal Storage	20	2	Bulk Pal storage shared across the guild — the fix for a Palbox that fills up the moment you start breeding
9	Extra Weapon Holster	27	5	A permanent extra weapon slot; expensive, but it is a character upgrade you keep for the rest of the save
10	Coal Quarry	37	5	Coal is the bottleneck behind every ingot tier, and this removes the 824 scattered coal nodes from your routine

Egg Incubator

This is the first Ancient technology you can reach and the one with the highest ratio of impact to price. It unlocks at level 10 for a single point, and until you own it every Pal Egg you pick up is dead weight in your inventory. It also does not need power, so you can plant a row of them next to your bed and hatch overnight. The materials are all early-game except for the two Ancient Civilization Parts, which is exactly why the game puts it behind an Ancient point instead of a normal one.

Material	Qty
Stone	30
Paldium Fragment	10
Cloth	5
Ancient Civilization Parts	2

Later incubators are upgrades, not replacements: the Electric Egg Incubator at level 36 removes the temperature problem for 5 points, the Large Incubator at 48 hatches several eggs at once for another 5, and the Ancient Hatchery at 76 automates the whole chain for 8. That is 19 points across those four alone, or 24 if you also take the level-58 Large-Scale Electric Egg Incubator, so buy each tier only when your egg backlog actually justifies it.

Grappling Gun

One Ancient point at level 12 buys the single biggest change to how you move on foot. The base Grappling Gun pulls you up cliffs and across gaps, and critically it still fires when you are encumbered, which turns a failed mining run into a slow walk instead of a total loss. There are five tiers in the ladder and each one is a straight range upgrade over the last, so you never need to own two.

Grappling gun	Level	Points
Grappling Gun	12	1
Mega Grappling Gun	17	2
Giga Grappling Gun	31	3
Hyper Grappling Gun	49	4
Ultra Grappling Gun	63	5

Buying the whole ladder costs 15 points, which is a lot for one gadget. The sensible plan is the level-12 version immediately, then skip straight to the Giga Grappling Gun at level 31 and stop there unless you are doing a lot of vertical exploration — by the time the Hyper and Ultra tiers unlock, mounts and the Air Dash Boots cover most of the same ground.

Pal Essence Condenser

Two points at level 14 for a structure that raises a Pal's rank by feeding it duplicates of itself. It is the only mechanic in the game that pushes a Pal past its natural stat ceiling, and the gains are permanent, so a condensed Pal stays better for the entire save. It is also the reason people farm the same alpha over and over — see how to rank up Pals for the duplicate counts each rank demands.

Material	Qty
Paldium Fragment	20
Ingot	20
Ancient Civilization Parts	5

Unlock it early even if you do not intend to use it for a while. The condenser costs nothing to keep standing, and its real cost is the pile of duplicate Pals you need — which you will accumulate passively from catching and breeding, but only if the structure exists to receive them.

Hip Lantern

Cheap quality-of-life that people skip and then regret. The Hip Lantern attaches to a dedicated slot and lights up on its own at night, or stays on permanently if you flip its mode, so it never competes with your weapon or eats an inventory slot. Two points at level 15, and it makes the entire night half of the game — which is when several of the best Pals actually spawn — playable without a torch in hand.

Material	Qty
Ingot	20
Wood	10
Flame Organ	10
Ancient Civilization Parts	5

The Enhanced Hip Lantern at level 29 is another 2 points for a brighter version. It is a genuine upgrade in caves, but it is the definition of a want rather than a need — put it behind the quarries and the condenser in your queue.

Ore Mining Site

The quarries are the best long-term use of Ancient points in the game, and this is the first one. Two points at level 24 gets you a base structure that produces ore on its own with a mining Pal assigned, which means you stop planning routes around the 1,632 ore nodes scattered across the world. The ore farming guide covers the field routes for when you still need a burst of it.

Quarry	Level	Points	What it produces	Field nodes it replaces
Ore Mining Site	24	2	Ore	1,632 on the map
Coal Quarry	37	5	Coal	824 on the map
Ore Mining Site II	39	3	Ore in bulk	1,632 on the map
Sulfur Quarry	46	5	Sulfur	655 on the map
Pure Quartz Quarry	52	5	Pure Quartz	607 on the map
Hexolite Quartz Mine	62	5	Hexolite Quartz	635 on the map
Soralite Quarry	72	7	Soralite	226 on the map

Read that last column as the argument for each one. The Soralite Quarry is the priciest quarry at 7 points, and it is also the one worth it most — Soralite has only 226 nodes in the entire world, all of them in late-game airspace, so producing it at base instead of flying to it is the difference between an endgame chore and a background task. The Ore Mining Site II is the opposite case: 3 points for more of a resource you already automate, so it is a comfort buy, not a priority.

Best Late-Game Ancient Technology

Past level 50 the prices climb and the choices get sharper, because the pool's four most expensive unlocks all live up here and they add up to 30 points on their own. The rule that works: buy production before power, and power before mobility. A Large Power Generator unblocks every electric structure you own at once, while the Wing Pack is a 9-point luxury that arrives at level 80 when the run is basically over.

Ancient technology	Level	Points	Why bother
Large Power Generator	50	4	Bigger, more efficient Pal-fuelled power — the prerequisite for running the electric incubators and late production lines
High-Pressure Crude Oil Extractor	51	4	Pumps Crude Oil on flat ground with no oil field nearby, which unhooks Polymer and Plasteel from the 185 field oil sites
Soralite Quarry	72	7	The rarest mining node in the game produced at base — 226 field nodes made optional
Ancient Hatchery	76	8	Full breeding automation from egg to hatch, and it improves what offspring inherit
Wing Pack	80	9	Powered flight fuelled by Wing Cell — the single most expensive unlock in the entire tree, Ancient or not
Triple Air Dash Boots	65	6	Three mid-air dashes; the cheapest tier at level 35 already covers most gaps for 2 points
Triple Jump Boots	70	6	Same story as the dash boots — the level-40 Double Jump Boots do 80% of the job for 2 points

The two boot lines are where most people waste points. Air Dash Boots cost 2 at level 35, then 5 at 61, then 6 at 65; jump boots cost 2 at level 40 and 6 at 70. Buying the first tier of each is 4 points total and covers nearly every traversal problem you will meet. Buying all five tiers costs 21 points — more than the top eight picks in this guide's ranking cost put together, which is 14.

Every Ancient Technology in Palworld

Here is the complete pool, split by what the unlock actually gives you. Facilities are the bulk of it at 21 entries and hold most of the long-term value; the gear list is 23 entries and is where the mobility and convenience upgrades live; the weapon list is only 7 and includes both collab sets. Levels are the technology's unlock level, and points are Ancient Technology Points.

Ancient Facilities and Base Structures

Twenty-one base structures, and they cost 81 Ancient points to own all of them. This is where your points should go by default — a facility keeps producing for the rest of the save, while a gadget only helps when you are holding it. The incubator line and the seven quarries alone account for over half the list, and the run of 5-point entries between levels 36 and 62 is the heaviest stretch of Ancient spending in the game.

Level	Facility	Points	What it does
10	Egg Incubator	1	Hatches one Pal Egg, no power needed
14	Pal Essence Condenser	2	Ranks up a Pal using duplicates of the same species
19	Breeding Farm	2	Produces eggs from a pair, fed with Cake
20	Dimensional Pal Storage	2	Bulk Pal storage, shared or private
21	Antique Dresser	1	Furniture — the cheapest cosmetic in the Ancient pool
24	Ore Mining Site	2	Produces Ore at base
33	Summoning Altar	3	Summons raid bosses from slabs
36	Electric Egg Incubator	5	Holds ideal egg temperature, needs power
37	Coal Quarry	5	Produces Coal at base
39	Ore Mining Site II	3	Bulk ore production
41	Guild Chest	4	Shared storage linked across every base you own
43	Logging Site II	3	Produces Hardwood at base
46	Sulfur Quarry	5	Produces Sulfur at base
48	Large Incubator	5	Hatches several eggs at once
50	Large Power Generator	4	High-efficiency Pal-powered generator
51	High-Pressure Crude Oil Extractor	4	Pumps Crude Oil anywhere on flat ground
52	Pure Quartz Quarry	5	Produces Pure Quartz at base
58	Large-Scale Electric Egg Incubator	5	Multiple eggs plus temperature control
62	Hexolite Quartz Mine	5	Produces Hexolite Quartz at base
72	Soralite Quarry	7	Produces Soralite at base
76	Ancient Hatchery	8	Automates egg production and hatching, boosts inheritance

Ancient Gear and Key Items

Twenty-three unlocks and 76 points at current prices, but this is the list you are meant to cherry-pick. Three ladders dominate it — grappling guns, air dash boots and jump boots — and each ladder gets steadily worse value as it climbs, because every tier does the same thing as the tier below it for more points. The genuinely unique entries are the ones that change a rule: an extra weapon slot, a lock you can pick without a key, foundations on water, and flight.

Level	Item	Points	What it does
12	Grappling Gun	1	Pull yourself to a target, works while encumbered
15	Hip Lantern	2	Automatic hip-slot light at night
16	Lockpicking Tool v1	1	Opens chests that would need a Copper Key
17	Mega Grappling Gun	2	Longer-range grapple
18	Ring of Mercy	2	Your attacks cannot drop a target below 1 HP — a capture aid
22	Homeward Thundercloud	2	Teleports you to the nearest base, not usable in dungeons
23	Aquatic Construction Kit	1	Foundations on water — cut from level 66 and 4 points in 1.0.3
25	Lockpicking Tool v2	2	Higher-tier lockpicking
27	Extra Weapon Holster	5	+1 weapon slot, permanent while carried
28	Anti-Gravity Belt	2	Higher jumps
29	Enhanced Hip Lantern	2	Brighter automatic light
31	Giga Grappling Gun	3	The practical stopping point on the grapple ladder
34	Ability Glasses	4	Shows a Pal's HP, Attack and Defense IVs on a 0-100 scale
35	Air Dash Boots	2	One mid-air dash
40	Double Jump Boots	2	One mid-air jump
49	Hyper Grappling Gun	4	Longer-range grapple
53	Lockpicking Tool v3	3	Top-tier lockpicking
54	Extra Weapon Holster 2	5	A second extra weapon slot
61	Double Air Dash Boots	5	Two mid-air dashes
63	Ultra Grappling Gun	5	The longest-range grapple
65	Triple Air Dash Boots	6	Three mid-air dashes
70	Triple Jump Boots	6	Two mid-air jumps
80	Wing Pack	9	Powered flight, burns Wing Cell as fuel

One row there is newer than the rest. The Aquatic Construction Kit used to sit at level 66 for 4 points and was effectively an endgame novelty; the 1.0.3 patch dropped it to level 23 for a single point, which makes sea bases something you can build in the first third of a run and knocks the tree's real total down to 182 points.

Ancient Weapons and Collab Sets

Only seven Ancient unlocks are weapons, and five of them fire capture spheres rather than bullets. Compare their prices against each other rather than against normal-tech guns — the sphere launchers are capture tools, so their value is in how many Pals you can bag per trip, not in damage. The Scatter Sphere Launcher is the pick of the three if you only buy one, because throwing a spread at a herd is what makes farming duplicates for the condenser bearable.

Level	Weapon	Points	What you get
26	Single-Shot Sphere Launcher	4	Fires a single sphere at long range
30	Meowmere	2	200 base attack melee blade that fires a bouncing cat projectile
32	ULTRAKILL Collab Set 1	3	V1 Armor plus the Marksman Revolver
38	Scatter Sphere Launcher	5	Fires a spread of spheres — best for capturing a herd
45	Decal Gun Set	1	All five decal guns plus Decal Ink
55	Homing Sphere Launcher	5	Spheres that track their target
56	ULTRAKILL Collab Set 2	5	V2 Armor plus the Core Eject Shotgun

The Meowmere is the outlier worth noting: 2 points at level 30 for a 200-attack melee weapon with 2,222 durability, which is a lot of blade for the price when the alternative Ancient weapons cost 4 or 5. Note that its 200 attack only means something against other melee weapons — see the best weapons at every tech level for how the ranged tiers compare among themselves.

How to Unlock Ancient Technology Points

There are exactly two taps, and neither of them is levelling up. The first is tower bosses: the game hands you Ancient points for beating each one, and there are 8 towers marked on the main island plus 3 more inside the World Tree. The second is the Ancient Technical Manual, a consumable you read for an instant payout — and the enemy camp boss stashes in the Snowfields, Sakurajima and Sunreach Isle drop one every single time, 1 to 3 copies at that.

That mix is why the camps matter more than the towers after your first few unlocks — towers run out, camps do not. The full breakdown of drop rates, which caverns roll which manual, and the fastest farming loop is in how to get more Technology Points and Ancient Points.

How to Spend Your First 20 Points

If you want a plan rather than a ranking, buy in this order. It costs 19 points total, every entry is available by level 27, and it front-loads the unlocks that keep paying out — breeding, mobility, ranking and base production — before anything that only helps in a fight. The running total column is what to check against your manual stash before you read one.

Order	Buy	Level	Points	Running total
1	Egg Incubator	10	1	1
2	Grappling Gun	12	1	2
3	Pal Essence Condenser	14	2	4
4	Hip Lantern	15	2	6
5	Lockpicking Tool v1	16	1	7
6	Breeding Farm	19	2	9
7	Dimensional Pal Storage	20	2	11
8	Homeward Thundercloud	22	2	13
9	Aquatic Construction Kit	23	1	14
10	Ore Mining Site	24	2	16
11	Anti-Gravity Belt	28	2	18
12	Mega Grappling Gun	17	2	20

Everything after that is situational. If you are breeding hard, the incubator upgrades come next; if you are building out a production base, go quarry by quarry in the order your smelting needs them; if you are still dying to bosses, the Extra Weapon Holster at 5 points is the only Ancient unlock that meaningfully helps a fight.

Ancient Technology You Can Skip

Not everything in the pool deserves your points, and a few entries are actively bad value while you are still progressing. The pattern to watch for is a tier that duplicates something you already own — the third grapple upgrade, the second set of dash boots, the bulk version of a quarry you already run. None of these are traps exactly; they are just things to buy last, once the 51-unlock list has nothing structural left on it.

Skip for now	Level	Points	Why it waits
Hyper Grappling Gun and Ultra Grappling Gun	49 / 63	4 + 5	9 points for range you rarely need once mounts and dash boots exist
Double and Triple Air Dash Boots	61 / 65	5 + 6	The 2-point level-35 pair already solves most traversal
Triple Jump Boots	70	6	Three times the price of the double jump for one extra hop
Antique Dresser	21	1	Pure furniture — cheap, but it is a decoration competing with a quarry
Ore Mining Site II	39	3	More of a resource you already automate; buy after the sulfur and quartz quarries

Summary

The short version: spend your first points on the Egg Incubator, the Grappling Gun and the Pal Essence Condenser, then buy quarries in the order your crafting needs them, and leave the mobility ladders and weapons until the structural unlocks are done. All 51 Ancient technologies cost 185 points together — 182 after the 1.0.3 discount — and the 21 base facilities are worth 81 of that on their own. Farm late-region camp stashes for manuals, and never read one until you know exactly what it is buying.

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