Last Z Laboratory Research Guide: Best Tech Priorities

Research is one of the most important permanent progression systems in Last Z: Survival Shooter. Buildings, heroes, and equipment can change as your account develops, but Laboratory technologies continue providing bonuses after they are completed. Choosing the right research path can improve construction, research speed, troop development, combat performance, survivability, and event efficiency.

The main rule is to separate inexpensive foundational research from Research Badge-heavy technology. Complete high-value badge-free development first, then spend scarce Badges toward specific checkpoints instead of partially upgrading every advanced tree.

How the Laboratory Works

The Laboratory is the building used to research technologies that permanently improve your account. It is also regularly tied to Headquarters progression, making Laboratory upgrades important even before considering the technologies themselves.

Research broadly falls into two groups:

• Standard research: Uses normal resources and research time but does not consume Research Badges.
• Advanced research: Uses Research Badges in addition to other requirements and becomes increasingly expensive as you enter deeper combat and late-game trees.

The Laboratory should rarely sit idle. Even when you are saving Research Badges, there are often standard technologies that can continue developing without consuming your Badge reserve.

Best Last Z Research Priority Order

Stage	Research Priority	Main Goal
Early Game	New Home and Shelter Building	Improve account development and research efficiency.
Growth Phase	HQ Management and Rapid Growth	Accelerate long-term shelter progression.
Troop Foundation	Elite Troops and Allied Troops	Improve training and general troop performance.
First Badge Investments	Alliance Recognition and Hero Training	Improve Alliance Duel rewards and reach efficient hero checkpoints.
Combat Foundation	Military Strategies	Develop troop stats and unlock additional combat research.
PvP Survivability	Peace Shield and Urgent Rescue	Reduce costly troop losses in serious combat.
Late Game	UST or deeper PvP trees	Choose between T10 progression and specialized combat scaling.

This is a progression framework rather than a requirement to completely finish every tree in order. Later research becomes expensive enough that individual checkpoints matter more than simply reaching 100% completion everywhere.

1. Start With Badge-Free Growth Research

Early Laboratory progress should improve the systems you will use for the rest of the account. Construction and research bonuses are particularly valuable because they affect thousands of hours of future development rather than one isolated battle.

New Home

Complete the useful early technologies and prerequisites that establish your shelter development. These technologies are relatively inexpensive compared with advanced research and help open later trees.

Shelter Building

Shelter Building should be one of your main early priorities. It improves development efficiency and contains important construction and research-related bonuses.

Improving construction early is especially valuable because every future Headquarters, Laboratory, troop camp, hospital, and prerequisite building can benefit from faster development.

HQ Management

HQ Management follows the early Shelter Building progression and continues improving your ability to develop the base efficiently. If rapid Headquarters progression is a priority, this tree provides stronger long-term value than rushing immediately into expensive combat research.

Rapid Growth

Rapid Growth continues the same progression philosophy: invest in permanent development efficiency before your account reaches the stage where construction timers become extremely long.

2. Build Your Troop Foundation

Elite Troops

Elite Troops is an important standard research tree because it improves troop development without requiring Research Badges. It includes benefits that affect troop training and is also connected to unlocking later military research.

For developing accounts, this makes Elite Troops an efficient bridge between economic progression and advanced combat research.

Allied Troops

Allied Troops provides broader troop improvements, including useful combat stats. It is another good place to progress while preserving Badges for more expensive technologies.

If you only have one research queue, prioritize whichever technology directly supports your next unlock. If you can operate two research queues, badge-free troop research can continue while your other queue handles carefully timed advanced technologies.

3. Spend Research Badges With a Plan

Research Badges become one of the most important constraints in advanced Laboratory progression. The biggest mistake is treating them like normal resources and spending them whenever a new node becomes available.

Before starting expensive Badge research, ask:

• Does this technology benefit my main formation?
• Does it unlock an important research tree?
• Is it required for my T10 path?
• Am I reaching a valuable checkpoint or merely increasing completion percentage?
• Could I wait and score Alliance Duel or another research event at the same time?

Advanced research trees can require dramatically more Badges than early technologies. Planning the destination before starting the path prevents your Badge reserve from becoming trapped across several unfinished branches.

4. Alliance Recognition: Prioritize Milestones

Alliance Recognition is one of the most useful early Badge trees for players who consistently participate in Alliance Duel. It contains technologies that improve event scoring and unlock better personal reward progression.

Important milestones include technologies such as:

• Premium Rewards: Expands the personal reward progression available from Alliance Duel.
• Event Expert: Improves event-point efficiency as it is developed.
• Super Rewards: Opens additional reward progression.
• One More!: A deep late-tree reward upgrade that requires substantial investment to reach.

You do not necessarily need to complete Alliance Recognition immediately. For many developing accounts, reaching the useful early reward milestones and then switching into combat research provides a better balance.

Research Alliance Recognition During Alliance Duel

Alliance Duel’s research-focused phase is an ideal time to spend Research Badges and complete expensive technologies. The same research can improve your account while also producing Duel points.

When Full Preparedness is also rewarding research, timing the completion can produce value across multiple systems from the same resources.

5. Hero Training: Aim for Cockpit

Hero Training provides bonuses connected to your hero lineup, but you do not need to completely finish the tree before progressing elsewhere.

Cockpit is an important early checkpoint because it provides useful account value without forcing you to spend all the Badges required for the deeper Hero Training levels.

Once Cockpit and the technologies needed to reach it are secured, consider moving into Military Strategies instead of automatically finishing every remaining Hero Training node.

6. Military Strategies: Your Core Combat Research

Military Strategies is one of the main early combat-focused Badge trees. It improves troop performance and acts as a gateway toward important advanced branches.

Prioritize technologies that benefit your main formation rather than upgrading every troop type equally. If your primary team relies heavily on one troop type, strengthening that type first gives your Badge spending a more immediate combat effect.

Prioritize Survivability

Troop HP is particularly useful because it helps units survive longer across PvP and other difficult combat. Attack and Defense remain important, but survivability upgrades can become increasingly valuable as battles become more punishing.

Military Strategies also contributes to unlocking more specialized trees, which makes progression through this branch important even for players whose eventual goal is not pure PvP.

7. Peace Shield and Urgent Rescue

Peace Shield is a defensive research branch designed around protecting troops and improving combat survivability. You do not need to completely max every preceding research tree before starting to plan for it; instead, work toward the required progression percentages shown in your Laboratory.

Why Urgent Rescue Matters

Urgent Rescue is one of the most useful checkpoints within the defensive path because it reduces the severity of troop losses by converting part of what would otherwise become deaths into recoverable severe injuries.

For players participating regularly in Enemy Buster, State-versus-State fighting, or other high-loss PvP, this can be considerably more valuable than minor stat improvements elsewhere.

8. Siege to Seize for Offensive PvP

Siege to Seize represents a deeper offensive direction. It includes technologies associated with attacking, siege performance, troop stats, and advanced combat scaling.

This is not automatically the correct next step for every account. If you primarily play defensively or are saving aggressively for higher troop tiers, diverting a large Badge reserve into deep siege research can delay your main objective.

Players intending to progress into Field Research, however, need to account for Siege to Seize because that late-game path builds from it.

9. Field Research Is a Late-Game Investment

Field Research contains powerful combat improvements but requires a major Research Badge commitment. It should be treated as an endgame specialization rather than another routine tree to complete immediately after unlocking.

It can provide strong troop scaling and access to additional late-game technology, but players targeting T10 should understand an important distinction: Field Research is not the dedicated T10 path.

If T10 troops are your main objective, compare every expensive Field Research upgrade against the Badges you still need for Unit Special Training.

10. Unit Special Training Is the T10 Path

Unit Special Training, commonly shortened to UST, is the research tree associated with unlocking T10 troops. It is a major long-term project rather than a single technology you can immediately purchase after reaching the late game.

The branch includes multiple stages of:

• Troop Attack and Defense
• Training improvements
• Assaulter, Rider, and Shooter bonuses
• March-related upgrades
• Combat survivability
• The final Unit Special Training unlock

Laboratory Level 30 is required for the late UST progression. Other prerequisites and troop-building requirements also matter, so check the current in-game research tree before beginning a long T10 push.

Do Not Upgrade Every Troop Branch Equally

When UST allows you to specialize, prioritize the troop type used by your primary formation. Universal troop bonuses still have value, but spreading expensive Badge investments across all three troop types can delay the improvements that matter most to your main army.

Other Late-Game Research Trees

Fully Armed Alliance

Fully Armed Alliance contains advanced PvP and survivability technologies, including troop stats, hospital-related improvements, and Annihilation progression. It is valuable for serious combat accounts but expensive enough that developing players should enter the tree with a clear goal.

Army Building

Army Building provides additional late-game formation and combat improvements. Because the branch demands a large Badge investment, players pushing T10 should compare its immediate benefits against the delay it creates for UST.

Shooter Training

Shooter Training is a newer late-game specialization branch that appears after Field Research in current versions of the research system. It should not be confused with Unit Special Training.

If your only objective is reaching T10 as quickly as possible, UST remains the relevant troop-tier path. Shooter Training is a separate specialization investment for later account development.

Late-game technology continues to evolve, so research-tree requirements and newly released branches can differ by server age and update version.

Best Research Strategy for F2P Players

F2P players need to be especially selective because replacing wasted Research Badges takes time.

1. Complete important badge-free growth research.
2. Develop Elite Troops and other useful standard technologies.
3. Reach the Alliance Recognition milestones you can realistically use.
4. Progress Hero Training toward Cockpit.
5. Move through Military Strategies.
6. Work toward Peace Shield and Urgent Rescue if PvP survivability matters.
7. Choose between deeper combat research and saving for UST.

Avoid having several expensive Badge trees partially developed without reaching any meaningful checkpoint.

How to Use Lab No. 2

A second Laboratory allows two technologies to research simultaneously once the feature and its Research License become available to your account. Unlock conditions can differ with progression or game updates, so use the requirement shown in your current build rather than relying on an old fixed HQ threshold.

If you have two research queues, a practical setup is:

Laboratory	Recommended Use
Lab 1	Keep badge-free development and troop technologies running continuously.
Lab 2	Use for Badge research, especially when completions can be aligned with events.

The main advantage is flexibility. You no longer need to stop normal growth research simply because you want to hold an expensive Badge technology for Alliance Duel.

Time Research With Alliance Duel

Research speed-ups and Research Badges become more valuable when they are spent during activities that also award event points.

During Alliance Duel’s research phase, prepare valuable technologies in advance and use your saved research resources there when practical. If Full Preparedness is simultaneously rewarding research activity, the same upgrade can contribute to both events.

Do not leave the Laboratory idle for days purely to wait for an event. Continue cheap or badge-free research and reserve your flexible speed-ups and large Badge investments for valuable scoring periods.

How to Reduce Research Time

Research Speed Technologies

Prioritize permanent Research Speed improvements early because they affect every research project that follows.

Alliance Help

Request alliance assistance after beginning an eligible research project. Wait for available helps before spending speed-ups so you do not waste free timer reductions.

Research Speed-Ups

Reserve dedicated research speed-ups for long or important technologies whenever possible. Universal speed-ups are more flexible and can be saved for situations where construction, research, or training needs them most.

Research Buffs

If your server, events, heroes, or temporary systems provide Research Speed bonuses, activate or arrange them before beginning an especially long technology whenever the bonus applies at research start.

Optional Spending and Research Progression

Spending is not required to maintain an effective research plan. F2P players can make substantial progress by keeping queues active, saving Badges, and using event timing efficiently.

If you do spend, prioritize removing a real bottleneck rather than purchasing resources randomly. Research-related purchases are most useful when they help reach a planned technology, secure a second research queue where available, or complete a valuable event-aligned milestone.

Players who already intend to purchase eligible in-game currency can review the available Last Z top-up options through Heaven Guardian. Plan the research target first, then decide whether spending is necessary.

Common Last Z Research Mistakes

Leaving the Laboratory Idle

Research is permanent progression. If expensive Badge research needs to wait, start a useful standard technology instead.

Spending Badges Without a Target

Always know which checkpoint or unlock you are pursuing before investing in an expensive advanced branch.

Maxing Alliance Recognition Too Early

Alliance Recognition has strong event value, but completely finishing it can consume resources that could establish important combat research. Secure the milestones you need and evaluate your next priority.

Ignoring Peace Shield

Pure attack progression can become expensive if your troops suffer unnecessary permanent losses. Defensive research becomes increasingly important in serious PvP.

Confusing Field Research With T10

Field Research provides late-game combat scaling, but Unit Special Training is the research route connected to T10 troops.

Researching Every Troop Type Equally

Focus expensive specialization research around the troop type used by your strongest formation before heavily investing in secondary branches.

Using Badges Outside Research Events

If an expensive node can safely wait, completing it during Alliance Duel or another relevant research event provides additional value from the same resources.

FAQs

What should I research first in Last Z?

Start with badge-free development research such as New Home and Shelter Building, then continue into HQ Management and Rapid Growth. These technologies improve long-term account progression without consuming Research Badges.

Should I max Alliance Recognition first?

Not necessarily. Reach the reward milestones that provide useful value, then compare additional Alliance Recognition investment against Hero Training, Military Strategies, and your combat goals.

What is the best Hero Training stopping point?

Cockpit is a commonly useful early checkpoint. It allows you to secure valuable Hero Training progression before moving expensive Badges into military technologies.

What research helps reduce troop deaths?

Peace Shield contains Urgent Rescue, an important defensive technology that converts part of potential troop deaths into recoverable severe injuries as it is developed.

What research unlocks T10 troops?

Unit Special Training is the late-game research tree associated with the T10 unlock. Laboratory Level 30 and the required progression through the branch are necessary.

Is Field Research required for T10?

No. Field Research is a separate late-game combat path. Unit Special Training is the dedicated T10 research route.

Should F2P players save Research Badges?

Yes. Use Badges around specific milestones rather than spreading them across every available tree. Save expensive completions for research-scoring events when practical.

Is a second Laboratory useful?

Yes. Two research queues allow standard technologies to continue while advanced Badge research is handled separately. Unlock availability and requirements can vary with progression and updates.

Conclusion

The best Last Z research strategy is built around checkpoints. Complete your badge-free foundation first, develop efficient troop research, then move Research Badges through Alliance Recognition, Hero Training, Military Strategies, and Peace Shield according to your account’s needs.

Once you reach the late game, decide what you are actually building toward. Players targeting T10 should protect their Badge reserve for Unit Special Training, while PvP-focused accounts can invest more heavily in Siege to Seize, Field Research, Fully Armed Alliance, Army Building, and specialized combat technologies. For more research strategies, building guides, and progression advice, explore our additional Last Z guides.