Guide: Lab Challenge

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WARNING: This page may contain spoilers and ruin the joy of adventure.
The fun of a challenge can be in figuring out how to survive. This guide may spoil that experience!

Overview

The "Lab Challenge" is the common name for Scenarios which begin inside of a Science Lab; this includes two different Scenarios: "Challenge - Lab Patient" and "Challenge - Lab Staff" and 7 Professions between them.

Why Play a Lab Challenge?

Challenges:

  • Difficulty (Labs are filled with enemies and traps, and are a challenge to survive)
  • Time Limit (Food is limited inside of Labs. Escape or starve.)
  • Limited Resources (Labs are initially sealed from the outside world, with many items being limited or impossible to obtain until escape.)
  • Escape (The front door of a lab is (usually) sealed off from the outside world. Escape requires obtaining a Science ID Card (found in the Finale Room at the lab's depths), or other specialized tools.)
  • Automated Defenses (Each lab has an automated (hostile) gun turret (of variable caliber) guarding the entrance/exit.)


Benefits:

  • Finding a Lab (Science Labs can be rare and hard to find. Starting in a Lab provides access to one immediately.)
  • An extra 8 starting points (Difficult Scenarios (like Lab Challenge) give more points for Character Creation than easier Scenarios, which allows more customization or higher stats.)
  • Start with Mutations/CBM] ("Challenge - Lab Patient" provides options to start as a Mutant with Mutations of your choice (good and/or bad), or as a Prototype Cyborg (pre-determined CBMs: some good, some bad)
  • Unique and powerful (Each Lab contains a "Finale Room" on its bottom level, which contains strong items obtainable nowhere else. There are different kinds of Finale Rooms, but this Challenge makes it easy to start with one of your choice.)
  • Other Loot (Labs are full of loot: rare/valuable books, firearms, CBMs, mutagen and the tools to mutate (e.g. all tools required to craft a "Basic Laboratory Analysis Kit" can be found inside). Drugs and chemicals can also be found in abundance.)
  • AutoDocs (Labs can contain AutoDocs, which can be used to perform medical operations on your character (installing CBM, surgery, applying splints, etc)


Character Creation

Lab Scenarios grants +8 points for character creation, which can be spent on useful stats and skills. Remember: Stats are more important than Skills since skills can be improved in-game with time. Labs often have numerous books to train Knowledge Level with.

Consider 9+ in Perception (for more powerful night vision) and/or the Night Vision trait. 14 in another stat is desirable, especially Intelligence or Strength. High Intelligence will benefit in the short term installing bionics and hacking into secure doors, but Strength will benefit in the long run for melee/bow characters, as well as granting more for HP and carry capacity.

Poison Resistance helps a lot with consuming poisonous food (zombie meat and slime globs), making it nearly safe to eat, and paired with Strong Stomach helps with vomiting from nausea.

Dodging and a fighting skill are useful to begin with. Generally, Bashing is most accessible for a new Lab character, though Unarmed can be effective as a Mutant with body parts that enable extra attacks (e.g. hooves). Piercing/Cutting require luck and/or crafting, and Ranged skills are not generally not immediately useful. Throwing can be useful, but is easily trained in short amounts of time by throwing items at walls. First Aid is useful for applying higher quality bandages to heal faster.

Cyborgs will want Computers, Electronics, First Aid and Mechanics to uninstall your Leaky Bionic and other detrimental CBMs they start out with at an AutoDoc. Try and start with/train them as high as possible before operating on yourself.

Computers 5 will allow hacking into most Libraries, Prisoner Containment Units, CBM/Mutagen vaults and minor terminals (map data, lore). 8 will enable reliable hack into any door, namely Barracks and Armories.

Electronics 4 is required to craft an Electrohack, which allows the chance of escaping a lab without using its Science ID Card. Zombie scientists have an extremely rare (0.11%) chance to drop an electrohack, but this shouldn't be relied on. Electronics 5 unlocks the electric jackhammer, which can be used to escape and to rob the entire lab; however, crafting the jackhammer is difficult as it requires a welder (2 mechanics at start or 3 for autolearn), 3 heating elements from the ovens in lab living areas, welding goggles (uncommon drop from scientists and technicians) and a set of tools.

Unlike previous versions (as of 0.F-3 Frank-3), escaping a Science Lab via crafting explosives and/or EMP Grenades is no longer possible.


Starting Location

Much of the benefit from a Lab Challenge depends on the type of loot in its "Finale Room" (unique treasure room in its depths); there are many variants to Finale Rooms, including laser weaponry, nanomachines, mutagens, rare bionics, exoskeletons and more. You can choose to start on the floor of the lab's Finale Room (it's deepest level), by selecting it on the last screen of Character Creation (slash (/) and the third (3) spawn option: "Bottom of the Lab"),. This grants quick access to the type of loot in a lab's Finale Room with little risk or effort. The hardest Finale Room to escape from is a the Mutagen Lab, which can be accomplished by keeping the mutagen vault or cubicles between yourself and the security bots.

Other things to consider when choosing a Lab Challenge:

  • NOT CLOSE TO AN ANTHILL. Anthill tunnels will intersect with your lab, making it a nightmare to survive. Unless you want a special challenge, an ant-infested lab is not worth the effort.
  • The lab is deep. Use the map ((M) and the (<) and (>) keys) to examine z-levels and determine how many floors are between you and the surface (ground level). A good lab is four to five floors deep. Remember: if your lab is under a different structure (house or prison), the first floor underground is not part of the lab, so leave that off when you count. Deeper labs can be harder or even impossible to escape from, if they are a very cold Ice Lab. A shallow lab is easier to escape, but yields less loot.)
  • The Finale Room is a Rare Firearms Vault, Mutagen Lab (with generic or your favorite type of mutagen inside the tank), Rare Bionics Vault, or Purifier Smart Shot Vault. The other possible rooms are probably not worth it for your first lab; if you spawn in a useless Sub-Prime Portal room, you might as well restart immediately.
  • The Finale room has a Science ID Card on the floor next to the treasure (Mutagen Labs do not have one of these, but have lots of other goodies if you like mutating).
  • The lab is in the countryside, not a city or other dungeon (e.g. prison). Alternately, the lab is under a house near the edge of the city.


General Procedure

A Lab Challenge run can generally be divided into five parts, with an additional step for those starting in an Experiment Cell:

(0. If you chose to spawn in an Experiment Cell--escaping the Zombie Brute that spawns in the beginning);

1. Escaping the finale room (or finding it, if you chose not to spawn there);

2. Locating the exits and safest routes between floors;

3. Acquiring equipment/skills to defeat the main gate's defenses. (see #Escaping below);

4. Gathering the loot into a well-lit room on the floor below the exit.

5. Defeating the main gate defenses to exit the lab.

Items to Look Out For

The following is an incomplete list of important items you may find in your travels around the lab. You should pick these up or put them in your stash if you find them.

Weapons

  • pipe (Found by (S)mashing lockers, display racks, or refrigerators. Get one as soon as possible to craft a makeshift crowbar.
  • 2-by-sword (Crafted from a plank and wood sawing 1 tool.)
  • cudgel (Crafted from a plank and cutting 1 tool.)
  • expandable baton (commonly found on Security Guard zombie corpses.)
  • golf club (Uncommonly in dormitories)
  • tonfa (Uncommonly found conference rooms with L-shaped tables)
  • baseball bat (rarely found in dormitories)
  • machete (rarely found on counters and laboratory cubicle counters.)
  • fire axe (Very powerful. Found only in a set piece behind Reinforced Glass, beside a human corpse in a flooded room. Can be broken into by crafting a Homewrecker (plank, 4x chunk of steel, string (e.g. tearing down curtains in dorms))

Clothes

  • Lab coat (decent storage space.)
  • cargo pants (decent storage space.)
  • riot helmet (Found on dead Security Guard zombies.)
  • ear plugs and noise cancelling headgear (Useful for sleeping with noisy monsters nearby. for Cyborgs, use these as backup if you lose your Noise-cancelling headgear. Also prevents blowing your ears out when firing a gun)
  • blindfold (Crafted to enable sleeping in a brightly lit dorm room.)

Bags

Books

Tools

Medical Supplies

Consumables

Barracks Exclusives

Other items

Monster Drops

  • Dragon skin vest (by Zombie bio-operators)
  • blade (sometimes by manhacks)
  • batteries (sometimes dropped by robots)
  • Guns
  • Ammunition
  • Cash Cards
  • Tools
  • Food
  • Medicine
  • Fungaloids can be farmed for their edible fluid sacs, if you are (un)lucky enough to have them loitering about. They will make a huge mess of your lab, so this should be a last resort and are often better exterminated them with fire and instead eat a delicious Marloss Bush, which occasionally grows near the fungal portal. Yes. Yes, of course we should.
  • as of 0.F dissecting monsters no longer yields CMBs, except for Prototype Cyborgs which only yield faulty/ruined ones. In prior versions of C:DDA bionic CBM's could be obtained by dissecting Zombie Scientists, Technicians, Shockers, Shocker Brutes, and Bio-operators.

Escape

The main entrance of a lab is secured with two defenses: a Card Reader that accepts Science ID Cards, and a gun turret positioned by the door.

Therefore, two things are required to escape the lab: something to defeat the turret, and something to defeat the card reader.

Defeating the Sentry Turret

The Sentry Turret is an automated, automatic machine gun turret easily able to kill an escaping character in a single turn/volley of automatic gunfire. When trying to escape on the highest floor, first check the Light Level, by Peeking up the stairs, and into the hall with the turret/card reader. If it is dark, enable SAFE MODE (!) and move slowly forward. The turret will announce "Hostile Detected." in chat, the turn before opening fire, unless it has already detected a target recently (~10 minutes). Do not use flashlights, headlights, or any other light source in the presence of the turret, or it will see you and kill you.

The sentry turret is always 5 tiles from the exit door, and in Science Labs with an east-facing exit, the turret is always in the southern of the 2 hall tiles. In basement-type labs the turret may be absent or on the exterior side of the exit door. The turret is of variable caliber, with the most common type being 9mm, and the rarest being .50cal. If the turret can see you, it will shoot you and most likely kill you!

Firing ranged weapons (firearms, bows and crossbows) at the turret will cause it to return fire! EVEN if you cannot be seen by it! Throwing objects at the turret (grenades, etc) will not trigger return fire.


Guns

Firearms are not recommended for dealing with the sentry turret, because of it's ability to return fire (even in the dark). The sentry turret will return fire against all incoming bow/crossbow, handgun, launcher, rifle, shotgun and SMG fire. It will not return fire from objects (e.g. grenades) being thrown at it, even if they strike the turret directly.

If you choose this method, use the heaviest caliber firearm at your disposal, ideally set to "Burst Fire". The turret will be 5 spaces away from the door, in the southern of the 2 hall tiles in East-facing labs. Enable Safe Mode (!) and walk until you see it. The turret will see you/be alerted, safe mode will trigger, and the turret will say in Chat "Hostile Detected". From this position it is still possible to take a step back and retreat; stepping forward, or attempting to shoot at the turret will cause it to shoot/return fire if it is not killed in a single turn likely resulting in your death.

(as of 0.F) 'safe zones' which allowed shooting the turret but exploited flaws in it's return fire from hitting the player have been fixed.

The Solid Snake

Large Cardboard Boxes can be used to block line of slight with the turret, allowing the player to move close enough to kill it with thrown objects (e.g. Pipes, Chunks of Steel) or with reach attack weapons (e.g. knife spear).

Large Cardboard Boxes are furniture objects found in storage areas and some closets in Science Labs, when deployed and stood inside of by the player they reduce your ability to be detected to only adjacent tiles, and prevent you from seeing beyond adjacent tiles. This will NOT allow escaping past the turret, as the hallway is only 2 tiles wide. Two (or more) Large Cardboard Boxes can deployed (NOTE: not merely dropped!) and 'daisy chained' together to allow the player to move closer to the turret without being seen/killed. Large Cardboard Boxes can also be (G)rabbed and moved similar to other furniture.

Throwing Skill can be easily trained by throwing random objects at a wall in a safe room, retrieving the items, rinse repeat. If you find a Baseball, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Bearings, Flint, Marble, Metal RPG Die, Rock, RPG Die, or Volleyball, this can be used to extremely quickly increase Throwing skill by Crafting > Practice > Throwing (Beginner).

Strength, Throwing Skill and the object being thrown affect how much damage it can cause. With high strength/skill, or a combination of the two, the turret can quickly be demolished by spamming Pipes, Chunks of Steel, etc at it from the safety of a nearby box. Pipes and Chunks of Steel can easily be acquired by deconstructing or smashing metal fences.

Misclicks when attempting this method can easily prove fatal. Cautions should be used when moving yourself into cardboard boxes, moving cardboard boxes, as well as throwing objects. It is better to be further away from the turret, and safely wearing it down with thrown junk, than to make a mistake and get shot.

Grenades

(as of 0.F) EMP Grenades can no longer be crafted, rendering this option unobtainable. In previous versions of C:DDA EMP Grenades could be easily crafted with a small investment in the Electronics skill, and would have usually destroyed turrets in a single blast.

This method can still be accomplished partially, by hacking into a Barracks or Armory and obtaining grenades. Grenades can be found on Soldier Zombies, or on armory shelves. A safe method of dealing with any turret is to Xpeek around a corner and throw a grenade.

Defeating the Card Reader

The topmost level of the lab has a card reader controlling the main door. If you manage to activate it with a science ID card or an electrohack, the doors will open.

Deplete Ammunition

The turret has variable ammunition based on it's caliber, with the lowest being 400 rounds in the .50cal variant. Hauling un-pulped zombie corpses to the ground level, so that they revive and slowly waste the turrets ammo is possible, but keep in mind that zombies revive every 6 hours so this will likely take many in-game days to occur. Previous versions of the turret had far less ammo, making this strategy more viable.

A caveat to this strategy is if the Lab is an Ant Lab. The abundance of ants swarming the turret, should they have access to it, is likely to quickly deplete it's ammunition.

In either case, ensure that the turret is fully depleted of ammunition or even destroyed, before attempting escape.

Science ID Card

A Science ID Card can be found in the Finale Room of a Science Lab. It can also be rarely found on a table, desk, counter or as random loot. Take care that the ID is not destroyed by explosions, fire, or accidentally dropped (e.g. throw attack, by a Zombie Brute).

Electrohack

An easy way to escape if you have the required skills. Crafting an electrohack requires a 4 in Electronics and 1 in Computers, and the materials are relatively easy to obtain. They can also be found extremely rarely as loot inside of a lab. Leveling up Electronics skill however (as of 0.F) can be difficult/impossible in a lab. An electrohack requires 25 units of power in batteries to work, per attempt. Usea it on the Card Reader to attempt to open the main door. If the hacking attempt fails, the card reader may disable itself like any other console, so make sure you have raised your Computers and Electronics skills as high as you can get them before you attempt the hack. Stimulants like Adderall also raise your chances of success, but are generally not needed and are better saved for any bionic surgery you need to perform on yourself. An EMP grenade (4 electronics) may also open the main door and likewise it may also fry the reader instead of activating it.

If your lab is under a basement rather than a standalone lab, there may be an active 9mm gun turret waiting for you on the other side of the door, and hacking the door will not deactivate it! Therefore, in "secret basement"-type labs, it is recommended that you use a Science ID card to escape, which will disable the sentry turret outside the main entrance.

Subway Tunnels

If you are exceptionally lucky, your lab will spawn with an underground train station attached to a network of subway tunnels. If you find such tunnels, simply gather your things and hike the tunnels on foot until you find your way to the surface. Beware of creatures in the deep.

Digging Out

It is possible to craft the electric jackhammer to (quite messily) pierce the concrete walls of the lab's upper floor. This is a somewhat complex process:

1. Acquire welding goggles, eclipse glasses, or the equivalent bionic.

2. Make sure you have the required skills to craft the electric jackhammer.

2. Install an Integrated Toolset bionic or acquire a wrench, screwdriver, hammer, soldering iron, solder, and makeshift welder (which is crafted from common electrical ingredients found in the lab, plus three heating element acquired by smashing ovens).

3. Acquire or craft a small electric motor and the other, more common parts to craft the electric jackhammer.

4. Craft the electric jackhammer and load it with batteries.

5. Use the jackhammer with the (a) key on the outer walls of the lab on the upper floor. Have high HP and wear something on your head (preferably a hard hat or army helmet) to survive a possible cave-in as you break the wall.

The jackhammer can also break through all locked doors and walls in the lab. If you break into a secure area, have EMP grenades or guns on hand and stand diagonal to the door so you are not shot by 9mm turrets that spawn as you force your way in.

Outdated Methods of Escape

(THIS SUBSECTION MAY BE OUTDATED FOR {{inlineVer|0.D} - 0.F (Frank).)

Teleporter

A Teleporter is a rare drop that pretty much guarantees escape. Just use it on the topmost level, preferably at night. Note that this is almost certainly a one-way trip since the gate will be locked behind you unless you take a Science ID Card out with you. If you have one and wish to use it to open the lab, it will open the gate from the outside and disable the sentry turret inside.

Explosives

(as of 0.F) Concrete walls require powerful explosives to destroy, which are no longer realistically obtainable inside a Science Lab when starting, nor enough food/resources to train the skills required to craft it. The easiest "serious" explosive to craft is the dynamite, which requires 7 cooking and a chemistry book. The chemistry books found in the lab require a Cooking skill of 5 to be read. The biggest challenge, therefore, is leveling your Cooking skill to 5 to be able to learn from the book, finding (or crafting) a chemistry set, and finding the book itself.

The Lab Technician profession starts with the chemistry set, which solves one of the issues immediately. Most chemical cooking recipes that can be used in the lab require the chemistry set. However, some Cooking recipes require ingredients that may be rare in the lab.

Possible skill progression from 0 to 5 can look like this:

  • Level 0: clean water
  • Level 1: human broth
  • Level 2: superglue, acid water
  • Level 3: zombie pheromone
  • Level 4: ammonium nitrate, hydrogen peroxide, lye powder, concentrated acid

Note that level 1 is particularly devoid of any easily craftable recipes. This makes starting with Cooking at 2+ a good idea if you wish to use explosives to escape.

Once you have a Cooking skill of 7, you can craft dynamite. Dynamite is powerful enough to break concrete walls. To improve your chances of success, use the dynamite in constrained spaces - the less room it has to expand (especially directly at the center of the blast), the more likely it is to destroy adjacent walls. You can construct bookcases to surround the space where you'll place the dynamite.

After placing the dynamite, RUN. The explosion radius can be pretty big. Try to go downstairs or close doors behind yourself.


Climbing

In previous versions when playing in Z-level mode, escape was possible by climbing up with <. This required removal the roof first with explosives or fire. Any adjacent unpassable terrain or furniture (for example, walls and bookshelves) help with climbing, but you may need to nearly surround yourself with those to actually be able to reach the roof. (Note: in 0.D (Danny), the corridor the player emerges into, with the main doors and turret, has a roof, but the side rooms normally do not.) Once on the roof, you can just walk down to an edge and examine it to drop down safely.

Tips

  • Peek around corners X if there are no walls/doors.
  • When moving about in the dark, try listening to sounds in Chat, or e(X)amining the location of a sound in the turn it happens. "Shuffling" or "Whump" indicate zombies. "Plop" indicates slimes. "Mechanical Whirring" are a robotic creature. "Poof" are fungaloids. Skitterbots, Manhacks, and Spiders silent. If you are unsure if enemies are in a room, try hitting the shouting, wall, or running and see if there is a response.
  • Mobile creatures in a room will often knocking on (smashing) its wall - zombies will get angry and start whack walls, robots will start moving around.
  • Metal doors can take all zombie hits (except hulks), so if you see something scary, just close the door and get away. Most enemies cannot open doors (Necromancers can).
  • Some computers can spawn security bots or manhacks on a failed hack. Other computers can only zap you, shutdown or spawn manhacks.
  • Skitterbots are dangerous if you have low dex, low melee skill or bad weapons. They are fast, well armored, and always shock your torso upon a hit (high pain, and torso damage). They have no light source (unlike manhacks), so telling them apart from zombies requires being close. They're significantly faster than your walking speed (comparable to dog speed) and hear well. Skitterbots are immune to Electric Conduits.
  • Manhacks are hard to hit, fast moving, but have very low HP. They will hit and run, so they'll disengage after every hit. Just hide in the darkness if you don't want to fight them. You can train bashing and melee by missing them with a plank.
  • Broken cyborgs are great punching bags. You can miss them with heavy weapons (10 bashing or more) or hit them with light ones (a 0 dmg item will train bashing, but won't deal damage unless you're hulk mode strong). If you've got 0 torso encumbrance and didn't gimp yourself by lowering DEX, you will dodge most of their hits and even those that hit are very weak.
  • Prototype Cyborg can be rescued and recruited while they are still alive, by using a Scrambler Grenade and de-activating them. Once de-activated, they can be brought to an AutoDoc and you can order their CBMs removed. Once their personality CBM is gone, they will become an NPC which can be recruited.
  • Zombie bio-operators are highly dangerous zombies with zapback defense (like shocker zombies) and a knockdown attack. Zapback makes it so that the best weapons can't be safely used against them - you'll need something purely wooden (or purely plastic). They are also heavily armored and hit accurately. It is possible to beat one up with a plank without high skills, but without a good armor or huge (18) dexterity, it is very risky. Lead them into dissectors or blob pits (note that blobbed bio-ops no longer drop CBMs when butchered).
  • Turrets just stand there and wait for you to come. You don't need to kill any of those, not even the "boss turret" on 0 z-level. They have really good armor and (at this point in game) incredibly powerful burst attack. Their light radius is pretty huge, making non-grenade weapons impractical. If you start with 4 electronics, you can safely destroy them with EMP grenades. Or with Night Vision and a powerful enough gun, you can one-shot them from the dark.
  • Security bots don't spawn unless you do something stupid or reach the finale. If you see one before it sees you, throw items behind it to lure it away, then run. Don't let it see you, not even from afar - it's a turret on wheels (without a flashlight). You can't lead it onto a dissector (non-organic enemies are immune). You can lead it into a blob pit or make it waste ammo by shooting through armored glass (its 9mm SMG will not pierce the glass).
  • Robotic enemies and Slimes cannot open doors (even wooden doors), nor can they break glass walls (robotic enemies with guns can break glass, by shooting through them). This allows Skitterbots to be easily trapped inside of glass-walled conference rooms, by leading them in, and shutting the door.
  • Robots can't smell you, but some of them can hear stuff. If you see/hear a dangerous bot creeping around, stand still and throw something to lure the bot away.

Enemy Encounters

In order of threat, from lowest to highest:

  • Breather (Extremely rare)
  • Small Blob
  • Zombie
  • Zombie Dog (Often in groups of 3 in kennels, with one already loose)
  • Blob
  • Fungaloid (Fungal portals can spawn during level generation alongside fungaloids; if you kill them all, they will not propagate. Beware of getting a deadly fungal infection, though! Fungicide is rare in labs, so don't spend too much time killing Fungaloids unless you have some. If you get a fungal infection, eat fungicide until the infection disappears ("You feel a burning sensation under your skin, and then it subsides."))
  • Broken Cyborg (Good for practicing your melee skills, since they are tanky but do very little damage if you are wearing decent clothes.
  • Hazmat Zombie
  • Giant Web Spider (3ish spiders spawn in webbed-up rooms.)
  • Zombie Scientist
  • Zombie Technician
  • Manhack
  • Skitterbot
  • Albino Penguin (very rare, and passive unless attacked.)
  • Crawler
  • Shocker Zombie
  • 9mm Turret
  • Zombie Soldier (0-3 can be found in a Barracks)
  • Zombie Brute (one spawns guaranteed just outside an Experiment Cell)
  • Security Bot (spawns in the treasure room on the bottom floor, occasionally after a failed door hack, and VERY rarely in random places in the lab.)
  • Sewer Gator (Deals very high damage unless you are a Broken Cyborg. Has the ability to give you a guaranteed deep bite.)
  • Giant Naked Mole-rat (One occasionally spawns loose on a floor; listen for "SMASH!". They deal devastating melee damage and destroy everything in sight, but can be taken down by a few gunshots. Slow Melee is not ideal, as it regenerates.)
  • Zombie bio-operator (This creature is the answer to the age-old question: "How dangerous would an electrified zombie cyborg super-soldier be?" The answer is, "Exactly as dangerous as it sounds." At least it has no ranged attacks. You will generally need to shoot it several times with a high-powered firearm before it goes down. These guys spawn very rarely. If you kill it, you can dissect it for valuable bionics and loot its corpse for top-of-the-line military gear. If that's too tall an order for you, let it chase you into a goo trap and turn it into a simple blob. You'll lose all the loot, though.)
  • Shocker Brute (Rare) (If you get shocked and it gets close enough to punch you, you better pray that your armor holds up. Sweet CBMs, though.)
  • Armored Zombie (And "armored" here means power armor. Run!) (Unless you found a loaded explosive launcher in an Armory.)
  • Zombie Grenadier/NR-031 Dispatch (Occasionally in barracks. If you see one in a barracks, IMMEDIATELY run and close the door behind you. If you're lucky they might blow themselves up with their own grenade hacks. If the zombie throws a grenade hack that makes it out the door, you are probably dead. Take a swing at the drone and pray. Do not engage unless you are heavily armed and armored, which you probably aren't at this point.)
  • Ants, Soldier Ants, or Acid Ants (But you read the bolded, all-caps bullet point in the "Choosing a Good Beginning" section, so you won't have to deal with this, right?)


Containment Enemies In addition to the enemies listed above, most types of eldritch creatures can be found caged inside a Containment Zone or a Sub-Prime Portal.

  • Grackens, Krecks and Crawlers,
  • Flaming Eyes may be found in the cages of Sub-Prime Portal labs. They aren't harmful while caged, but the effects of their stare is annoying and lasting. Be especially careful if any hound of Tindalos spawn because of the Teleglow. Break line of sight ASAP.
  • Mi-Go are very dangerous, but only found in sealed containment units. Don't let them out of containment, or leave something alive that could break them out. They're also very noisy when you're trying to haul items or sleep. Noise-Cancelling Headphones or Earplugs are a godsend.
  • shoggothsare insanely dangerous, but only found in sealed containment units. They regenerate 50Hp per turn and have a devastating melee attack. If one gets out of containment, it will be neigh-unkillable even with automatic weaponry, and whatever it kills will become a new Shoggoth. Soon the whole lab will be infested with them. Try not to let one escape into the outside world, or you'll have a real apocalypse on your hands...

Rarely you may encounter a room with a single cage containing a strong mutant such as an Antlered horror, Zombear or Albino penguin. These can be safely left alone.

Landmarks

See Science Lab for a detailed list of generated areas in science labs (Article currently under construction).

The most important non-secure landmarks to identify are Autodoc Operating Theaters and Lab Hospitals, since these contain valuable healthcare facilities. If you break a bone, find the leftmost patient room of a lab hospital, defeat the enemy defending it (always a Shocker Zombie, Crawler, or Insane Cyborg), secure the area, and use the bonesetter machine (also known as Mr. Stem Cell, depending on how recent your game version is). Your bones will melt and reform over the course of a few minutes, restoring your HP as well. Do not use the machine unless you actually have a broken limb, as you may experience unpleasant side effects otherwise. Alternatively you can use an Autodoc to splint your broken bone to 50% repaired

Staff dormitories come in groups of four suites and have an abundance of food and clothing in them, reasonably safe bedrooms to crash in, and kitchens with cookware and ovens to smash for their valuable heating elements. The heating elements can then be used to craft a hotplate or makeshift welder.

Locked Structures

You will find several kinds of areas in the lab that are secured behind locked doors. These areas are always on the outer edges of the floor, except for the two kinds of locked vaults. There are no keys to these rooms, but you may attempt access by hacking into the adjacent computer console or by forcing your way in with a jackhammer. If your hacking attempt fails, the console may shock you for minor damage, render itself inoperable ("The console shuts down."), or spawn a group of manhacks. If a console shuts down, your only remaining option is to force your way in once you have the tools to do so. This is why a high Computers skill is important for Lab Challenges.

  • Note: If you force your way into any of these rooms with tools such as a jackhammer, there will often be active turrets waiting for you on the other side! These turrets do not spawn if you hack your way in successfully.

Easy rooms to open

Library

One of the more important locked rooms you can find, since they contain a large number of skillbooks and two guaranteed vending machines (which are usually intact). Libraries are more common in the shallower floors of the lab and are very easy to open with a moderate Computers skill (Testing shows that a Computers skill of 5 never seems to fail to open a library).

Prisoner Containment

Don't mess with the inner section where the prisoners are; they contain powerful zombies, including brutes and grapplers. The important parts are the two side rooms in the first section; the one on the left contains three lockers with good medical supplies (painkillers, bandages, disinfectant, cough syrup, inhalers, any type of pill, and first aid kits) and three tables with beverages, eyewear, flashlights, and bags. Always walk onto the two tables across from the lockers, since for some reason the contents of the tables are invisible from a distance. If you want to open the secure area for the skill experience, you can do so safely since the main door does not open automatically, but this is not necessary. The side room on the right contains lockers, various gear, and a centrifuge you can smash for copper wire.

Up to two Zombie Scientists and their manhacks can be found running loose in the main lobby of the Prisoner Containment Zone.

More difficult rooms to open

Bionic Vault

A small storage closet that contains up to 8 lockers with bionics of varying rarity. Unlike other secure doors, if your hacking attempt fails to open this room, it may spawn a security bot instead of manhacks.

Sometimes, you will find a room with two little bionic vaults in it. These are much easier to open than proper Bionic Vaults.

Advanced PEV-12 (Mutagen) Samples

A small storage closet that contains up to 8 units of any syringe, purifier serum, or mutagen serum other than Medical, Raptor, Chimera, Alpha, or Elf-a. Somewhat easier to hack than the bionic vaults.

Barracks

These are extremely valuable sources of high-storage clothing, combat knives, sheaths, pistols, and skillbooks for marksmanship, melee, survival, cutting weapons, and martial arts. There are several beds that are fairly safe to rest in if the barracks is secure.

Barracks may be empty, or they may contain 0-3 Zombie Soldiers, manhacks, 0-2 Zombie Bio-operators, or a Zombie Grenadier/NR-031 Dispatch if you are especially unlucky. When you first open the barracks entrance, peek in quickly to determine what is on the other side. If there are zombies inside, you should close the door immediately and stay out of the barracks until you have very powerful and accurate ranged weapons. Be especially cautious around the devastating Zombie Grenadier/NR-031 Dispatch, who possesses several ways to one-shot even a well-armored character--not the least of which is a C4-drone that can bring down the entire room. If the grenadier/dispatch deploys one of these bomb drones, you must destroy it FAST before it explodes or get out of the room and close the door before the drone gets through (hopefully it will blow itself up).

Barracks Magazine

The magazine (armory) inside the barracks may be the most difficult door to hack into in the whole lab. Do not attempt to hack it unless you have a very high Computers skill, or unless you desperately need food or guns (The good news is that a failed hack rarely results in anything worse than the console shutting down). The magazine is a large storage room with lockers full of ammunition, firearms, launchers, MRE's, first aid kits, ammo magazines, and the occasional explosive or accessory. Generally, you can put together one to three working firearms (the gun, the ammo, and the ammo clip or magazine) from one barracks magazine with many other bits of gun paraphernalia left over, depending on your luck. If you force your way in, expect to fight two 9mm turrets, one near each back corner of the room.

Occasionally, you may find a Barracks broken open by a collapsed ceiling. You may find clothed human corpses in front of that barracks entrance.

Finale Rooms

Rare Weapons Vault

This is a large, square room with a 2x2 vault containing rare firearms at its center.

The vault is flanked by a dissector trap at each of its corners and is made of bulletproof glass.

This room is defended by at least one security bot and zero or more skitterbots and/or manhacks. The best way to deal with the security bot is to stand across the closed vault from it and let it try to shoot you through the bulletproof glass. After several turns, it will run out of ammunition ("You hear, "click click"!) and will become mostly harmless at that point. However, take care that it does not pin you inside the vault when you enter to collect its contents. Though it is only average in melee combat, it is more than powerful enough to trap and kill a freshly spawned player.


This room contains a guaranteed Science ID card lying on the floor to the left of the vault.

Rare Bionics Vault

Rare Mutagen Vault

Power Armor Vault

Depending on the armor, you might be able to force your way through high level enemies. Low storage, though.

Mininuke Vault

Mutagen Lab

CVD Machine

This machine is for upgrading bladed melee weapons. Given the right supplies, it will increase the cutting damage of a given weapon by half. It seems more useful for lategame characters and is not recommended for a Lab Challenge start.

This room contains a guaranteed Science ID card lying close to the machine.

Subprime Portal Lab

As of game version 0.C Cooper, the Sub-Prime Portal does not do anything useful, but will be used in a future update. As such, it is currently useless for a Lab Challenge start. As mentioned previously, it is recommended that you not play through a game that starts you with this room.

Currently, this room's only feature of note is its high likelihood of containing a caged Floating Eye, whose drops may be useful for lategame characters. Fighting a Floating Eye in the early game is not recommended.

This room contains a guaranteed Science ID card lying close to the portal machine.

Well-stocked Autodoc Operating Theater

This Finale Room is identical to an ordinary Autodoc Operating Theater, but it contains a great many more Anesthesia Kits than an ordinary operating theater: this one contains somewhere in the ballpark of 25 to 40 anesthesia kits compared to the usual three. As such, Broken Cyborg players without craftable anesthesia game mods may find this Finale Room quite useful.

Occasionally, there may be a Zombie Brute or Shocker Brute caged inside the operating room that must be dealt with before the room can be used. It will smash the four display racks inside, but will (probably) not destroy the Autodoc itself.

Misc tips

  • Lab characters can be even better than Really Bad Day ones, because they can pick mutant traits. The only mandatory trait is Night Vision, but it's an amazing trait on everyone.
  • You don't need to fight anything in the lab. Intelligence can help with book reading, CBMs and hacking. Other stats don't help as much.
  • You can lie down on blankets to warm up. If you do it on solid rock while not tired, you're unlikely to fall asleep. If playing in Ice Lab, this is pretty much mandatory for survival.
  • Falling asleep can be hard with all the mi-gos shouting. More than doubly so in z-level mode, where you can hear them from other levels. Try to craft a noise canceling headgear.
  • "Famished" hunger status is not an emergency. Neither is "Near starving". It takes more time to starve to death from "Starving" than to get to "Starving" from "Full". Just do not try to fight when weak from hunger.

RNG can rob you of hard-earned "victory" by generating an inescapable lab, with no teleports, chemistry books with dynamite recipe, and no path from finale to topmost level, but this is relatively rare. Most labs are escapable, though not always easily. And lab escapees are generally strong characters, with better traits than regular survivors.

Notes on different versions

  • In 0.C (Cooper) the flaming eye has been nerfed. It no longer destroys terrain. It is still a dangerous monster, even when in captivity due to Teleglow, but no longer releases everything.
  • In 0.D (Danny) lighting has changed, and this makes night vision even more important. But it also makes turrets a lot harder. It can be almost impossible to escape the top level turret of the lab.
  • In 0.D (Danny) the lab walls are made of concrete, making escape much harder, but with the experimental Z-levels turned on, you can climb out of the lab, as it has no roof. The turrets can still shoot you.
  • In 0.D (Danny) dressers no longer block line of sight, rendering the Luddite method of dealing with the turret much harder. You will need either enough strength to push a bookcase, or thrown/fired weapons that can hit the turret from 16 squares away (the edge of a turret's visual range in the dark, again as of the latest experimental version).
  • In 0.F (Frank) EMP grenades are no longer craftable, and EMP bombs require difficult to obtain materials. Explosives cannot be reliably manufactured inside of a lab. Turrets are no longer present in 3x3 rooms, but one is always found guarding the entrance. Theoretical/Practical Skills learning system makes improving most skills inside a lab very difficult.).

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