Guide: Lab Challenge

Guide based 0.B (Brin). But updated in a lot of places to also apply to 0.D (Danny)
Some of the information present here might not apply to future versions, see the 'Notes on different versions' paragraph.

WARNING: This page may contain spoilers and ruin the joy of adventure. Remember, the fun of a lab challenge is figuring out how to survive and get out. This guide can spoil the experience!

Finding the Exit

Finding the exit is easy using the map. Move your cursor to the lab entrance on the overworld then scroll down with >. You aren't guaranteed to spawn at -1 z-level, though.

Character generation

Lab start scenario grants a lot of extra points, which can be spent on useful skills.

4 electronics will unlock EMP grenade (disables turrets, relatively cheap to craft too), atomic lamp (crafting everywhere) and an electrohack (also requires 1 computers, but allows a chance at easy escape - see Card Reader section).

5 electronics will unlock an electric jackhammer, which can be used not only to escape, but to rob the entire lab. However crafting the jackhammer is rather hard, as it requires a welder (2 mechanics at start or 3 for autolearn, requires 3 heating elements which are rather rare in lab), welding goggles (semi-common drop) and a set of tools.

2 cooking is pretty much mandatory for Explosives route.

Escaping

Older versions

In older versions of the game the walls are made of wood and thus can be bashed down by a strong character (18 strength for a 2-by-sword, 11 for a quarterstaff, homewrecker required otherwise), burned down or destroyed with a match bomb.

In newer versions of the game, the walls are made of concrete and won't go down as easily.

Teleporter

Teleporter is a rare drop that pretty much guarantees escape. Just use it on the topmost level, preferably at night.

It is possible to gain a "guaranteed" teleporter by uncrafting a teleport pad, but disarming a teleport pad is very risky and requires unfeasibly high trapping skill level.

Card reader

The topmost level has a card reader behind the turret. If you manage to activate it with a science ID or an Electrohack, the doors will open.

There is a guaranteed science ID card in the finale chamber of every lab. However due to mapgen oddities, it may not actually be reachable. And even if it is, the ID may be destroyed by explosions.

Electrohack requires 4 electronics and 1 computers. Using it on the reader may not work and may permanently fry the reader instead. EMP grenade (4 electronics) may also work and likewise it may also fry the reader instead of activating it.

Climbing

If playing in Z-level mode, you can climb up with <. This will require you to remove the roof first, then prepare something to function as a makeshift ladder. The roof can be removed by 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.

Once on the roof, you can just walk down to an edge and examine it to drop down safely.

Explosives

Concrete walls will take actual explosives to go down. The easiest "serious" explosive to craft is the dynamite, which requires 7 cooking and a chemistry book. The chemistry books found in lab require 5 cooking. The biggest problems here are leveling cooking to 5 to be able to learn from the book, finding (or crafting) a chemistry kit and finding the book itself.

Lab technician profession starts with the kit, which solves one of the issues outright. It also helps a lot with leveling, since most cooking recipes that can be used in the lab require the kit (other lvl 3-4 cooking recipes generally require specific food items, which are very 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 2+ a good idea.

Book spawn can't be guaranteed in any way.

Once you have 7 cooking, you can craft dynamite. Dynamite is enough to break concrete walls. To improve chances, use the dynamite in constrained spaces - the less room it has to expand (especially directly at epicenter), 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 close doors behind yourself.

Safety

• You can tell a room has a turret because it will have lit up walls. Big rooms can have turrets far from doors, but those won't see you if you don't have a light source and stand in the darkness while opening the door.
• Peek around corners X if there are no walls/doors.
• You can tell room has mobile creatures in it by knocking on (smashing) its wall and waiting for reaction - zombies will hear the knock and get angry and start whacking the wall, robots will start moving around.
• Metal doors can take all zombie hits (except maybe hulks, but those don't spawn here), so if you see something scary, just close the door.
• Bionic room computers can spawn security bots on failure. Other computers can only zap you, shutdown or spawn manhacks (which are harmless and can drop combat knife).
• Avoid being bitten by zombies. The only reliable way to cure infection in the lab is royal jelly and those aren't very common.
• Skitterbots are dangerous if you have low dex, low melee skill and bad weapons. They have quite a bit of armor, so light weapons aren't all that good against them. They have no light source (unlike manhacks or turrets), so telling them apart from zombies requires being close. They're significantly faster than your walking speed (comparable to dog speed) and hear well. Leading them into dissectors or blob pits works well.
• Manhacks are hard to hit, but rather weak. They also have hit and run flag, 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. If you started with 4 electronics, you can detonate EMP grenades in your own inventory to take out nearby manhacks.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 lead it onto a dissector or blob pit or make it waste ammo by shooting through armored glass (its 9mm SMG will not pierce the glass).

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.

Food

You have to go fast before it all runs out.

• Human corpses are nutritious, but morale penalty from eating them will stack and prevent crafting. If you get famished, cut up one of those naked corpses, cook it all up (make sure you cook enough before starting eating) and eat until full. It's a good idea to eat before sleep - even if you get -400 morale, most of it will go away before you wake up.
• Water isn't exactly rare and there are rooms with infinite water, so thirst is only a problem if RNG hates you or you go slow and don't map out enough of the lab before starting grinding skills.

When cooking food, unless you've got a filter mask, keep the flame tiny and stand far from it. You'll still choke on smoke, just much less.

• Chunk of tainted meat will debuff and hurt you, cause vomiting and pain and generally be very unpleasant. Don't eat it all at once or you risk vomiting it all back up. One piece of tainted meat usually takes 2 minutes to be fully digested. If you have a Royal jelly, you can gather a lot of tainted meat, eat it all at once and then cure the poisoning with the jelly.
• If you started with Herbivore mutation, you'll need to subsist on blob globs. It is actually possible (more - feasible) to survive on blobs until the escape. Lead things into blob pits, kill big blobs, then lead small blobs into pits once again to maximize glob harvest.
• Poison resistance trait will help a lot with poisonous food, making zombie meat and blobs nearly safe to eat. Strong stomach will help with vomiting (this is one of the very few cases where this trait is useful, though still not worth the point expense).

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.