I had some suggestions for overall themes for labs. These would also include some additional rooms for the mix.
Major/Overall Themes:
These themes are for an entire lab:
Material Science: Should continue advanced materials being researched at these places. Small rooms around the larger lab with samples of the materials. These rooms would most likely have been analyzing the new materials and trying to come up with new things to make/use them for. This can contain things like harder glass for vehicles, a source for high tech plates, and the like. This would mainly be raw materials and not complex items made from them.
Possible Subthemes: Alien/multidimensional materials: Artifacts and some special materials from the shadow realm?, terrestrial: Home made high tech materials. Weaker then other sources but more plentiful.
Physics/Dimensional Lab: This lab would most likely be the lab that Gordon Freeman worked at. You would find portals, alien creatures, artifacts, and maybe small samples of alien materials and devices.
Possible Subthemes: Extradimensional: Study would concentrate on creating gateway creation. This would include having shadow creature pens and the like.
Chemistry Lab: This lab would concentrate on creating various chemical compounds. Advanced Chemistry books, mutagen, purifier, and royal jelly abound. The ability to make gunpowder might be here.
Well, a Chemistry lab is right up there. Beakers and flasks, fuel and acid, an assortment of pharmaceuticals, and lots of weird chemical crafting components. If it’s possible to make your own gunpowder anywhere, it’ll be here.
That is a great idea. And to add onto it there can be bio labs. There would be things like arms, legs, misshapen fetuses for starters. Maybe also some medicines and first aid supplies like bandages and medicine. Not sure what else would fall under bio that is already programmed into cata, but if you find something interesting feel free to include it to the list.
The bio lab sort of seems to be the default lab type, being full of surgery rooms and cloning rooms and CBMs and such. An upgraded system would make the labs more varied from that pattern.
Another lab type might be a robotics lab, with lots of electronics parts and machinery, and maybe automated robotic defences you can hack, if you’re good enough with computers.
DinoCataclysm has 4 rudimentary flavours of labs - two bio based and two tech based, with assorted zombies, dinosaurs and robots, both wandering around freely and in enclosures. The rooms are also different, eg dino egg hatcheries and weapon testing areas. Rare items can be occasionally found in rooms, as well as in the different finales.
Hydrogen is easy to produce. You just run a heavy current through water and it’ll cause it to separate. They use this in some novels I’ve read. Bootstrap Colony is one. It’s a ebook only on Barnes and Noble I believe. But they have hydrogen engines and use wind, solar, and hydro power to power the process.
