I know that there a turrets and zombies, but I don’t really know any more than that generic information.
Check out the Science lab page of the wiki, but beware of spoilers…
Also, it’s not advisable to force your way into the top floor of a lab (at least not unprepared), since the turrets will absolutely shoot you to shredds within one turn.
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The wiki hasn’t been updated for a good long time, and I’m pretty sure the labs detailed on that page are being phased out or relegated to rare encounters. I also have not played in a good long time, so do not take my word as gospel. Zombie scientists, experimental mutants, security robots, and more chemicals than you can eat await you in the new labs. I don’t know what’s happening with the old-style ones that had finale rooms and the like, but the aforementioned wiki fairly well details what you can expect from those.
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If I remember correctly I think some of the finale rooms were oriented around lua scripting which was all phased out of the game a long time ago.
Does someone still have that old code? I guess you could download a super old build for it.
There’s totally room for people to code some new finale rooms and rare encounter rooms etc. I’m still planning on working on my lab mod and adding stuff like that in the vein of RE2 and H-L. But yeah, if anyone cares to do so the game could totally use more finale rooms and random encounters for labs. Heck, someone can even make some new room-areas/passageways and forks for them to add to the randomization of labs if you really want to experiment with and learn how mapgen works.
I plan on doing some of this myself sometime (as well as adding to the necropolis) but others should think about or experiment with this too. Even if you’re not a coder, if you have a really cool idea for a finale/boss-type room, random encounters, or hard to find rooms etc post a comment or make a thread.
Prep to fight robots. EMP stuff is a good idea, be it EMP grenades or lightning magic from Magiclism. Also if its one of those subway labs be ready to fight off electricity in the worst case. I recently ran into some kind of strange enemy that used electric attacks in one of those.
The comments above were basically right. Old style labs (science labs) are full of robots, zombies of multiple kinds, mutant and cyborg experiments, and plenty of loot. Watch out for environmental effects, too. Some labs are categorized as ice labs, and without appropriate equipment your expeditions will be very limited.
New labs (just listed as lab) aren’t as good IMO. Fewer robots, but a LOT more zombies to make up for it. This includes tough ones like Kevlar Zombies/Hulks and Bio-Operators in addition to more mundane Zeds. The loot isn’t that great either - a lot of chemicals and batteries, with very occasional mutagen or CBM areas sealed off from the rest of the complex. Most of the chems are there for future use (when the crafting system gets reworked) and therefore of limited utility, so the big draw would be Zombie Scientists. They spawn pretty heavily here, which gives a good chance to recover CBMs by dissecting them.
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Raiding one labeled as a ‘science lab’ right now and I’ve faced a fuckton of turrets and robots, ranging from cyborgs to those nasty Bio-Operators. There are some zombies too but they’ve made up at most ~50% of the enemies (notably kevlar and hulks as you mentioned).
Loot has been amazing with upwards of 10+ serums, 6+ CBM’s (not counting dissections) and 6+ mutagen books. Haven’t fully looted the place yet and don’t recall what exactly I’ve stashed, currently exploring its 6th floor with a comfy -72c.
It has something like 7 fucking barracks, so I’ve probably got a lifetime supply of ESAPI vests pinned down.
I don’t have a lot of experience with various labs being a newer player and all but this one lab feels like a mix of all your descriptions.
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You’re in an old style lab for sure. You’re spot on with the barracks, those and the attached magazines/armories are hard fights (by comparison - Kevlar zeds plus potential Dispatch robots and turrets mean risk/reward’s pretty good) but well worth it in terms of guns/ammo/supplies. How are you dealing with the cold, though? I have Climate Control CBMs and warm clothes, and I still freeze.
Poorly, holy fuck this was unexpected.
Thermal outfit to begin with, thermal suit, balaclava and socks for double layer and winter survivor mask, boots, gloves and hood with finally a Jedi cloak. Jedi cloak and winter surv boots are reinforced with fur.
Honestly this set of armor is pretty rushed, I had everything except for the winter survival gear but I don’t want to spend too much time crafting since I don’t want mobs rampaging about and destroying potential loot.
Luckily I’ve found some nasty guns in those barracks and been tearing shit up with a RM88 battle rifle (thankfully trained up marksmanship and rifle just before this), so the encumbrance is manageable. Being a ring junkie and not letting go of those sweet stat boosts doesn’t help either.
After I finish up this lab I’ll spend some time minmaxing a proper set of warm gear (probably 2 sets actually, one for ‘holy fucking shit -72c’ and one for more reasonable low temperatures).
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Hey, biops are best zeds! Top tier CBMs drop only from them, as far as I know. Note the “drop” part - they can still spawn in bionic vaults (and maybe some other places? idk).
Just move away from the lab for time-consuming activities like crafting. About 5 overmap tiles should be enough.
Consider me converted, love those little fuckers.
Below is my mutagen and bionics haul, 21 serums and 40 bionics (counting duplicates and the 11 power storage CBM’s).
Other notable loot includes 6 different mutagen related lab books, 2 autoclaves, innumerable ESAPI vests and various guns, ~20,000 rounds of 5.56 NATO and 800 .50 BMG M33 (accompanied by 2x M2HB Browning HMG).
I feel as if my death mobile will become a bit more deathlier.
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And the NPC ?
I know its a pain to heal them but you can save them for your base.
I found no NPC, are they meant to be a guaranteed spawn?
How you add spoiler tag here?
spoiler] [/spoiler]
With a [ at the beginning too.
The Prototype cyborg. Use the new helper bot, Nurse, to receive a bonus that drop the difficult to only 2%, the bonus is for the nearest being. Its this enough?
Oh, well that ship has already sailed down the barrel of my rifle.
What hints does the game give me and how do I make them not hostile?
Ok full spoiler 
The method I use is the control laptop, that one is gone using certain mods. Its a game changer OP item.
Not sure if there another way to put down experimental droids, you can find from 3 to 15 in each lab, incapacitate them perhaps is not the only way maybe lead them to a Autodoc? I never try. Once you put/lead the cyborg to autodoc activate or have around a nurse give a bonus that drop bionic risk to 2% to hard ones and 1% to others, nearly guarantee a successful operation, the nurse say something about assist you, remember if other npc are near they receive the bonus and not you. This bonus also work on you, put someone near the autodoc to receive also an Operator present safeguard. The new npc its random each time, if you dont mind cheat a bit the save before “wake them” (remove control chip) and alt F4 its not your taste (use debug to spy is stats). If not its ok anyway because there are lots of these guy. They come with bad and good bionic, try remove the 2 that can kill them, leaking and acidic. For recruit you can try convince them with 3 difficult answer or just say “i m nobody” and then recruit them like normal NPC with a lot more chances, not sure if this is a bug, I made a post about but nobody answer. Good hunt. (Careful with the crazy broken nurse, they’re identical) (I cannot find uses for the broken cybor other than dissect)
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Thanks for the rundown, I still need to get my hands on a book to be able to craft a controller laptop so this will have to be a future project.
The game does give a hint to it, but it’s up to RNG. One of the Survivor Notes that you can find is a plea to save the Prototype Cyborgs by removing the Control Chip. It advises you to knock them out and get them to an AutoDoc for chip removal, but doesn’t advise how to knock them out. Control Laptop is the most viable method, and previously you could use a Scrambler Grenade to turn them friendly long enough to deactivate them but I don’t think those are in mainline Cata anymore as EMP Grenades were removed and Scramblers are a variant EMP Grenade. Might still be in Aftershock, haven’t checked.