Lab Dungeon Progressions

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Alien Lab

• Established many years before the cataclsym, probably the first of the labs.
• Contains 1-3 alien corpses. This can be done by creating an alien monster type that never spawns and then setting the corpse type to the monster.
• Lab notes indicate at least 2 life forms found on recovered craft wreckage, one being alien corpse, other being blob. Could include other life forms, like alien bacteria or pets or otherwise, but most reference at least the alien and blob.
• Notes also indicate that it doesn't appear that the crash killed the alien and destroyed the crash, but instead that the crash was a result of the destruction of the ship from the inside. The implication should be that the ship was self destructed for some reason, presumably due to some detected contamination by the blob.
• The craft traveled by skimming through the subprime plane to traverse long distances in the normal (prime?) plane, which is basically how teleportation works. The aliens are aware of the blob, and have some special seal to prevent blob from reaching inside the craft, however, some failure of this seal has caused the blob to contaminate the craft and its occupants.
• ALTERNATELY - the aliens have discovered the blob's ability to conduct energy from other subprime planes and have been harnessing the blob as a power source. Some containment failure of the power source could explain the destruction of the craft and the crew.
• Scientists focused their efforts on reverse engineering the subprime engine and the alien corpse, and did not understand the nature of the blob or the implications it posed.
• Other alien artifacts recovered have been sent to other labs, the main role of this lab is to house the corpse for study. It may contain notes related to the initial research of the other artifacts, and possibly the location of the labs they were sent to.
• This should be a very difficult lab with some unique payoffs. The alien connection should be a big revelation to the player, the lab should have exotic materials the player can use for advanced crafting, alien corpse might provide material for unique mutagen, it could contain locations or ID cards for other labs, and the reward from any related NPC quest.
• It should be one of the last labs the player has the capability to explore. One way to do this could be to put lots of heavy duty robots guarding the facility like special tankbots with an NPC able to give the player an IFF badge that will cause the robots to stand down. If NPCs are off, the badge should be able to be acquired as a reward from another lab or from a military facility. This will require special measures taken to ensure the player can't cheese their way into the facility, like explosive and dig proof walls going all the way around the underground, and attention taken to ensure that nobody can dig down from above. Enemies should include bionic enhanced zombies, zombie scientists, military zombies, turrets at checkpoints, and robots.

Materials Lab

• Established to research the materials recovered from the alien craft, possibly a year or two after the alien lab.
• Staff was kept in the dark about the true origins of the materials, and possibly fed lies that it was acquired through spies in China. Lab notes should indicate that technicians have their suspicions about the true nature of the materials, but the cover story should be largely accepted.
• Facility should contain many testing chambers to test the various properties of the materials, including things like electrical/thermal conductivity, hygroscopy, tensile strength, corrosive resistance, and so on.
• Scientists working in the facility were attempting to recreate the material with limited success in small quantities. These materials were used to perform and reproduce more experiments, with some being diverted to labs working on portal technology.
• This facility should be guaranteed to have CVD machines, and the existing machines should probably be removed as a finale from current labs.
• One reward should be decent quantities of rare materials, including hydrogen cells and nuclear material. It could also contain machinery (similar to the CVD machines) that can be used for advanced crafting.
• Should be environmental dangers like radiation from faulty experiment chambers damage to the facility. Also can include some robotic enemies and scientists. Less secretive and militarized than most labs.

Portal/Teleportation Lab

• Established approximately the same time as the materials lab to research subprime travel and related fields.
• Similar to above, staff largely kept in dark about their material, believing that they are reverse engineering enemy technology.
• Ground zero for first major blob infestations, though they did not really pick up steam until after researchers had been examining the technology for many years because they were unable to create and sustain portals for a long time.
• Researchers did not understand how to harness the subprime energy to power the very demanding experiments, so it required an on site power plant and nearby river for cooling/water to drive turbines. This proximity would give the blob an easy vector to the water supply.

Blob/Biological Experimentation Lab

• Established after research on the blob at the alien lab determined there was more to it than initially suspected.
• Blob was known to be an alien lifeform, but it was passed off as having been discovered on a routine space trip.
• Over time, lab notes express growing amount of concern that the blob seems to be both very prolific and resistant to most attempts to destroy it.
• The revivification effects go largely unnoticed for a long time as the scientists have a difficult time initially realizing accumulation effects in large creatures and the specimens are terminated and incinerated before they have a chance to resurrect. The effect is finally noticed when a specimen is left undestroyed by an employee not following protocol.
• The effect on insects get noticed much earlier due to an accidental infection. After this incident, extra care is taken to keep specimens separate, and a separate area is set up to study insects. It is not understood why some insects are affected but others are not.
• Also noticed fairly early on are the interactions on the cellular level between the blob and bacteria and viruses. It is noticed that when introduced to a simple coronavirus or influenza that it seems to produce a much more acute version of these illnesses. Scientists begin exploring the possibility of using blob enhanced illnesses as a weapon to temporarily disable enemy forces. During this research, they notice that the blob seems to alternate between enhancing the virus or immune system cells depending on which cells appear to be winning. This leads them to speculate that the blob possesses at least some form of intelligence, and that it may have some enhancement capabilities. The enhancement capabilities would be the start of the mutation experiments.
• Experiments with the blob in near absolute zero conditions note that it seems to be unaffected for the most part, and can otherwise appear to survive with no traditional means of receiving energy, which leads researchers to believe it has some alien method of survival.
• Strong zombified enemies present because they have been exposed the longest and have had more time to upgrade. There should also be exotic zombified animals that had been used as guinea pigs, including primates, and aquatic mammals, fishes, etc. Some areas should be contaminated with blob enhanced bacteria and viruses and should have a high chance to get cause illness when in these areas.

Mutation Lab

• Established a year or two before the cataclysm. No big breakthroughs until the few months before the cataclysm.
• Scientists realize that when the blob infects a host body, it can help it repair damage, including genetic damage. This leads scientists to speculate what happens when the blob has "extra" DNA to work with. These revelations lead scientists to begin work on mutagen and other blob based treatments.
• This lab could have also created the Mr. Stem Cell machines that are in hospitals. These machines may not be blob based, but they could be based off of lessons learned from the blob.
• The lab should contain lots of animals that were used as genetic stock, and lots of mutated horrible creatures resulting from the tests. Also, mutated people obviously.
• Lots of checkpoints with turrets to make sure nothing escapes, lots of large holding cells for death row and lifer inmates that are turned test subjects, lots of observation areas, test chambers for a variety of conditions, and cloning chambers.
• Clones were used in some cases to grow humans for mutation tests, and in some cases were able to grow individual parts for testing.
• The facility is based around a boss fight area with a giant mutated horror on the lowest levels.

Player Progression:
The player should be able to follow the lab notes and piece together the progression of technology and spread of the blob. The alien lab should always be the last lab visited, with some major check required to pass that almost requires visiting the other labs first. If the player hasn't explored them on their own, quests can direct them to each lab for whatever reason, like settlement inhabitants could direct player to materials lab for chemistry supplies or to clear a mutation lab of the mutated enemies surrounding it. Each lab could have branching side quests as necessary (see #12). An ideal progression would probably directly in reverse order of above.