How does the Lab work?
 

I love this game! It's the most delightful game I've seen in years. It's a brilliant blend of roguelike, RPG, strategy, and space genres. I especially like that it lets you move up and down through the sectors, not relentlessly driving you forward like most roguelikes.

In my current game I'm up to sector 15 on hard difficulty.

I've got the hang of everything except the Lab. I just don't get it. And I don't want to spend too many resources randomly experimenting.

So, can anybody give me a primer on the Lab for dummies?

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

In the lab, you are trying to "guess" the recipe for an item that you don't know yet. You can place up to six different ingredients into one of the available "experiments", and then hit "test". This will consume 1 of each ingredient, but you will get a green checkmark if the ingredient is correct, and a red X if it is incorrect. So let's say you see three green checks and three red X marks. That means you've found three of the six correct ingredients for that recipe. You can then swap out of the ones with the X marks for new ones, and test again. Hopefully you'll start to find more correct ingredients. Once you get them all right, you learn a new crafting recipe!

Just keep in mind that every time you hit test, you consume one of each crafting part. So you may want to wait until you have a lot of crafting parts to spare before you go too crazy in the lab. If you do have a lot of crafting parts, you can even run multiple experiments at once in the lab.

Also remember that you can disassemble items on the salvage screen to recover one of each crafting part in its recipe. This can also increase you crew's crafting skill; if you see a ^ next to the name of the item in the salvage screen, it means that salvaging it will increase your base crafting level.

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

disassembling is the easiest way to find new crafting recipes. If you pick up 2 of an item, and or get a lot of "build it cheaper" skills, you should disassemble at least one of them instead of selling them.

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

I've been experimenting with this, tracking exactly which of the 25 sub-components make up each item when disassembled (for this current game). If you craft exactly those sub-components in the recipe, you re-create that item, exactly so far. Though some items have identical parts: i.e. "Generic Rifle" and "Laser Shotgun", so far it always seems to be the lesser item. (I have not acquired any Officer crafting skills as yet.)

However, if you put everything in a known recipe in the lab and add an additional item, or simply vary one known sub-component, you not only won't get the known item recipe, you may get something completely unrelated. For instance, if trying to make an improved Laser Pistol from a known recipe, you might wind up with an Analysis Suite Device instead.

(I should make clear: these have been "known recipes" from disassembling in this game, but some Lab tests were performed after reloading prior to the actual disassembly. So the recipes are only "good" once either "discovered" in the Lab or by actual disassembly.)

So, it seems the Lab is a crap-shoot. There is apparently no rhyme or reason to the results. So you will have to trial-and-error your way through all 25 separate components until you hit a successful recipe. And then you will still need 5 of each to build the item (without any crafting skills).

I have noted that "devices" (at least in the early game) have only four components. The rest of the 50+ items (but no Generators so far) I've disassembled seem to consistently have five.

My rule of thumb on acquiring items is: if it costs less than the profit I made on the trip, I buy it unless I am building up funds for something in particular ASAP.

-Dubious-

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

Since each time you hit test it consumes components, my strategy is to start with the six components that I have the most of and then work my way down from there with the others. That way I have a good chance of completing the lab before I run out of stuff.

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

Okay Dubious, you have waaaay to much time on your hands. :D

Actually this is good to know. I just started experimenting with crafting. Right now all I am doing is disassembling items and then re-assembling as I need them. I do this of course to save on cargo space.

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

Hi, I'd just like to pop in and respond to this:
You can't learn a recipe you already know, because doing so would waste your time and resources. meaning, if you put all the components for something that you know the recipe for, you still won't "discover" that, because you already know it.

The recipes are set at the start of your game, and are constant within each game.

Also of note:
There are 13 types of "components" (away team weapons, spaceship shields, etc.) , and they include a vast variety of subtypes.
you can not learn the recipe of both a shotgun and a pistol, because they fall under the same category. There is some randomness to that aspect (ie crapshoot, as you put it)

Re: How does the Lab work?
 

My strategy for crafting has been to buy cheap items in early sectors and disassemble them, wait until I get the tentaculon crafting quest (where you get ALOT of parts) and then do some experimenting in the lab trying recipes with parts that I have the most of. Once I've discovered a recipe in that quest, I don't try the lab anymore, I just keep building up officer skills for crafting and disassembling items that have the caret "^" next to their name. I would LOVE to learn the recipe for a generator but they are too expensive to salvage (maybe I should go back to an early sector and buy one). You can make generate some fair credits by crafting (that is if you don't equip it). That's sort of worked for me so far except I don't seem to get good parts for Space Suits which is the other thing I like to craft.