How does the Lab work?

[Cyberis]

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.