Ancient LabsReport
English：Ancient Labs · Locations
The laboratories the old civilisation left behind — fourteen of them across the continent. Security Spiders guard the AI Cores and Ancient Science Books inside, and anyone who wants the high tech tree will have to force one of those doors eventually.
Ancient Labs are the remnants of a time long past. They were once a functioning part of an advanced civilisation; now they lie in shambles — but the shambles never went entirely silent. The mechanical sentries of the past still roam the rubble, and anyone who wants to salvage the lost tech has to face down a great many Security Spiders.
The Tech Hunters have scouted every one of these sites and mapped them for braver treasure seekers.
How many are there
Fourteen. But "Ancient Labs" is an umbrella term covering several different things, and the differences matter in practice:
| Type | What it means |
|---|---|
| Ancient Labs | The general case. May contain an AI Core — or may not |
| Ancient Tech Lab | Guaranteed to spawn at least one AI Core, the most reliable source in the game |
| Empty Lab | The cluster inside The Crater. Non-interactive, no lootable items at all |
In other words, do not treat every "lab" as a vault. The ones in The Crater are scenery, and a trip there returns nothing.
The fourteen, one by one
| Name / location | Contents |
|---|---|
| Burning Forest Lab | Held by Security Spiders, so the ancient loot is still untouched |
| The Crater Labs | Many Empty Labs, plus one real Ancient Lab to the north |
| Crumbling Labs (Stobe's Gamble) | Two buildings — one ruined, holding King Gorillo; the other full of Security Spiders |
| The Floodland Lab | Dead centre of the Floodlands, controlled by Security Spiders |
| The Forbidden Lab | Far east of the Stormgap Coast, in the northernmost corner of the Forbidden Isle |
| The Infested Lab | South-eastern part of The Swamp |
| The Iron Lab | Westernmost section of The Iron Trail. Past a great many Iron Spiders, it usually holds six Security Spiders and a single Broken Skeleton |
| Island Lab | South-west tip of Fishman Island, home to many Fishmen and their leader King Gurgler |
| Narko's Trap | Eastern edge of Holy Nation territory. The Holy Nation guards it heavily so nobody can "sin" by studying the technology inside; two Security Spiders sit within the lab itself |
| Obedience | Possibly contains no AI Cores at all |
| Tower of Abuse (Venge) | Home of the Thrall Masters leadership and of their prisoner Agnu |
| The Shun Lab | Centre of the north-western peninsula of Shun; usually many Security Spiders |
| Suspicious Lab | Overrun by Cannibals. Far easier to sneak past than spiders — but it holds no AI Core, only Ancient Science Books on the floor and in the boxes upstairs |
| Swamped Lab | The one lost to The Swamp. Packed with Blood Spiders that swarm out the moment the gate is unlocked |
What is inside
The notable loot is only four items long, but every one of them is hard currency:
- AI Core — the ticket to the high tech tree, and it does not respawn
- Ancient Science Book
- CPU Unit
- Generator Core
The Ancient Tech Lab variant spreads wider, adding Book, Capacitor, Electrical Components, Engineering Research, Medical Items, Motor, Power Core, Press, Robotics Components, Skeleton Muscle, Steel Bars and Tools.
Getting in
The guards are uniformly mechanical: Iron Spiders, Security Spiders, Broken Skeletons.
A Security Spider has 60 in Melee Attack, Melee Defence, Strength, Dexterity and Toughness, spawns in groups, and can hit up to two characters with a single swing if they stand too close. Being robots they will not eat you after a knockout — but labs are small, enclosed spaces and the spiders rarely leave, so standing back up where you fell usually just restarts the beating.
Two approaches work:
- Fight. Spread the squad out so one swing cannot catch two people, and use numbers to split aggro rather than letting every spider focus one character.
- Sneak. This is what most players do, especially at the Suspicious Lab, where Cannibals hold the place — living guards are much easier to fool than machines.
Finding them
Beyond walking near one, an Old Treasure Map reveals a single random ancient site, and 5% of the time that site is an Ancient Lab. The same map can also point to the Spider Factory (10%), Narko's Trap (10%), Crumbling Labs, the Suspicious Lab, the Swamped Lab or the Island Lab; the single most likely result, at 15%, is an Ancient Tech Lab.
One of them is for sale
If the player kills or imprisons Tengu, Longen and Tinfist, the Ancient Lab in Trader's Edge goes on the market for 320,000 Cats — the most expensive investment in the game. The same trigger flips Trader's Edge itself to its Empire Peasants override.
The marks they left
The wiki collects an observation worth repeating: the placement of the Ancient Labs lines up far too neatly with Kenshi's local anomalies.
The Forbidden Isle lab (and specifically the Spider Foreman inside it) is tied directly to the Iron Spiders in that region; the Venge one is tied to the presence of Thralls; the Fishman Island lab sits beside a huge Fishman population; the Shun lab lines up with Skin Spiders and the Burning Forest lab with Blood Spiders. Even the weather matches — the Cannibal Plains, Forbidden Isle and Burning Forest labs all sit under acid rain.
None of this is stated outright in game. But spread the map out and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that part of what this continent looks like today was made in these buildings.