Eighth NosLabs

Built by Sean and Wyatt: Thursday, August 22, 2013

Background

After the short-lived sixth and seventh NosLabs incarnations, the map was reset clean on August 22, 2013, which gave us the opportunity to build an entirely new facility. Since the new city had a road system, NosLabs received a new surface building, and the underground portion would follow soon thereafter. This lab introduced several elements that would become mainstays of the ninth and tenth labs after it.

Construction

After a surface access building was constructed, the entrance to the lab was hidden behind some trickery: the lab entrance was labeled under "Storage," whereas the entrance hatch labeled "Lab" lead directly into the void.

Once that had been done, an underground section for construction was WorldEdited out by Sean, and he and Wyatt began to lay down the base elements for the lobby and main gathering area. The eighth NosLabs was the first to receive later changes, as it was the first long-term lab, lasting a full four months, whereas its predecessors were lucky if they lasted for just one.

Feature Set

The eighth NosLabs was an innovative one, introducing several new rooms and features that would remain part of the lab to this day.

Astronautical Preparation Room: The eighth NosLabs was the first to feature a room used solely for storing supplies for trips into space. It would also gain rooms meant for testing other planetary environments, although these were rudimentary in comparison to what the tenth NosLabs would later have. Still, they originated with the eighth lab.

Launch Bay: The eighth NosLabs was the first to feature a proper launch bay that allowed rockets to take off and land, something that had never been added to any previous incarnation of NosLabs. Rockets originally just launched from the surface or from atop a tall structure, such as the HQ or the gold launch pad Sean built alongside the Flying Clown House.

Weapons Testing: No prior lab had ever featured a room meant for testing with items from the ICBM mod or any other mod that added new explosives to Minecraft. This happened with the eighth NosLabs, and would remain present on both the ninth and tenth labs, being expanded out into an entire armory later on.