SCP: Secret Laboratory – Best Map Tips

In case you aren’t that great or just started this first section will act as a brief begginer guide. At the start of the game you can spawn in as either an SCP, Facility Guard, D class, or Scientist. SCP’s include (for now) 049, 079, 096, 106, 173, 939-53, 939-89. Although all of these have one goal in common they all act very differently from one another except the two 939 are very similar. One extra SCP is 049-2 which is the result of 049 while playing in game. Note as you play the game you will understand what each SCP does very easily, more fun to find out yourself! After you die you will usually spawn in as MTF or Chaos, mtf help scientists and chaos helps d class, mtf also fight chaos.

Your basic goal as a D Class or Scientist is to escape, Facility Guard helps the scientists escape, and SCP’s try to stop everything in its path by killing it. To escape, you need to upgrade your keycard in the room labeled #914. Setting the machine on fine will upgrade it consistently, while never destroying it. On some servers Scientists can degrade themselves into D Class and Facility guards can turn into Scientists by putting the machine on course. If you put anything on rough it is destroyed, even you. Very fine will act as a gamble and either upgrade fast or destroy a card, not you. To escape proceed with a card that has Checkpoint and Gate access, pressing tab and hovering a card will provide these details. Head through a checkpoint in light to heavy checkpoint to entrance zone then a gate A or B to surface. Escape room is to the right of NTF helicopter spawn.

To end a game one must check a servers rules. Vanilla endings are; Stalemate:only mtf, MTF: mtf scientist escapes, SCP: only scp, SCP: only chaos and scp, SCP: only chaos, D-class: chaos d class escapes. Keep in mind that the winning process is extremely bugged and that it will actually receive a rumored update with a surface update in the future (3/8/19)

Enough with that lets get into the juicy information I have after playing for 160+ hours.

When playing SCP SL you may feel uneasy with your starts and they may feel especially slow. Everyone hates spawning as a facility guard because it is the most boring and slow class to play, so thats where we will start. When i play as a facility guard i am never discouraged! First of all on the server I play on facility guards can downgrade into scientists, so i can still receive the hype of escaping! Getting down to #914 USED to be a horrific task, but now there is a clear and easy way to avoid scp’s and get down into light containment.

Starting with one of the most important rooms for facility guards, the stair room

This room will hold 2 lockers and opening them will give you some random items, sometimes none. These have the ability to give a key card up to a commander and can hold grenades!

An important room in heavy is the ammo room, this room is the juncture room with a pillar in the middle holding a closet needing gun clearance level one key cards. This room is filled to the brim with ammo, save some for your buddies!

In light containment you will always find that a room has a sign above it labeled ##00

(Note all rooms in Light have a label above them)
This room is THE MOST important room. This room holds guns that the class d can kill you with and also holds grenades, keep in mind flash bangs can upgrade to grenades in #914. On some servers you can upgrade guns to micros, personally what i do with these guns!

Feel stuck as a D class or upgrading cards in 914 feel to slow, try to use these rooms to your absolute advantage!

First we will quickly go over gun spawns, keep in mind rooms i refer to have their room number above them before entering. PT00 (aka 173 spawn) holds a gun, head up the stairs but turn right into a side room, sometime a gun will spawn on the desk. Obviously next is ##00 which spawns many guns, gun clearance level 1 required, check by hovering over card in tab. WC00 (restrooms) is very good for class d, starting with the left side, a card can spawn in the sink or on the floor, and a gun may spawn on the table, right side can spawn card on floor, floor of toilet, and on toilet, no gun. GR18 (greateen) can spawn up to two cards in the locker, highest is dark green, a gun can spawn in the small room. Last is room #012 (012) which can spawn a gun on the desk, this spot is crucial for a strat i will talk about later; a orange card always spawns on the desk. Note that both a card and a gun can spawn at the same time in any location. Not sure if more than one gun can spawn because i never check anywhere else after i get one.

The most exciting to become for most people who play SCP SL, not much to say except that if you dont have 079 (computer) then goodluck getting into #914. Look for elevators A and B to get to light containment ill talk about spawn patterns later.

One of the hardest achievments to get (not imo) in SCP. Personally ive never gotten 096 rage quit but this achievment is really a huge milestone for conducting how good you are at SCP. Steam tracks what percentage of players have this and it is insanely low the lowest percentage of players have this. Just working with someone can slow you down the smallest bit that will affect your time enough to not get it. The closest Ive helped someone and not gotten the achievment was 3:01 (they were pretty mad). Of course you can use an admin but it really was a fun grind to get this achievment and I have a lot of tips because i did it legit.

There are a few strategies, not one strategy will only work. One of the easiest vanilla ways is working with an SCP friend while having a facility chilling with a card from the lockers. But even just by chance it is partially impossible to get it in some games, so dont get too frustrated. Ill describe how i got it to begin, this is probably the second most casual experience, and it was also the second luckiest run to get. I was playing and i spawned as a scientist in ##00, my only choice was to walk forward, then i made the decision that decided the game, i took a right instead of following straight, to my surprise 914 was now on my left and an exit was on my right (perfect). I proceeded to follow the quickest strat to get a dark red card, 1:1 then fine, nobody was in my sights when i left. I headed straight up the elevators and when i exited the room i headed straight; it was a 4 intersection. The checkpoint was behind that door and i knew this was the run no matter how bad i did, just keep in mind going for gate B is always more worth than taking gate A even if its what you see first. I see gate a, skip it then see gate B, i escaped with a time of around 2:20 it was insane. This strat involves major luck but was super casual and i got this around 110 hours into my SCP experience

Next strat isthe least luck based (surprisingly) with still major luck, like all strats. It mainly takes you being a scientist and having extreme map pattern knowledge, here i will explain briefly later in depth referring to this strat as an example. Best to spawn as a scientist, find #012 get the orange card, leave, then either hope a facility guard has a card to go up or you find 096’s spawn room in heavy which always contains a commander card, luck is needed with entrance zone gate spawns and 096 room, not so much exits and 012, especially using pattern knowledge.

Last strat i will say is the most luck based, you need to spawn in light and 106 must spawn, 106 gets you while in light, you escape pocket dimension and find checkpoint fast, then a facility guard must’ve gotten a card to access gates, keep in mind some servers allow facility guards to use their starter cards to open gates.

Here is the map knowledge introduction column starting with the easiest to understand, entrance zone and surface! Surface is the same every time (3/8/19) so it will not be included.

Always think logically about a game, even though it is more than javascript it is still easy to see how a game must be created to flow, knowing this the game will tend toward (even though it may not feel like it) not screwing the player over with dumb trolly tricks. there are basics to how it should work and entrance zone is a good example before heavy because it includes only one way to go down (heavy has 2). The computer is such a great inclusion to the game because it shows a map layout, that addition got me to really think and conclude on this information. Anyway logically we must know that to satisfy all player needs, mtf AND chaos SHOULD probably funnel into the same area, this is the hypothesis I had, and it was true to show an example i drew a paint drawing.
This is a shortened drawing of one of the 3 basic idea SCP entrance maps sometimes the blockade in front will extend to a gate instead but inturn still be a dead end seeing this pattern will always result in the side hallway as the answer, remember it must work this way because mtf and chaos must funnel the same way no matter where and which one spawns, i also drew the intercom purple there which is usually what is there, there are a few signs of when to turn back as a facility guard also.

A bit of a stretch of a title to say but nevertheless true. A few rooms will hint towards heavy in a funnel previously to what i previously mentioned this time shown on a bigger level and way more confusing, click on the picture to make it enlarge.

This map is a little bit inaccurate but still shows signs of of going towards heavy that we can anlayze, this is also the second basic map type. Lets say that you spawn in the room labeled evac. aka evacuation shelter. We have no option but to go through the curve then we come to our biggest begginer room, the stairs, not only do stairs have good loot, but they almost always lead to the exit, along with the electronics, room and this room arrangement is actually very common, instead of going through a loop hole through the rest of the map we can use map knowledge to safetly assume the stairs will lead to the exit, I dont know the exact reason this almost always occurs but it probably has to do with it being two way and being very long. One example of turning around on this picture is spawning in bottom left work room, a work room never spawns like this but i wanted to include the second one on this map. Lets say we walk straight. we notice a blockade to the left, we continue straight and we see dead end in front and gate b to left, at this point i would turn around and safetly assume the game wanted me to funnel down the map, of course it could also be right but because we saw the first blockade at the beggining we definitly know the map will funnel more towards the other direction. Then we follow what happened in the last example.

I call this a lucky break because it is super straightforward of a map but involves a 50/50 guess as a facility guard, this map is the third and final basic entrance map.
Okay, very simple, right? Keep in mind every room type always spawns even though you may not see every room type, but on this map you certainly will, you cant miss it. Lets say we are a facility guard and we spawn in the room labeled IT for intersection. Now, there is one small clue, which is the work room, this could help us find the way but because the map is from right to left no matter what, two way rooms are not explicitly important and the game could randomly generate a different room type, this is basically a 50/50 the map will go left to right or right to left. If you go left you will see CI room but there is no logical reason you have to turn around unless you already have knowledge of the full map which can really waste time and be frustrating, although easy to understand, it is 50/50 luck based, I will now proceed to heavy intro not entrance advanced because we need to understand the 1:2 splits.

Seems like a dumb question that i already answered, right? WRONG. Heavy being a 1:2 is only the first step in what makes mastering SCP map knowledge so difficult. The next step is that all doors in heavy currently have no windows, which makes navigating so much more frustrating, waiting for a door to open only to see SCP 106’s containment. Last, heavy is almost always a confusing grid that feels like its always a loop. Luckily for those reading, i have a solution for each of these problems.

You probably looked and saw how short this text is and that is because the answer is surprisingly more simple, but not at the same time. Heavy is 1:2 meaning it is the exact opposite of entrance zone, right? WRONG (I’ll talk more about this in problem 3)

This next problem is extremely annoying and seems to have no fix, but luckily for you there is a solve, as much as you hate them again tesla gates were added back to the game! This was a while ago but this actually changed the map enough to make it more consistent for what you should do, although it leads into the third problem. To help understand this problem lets work backwords, assume we are D Class at elevator B and when we leave the elevator room we see the pillar intersection room

We know this room is literally a 2:1 split from any side you come out, it is very safe to assume that the other elevator will funnel to this room like gate b to gate a (vice versa) so we basically have the facility guard 50/50 issue again, this is actually the worst example again although simple but keep in mind the path facing outwards the closet will usually be the correct path to head towards. Tesla gates are really convenient because they never have doors on the side so they basically act as stairs in entrance zone, also no special room ever come directly off of a tesla gate, so we know that we can follow tesla gate around the ouside of the map; idea here.

This is a real map example that I can recall it helps us understand why heavy is so different, it has so many more variety two way rooms, I’ve seen 4 teslas spawn on one map! Keep in mind every other special room must also spawn in every single map!

This next “issue” is actually extremely useful, I will real quick show one more map type, I’m saving another one for advanced because it makes stuff more confusing

This map type is straightforward and I don’t really need to explain what your thought should be basically check all doors but head straight until you see 049/tesla/micro room. You have to open doors which can be annoying but okay (I also forgot micro room in last drawing). I’m saying this because this doesn’t relate to the solution of the gird problem. This problem as I explained a bit though, does help us follow the outside, we also know that it can’t be in the middle of the map like #914 (a problem we will mention later), so grid maps aren’t really a problem and they can actually help you. If you check all doors you will usually find 096 room which will lead to commander card which means you can get out of light with only orange tier. It is helpful to keep in mind that grid is the most common although I will talk about how much it varies in advanced. Last referring to my original point, it should be obvious now that just because heavy is 1:2 it is not the exact opposite of entrance zone.

Yep, that’s right, nothing too far beyond logical funneling. Instead I will tell you my various tricks I use in entrance zone, first of all the obvious, you are not safe from 096 in the intercom room. Instead hide AWAY from the group of people, if people scatter then go and hide behind the closest door make sure to press tab and click on an empty slot to put your gun away; it is more likely SCP’s don’t see you, next because this section will be vague I will say a neat trick here.

When avoiding/hiding from SCP’s it is very important to put your gun away and most people know this, but people also don’t know that camouflage is actually very important, as a D Class it is actually less effective for how bright you are, try not to hide as a D Class it is more likely you are seen; just run. Another good tip is where to hide behind a door. First of all hiding behind a wall in an open room is not better than hiding behind a door frame in a small hallway, SCP’s will always look quickly around in a big room, but not usually in a hall. Last, the most important trick especially in Entrance where there are not many obstructions, also light and I will mention this again. When hiding from 173 or having knowledge of scp 173 in a match always look at a wall, this causes 173 to not stop which is usually 173’s instinct to look around in a room, a great example of this is when I heard 106 and 173 approaching through the CP I was in the Electronic room and I decided to hide in the the inner indent closest to CP. I faced the wall and they went right past me.

This one is not as obvious to many people and that is choosing your gates, at this point it is extremely important to use the spectator feature to spectate SCP’s as to which gates they are guarding, if they are guarding in entrance and you spawn as mtf, go down gate a instead, this doesn’t always work (as gates funnel into each other) but it can help you slip into entrance then you can hide from there. When escaping just listen for sound cues, if you are a scientist and chaos spawn go to gate b and vice versa with D class.

SCP’s will commonly go to entrance zone after clearing light and it is important to know effective hiding places to work against the current SCP’s. Hiding in basically any room and sticking to a wall will usually keep you safe from 939 unless they have a buddy with them. Instead hide in the intercom room against SCP 939’s. Hiding on top of the lockers is a very common hiding place, so much so that people check it often, don’t use it that much. Never hide in evac unless it is desperate. It has the same problem as the lockers. Hide in construction dead ends is your best bet, the red gate rooms also work but more common for an SCP to check them, don’t forget to unequip your gun when hiding!

Heavy has so many different configurations compared to entrance zone, and it can be really confusing, let me show you common pattern among the gates and how we can relate it to a mini funnel that will eventually lead into the CP

These are the three basic configurations, rarely nukeroom instead of /049 but still a possibility, this shows the mini funnel that is created, keep in mind this is a two way funnel that SCP’s must also be accounted for which is what makes the RNG design so logical, it lets the SCP’s still get confused but have a better chance at finding one of the exits because a funnel is made, ultra simplified from entrance zone because it is only half of how confusing the setup is.

The setup starts with this possibility of funneling the two elevators, but this only the first funnel, the other is the one we talked about with the armory getting involved and creating a triangle on our map. This creates a virtual 2:1 which is also amazing, but then things get confusing 

This shows us that either they can funnel right away or that they won’t ever funnel essentially making it easier for the SCP’s to find you and harder for you to find the exit, you must pass in a straight line but this also hurts you because you will be forced to go through an scp if you want to proceed with can be frustrating and lead to drawn out games where the computer camps heavy

Anyone can camp, from the simplest leaving the keyboard and coming back to being where you spawned still to locking yourself in a room impossible to access. Heavy containment has all of the issues even the ones in the middle, luckily while playing on any server admins can be sent screenshots and ban the people, but it is still very annoying, not spawning with a 106 or 079 can result in anyone camping 106’s containment room once light containment closes down, This is luckily the worst issue, next is another impossible one in only some circumstances. It is possible to parkour in 106’s room and reach a ledge unreachable by most SCP’s all but 096 and 173 can, very hard for 049, if the player is good enough they can reach a lamp unreachable by 049. Next is SCP camping and afk SCP’s it is extremely annoying when SCP 106 is afk and/or 049, can be solved but the game usually needs to be ended in other ways. Any scp can also get stuck in SCP 106’s bottom room and can’t get out except for 106. Anyone can camp the silo room and delay the game a lot.

Did you know there are 3 ways to obtain a key card in heavy? One is in 096’s closet where a commander card rests. In the silo room there is a chance for a guard card to spawn on the shelf. Also a guard card can spawn on the floor of the top floor of the server room. I can’t confirm a fourth way, but there is a shelf in 049’s containment area where a card may be able to spawn, but I have never seen one. I will cover more rooms in my Special Rooms Advanced section.

Light is the most common place to be at and you would assume at the begging that this is where I should start the guide and that is completely wrong, if you skipped here I assure you unless you have over 100 hours into this game and understand what the game was like before rooms were labeled in light, then and only then can you start here. Trust me I didn’t write all of that before writing this for no reason. I have been in light for so long and intuitively understand light containment so much that I hope you enjoy this information. Don’t take it all in at once and take breaks to play the game and apply the knowledge I am teaching you along the way. Trust me everything counts and I will explain every trick I have up my sleeve, some obvious some need you to have a capacity of 10% of Shaggy’s power and/or have an IQ of 42069. Good Luck and enjoy this crazy segment.

As I hinted towards before Light Containment is just a crazy mess of everything we have learned, but I will break it down simply then say the advanced tactics. If you have ever been a computer you know that Light is always a grid it is never at it’s simplest and it is always going out of its way to do the longest loops around the whole map layout, It does this for a reason though. The best strategy is to always start counting the special rooms you see anything labeled something other than HC.. IT.. or IX.. If a HC.. leads to another HC.. always know you will usually find a special room; knowing this if anyone is tailing you from a bit behind close the door behind you then keep going in hopes that it is a key card room. Note that a special room also counts as an exit. You don’t need to specifically count the airlocks, just make sure you know if you have seen 0,1, or 2 airlocks, there are only 2 airlocks and finding both will help lead your logic to the most accurate direction to take next, first we need to analyze basic information, #012, GR18, PT00, ##00, EX-A, and EX-B, are always on the outskirts of the map, always have a number in your head for how many of these 6 you have seen, if you have seen all of them and see an HC.. leading to the outskirts, it will obviously be #914 the only one left, note that WC00 can’t be on the outside alone because it is 2 way but if it is it leads to something else, this is never a special room always an HC.. which in turn leads to a special room, can connect to an airlock. 2 airlocks can combine next to each other, also connected to Cells (Oh boy have a fun time). Follow the outskirts of the map and you will always eventually find #914 if you have an option for which way to go always take an IT.. or IX.. not an HC.. unless you have figured out where the grid is and where the outskirts are; if you are alone you can take the risk of HC.. but it is very possible without knowledge early that it leads to EX..

If it took a long time to find #914, dont, SCP’s are usually in Light already, I’ll usually go anyway though but just understand the risks and understand the knowledge of more SCP avoiding first.
#1 Understand SCP slang
Dog-939
Peanut-173
Shy Guy-096
Docter-049
Zombie-049-2
Computer-079
Larry-106
These are tips for when the door is opened and SCP’s are coming into 914 with you in it
#2 Always walk when a dog is around even if peanut is on you, dog will chase people around you and once peanut gets to close break out and just leave, its not worth a card to die
#3 Don’t hide in the machine, this is stereotypical and they will check there
#4 Hide in the middle of the room if only dog is there

Stuck in ##00 with an SCP camping outside instead of opening the door blow it up! If dog is camping you then just back up while walking, if it is peanut he won’t be scared to come in and you can juke him, 106 juke him very easy unless he stays in the door frame, 049 stand still, you just need to have experience to know when to make a move and avoid 049 in this situation it is very hard. With 096 you need to break then face away listen for him to get close then just attempt to move your mouse away from sound.
Stuck in GR18, you better have a gun or stuff will get rough, you can shoot the class and get through that way and avoid any scp, if no gun then just be patient, or dont SCP’s will usually call for backup during a GR18 incident so making your move fast also works.
Stuck in #012, then troll peanut, let peanut in and head to the downstairs room; if he comes then get into the little bar thing, if peanut kills you he will get stuck in their for the whole game, scummy but you have to be very dumb to fall for it, With good jukes you can trap any scp in #012 some are harder than others
Always close doors on 106, he can obviously walk through them, but they slow him down, also as a D Class stuck in #914 and 106 along with a few other SCP come in, get hit by 106, you still have 12.5% chance of living at least. Always look at a wall if you are hiding from 173 and want him to go by you, you wont blink which wont cause 173 to look around the rest of the room, works sometimes
If 096 is chasing you then head towards the nearest IX../IT.. and hide behind a door frame he sometimes wont check. If 939 is chasing in light then you can always avoid him, run from him until you are 1 room ahead in a hall, close the door behind you and stop once 939 opens the door just walk through him, almost no one can react fast enough to turn around and bite you even once, always jump because you will lose less speed when you go through him, this applies to everything, always jump to lose less speed

Always remember 1:2 and 2:1 funnels the game silently uses them to throw SCP’s into the grid through the exits, always watch out and use sound cues to listen for exits, depending on your headphones sound will usually be directional and you will know what direction to go, realize that HC01 and HC02 aren’t going to be next to each other this is a common misconception and seeing a HC16 won’t mean there are 16 hallways in light, know to find and examine which direction the loop may head and where you can cut it off

In this example we have knowledge of an IX and two HC.. (not there directions) we can conclude that IX must got left at least because EX-A is always an outskirt, therefore we shouldn’t waste our time going through HC12 because it will most likely connect to IX and we don’t want to chase a full width this early on we want to follow the HC06 to hopefully lead upward to an IT../IX.. to see more exploration on what direction to travel next. These are the simple decisions that must quickly go through your head when scouting out at the beggining of a game, remember what comes up next and piece to together a dummy map so that you know what directions you should go, especially if the HC06 were to lead to IX.. then we would know that would want to go left to explore one of our 6 special buildings, which is most likely the case, in this case I would actually go as far to conclude from my own weird map I sketched that if I turned left I would probably end up at EX-B which is just a guess, it is also possible to speculate a PT00 or ##00 but of course this all depend if the outskirts is on the bottom and right or if it is on the top and left; going up or going left. I will hopefully create a youtube video and/or update this feed with screenshots, I never thought I wanted to do this much work just to share all of my SCP knowledge, but I hope it gets the community more involved in making escaping fun and not being always stuck as a D Class. (3/8/19)