A: Blast Doors: The Science Lab is the only area other than the Internal affairs office to be fully locked down by the emergency blast door system. This is great since the blast doors act as a instantly deploy able reinforced wall, great to buy some time against foes or to rally yourself for a small counter attack. since the area to defend is so small, its easy to add several layers of hidden walls, electric grills, and reinforced tables to create a massive barrier that can be toggled up or down. they can also act as a great way to evacuate the FOB scince you can open the shutters and leave from any direction to safety. This also means you can leave a very small squad inside and still expect them to very well against multiple foes.
B: Showers and Sinks. The science lab has its own shower and sink arrangement, which means you can create a fully functional operating station and a ghetto cryopod to keep troopers up and about.
C: Reinforced walls: the science lab is completely encased in reinforced walls which greatly improves the defensiveness of this structure, its also centrally located and has very quick access to the medical lab to pilfer supplies and goods.
the most important part, a chem dispenser: The Science Lab is the only place on the colony to have a functional chem dispenser, which means a doctor or a survivor can create all sorts of needed chemicals to keep troops in action. Iron pills, clonex, bicardine, explosives. If you can manage to hold onto this center area and manage to get expert civilian personal inside, you'll be rewarded tenfold.Cutting up the inner walls of the structure, you can expect alot of building materials and free space to work inside. enough to house two squads comfortably.
negatives:
The science lab is located right in the center of the map, so you can be sure that an attack can happen from almost every direction.
There is still a decent amount of journey that has to take place if you need to get troops from the Droppod/Dropship and vice versa but with the med lab running, you wouldn't need to spend much time sending troops to and from the FOB other than bodies.
SURVIVORS: the yellow arrows are specifically for you.
You should note, that the science lab has almost all the components needed to make it self functioning.
Uranium and phoron sheets: you can use these for power if you drag a generator to the location to work with.
Welding tank: 500 units of fuel are inside the tank, which means if you secured yourself welding supplies, you can keep cutting walls to create a large amount of metal and hidden walls.
High Cap Battery: instant juice for the science lab, swapping out the battery on the APC means instant power that will last a very long time.
Beaker Box: you can already have access to chemical making right at the get go without installing an Autolathe to make beakers with.
all you technically need to make sure you can work in the lab are some insulated gloves, some tools, and a multitool. haul in the robco tool vendor and you have yourself some instant welding masks/welders that you can work with to secure the area. You can also unwrench the science pods and use them as ghetto barriers.