The Central Testing Facility is one of the six underground labs you shut down during the Unsupervised Science side mission in Control Resonant. Its map marker points to a spot on the surface, but the real entrance sits below street level, and the puzzle inside is the power-balancing type rather than the Soda Dispenser variant found elsewhere. To finish it, you start a shutdown and keep the power grid stable for a full timer.
Quick answer: Drop into the drainage pipes at the fenced construction site in Central, activate the control console to begin the 60-second shutdown, then move battery cells from overloaded stations to draining ones until every light tower turns green.
Where to find the Central Testing Facility entrance
The entrance is in the Central zone, east of the Patterned Factory, near the area where you fight the Deserter Resonant. Look for a fenced construction trench close to Field Office Station and Nomad Avenue Station. The map pin marks the general surface area, so you need to find the dig site yourself rather than walking straight onto the objective.
Cross the street, vault past the construction walls, and drop into the large concrete pipes leading underground. These drainage pipes take you into the hidden FBC Research Facility below.
How the power balancing shutdown works
Once you start the shutdown, a 60-second timer runs while power demand shifts between several battery stations around the room. Your job is to keep the load balanced so the sequence does not overload or lose power. An imbalanced load automatically aborts the shutdown, so you have to react as the demand changes.
Read the light towers to track the state of each station:
- Red — a station is overloaded or out of balance and needs attention.
- Blue — a station is active and drawing power normally.
- Green — a station is balanced; when all towers are green the shutdown completes.
The room has four Power Cores, two of them charged when the sequence begins. As the demand fluctuates, dead cores start blinking red and request power. You move charge from a supplied station into whichever one is asking for it, then keep shifting as the pattern changes.
Solving the power grid puzzle
Start the shutdown process at the control console. It lasts approximately 60 seconds. Power demand shifts as the system shuts down, creating a risk of overload or power failure. Balance the load manually to prevent both.
React to the blinking red indicator instead of trying to hold one fixed arrangement, since the required configuration keeps changing across the 60 seconds.
Rewards and how to confirm the shutdown
You know the puzzle worked when the shutdown sequence finishes and the security door on the upper balcony opens into the secure office. Inside, you collect the research notes and your reward for clearing the experiment.
- Notes From Dr. Puchalski — collectible research document.
- +1 Talent Point.
- Zone Warden — trophy earned on completion.
To double-check completion, open the map and confirm the Central 7 area registers as cleared. The Zone Warden trophy notification and the “Talent Point +1 Received” prompt also confirm the experiment is fully shut down.
With the Central experiment offline, you can head to the remaining facilities across Manhattan to continue Unsupervised Science, using the same power-balancing approach at the other Power Core labs.
