So as I'm reviewing everyone's replies and circling around the question I posed, would it be fair say that a lab simply enables a scientist to do science tasks beyond data collection -- "No lab = no science" similarly to "no turret = no gunnery"? And what happens in the lab can be as specific or as hand-wavy as you want, but it does not automatically add any DMs aside from something similar to the toolkits?
No lab does not equal no science. A scientist can generally look at a phenomena in their field and tell you some things about it; sometimes these things are very important.
1.
No gear: Give the scientists a few minutes, scientists can look at something with no lab and no kit and give you some initial impressions which are probably correct, but possibly incorrect, though they will be reluctant to jump to conclusions - if they are any good. This is based on past knowledge.
For example, you see a herd of animals. Animals skill or relevant bioscience roll (e.g. zoology) - should be able to get the referee to tell you what the likely dangers are in approaching them. Is that snake likely to be venomous? Zoology or biology or animals. How about that plant? Botany or survival.
You see a vat of some stinky green liquid. What is it? Is dangerous? Poisonous? Radioactive? Organic? Alive? Should I put it in my mouth? Roll biology, or biochemistry or chemistry or related field.
Are those rocks evidence of valuable mineral deposits on this planetoid? Ask for a science geology roll as the PCs walk past. Or profession Prospector.
Are those orbital interactions with the gas giant about to create a tide that will roll over the beach and TPK your party? Survival (you've seen these kinds of flat before), astrophysics (you'll know the math) or marine biology (to notice the life forms you're walking past are adapted to tidal flats).
2.
Kit: Give them an hour, or several, and they'll take some hurried samples or measurements or observations, with their kits, discard erroneous initial assumptions, and give a more accurate and detailed picture, but this is still just a initial idea. It is very likely to be correct, but there may be some important misinterpretations. There may be some details but not many, and not very deep, and the data raise lots of interesting questions which the scientists will want to investigate further. If the initial roll failed here is a chance to correct it.
Example: You find a grave of some local sophononts, roll Sophontology or Archealogy to know what the symbolism in the grave means for the locals (information you give depends a lot on the plot here, but there should be some colour as well to give depth to the local culture). Roll Botany to recognize that the flowers on the grave are not indigenous. With your Science kit, a genetic analysis tells you they come from a nearby star system. Does this mean there are traders or other illegal visitors with these red zone natives? Or is it an older invasive species? The age of the objects in the grave can be determined using carbon dating, and other methods.
3.
Full laboratory: If any initial rolls failed, they can be corrected with a good roll here. I would generally give DMs based on the initial rolls, since they might hive off in the wrong direction, or not, based on first impressions. Give them a lab and weeks or months and they'll have written a research article and submitted it to the Letters of the Imperial Society of Archaeology and Sophontology, received a Revise and Submit, and will be complaining about the idiocy of Anonymous Reviewer #2, who thinks they should return to the site and collect more samples to really prove their point. There will be a lot of detail and certainty on most questions, which will mostly fit into settled science and so be uncontroversial, but debates will emerge about some specific ambiguous areas. These areas of uncertainty may or may not be related to things the non-scientist PCs care about (i.e. they could be issues of great importance to the Party, or they might be only important to scientific circles, while practical minded PCs are only interested in the contextual data) They will have a plausible and well-thought out answer to many related questions, and generate lot of new questions, for which they can apply to for a research grant from the Imperial Society
Example from the aforementioned gravesite: In your lab, you can dig up the grave and simultaneously have different people work with several different bits of the grave, the geneticist can work on the tissues to see who the person was related to, the characteristics of the deceased, and find out about the other living matter put in the grave, the archeologist can give you some info about the locals' customs, written language or symbols and what can be inferred about their society, and the biologists materials scientist, chemist can tell you about the objects in the grave, technologies, local resources, trade relations. Since they can work in the same space, and will have access to published literature via their computers, they can cooperate, look things up (which is really, really, really important, even if this group hasn't been studied before, since they can compare with similar groups, find out new ideas of techniques and methods for analysis of the kind of data they have). The science team will be able to produce a report to the players with mostly accurate data about the social status of the person buried, possibly who they are related to, what they ate, perhaps local use of violence, some local customs, local mineral availability, local technologies, trade relations, what they use for money, local language. The level of accuracy and detail depends on what is in the grave but a lot can be inferred. The picture will be only partial but the data can be cross indexed with other data for more accuracy and depth of understanding (for example, orbital observations, IISS reports, biosphere data).
