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nielsm posted:If you mean the little single-tile ones you can place in cells, they still don't have any production rules in the game data. So they probably don't do anything. Goddamnit why did I just build them in all my cells because they added a loving library?
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Feb 4, 2015 17:13
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So Prison Architect is now -75% at Steam, and I was thinking about getting it. I wanted to ask beforehand though: just how much of the Dwarf Fortress-like insanity they promised in the trailers I saw is actually present in the (current alpha version) game? Or is it more like a "serious" tycoon-like game now?
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Feb 4, 2015 18:37
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Beyond the occasional 'super-murder' prisoner, there's not too much randomization and crazy-ness that can't be controlled if you do certain things. It's definitely more about you being an Architect (ehehe).
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Feb 4, 2015 18:43
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It's a serious architect game with occasional riots and funny prisoner bios. Building your first prison will be daunting starting from an empty field, I hope they add more tutorials like the electric chair thing. Of course once you know the basics you can build gimmick nazi death camps, gulags and Star Wars stuff from Steam Workshop. Pretty active mod scene. At 75% off it's fair, wouldn't buy at full price tbqh but then I'm a dirty miser. sauer kraut fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 22:52
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If you like your base builders/managers it's well worth the sale price I reckon. It'll take you a few new prisons to get the hang of things, then you can start going hogwild with gimmick prisons or go the other route and aim for super-efficiency. The ability to sell a prison when you get bored with it and use the proceeds towards a new build is a real boon from that angle. There aren't too many crazy bugs any more, but on the upside there aren't too many annoying bugs either. Once they introduced traits the prisoners became a bit more distinct, like there's always that one guy who ODs right before work and the guy who's always digging tunnels. Also, I'm bad at snitch management. Even with separate regimes and areas for protective custody, snitches usually don't make it past 48 hours after intake.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:11
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I've got a protective custody regime that works pretty well, I just can't manage to micromanage enough to catch all the snitches as they come in, and they inevitably get murdered the first night after intake. All except the super tough, quick, ex-prison guard snitch. He managed to not get beaten all the way to death.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:14
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Yeah, I wonder how effective it would be to quarantine any new prisoners with unknown traits until you find out what they're about. A snitch went to the chapel and he found God. Maybe.  That was pretty hosed up.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:25
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It seems like for a game where you're managing a large prison of anonymous inmates (the 500 person grant wouldn't be there if they didn't expect you to build to 500, right?) but then you're micromanaging prisoners on a 1 on 1 level. It'd be nice to set some rules for classification. Law Enforcement & Snitches go to protective custody, unknown traits get put in a protective custody intake area, etc etc.
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Feb 5, 2015 03:30
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FISHMANPET posted:It seems like for a game where you're managing a large prison of anonymous inmates (the 500 person grant wouldn't be there if they didn't expect you to build to 500, right?) but then you're micromanaging prisoners on a 1 on 1 level. It'd be nice to set some rules for classification. Law Enforcement & Snitches go to protective custody, unknown traits get put in a protective custody intake area, etc etc. In the last Alpha Video, they seemed to be pretty aware of the micro vs macro management discrepancy.
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Feb 5, 2015 06:36
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It is kind of frustrating that they held off on the one thing that would instantly fix food and laundry logistics problems (letting the player set which rooms connect to eachother) until they exhausted every other possible option because 'this isn't a micromanagement game' but you have to recruit individual inmates, by name, to be CIs, and manually activate them to try to collect information about individual other inmates that you then have to click on and individually do things about. And you also have to individually manage the frequency and duration of their activation or they get shanked. Some sort of system where prisoners who feel threatened can request protection automatically would help a lot, both with the snitch rush and with CI micro. It wouldn't even need to automatically assign them, just in your to-do list an item that says "3 prisoners feel threatened" and you can click it and see a list and go do what you want with that information. Maybe also something like "Staff feel 2 inmates are a threat" for people who might be good candidates for supermax? This wouldn't even really need changes to the CI system as it currently exists, so it could stay as a way to dig in and find out more in depth information, while the low-hanging fruit gets 'brought to your attention by your staff' or whatever. hailthefish fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 08:11
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Ah well, it's only 7€. Sold! Thanks, guys.
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Feb 5, 2015 19:21
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It's strange they haven't put in gangs as it's an obvious way to introduce more unpredictability and bad behaviour in the population. It would be complicated sure but there's a lot of room for depth. Low/med/high security only really resulted in separating your populations so you could keep more security on the more dangerous prisoners.
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Feb 5, 2015 19:34
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Carecat posted:It's strange they haven't put in gangs as it's an obvious way to introduce more unpredictability and bad behaviour in the population. It would be complicated sure but there's a lot of room for depth. Low/med/high security only really resulted in separating your populations so you could keep more security on the more dangerous prisoners. There have been references to Gangs in some of the alpha videos and in the codebase, so I'm imagining it's one of the last major features they haven't released.
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Feb 5, 2015 19:37
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Carecat posted:It's strange they haven't put in gangs as it's an obvious way to introduce more unpredictability and bad behaviour in the population. It would be complicated sure but there's a lot of room for depth. Low/med/high security only really resulted in separating your populations so you could keep more security on the more dangerous prisoners. I think the issue is that they haven't come up with a good implementation yet, or whatever implementations they have come up with would simply require a ton of new poo poo so it's on the backburner while more "self-contained" features are introduced. A good, robust gang system would probably need to build off of many existing features and maybe even some that aren't implemented yet - like imagine if prisoners had a system for building relationships with each other. I don't know if that's planned or not, but if it was it would be a pretty perfect fit for a gang system, and probably be easier to implement and test in isolation from a full fledged gang system too. I think gangs would basically be the cherry on top that brings a ton of different systems together and maybe they just want to wait until everything else is in place first.
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Feb 5, 2015 19:57
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I just want my bookshelves to work.
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Feb 6, 2015 07:45
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My maximum security wing is a death trap. Trying to keep these violent fuckers away from the min/med security population and they're determined to kill their own. One of them managed to steal a shotgun during an earlier fight, hid it for a day, then walked into the shower and unloaded on everyone in there. He killed two guards and injured every single prisoner before surrendering to five armed guards. I then watched another prisoner steal another shotgun that had been dropped during that fight.  I think I need to add an armory with unlocked doors to this wing, then remove all the guards and let these people sort themselves out.Game of the year A+
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Feb 8, 2015 05:56
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How does a unaccounted shotgun not cause an immediate facility-wide lockdown?
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Feb 8, 2015 06:39
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That prison is clearly staffed by wizards:
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Feb 8, 2015 06:43
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Vahakyla posted:How does a unaccounted shotgun not cause an immediate facility-wide lockdown? I don't know but during the subsequent panic and search of the entire wing I found two more and a couple of tasers they'd taken off dead/disarmed cops and hidden from the metal detectors somehow. Lesson learned: lockdown and search everyone and everything after a fight involving guards.
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Feb 8, 2015 07:15
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They may have smuggled them in at some point. Literally any item in the game can be smuggled in either on arrival or through the various channels like throwing over walls or visitation. Actually it tells you where it came from in the contraband view, right? That might be a good idea to check out if you've got prisoners running around with shotguns.
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Feb 8, 2015 10:37
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Yeah I checked that, they picked them up during a brawl and then were never searched, allowing them to hide them in their cells. I'm just gonna build more metal detectors and dogs and have mandatory searches after fights. Having guards lose equipment and then having the prisoners pick it up is pretty cool, I expected them to use the weapons there and then in the fight, not squirrel them away for later.
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Feb 8, 2015 10:43
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I have metal detectors at the entrance to every cellblock but that still doesn't catch everything. Sometimes they can run through and hide stuff before the guard arrives to search them, sometimes I think metal detectors just don't pick things up.
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Feb 8, 2015 10:50
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hailthefish posted:I have metal detectors at the entrance to every cellblock but that still doesn't catch everything. Sometimes they can run through and hide stuff before the guard arrives to search them, sometimes I think metal detectors just don't pick things up. Metal detectors can fail - I don't think it's that they're making a random roll about whether or not to detect something, but rather every time they scan someone there's a small refresh period before it can fire again (this is by design - they mentioned it in one of the older alpha videos). So if you've got a lot of volume going through a single detector, like after lunch or something, it's not actually going to scan everyone. Setting up detectors in multiple places is usually your best bet since if they slip through one of them they'll most likely get caught at another.
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Feb 8, 2015 11:12
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I'm making a new prison finally and the new features are pretty cool. I wish there was a way to clear this gigantic backlog of parole hearings, though - I've got four of them going a day but with ~150 prisoners, I've already got 34 prisoners looking to get paroled and counting. Also the chapel makes it super easy to get prisoners with low recidivism rates, because each and every visit to a session of Spiritual Guidance counts as a completed reform program. It's a good thing only 1/3 of prisoners feel the need to worship or you could make fat stacks paroling guys and cheat your way to a good prison grade.
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Feb 12, 2015 21:55
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Pornographic Memory posted:I'm making a new prison finally and the new features are pretty cool. I wish there was a way to clear this gigantic backlog of parole hearings, though - I've got four of them going a day but with ~150 prisoners, I've already got 34 prisoners looking to get paroled and counting. Yeah I kind of hope they tweak the Parole hearings a bit. Making it necessary that the Warden and Chief are in the room means you are literally only doing one prisoner at a time. In a prison with like 200+ innmates you rack up a huge backlog of parole hearings quickly.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:05
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I suppose one could argue that it's realism, but.. yeah, it could definitely use a tweak, but I can't think of anything they could change it to that would help much. Making them significantly shorter might help a bit.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:09
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2 hours for each session instead of 4 would be an improvement. I don't mind the concept but I've had to have those guys going 12 hours a day and, like you, it's making no headway on the backlog. At least I've had no reoffenders yet.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:22
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I'm kind of glad that parole works so slowly. A prisoner that's likely to parole is also likely to be one that's (profitably) working in the workshop or at least not causing trouble. In fact, my ideal inmate is a nice prisoner who loves to work during his very very long sentence. An efficient parole system would result in a lot of workshop downtime as you had to certify new prisoners after your current workforce leaves. Plus, since usually only the decent prisoners are being paroled, inevitably your prison would fill up with rear end in a top hat inmates who were stuck doing their whole sentence (and couldn't/wouldn't work). As it stands now, there doesn't seem to be a penalty for a prisoner who is capable of having a hearing but doesn't because of a backlog. So you sort of get the best of both worlds.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:24
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It's the same problem with workshop classes and the foreman.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:37
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GamingHyena posted:I'm kind of glad that parole works so slowly. A prisoner that's likely to parole is also likely to be one that's (profitably) working in the workshop or at least not causing trouble. In fact, my ideal inmate is a nice prisoner who loves to work during his very very long sentence. An efficient parole system would result in a lot of workshop downtime as you had to certify new prisoners after your current workforce leaves. Plus, since usually only the decent prisoners are being paroled, inevitably your prison would fill up with rear end in a top hat inmates who were stuck doing their whole sentence (and couldn't/wouldn't work). Today in "Why for-profit prisons might not be the the best thing". Stay tuned.
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Feb 13, 2015 06:46
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GamingHyena posted:I'm kind of glad that parole works so slowly. A prisoner that's likely to parole is also likely to be one that's (profitably) working in the workshop or at least not causing trouble. In fact, my ideal inmate is a nice prisoner who loves to work during his very very long sentence. An efficient parole system would result in a lot of workshop downtime as you had to certify new prisoners after your current workforce leaves. Plus, since usually only the decent prisoners are being paroled, inevitably your prison would fill up with rear end in a top hat inmates who were stuck doing their whole sentence (and couldn't/wouldn't work). You get money for successfully paroling prisoners too, though, to the tune of $3,000 for every non-reoffending prisoner, and they won't get paroled until 50% of their sentence is served at minimum. If you could parole prisoners even faster, you could make money even faster, especially if your prison can successfully pump out prisoners with a low reoffending rate. In a prison of hundreds of prisoners where you can have up to 30 trucked in a day (my highest is actually 31, not sure if it can go higher or not) I don't think being able to release an extra 8 guys a day, if they halved the current parole hearing time, versus the current 4, is really going to cripple your workshops. Pornographic Memory fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Feb 13, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 14:11
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Well, it might help you live longer if you werent an ex-cop, snitch, and an instigator... They were knifed just seconds before I was able to slam them into protective custody. I still doubt they would have made it more than a day with the rest of the prisoners I seem to have; one has been put in supermax for killing 4 snitches in sequence so I guess its just really bad for you to be a snitch in this prison.
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Feb 15, 2015 18:45
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Snitches and ex-cops seem to have a life expectancy of about a day in any prison that isn't entirely min-sec, if you don't get them into PC as soon as they're dropped off. I wish there was a way to flag certain traits to have the game warn you when someone shows up with them - ex-cop/snitch would be ones I'd want to immediately throw into PC, and ones like volatile/instigator I'd probably want to put into max sec if they aren't already, or supermax if they've got them in combination with other stuff. I've got an informant in my current prison with 100% coverage, so every morning when new prisoners roll in I just activate him to have it reveal the reputations that aren't already known and try to sort them out before they get moved into gen pop. I want to try to set up a really good prison one of these days that adequately segregates each security level. Right now I basically just have PC down in their own little side area, and everyone else mixed together in a huge cell block area that's split into 4 unsorted sections. The main problem I've had is that I can keep the trouble from the max sec population down by having armed guard patrols, but because so many people end up suppressed, nobody wants to take reform programs. If I drop the patrols though, I get 1-2 deaths per day because someone decides to start some poo poo in the showers or just before lunch or any of those other times where the danger level of the prison rises JUST enough to set off a few of the more violent prisoners.
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Feb 15, 2015 21:07
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It feels sometimes that the other inmates discover that they're a snitch/etc at the same time you do, then it's a race against time.
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Feb 16, 2015 03:05
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Wow, my prisoners decided to beat the living crap out of my spiritual leader for about 2 hours. There were 8 or 9 prisoners chasing him from cell to cell just wailing on him until enough guards could eventually KO all the rioters. Luckily for the spiritual leader, gods devine love has made him invincible. He withstood their attacks and went back to the broken remains of his chapel to continue to spread the good word.   This game owns owns own. I discovered it last week and already put in 50+ hours  It's been a long long time since a game has been able to hook me like this.
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Feb 17, 2015 01:57
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ModestMuse posted:Wow, my prisoners decided to beat the living crap out of my spiritual leader for about 2 hours. There were 8 or 9 prisoners chasing him from cell to cell just wailing on him until enough guards could eventually KO all the rioters. and this time he didn't die horribly!
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Feb 17, 2015 03:15
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I think the unsorted library book delivery needs some balancing.  I also agree that there needs to be some sort of way to auto-identify snitches and ex-cops. Clicking on each incoming prisoner to determine that is too tedious. It's taking a long time to grow my prison above around 350 prisoners. Seems like the only way is to wait for the prison to fill up with max prisoners since their sentences are long. Once you get your prison fully set up, it's pretty fun to tweak schedules, and deployments, and just see how the population reacts to different ways of going through the day.
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Feb 17, 2015 03:15
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I'm new at this game and have managed to make a pretty nice, relatively peaceful small prison. The problem I'm having is that since the prisoners have shitloads of freetime and work, they don't consistently manage their Bowel and Bladder needs which usually okay except for the ones that are taking classes end up having terrible concentration and fail. I could try implementing Lockup before work but since I've got a pretty hippy-dippy prison dynamic going on here, I'm wondering if I can just put some toilets around in public areas. Would they even use them?
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Feb 18, 2015 00:20
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You can definitely cheese requirements like that by having workshops, yards, etc. with toilets (or even showers, if you feel daring enough to keep them near power tools). Prisoners won't, say, leave the workshop during work hours to use a toilet that's in a nearby common room, but if you place them in the areas prisoners already congregate at, it'll help.
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Feb 18, 2015 00:37
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I think this guy must be in an action movie where me and my guards are the bad guys or something but really it's a glitch because my prison isn't that violent
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Feb 18, 2015 00:51
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