Can you set break times for staff?

[JFK_360NoScope]

With "Staff Needs" staff need a lot of breaks. The biggest problem is that they tend to not be where I need them when I need them there most. My sniper is never in the yard in yard/freetime so prisoners start fights and kill a lot of guards. My cooks take a break both when I need them to cook and also when they need to put food out (although I can compensate with prison labor). My doctors take breaks when people are bleeding out on the floor. My armed guards arent on patrol and the prisoners run wild. My dog handlers take breaks and let drugs get by. It's all very dangerous and I could obviously just hire more but some of them are SO expensive to keep. Any advice?

[The Queen Salis]

You could do this: Set Staff Allowed on Break to 100% in the evening.
Set Staff Allowed on Break to 0% in the morning.

Continue doing that over a couple days. If that doesn't work...

Lower their wages 10% every day, till they throw a strike, raise it back, then do it again but stop 10% above the strike level and keep it there.
Hire more staff with the money you saved.

And do hire 1.5 snipers for each tower, it's just sensible. That and 1.5 dog handlers for every dog patrol you want to be walked at the same moment (you will only need 1.5 of a dog handler to walk one route in the morning, another in the mid day and a third one in the afternoon hours, but you might want to round it upwards)

Be smarter with the armed guard routes. they don't need to be everywhere to have influence.

Set up a big Forestry, buy a lot of workers and make tons of profits through log exports. Pay more staff. You obviously need more than you have.

[MekaDovah]

Wait, so the best way to manage staff breaks is to manually adjust them throughout the day every day? There's no way to set it and let it run itself?

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Wait, so the best way to manage staff breaks is to manually adjust them throughout the day every day? There's no way to set it and let it run itself?

Actually, this may train them to take their breaks in regular intervals from the night break - if after a zero break policy for a whole day you switch to a 100% break, many of the staff will take their break then and not need it for a while, but you need to experiment with that. I run a high break policy with plenty underpaid guards, that's my strategy that works for me

[MekaDovah]

Intriguing. I'll have to experiment with that sometime.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Intriguing. I'll have to experiment with that sometime.

And there also alternatives of setting up a big forestry and cutting staff pay once by 10% that should allow you to remain "in the black" while hiring some extra staff

[MekaDovah]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

And there also alternatives of setting up a big forestry and cutting staff pay once by 10% that should allow you to remain "in the black" while hiring some extra staff

Not that it's a bad idea, but I've been hoping to avoid that, especially since my last few prisons I designed were with a self-imposed challenge to just not buy any additional land.

In general I found staff needs obnoxious to deal with mainly because I couldn't be more precise about breaks and my staff got exceedingly whiny and lazy(er). It seemed like I needed so many on break there weren't enough guards to cover the prison properly. Entered this death spiral where it seemed like any approach led to failure.

That said I do remain interested in finding a way to make it work so I can enable it later down the road.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

And there also alternatives of setting up a big forestry and cutting staff pay once by 10% that should allow you to remain "in the black" while hiring some extra staff

Not that it's a bad idea, but I've been hoping to avoid that, especially since my last few prisons I designed were with a self-imposed challenge to just not buy any additional land.

In general I found staff needs obnoxious to deal with mainly because I couldn't be more precise about breaks and my staff got exceedingly whiny and lazy(er). It seemed like I needed so many on break there weren't enough guards to cover the prison properly. Entered this death spiral where it seemed like any approach led to failure.

That said I do remain interested in finding a way to make it work so I can enable it later down the road.

Staff Needs is really something you should build a prison from scratch with.
My approach is like this:
Step 1. Build a basic prison
Step 2. Hire one of each staff and observe, then hire as much as I can afford paying at the time with JUST the government grant.
Step 3. (Optional) Lower their wages 10% every day and raise their break policy till you reach a state where you can't lower the wages anymore without them threatening strike.
Step 4. Get less prisoners you think you can handle with your current staff (I start with 1 prisoner every couple days)
Step 5. Observe the needs charts over time. Adjust your approach accordingly.

[MekaDovah]

Is it basically a lot of ongoing micromanagement or is there a point where a level of stability can be achieved?

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by MekaDovah:

Is it basically a lot of ongoing micromanagement or is there a point where a level of stability can be achieved?

It's making sure you only expand your population if the staff can handle it. If you want to only expand to a point where the first patch of land runs out, you do have a population cap regardless - increasing your "Fill until" population on the intake screen slowly just makes sure you don't jump over a tipping point (where the balance unravels) by intaking 20 guys one day and handling a riot 3 days after :D I see it as being "ready" for your prisoners, like a competent prison would, instead of going all willy-nilly, your staff getting overwhelmed and unscheduled deaths as a result.

You should usually hit a stability point within a couple days after every population increase so when you have the desired amount of prisoners, you will hit it soon too.

You will increase the population slowly as allowed by prison stability and increase your staff count as allowed by the prisoner grants until you have how many you want

[MekaDovah]

Basically take it slow and balance everything as you go?

[~Panda]

i use a mixture of setting % of staff on breaks and the deployment scheduler.

like at quieter times of day you don't need as many deployed or on patrol etc. they'll go off duty and hang out in security room or staff room or whatever.

i remember they used to have set times to go on break, like 12:00-3:00
but i don't see that anymore. there used to be a way to see the times but not now, not sure why they removed it.

or maybe it was a mod i had and just forgot idk

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by McTosh:

i use a mixture of setting % of staff on breaks and the deployment scheduler.

like at quieter times of day you don't need as many deployed or on patrol etc. they'll go off duty and hang out in security room or staff room or whatever.

i remember they used to have set times to go on break, like 12:00-3:00
but i don't see that anymore. there used to be a way to see the times but not now, not sure why they removed it.

or maybe it was a mod i had and just forgot idk

there WAS a visible marker on each guard that showed when his planned breaks are, but the game doesn't work like that anymore.
Now the guard will take a break if: 1. he needs one right now, 2. number of staff currently on break is lower than the percentage set.

At the end of the day, you can have a perfectly functioning prison with 100% breaktime policy if you don't over-book the rooms.

properly micromanaging the patrols down to the hour by setting up different schedules, for instance marking all the mealtimes with one color, all the Yardhours with another, all the sleeptime with yet another (you generally should rotate the guard patrols so they walk the outer perimeter at night and the inside grounds during the day) will help in redusing mostly the time the staff wastes on useless tasks that tire them and send them on break when you need them

[~Panda]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by McTosh:

i use a mixture of setting % of staff on breaks and the deployment scheduler.

like at quieter times of day you don't need as many deployed or on patrol etc. they'll go off duty and hang out in security room or staff room or whatever.

i remember they used to have set times to go on break, like 12:00-3:00
but i don't see that anymore. there used to be a way to see the times but not now, not sure why they removed it.

or maybe it was a mod i had and just forgot idk

there WAS a visible marker on each guard that showed when his planned breaks are, but the game doesn't work like that anymore.
Now the guard will take a break if: 1. he needs one right now, 2. number of staff currently on break is lower than the percentage set.

At the end of the day, you can have a perfectly functioning prison with 100% breaktime policy if you don't over-book the rooms.

properly micromanaging the patrols down to the hour by setting up different schedules, for instance marking all the mealtimes with one color, all the Yardhours with another, all the sleeptime with yet another (you generally should rotate the guard patrols so they walk the outer perimeter at night and the inside grounds during the day) will help in redusing mostly the time the staff wastes on useless tasks that tire them and send them on break when you need them

ah ok i wasn't imagining things then xD only started playing again recently, been a while.

i knew i remembered seeing set times and stuff.

and yeah i agree totally, those who haven't already, learn how to use deployment scheduler. it doesn't just schedule deployments but patrols too.

once i figured this out, i realized how much money and resources i was wasting on guards before needlessly. i went from a staff of 80 guards to a staff of 30 guards (40 including dogs & armed guards).

[ResidualMike]

I’m with you on this, was upset that staff needs wasn’t part of the console version

[$100 Bill]

Originally posted by ~Panda:

i use a mixture of setting % of staff on breaks and the deployment scheduler.

like at quieter times of day you don't need as many deployed or on patrol etc. they'll go off duty and hang out in security room or staff room or whatever.

Yep, exactly. Example: No need to patrol or deploy any guards in the canteen at 3 a.m.