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do Shakedowns every night
Controlling the temperature of your prison is just as important as detecting tunnels, as fire, death and destruction caused by riots are more costly in long term gameplay than escaped prisoners.
Nothing will 100% stop tunneling, as metal detectors and searches do not gaurantee that contraband will be found.
Here's what I do:
1) Multiple k9 patrols around the outside perimeter of cell blocks.
2) Secure your workshop, as its the biggest source of tools. Station several guards there, and put metal detectors on all entrances/exits. The kitchen and canteen are also potential tool/weapon hotspots, so cover those as well.
3) Metal detectors at regular intervals throughout your prison, especially to and from your cell blocks.
4) Take every k9 tunnel flag anywhere reasonably near your prisoners as a serious potential tunnel. Multiple flags in a small area indicate a tunnel for certain. Begin by searching nearby cell toilets, as they're the only means of starting a tunnel, and searches are executed somewhat quickly. If a toilet search doesn't turn up anything, begin dismantling toilets closest to the flag(s), this will 100% uncover any tunnels, and show all branches, if worked on by multiple prisoners.
5) I do a minimum of two perimeter walls, as they're the most difficult to dig through.
6) Assume all prisoners are attempting to collect tools to tunnel. All prisoners are capable of attempting escape. I recently found a tunnel from four of my min-sec, very well behaved, rewarded and reformed prisoners.
7) Cater to prisoners' needs. They're essentially violent toddlers trying to get away from you. The more you take care of them, the less likely they are to throw a fit.
If prisoners are in the tunnel when a k9 unit starts scratching vigorously, they'll often tunnel up and out, in an attempt to fight their way out instead, so ensure you have standard guards on patrol and stationed as well.
Deprive them of sleep.
It may sound cruel, but trust me, it works.
If it is becoming a big issue in your prison, then take away free periods, and lower sleep hours to a minimum of 5. If prisoners are tired, they will prefer to sleep rather than tunnel, this has been confirmed by Introversion.
Best regards,
Tony
Make your cells all solitary, then keep your prisoners in them. Make sure you have tons of doctors. For this you won't need any canteens.
Your prisoners will be constantly starving, and deprived of sleep, but your doctors will keep them alive, so long as their cells have staff doors. With no toilet, they can't dig, with no bed they'lsl be too tired to dig, and with no food, they'll be too hungry to do anything.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=946225408
Digging times are over when using this for your prison.
Reduce the availability of tool contraband rooms. Workshop, library, infirmary, and kitchen are the main culprits. If it's really bad, you may want to get rid of these rooms. No tools = no digging normally.
Make sure they have to pass metal detectors on the way back to bed at least. Also always search everything that comes in through deliveries and keep prisoners out of delieveries.
If you got tools in circulation at night, check the needs chart to see if anyone's not getting any sleep. If so, you may have to inspect prisoners manually to see who isn't getting any rest.
Search the whole cell of anyone you suspect of digging. I've had guards foil tunneling by checking beds and discovering dummies more than they found anything inspecting toilets.
If you're really sick of it all, the recent update now allows a mutator option to disable tunneling entirely (or make it worse if you desire). Mutators can be added to old saves, but requires manual editing of the save file.
Tunneling ist only caused by two reasons: a high need for freedom and a Dangerous, violent Environment inside of your prison.
The following ideas may Help with this:
-route all important transit-ways through yards or Outdoor-Areas. Your prisoners will gain freedom by Just Walking around in the prison.
-aim for at least a cell-quality of 7. If your prisoners needs are Low, even Dangerous inmates will end Up rather quiet. If your prisoners Feel safe, they won't build Tunnels.
-don't use Special security-wings exept protective-custody. While a Wing full of grey-suits May be calm, you will get a Wing full of red-suits in exchange, constantly causing Trouble. A Mixed Cell-Block Works better, as Long as the inmates needs are Matched.
-have a Lot of Informants and call them to raport on a regular Basis. Get snitches, cop-killers and assassination-targets Into protective-custody asap.
-have a Lot of metal-detectors around the prison and enable a rule for a cell-search If a Tool is found.
-have at least two outer Walls and an access-restricted area between them. Make this area 20-30 Tiles deep and fill it with Sand or dirt. Let dogs patrol this area.
-prisoners can Tunnel through Large Pipes. Place them as far away from the prison Walls as possible.
2) Dog patrols around the cell block with the anti digging warden work nice too.
This is not true. I'm using Lockup all the time as a replacement for sleep and every once in a while i'm having a digger. Quite rare, but i have them.
Good idea, but rather inhumane. I was focusing on a more humane go at it.
Anything can be fixed with mods. I personally don't use mods to play Prison Architect.
Metal detectors aren't 100% effective as there are the inmates who can slip by when it's activated by another inmate, and there are also non-metallic digging tools. Searching your inmates without reason can result in riots, and who likes a blood bath?
I have previously constructed a min sec camp where needs were satisfied and only the regular needs popped up, being quickly fulfilled. Inmates still have the desire to tunnel.
Constructing one perimeter wall can be expensive, nevertheless two. I've also had inmates who were quite a distance from my wall dig through 2 perimeter walls and one chain-linked fence in 4 hours, so logic.
Informants are good, but they tend to become targets and must be put into protective custody.
As Andy pointed out, prisoners can also dig during freetime and lockup time.
Best regards,
Tony
While Metal-Detectors are not 100% accurate, they help a lot with reducing the amount of contraband. It is true, that you can not prevent your prisoners from trading objects between the detector-alarm and the inspection. But having detectors will reduce the willingness of your prisoners to steal contraband in the first place if they risk, to get catched.
You can also try to build small detector-gates with a constant stationed guard. This will lower the chance, that the prisoners can trade the contraband after the alarm was triggered. And at last, but not least, you can place a junk-bin next to the Detector, giving you a chance, that the prisoner will throw the contraband just away instead of trading it.
In addintion to this, Detectors will not only check your prisoners. They chack also your staff-members. Contraband is often carried into the prison in Boxes from trucks, in Food-containers or with mail. Metal-Detectors help with this source too.
You will NEVER be able to set this desire to 0. You can only try to controll the aspects, responsible for tunneling. Reduce the amount of contraband with Dogs and detectors, reduce the desire to build a tunnel by giving large amounts of freetime and making your prison save and reduce the success-rate of tunneling by making it as difficult as possible.
A few prisoners escaping by tunnels are not a big deal. Just try to learn how to reduce it. And for that matter, Low-Risk Prisoners are the most prone to tunneling. So it is compulsory, that a prison full of grey-suits generates tunnels. In a misc-prison, you can try to give grey-suits the cells on the inner walls.
You don't need two perimeter-walls. Perimeter-walls slow down tunneling, but won't stop it. You can made the inner wall out of a normal fence. Everything that counts, is having an access-restricted area of significant size, where your dogs can patrol.
Just like this for example:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1329746129
People from the outside of the prison tend to throw stuff over the outer wall. If your inmates can get there, they will gather it. On the other hand, Floor-Meterial, that affects movement speed, also affects tunneling speed. So tunneling unter Beton-Plates is much faster, than tunneling through raw dirt. A buffer-Area of 30 tiles of dirt or sand gives you a significant advantage while trying to find tunnelers with dogs.
To the last point, a bunch of cooperating prisoners tunneling through a bad placed large pipe can be impressively fast. So keep an eye on the placement of large pipes.
In addition to this, you should start to consider PA more like an RPG instead of a Sim. Get Experience and money, and if you ready, sell your prison and start over. After my third prison, i had a starting capital of 3.500.000$.
Call your informants only during nighttime, when everyone is sleeping. This reduces the risk for beeing uncovered. And check the Red bar, that indicates, how suspicious a informant is. Is it to high, dont summon him/her for a while and let things get covered up.
All true, though if needs are being met you can get away with searching large segments of your population and they won't be too mad about it. I search one security level at a time and tend to leave Max Sec alone because it's almost never them I have to worry about anyway.
The only non metallic digging tool is the pickaxe. I countered this by not having a workshop. They try to smuggle one in on occasion, but I check deliveries every time so virtually nothing gets in through smuggling. I also have multiple metal detector check points. Combined with a high guard count and suppression, the odds of someone in my prison actually starting to dig is very rare and easy to narrow down if I find out someone is.
I'm also using Periwinkle as my warden and have dedciated dog patrols that so far haven't been needed to find a tunnel, but there are no routes any prisoner can take that won't get checked frequently by one. Admittedly, in this case I designed the prison from the get go to rely on this with the main cell block in the center of the map surrounded by walls and patrols.
That said I also don't run one of those super sized 1000+ inmate prisons cause I wanted to see what I could build without land expanding as a self-imposed challenge.
I am well aware of all this information, I've been playing Prison Architect for 6 years.
In regards to your first comment, the inmates have a sort of 'Psychic' powers and will know when you search them or their cells. This will result in danger level rising per inmate searched. Also, it is true that inmates will be deterred from bringing contraband through them, in large numbers, that deterrence is less. Also, I didn't exactly mean their ability to trade before a guard searches them. Although that is true, I referred more to the delay of the detector rebooting after it detects metal. Let's say inmate A walks through the detector, and the detector triggers a false positive, and alarms him for a search. Then, inmates B,C, and D can slip through while it is still off, and inmate C had a pickaxe.
In regards to your second comment, you are simply affirming my statement. And although not mentioned in this post, I am well aware and have previously stated that minimum security inmates are more likely to tunnel, while maximum will probably make a break for the armory.
To your third point, I was saying that perimeter walls slow down digging, but in my experience, not by much. If you are concerned about digging, I definitely recommend layering up, with buffer zones in between.
To point four, inmates are still raising suspicion even while reporting to security at night, and I was thinking more about the suspicion level raised when you search an inmate reported to have contraband while the informant is active. Again, something you are simply affirming.
I implore you to read my comments more carefully. I consider myself a skilled Prison Architect player, and all my posts contain pure fact, most of which confirmed by Introversion.
Best regards,
Tony
Congratulations to you for that.
But the OP was obviously not. So maybe - just maybe - you can add a little bit of your 6-years-experience to your post next time and provide tipps on your own, instead of just criticize and devalue already provided hints given to someone who was really asking for help?
Just telling someone with less experience than you, to do something not, without adding something helpfull is not very ... well ... helpfull.
Not trying to be rude, and I will not be replying further after this post for the sake of not starting an argument.
In case you didn't notice, the OP is already aware of the basic mechanics to Prison Architect. What I stated in my first reply is something not always known by people. The reason I gave the second reply to you was not meant to discredit you, simply letting you know that I already know all of the information provided by you, as you were addressing me. I assumed that, by the OP's attitude and comment about using dogs, that he already knows the basic rules of contraband. Anything I post here that states game rules is taken directly from Prison Architect's wiki. No disrespect intended.
As previously stated, I will not be replying anymore to avoid a deconstructive argument.
Best regards,
Tony