Long-term goals, escapees, and other questions

[VayneVerso]

Hi, everybody. Just got the game. First attempt, so forgive what is probably a horrible start to a prison.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1689433860

A couple of questions:

First, what should I be thinking about as far as long-term goals? Because right now I have 24 prisoners, and feel kind of okay with that. It feels like bringing in more would just be a huge hassle, because I'd have to start rebuilding everything.

Second, I finally got my first prison grade report, and allegedly, I had 3 escapes. I never even realized that happened. Is there any way to see how people escaped? When? Who it was? Etc.?

[Brachius]

About first, set a goal for like 100 prisoners and go for it then increase that size. It is fun to manage larger prisons.

For second, well, it is very easy to break out of your prison. If you play the game with standard settings, prisoners will only escape by digging tunnels and if there is an open border where they simply walk out. To find tunnels you need to search the cells, easiest by doing a shakedown while they sleep (button lower right corner). Also dog patrols can detect tunnels but this method is very unreliable and also produces a lot of false positives. In your prison the prisoners only need to dig 3 fields to escape, which can be done in one night, tunnels always start at toilets.
Also you need to surround your prison with walls, preferable perimeter walls. I usually go for two layers, they really slow the digging down.

[VayneVerso]

Thanks!

I've checked all the toilets and haven't found any tunnels yet. I also finally researched dogs and have a couple hunting around right now, but at this point, nothing. My guess is that they may have just walked out while I was doing a lot of construction and I somehow didn't even notice. This is vexing, though, because I hate a mystery.

[Brachius]

Searching cells isn't 100% reliable either, i usually do a shakedown every second night. One time i didn't detect a tunnel network for several days, resulting in 6 escaped prisoners.

[The Queen Salis]

get a second fence layer halfway between previous fence and map edge if you can't afford perimeter wall

add at least regular doors on the visitation route

you can expand this, not by tearing it down but by building new facilities in all directions, making this your base and later directing prisoners into protected block, supermax block, massive block etc.

[The Queen Salis]

this is a very cute prison, but your choice for the fog of war will haunt you if you continue to expand. it's difficult to monitor your inmates properly like this

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Brachius:

Searching cells isn't 100% reliable either, i usually do a shakedown every second night. One time i didn't detect a tunnel network for several days, resulting in 6 escaped prisoners.

I'll keep checking, then (haven't found anything yet after a few more searches and dog patrols), though I do think they probably just ran out when they saw an open door, because I did actually notice one foiled escape attempt where somebody attempted that. I was just surprised the game didn't alert me to this, because it gives so much feedback about how things get smuggled or stolen.

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

get a second fence layer halfway between previous fence and map edge if you can't afford perimeter wall

add at least regular doors on the visitation route

Yeah, I realize from looking at the contraband info that one perimeter fence is a huge problem, because stuff gets thrown over them all the time. Just been too lazy to worry about it since I'm only just learning the game and not likely to stick with this prison forever.

The visitation room has double prison doors on both sides, and there's always a guard in the room during visitation hours. Where would you put an extra set of doors?

In retrospect, though, now that I've played a little bit, there are probably a lot of things I should have done differently. I suppose it's always like that with these sorts of games. I'm always loath to add more prison doors, however, as they take forever to open and can be an annoying bottleneck without hiring way too many guards.

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

this is a very cute prison, but your choice for the fog of war will haunt you if you continue to expand. it's difficult to monitor your inmates properly like this

I looked at the options for about two seconds before starting a new game, and just went with whatever was the default. ;) Fog of war is okay, I think, as it forces you to think about your guard deployments and patrol routes, as well as where you want to place CCTV cameras. Something I do think is annoying, however, is that maintenance people being in a room doesn't clear up the fog of war.

Originally posted by Off-brand idiot:

Also under all WATER BASED items in the cell do NOT use large pipes they make digging go faster instead use one main water channel and branch out to the cells with small pipes and place a fence around the whole prison then a layer of perimeter walls with a guard tower for each corner.

Thanks for the tip. I think I had read something similar somewhere else, so I only use small pipes under toilets and appliances, with a large pipe usually through the main hallway.

[MekaDovah]

Based on your screenshot, there isn't a lot of security between prisoners and the road. They could have easily just walked out if the doors leading out happened to be open at the wrong time. If you haven't already, you should consider fencing off the road side area and making it staff only.

There's also no real harm in running the prison with as many or as few prisoners as you want. As long as you're making a stable profit and keeping things running smoothly and secure, you could just let it run like that as long as you want until you're ready to sell.

Or just let it run as long as you want and never sell. You can do that too. You could also do both since selling the prison doesn't prevent you from reloading it later from a saved game.

[VayneVerso]

New question: I'm baffled by food logistics. For some reason, nobody is cleaning trays in my prison. I think they just leave the dirty ones there and buy new trays each night. This is in a new game in which I turned on staff needs, and I have to say, feeding staff members isn't intuitive at all.

Initially, I set up the serving table in a staff room, but my staff food costs were skyrocketing and nearly bankrupted me! I read that it was because staff would only eat partial meals while taking breaks, so basically, they'd be throwing a ton of food in the trash every day. So I divided my staff room to make half of it a canteen, and that did indeed solve the problem of food costs. My staff are now eating full meals and not wasting food.

Now the only problem is that trays just pile up. Here's how the logistics look.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1690845356

I read a thread from a couple of years ago suggesting it might be because I don't have an "unassigned" kitchen. Not sure that applies anymore. The thing is, as far as I can tell, they're not cleaning the trays in the prisoner canteen either.

This is becoming quite a problem, actually. Can anybody assist with the solution?

Edit:

Related to this, they are buying waaaay too much food. This is what my deliveries area looks like. My kitchen is full of food and I'm only feeding 12 prisoners. I don't understand what's going on here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1690857390

[VayneVerso]

Meh. I'm scuttling this save. Playing with all of these options enabled is dumb. I'll never do another women's prison. I think that was the thing that messed it all up. I didn't realize I could get an inmate with a baby, and wound up having to scramble to build an entirely new wing with a nursery for one dang person. Nearly went bankrupt and could never really recover after that.

Staff needs seem to me to be totally bonkers, because for the life of me, I could not figure out how to deal with cleaning up after them. I even built a second kitchen and hired another cook to work there and still couldn't keep up with the dirty dishes. I don't get it--this was never a problem in my last game, and I had twice the number of prisoners and the same amount of cook staff.

Also, I thought I'd try single cells this time instead of dormitories, but it doesn't bring in enough money to pay for the staff you need to keep things running (my own fault, I guess--I made them very nice cells).

I was running a lean staff, and they were walking around pissed all the time, so every single day I'd have basically watch every single prisoner attempting to escape at yard time, and my guards were just letting them leave half the time.

Honestly, the amount of escape attempts is ridiculous, I think. Literally, every single day these women were getting shackled and tossed into lockdown owing to these attempts, and the very next day they're climbing over barbed-wire fences like they're not even there.

[DragonAtma]

I start with basic cells (3x2, bed and toilet); people often recommend putting a shower in every cell, but I've found that small cellblocks (12 or so cells each, and a small shower room) works just as well. Luxury cells can be built later, once I have a decent income.

And yeah, you'll want double walls around the prison (even if they're just fences); if they're far enough apart contraband can't be thrown in, plus it's another line prisoners would have to pass before escaping. Obviously, you'll want the space between them to be staff-only. ;)

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Off-brand idiot:

look just take one step at a time if you havent played much before just do the easiest settings first but turn on gangs it adds a little spice.

I learned a lot from that game, honestly. For one thing, I'm not interested in running a female prison. Just too much hassle having to have the different cell types for prisoners you might or might not have at any given time.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the reason I had nearly everybody trying to escape during yard time was because I must have had some trees out there near the fence. Honestly, I didn't realize that climbing trees was a thing, and I thought they were just leaping over my barbed wire. Saw the same kind of behavior in my current game at the start and finally put two and two together.

The issue with the food trays... well, I never did figure that out. I think it was owed to having a nursery with a serving table really far away from the kitchen and having the staff area be kind of separate from the main prison. The whole thing was badly designed, really. I was trying to do this luxurious layout and wasting a lot of space.

Lesson learned.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by DragonAtma:

I start with basic cells (3x2, bed and toilet); people often recommend putting a shower in every cell, but I've found that small cellblocks (12 or so cells each, and a small shower room) works just as well. Luxury cells can be built later, once I have a decent income.

And yeah, you'll want double walls around the prison (even if they're just fences); if they're far enough apart contraband can't be thrown in, plus it's another line prisoners would have to pass before escaping. Obviously, you'll want the space between them to be staff-only. ;)

Thanks for the tips. I'm doing 3x2 cells in my new prison (with showers inside) and just generally taking planning way more seriously.

[VayneVerso]

New question: why don't my prisoners use the common room? Is it because I included a pass-through door to the classroom? They literally never use it during free time. They prefer to hang out in their oppressively small cells.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1693955649

[bellwoody]

About escape: You don't have outer fence and road gates.

A. Inmates are very easily to run away by break doors.
-> Build more airlocks.
B. If inmates dig tunnels, just dig few blocks through the building door, they could get their "freedom" easily.
-> Outer fence could let inmates have to dig longer tunnel and delay their escape.
-> Search toilets or shackdown frequently, best at sleep hours.
-> Don't have any BIG pipes below your cells/dormitories.
(but big/huge prisons would felt painful from shackdown)
C. Control the contrabands, some contrabands helpful for tunnel, like spoon, inmates could get their escape contrabands in your prison by:
D: Visitation.
-> Use phone table instead tables.($1000 expensive, but worth)
E. Thrown into your prison at the edge of prison map AND your inmates access.
-> Don't let inmates had a chance to access edge of map, even there have the outer fence.
F. Prisoner works in workshop or kitchen.
-> They would carry somethings out from such places.
G. Cargoes delivered by trucks.
-> Check the delivered cargoes.
Try have some "metal detectors, spoon is the best tunnel tool at early game, but could be found by metal detectors.
Dogs are useful, best for busted tunnels in out door, then search for contraband.
2 dogs couldn't do any jobs well.
(In my big/huge prisons, over 100 dogs or more; big means over 500 inmates, huge means over 1000 inmates)

Common room uses at class hour or free time, but even they have free time, inmates still prefer going to yard or stay in their cells/dormitories, generally, I wouldn't over invest in common rooms, multi propose yard is even better for me.

If you want to expend your prison bigger and bigger, cells, dormitories, canteens and kitchens should be expandable, left some space for such facilities for further expend, then you would have more inmates and more income.

Also, bigger prisons would need more power plants.
(but 1 pumper is enough for most of prisons)

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by bellwoody:

If you want to expend your prison bigger and bigger, cells, dormitories, canteens and kitchens should be expandable, left some space for such facilities for further expend, then you would have more inmates and more income.

Also, bigger prisons would need more power plants.
(but 1 pumper is enough for most of prisons)

Useful post. Thanks.

I had no idea at all what I was doing in my first game (original screenshot in the thread). I have slightly more idea now.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1694221928

I've been building incrementally in a very planned way, and things are going well so far. I've actually got four pumps in this place, just to keep a good flow of hot water.

For some reason visitors have stopped coming, however. I don't know why, as that was never a problem before. Have to look into that.