No Free Cell For This Prisoner?

[waynechriss]

So my custom prison has been smooth sailing with 120+ prisoners. Now all of a sudden, for no reason, one prisoner can't be moved because there is "no free cell for this prisoner." This makes no sense because I have several free cells available as well as several beds available in the dorms.

He's Max Security, which makes up the majority of my prison so there's no reason he shouldn't be compatible. The majority of my prison is shareable between med/max security, with supermax having its own sector. I have no mods installed. See images of cell availability and sector deployment.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281545635
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281545572
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281545483

[waynechriss]

So the only way I can get max prisoners into the cells is if I make the sector available to everyone (white). And because of this, super max prisoners are initially placed in normal sectors instead of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ super max sector I created.

Very stupidly, the only way I can get supermax prisoners to be in the supermax section is to:
1) Send super max prisoners to normal sectors
2) Put them into solitary confinement in the supermax sector,
3) Change the normal sectors to min/med/max so the supermax prisoners can't return to their previous cell after taking them out of solitary, they now have to use the supermax sector cells.

What is the point of having exclusive sectors if they literally block off the prisoners that are assigned to those sectors? Can someone make sense of this?

[waynechriss]

So the only way I can make max intake prisoners to play ball is to make every place (other than super max) max only. If I even try to make a custom sector of multiple sectors, nothing works (prisoners don't have a place to stay). This means max prisoners that turn into med prisoners don't have anywhere to go. So I guess my final question is why the ♥♥♥♥ are custom sectors broken and is there a way to make them work?

[The Queen Salis]

the custom weird sectors are not compatible with... anything. don't use those if you can avoid it.

use "shared" for shared areas and put SuperMax in an area that is StaffOnly-blocked from all others.

[VisseNekku]

Three years later, this is still a problem. The custom sectors do not work.
There is no way to make a sector accept everything except a certain security level prisoners. Like supermax.

Why the custom sectors are still completely unusable, I don't know.

[Flotch]

The custom sectors are indeed still entirely nonfunctional, when applied to cells/dormitories themselves...but you can use them quite easily without doing that!

I haven't had any trouble with making areas like hallways, workplaces, canteens, or yards Min/Med/Max only. It works as I'd expect, blocking Supermax inmates from access and letting everyone else use them. Then I can have a Supermax-only area too, and it works fine.

The problem is that you can't apply custom sectors to a cell or dorm and make it 2-3 different grades...it HAS to be either shared (for literally anyone) or designated as a specific security grade like Med Sec. If the game simply didn't let you apply custom sectors to cells or dorms, they could call it a feature instead of a bug...but nah, that'd be too much work.

If your designation looks like OP's it is incompatible with the game's flawed logic. Make specific cells Max and other specific cells Med, or however that is applicable, to get mixed populations within a single block while excluding others.

[mycatismycat]

THANK YOU SO MUCH for telling me about these custom sectors. For some reason I was getting 0 prisoner intake with fill capacity on and know I know why.

Honestly, ♥♥♥♥ custom sectors.