Are there any good escape mode prisons?

[Kunovega]

I've downloaded and attempted at least 50 prisons so far and sadly the majority of them don't even function. Out of the 20 or so that actually worked, they were super easy to get out of.

Typical problems:
1. prisons without guards, if there's a road gate the bus is never let in (because no guard ever comes to open it) . If there's no gate you get dumped in delivery and no one comes to get you. I've wandered entire maps in handcuffs never finding a guard (and it won't let you walk off the edge of the map to escape if you are handcuffed)

2. prisons without delivery areas, the prison bus just drives off the map with you still on it because there was no where to put you. Why are people even uploading non-functional prisons? (I wish the game would at least check that a delivery area exists and that the prison has a guard or those saves should be skipped by the escape mode randomizer ~ I understand it won't ever be smart enough to only pick "good" prisons but I'm sure somehting could be checked to ensure they were at least "functional" as in: delivery area + a guard so the map can be used ~ at all)

3. Not enough guards, these maps take forever to get started. The only maps so far that have taken me a while to escape from were only due to a lack of guards. Standing in the reception are for days (game time) before being taken to a cell. Worst part is after wasting all that time waiting, prisons with that low a volume of guards can typically just be walked out of, there's no one watching anyway.

Beyond that, are there any prisons that are both functional AND difficult to escape from? I've seen some beautiful LOOKING prisons (tesla tribute comes to mind) and I'm grateful that it was functional (had guards, didn't take long to get to a cell), but at the same time there was zero challenge to get out. The layout of the prison is purely asthetic with no thought to actual worker safety or prisoner control. Walk into the easy to access offices in any corner of the prison, set a fire, walk out.

I've yet to find a prison that takes more than 24 hours (game time) to escape from (aside from the ones with so few guards that you get left in reception for longer than that)

I've had some mild fun just seeing how large a riot I could form (I had over 200 prisoners rioting at one point, that took about 6 days (game time) to set up, mainly because I felt like making a larger gang of followers just for the heck of it, but even that map I could have walked out of many days earlier.

I don't know, I like the idea of escape mode but I'm just not finding any maps that are challenging (finding maps that function at all is the hardest part of the process)

Is it just bad luck? Or is there just no one uploading functional maps?

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Note: I only recently just starting using escape mode, it's not something I played around with in previous release builds. I've always just built large prisons, sold them and started over. I'm wishing I'd kept save files for some of my old ones but I either deleted them or sold them and restarted.

I'm currently working on some really big ones, maybe in the future I'll find some time to attempt makign secure ones for escape mode.

[lissa_981]

Here is one I designed a handful of updates ago (so no sniper towers lol):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531951855
That should be reasonably challanging - if it is too wasy since the update please let me know ;-)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by lissa_981:

Here is one I designed a handful of updates ago (so no sniper towers lol):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531951855
That should be reasonably challanging - if it is too wasy since the update please let me know ;-)

Impressive; this actually took me a couple of tries to get out of and the results were a bloody mess with a win that barely counts for a win.

1. First attempt, the normal routine, punch a few guards and run for the door. Sniper ~ dead.

2. Second attempt, digging...and digging... and digging... and yea never mind there's no getting through 3 walls with that many dogs.

3. Lets build a crew and start a riot. This took several attempts, supression is fast and furious until you disrupt the guards routines.

It took several days of careful planning. Each of the crew would sneak off, get weapons and keys and serve their punishment, stashing their tools and weapons before surrendering. A few picked up lighters and these turned out to be the most important.

Starting strategic fires in various locations we killed the firemen as they came into the prison. After that it took focused fires in several areas to systematically destroy room tiles.

Guards without a place to rest? Yea tired guards wandering the prison take longer to respond. Burn down the hospital? Injured guards and prisoners with no where to go.

Burn down the armorys? Not sure this helped but I like to think it did, towards the end there were less guards with guns or tasers around.

By the end I had burned down probably 80% of the prison but the outerwalls just won't burn. But it gave me freedom of movement to not have many interior walls and tired guards were frequently too slow to matter.

By the end there was little sign of life, smashed generators so there was no lights, and burned out shells of rooms everywhere. At night with a remaining crew of 20 (and 8 others already dead from various exploration attempts) we were ready to storm the gates for one final push.

The interior snipers were already dead (and not being replaced), the armed guards from the front gates had been lured out and killed and my crew were armed with shotguns and a couple of snipers.

The last stand of guards and the outer 2 sniper towers were all that remained. 19 more deaths of my crew later we had the guards dead, the snipers dead and one guy running for his freedom.

We burned it down, we burned it down to the ground.

http://s30.postimg.org/vggoy8drl/PAescape.jpg

Total: 12 in game days, 27 of my squad were killed with only 1 escape.

At one point there were so any bodies on screen you couldn't see the floors in the kitchen, just waves of dead cooks and guards.

---
I have a question: how did you get the walls in the armorys to not burn? It seems like I could burn down everything in the place except the outerwalls and the concrete walls seperating the armorys from the security hall (the outer ring with dog kennels)

And also, did you intend for the player to have a small chance at escape? Because I applaud you for how well you did this but it's really given me a couple of ideas on how to go even more secure. I'm just curious if your goal was for it to be really hard (which it is) or did you want it 100% escape proof?

[lissa_981]

I did intend it to be possible, just difficult. It is a working prison whith a solid reform rate (hence the access to the kitchens and shrinks office.) I also added the visitation rooms to make things a bit easier as I don't bother with these in my prisons as a general rule. There is a staff room, but for some reason in escape mode my gaurds tend ot get tired more often then when I play as the warden.. not sure what the issue is. The armory is a perimiter wall like all the 'curtain wall' in that prison so I'd guess that's why you had so much trouble burning it down. If only the warden would re-hire and rebuild destroyed areas... ph well maybe eventually. I'm glad you found it entertaining, it was fun to make a prison to contain smarter then your average prisoners.. don't forget to rate it :-)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by lissa_981:

I did intend it to be possible, just difficult. It is a working prison whith a solid reform rate (hence the access to the kitchens and shrinks office.) I also added the visitation rooms to make things a bit easier as I don't bother with these in my prisons as a general rule. There is a staff room, but for some reason in escape mode my gaurds tend ot get tired more often then when I play as the warden.. not sure what the issue is. The armory is a perimiter wall like all the 'curtain wall' in that prison so I'd guess that's why you had so much trouble burning it down. If only the warden would re-hire and rebuild destroyed areas... ph well maybe eventually. I'm glad you found it entertaining, it was fun to make a prison to contain smarter then your average prisoners.. don't forget to rate it :-)

Yea I had to burn down the staff room to make the guards stay tired.

As for the armory it must be a graphical glitch but the top/bottom wall portion looks like concrete thats seperating them from the interior wall path (with the dog kennels). I spent a lot of time trying to burn through that wall because it doesn't look like the outer prison wall in that section. The sides appear correctly as perimiter wall.

If room tiles got rebuilt after burning, I'm not sure I'd have gotten out of there. In fact I had to deliberately not burn down the psychiatrist offices so that I'd have a regular source of fire while systematically destroying everything else.

[Seal]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Originally posted by lissa_981:

Here is one I designed a handful of updates ago (so no sniper towers lol):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531951855
That should be reasonably challanging - if it is too wasy since the update please let me know ;-)

http://s30.postimg.org/vggoy8drl/PAescape.jpg

nuuuuuu doggy died-ed ;(