Revisiting PA in 2024

[Booster Terrik]

So I had a break from PA after the bug re prisoners not being escorted to solitary/infirmary was first noticed. I'm not a fan of Paradox recently for a number of reasons but I thought I would give some thoughts on coming back to PA.

If I'm brutally honest, still has the core mechanisms that IV put into place for it and they work to this day. What has not worked, is the addition of "QoL" items without appropriate QA of them. Too many gimmics without actual thought as to how that effects the gameplay experience

Its hampered somewhat by the lack of multi-core processing which is the biggest thing that could be done to improve the gameplay system.

Will I be buying PA2? No. It holds no interest to me.

Utilities - placing utilities overwrites/clears items laid out in planning mode. this seems idiotic to me - the planning mode is for walls/doors/foundations/objects. It makes no sense to me why building utilities would clear the planning plans.

Speaking on which, whilst I get that its good to have a separate electric/water layer, not being able to see the other one (eg see electric cables whilst placing water) hampers things and slows down both planning an building.

No auto-dismantle - So i want to build a wall over some trees. Before the Paradox Era (BPE?) it would automatically dismantle trees etc. Now you have to do it manually. Again, no idea why this is the case. I cannot thing of an operational reason why I would not want it to auto-dismantle the trees.

Room-ratings - still not working correctly. For example, there is no consistency between Widows (barred), Windows (Glass) and Windows (Fancy) as to how the effect the room rating. I tried this out on a classroom and a canteen - the Windows (barred) didnt work on either, the Windows (Glass) worked on the classroom but no the canteen but then stopped working on the canteen.

Prisoner Ratings - I've lost count of the number of Preachers I get into a prison. They all need toning down to about 75% of the current number. I've had to build 30 cells in a prison of just under 300 for Protective custody (I have Min/Med/Max all in the prison at an equal spread). Its ridiculous.

Yard time in Regime - previously, the expected behaviour was that during this regime time, all prisoners would be in the yard, barr those in Solitary. Now, despite having virtually all areas set to shared, during the Yard time, I have prisoners all over the shop, including just chilling in their cells for no reason. This is not the expected behaviour.

Overall, still a decent game, but still with those QoL fixes that I guess Paradox has no interest in fixing now. I for one love PA and wont be moving to PA2

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Lastri's Ort:

Yard time in Regime - previously, the expected behaviour was that during this regime time, all prisoners would be in the yard, barr those in Solitary. Now, despite having virtually all areas set to shared, during the Yard time, I have prisoners all over the shop, including just chilling in their cells for no reason. This is not the expected behaviour.

They intentionally made it not mandatory. Making it effectively pointless. There is no justification for it as we already had "Freetime" as a regime option where they could roam where they wanted.

[Booster Terrik]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by Lastri's Ort:

Yard time in Regime - previously, the expected behaviour was that during this regime time, all prisoners would be in the yard, barr those in Solitary. Now, despite having virtually all areas set to shared, during the Yard time, I have prisoners all over the shop, including just chilling in their cells for no reason. This is not the expected behaviour.

They intentionally made it not mandatory. Making it effectively pointless. There is no justification for it as we already had "Freetime" as a regime option where they could roam where they wanted.

I don’t understand then why they kept it as an option. It’s just pointless now

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Lastri's Ort:

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

They intentionally made it not mandatory. Making it effectively pointless. There is no justification for it as we already had "Freetime" as a regime option where they could roam where they wanted.

I don’t understand then why they kept it as an option. It’s just pointless now

There is a lot of not thinking through any consequences in this game's "developement" by paradox

[Docsprock]

I used to set the canteen up next to the yard. I would schedule yard time to marshal all the prisoners, followed by eat time. I could easily feed all prisoners in one hour.

Now, mealtime has to be two hours for everyone in the far corners of the prison to reach the canteen in time.

I always have Protected Custody, (PC), cells available the moment I open my prison. All other security ratings, too.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Docsprock:

I used to set the canteen up next to the yard. I would schedule yard time to marshal all the prisoners, followed by eat time. I could easily feed all prisoners in one hour.

Now, mealtime has to be two hours for everyone in the far corners of the prison to reach the canteen in time.

I always have Protected Custody, (PC), cells available the moment I open my prison. All other security ratings, too.

You can go back to 2018 version but it's an all or nothing deal.

[Booster Terrik]

Originally posted by Docsprock:

I used to set the canteen up next to the yard. I would schedule yard time to marshal all the prisoners, followed by eat time. I could easily feed all prisoners in one hour.

Now, mealtime has to be two hours for everyone in the far corners of the prison to reach the canteen in time.

I always have Protected Custody, (PC), cells available the moment I open my prison. All other security ratings, too.

Yeah this is what I’ve been working to re the yard/canteen. Just terrible at the moment

[Capt.Jamesbloke]

I am pretty sure the idea was to make the yard attractive enough to want to visit it in yard/free time hours. Make the yard a better place!

[Jumboman]

for me the absolute worst part is that they made construction workers carry 1 brick at a time where they used to carry multiple, increasing construction times by about 10 times.

[Ozoneraxi]

Originally posted by Jumboman:

-snip-

My mod (Ozone's Fixes & Qol) lets you toggle back to 2018 building behaviour, maybe it fixes your issue.

[»SoD« Thekillergreece]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by Lastri's Ort:

Yard time in Regime - previously, the expected behaviour was that during this regime time, all prisoners would be in the yard, barr those in Solitary. Now, despite having virtually all areas set to shared, during the Yard time, I have prisoners all over the shop, including just chilling in their cells for no reason. This is not the expected behaviour.

They intentionally made it not mandatory. Making it effectively pointless. There is no justification for it as we already had "Freetime" as a regime option where they could roam where they wanted.

The reason why they changed that is to prevent the occassional / constant fights that would take place in Yards during Yard time because of prisoners hanging out all together (the more prisoners are close together, the higher the likelihood of fights). This change made no sense and should have been left to players to deal with that problem but alas they changed it.