Prisoners standing still, chained.

[FORABOZO]

What am I supposed to do with my prisoners. They are standing still, calling for food and toilet.
I clicked them and right clicked their cells, they were taken there and are still standing, complaining and chained.

I've already build the kitchen, their toilets, showers, canteen, cook, etc.

I'm getting really impatient with the game. Every minute everything stalls because of bugs or mechanics I don't know. Is there a nice guide for it? I'm thinking about just forgetting about it and wait for the beta release.

[Borkins]

There are a couple things that may be causing this. They might be waiting for solitary confinement, there may not be enough cells available for all your prisoners or your rooms may not be zoned properly.

I know that I have had a few bugs where I zone an entire area as cellblocks and then when walls are created overtop of them, the area is treated as one big room still (which doesnt meet security requireemnts).

[FORABOZO]

All my rooms passed all requirements.
This is happening in the first wave, right in the beginning of the game. I made one big cell, with 8 beds, like the game suggests to do

[Borkins]

Make sure the big cell is a holding cell. A holding cell is the only room that can house many prisoners. Regular cells can only hold one prisoner each

[FORABOZO]

Changed to holding cell and problem persists
The game tells I have 16 prisoners now and that I can hold none.

[Mendacious Calamity]

Originally posted by Dotto:

Changed to holding cell and problem persists
The game tells I have 16 prisoners now and that I can hold none.

The counter only counts actual single cells, so if you've not built any yet don't worry about that. But make sure your holding cell is working..

Other reasons prisoners don't move from handcuffs:

- not enough guards free to take them to the cells.
- the holding cell isn't actually working properly for some reason
- there's a 'route' issue that prevents certain levels of prisoner move freely to the cell in question
- you're paused ;)

Screenshot that includes your existing holding cell would be useful!

[FORABOZO]

The problem was with the big cell. Building the holding cell, the new arrival went directly to it and for the old ones I had to select them to it.
Thanks.

[Mendacious Calamity]

Originally posted by Dotto:

I'm getting really impatient with the game. Every minute everything stalls because of bugs or mechanics I don't know. Is there a nice guide for it? I'm thinking about just forgetting about it and wait for the beta release.

Google the Prison Architect wiki site. Lots of info about how the game works there.

Or, watch the monthly update videos when they come out.

[blipadouzi]

There's also a Tutorial mod on the Workshop which tremendously improves the in-game tutorial.

Might want to watch a few Let's Plays on Youtube too... I recommend Boozle Box. He explains everything well and is quite entertaining.

[watcher2312]

I think its a really good game.

[WhiteAlien]

This just happened to me - prisoners shackled around the prison and can't be moved, can't be assigned guards because they are shackled, and starving to death, several did die) and even though there is now a method of canceling punishments, the prisoners ... well, I noticed that my prison looked a bit empty. "Are you sure there are 48 people from 52 cells? It's look barren" I thought. Then 26 are complaining of hunger. Hmm. Yeah ok so a few were awaiting solitary confinement and I had just been rearranging the solitary confinement cells so maybe that was it...?

Anyway, I tried several things, mostly giving individual actions to each prisoner. No luck. Then I rebuilt several solitary confinement cells. I don't think that solved it. I tried reassigning individual prisoners. Then I put the intake up to 1 per day (from being closed) and hired more guards (I already had 8 or so "available" anyway) and then rebuilt the holding cell as I had removed it. Doing a bunch of these things seemed to make a difference over the next 48 hours of game time all those prisoners were moved to cells and my prison continued. They had been stuck for 4 days some of them!

Nobody went to the holding cell, I just wondered if it's possible that not having one and then being full for a few seconds could cause a strange queue and weird effect, or maybe not having enough guards, or a combination of the above.