Whats the best strategy to making a successful prison?

[W a f f l e]

I always either run out of money completely (even with grants) or my prisoners escape.

[ryansox]

Start out small.

Keep some of your prisoners inside of the holding cell, build smaller kitchens/canteens/showers pretty much the basics. After the first few days then you can decide to turn off continuious intake in order to gain more money and get all your prisoners inside of individual cells and build workshops and other buildings needed.

[Bulvine20]

just take in min prisoners first they will give you less problems until you can build up for normal/max. Also try to rush a workshop this will give you the most money but plan your prison out so it close to your delievery so they don't have to move to far to bring in the scarp metal.

[DaddyJokee]

Build a large holding cell. That way you can store a lot of cons without the need of individual cell blocks. That enables a lot of money to flow in. That enables prison to be built.

[PowerFlower]

Watch the videos at the bottom, they will help you get your first prison off the ground in a decent fashion: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=164697737

Take what you learned there and you'll be able to build all the prisons you want

[W a f f l e]

Thanks guys

[Obviiious]

I think it's more fun to discover this game by trial and error. Making mistakes en learning from them for you next prison. My suggestion is to not watch those 'guide movies' for succesful prisons, because this game is so much more fun to discover by yourself. :)

[PowerFlower]

there are some basics you need to find though Lolloler, else I agree. Once it gets closer to finish I'm sure they also add a more compehensive info/learning UI ... but for now they help emense.
For example I never discovered the sheduling of the prisoners day until I watched a guide and wondered why it never worked.

Generally you are right, but you gotta learn the basic way the game works somehow and until the game guides the basics and tell you about em somehow, how should you know.

[Starvin247]

keep playing the game and find what works for you. trial and error.

[Darak]

I didn't know you had to build a foundation BEFORE constructing a building...it's an obvious step, but i looked right over the button and just laid down some walls. Worked will until i couldn't designate a canteen...then i couldn't lay a foundation...and when i did i didn't know it needed a door...then i couldn't place the door.... :/

[W a f f l e]

Yeah , the first time i played i did the same thing.

[CravenWarrior]

if you want a good prison start out investing in workshops and security

[zach]

I don't need help with figuring out all the things in the prison, all I need help with is not making a really long prison that only goes vertical, it's a habit of mine and whenever I try to go down it doesn't look nice and it's really messy haha

[Insanity Claus]

Początkowo opublikowane przez CravenWarrior:

if you want a good prison start out investing in workshops and security

This. Workshops generate a lot of money. IMO, cutting wood is the best route and having a forestry helps generate even more income. You MUST have at least 1 license plate press for the Workshop to be functional, but fill all the rest of the space with table saws.

My biggest advice is to air-gap inmate buildings from staff buildings, have as few entry and exit points between inmate and staff wings and make sure to have ample security in the hallways between them.

For example, in my most recent prison, I have a wing that has a psychologist, workshop, classroom and medical wing. To keep the flow of contraband down, I have a canine-guard walk the connecting hallway from the Yard to this wing and I have metal detectors on both sides of entrances for that hallway.

Think about things like what I just described. Minimizing the way weapons and drugs can be accessed by your inmates and then beefing up security on those access points. Also keep in mind to build cells with varying levels of comfort. I like to do it by rows. First row closest to exit tends to be big and nice, then it gets more barebones and smaller the further back you go. I had one prison where there were Max Sec prisoners that I had downgraded to Min Sec and they were so complacent that many of them had gone over 100 days without any incident.

On a similar note, build a Super Max Wing for your prison if you're accepting Max Sec inmates. It doesn't need to be big, but it needs to be well-contained. I've had some Legendary inmates that were totally fine and did well in my prison. Some would constantly cook off. Some regular Max Sec inmates were total maniacs. Putting them in Super Max and having armed guards helps. You ALWAYS know where the troublemakers are and you can assign personnel as needed.

Oh, and don't forget to build a Protective Custody wing for Snitches, Ex-Cops, Ex-Guards and Confidential Informants that need to cool down. You won't get a lot of these inmates (although chance seems higher with Max Sec inmates), but they'll be dead within a few hours or days if you don't separate them from the masses.

[Insanity Claus]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Z4CH:

I don't need help with figuring out all the things in the prison, all I need help with is not making a really long prison that only goes vertical, it's a habit of mine and whenever I try to go down it doesn't look nice and it's really messy haha

Not sure if this will help or not, but here is a prison I made a while back. Pretty solid , IMO, and I put a lot of time into making it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=459241409

[RagingRumskullian]

Always make an indoors-only prison. It may be expensive, at first, but it will significantly help when your prison gets larger because it slows down tunneling a lot and also makes it more difficult to escape because you can define the hallways and paths more. If you don't like making indoor prisons and prefer outdoors, use sniper towers to watch over the prisoners outdoors. Their warning shots will cause misbehaving prisoner to surrender quickly.