Help for noobs

[TopGun079]

I have been playing for weeks, and I cannot even get past the first prison. I have to be doing something wrong as people are escaping on their first day. Any help?

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I'll help

You need to get used to certain core mechanics. The most important is crafting. It's tied to your intelligence stat which you raise from using the internet or reading books. There's a big list of crafting online but the main ones are shovels and pickaxes. You make a tool handle with a file and a piece of wood, and then combine the tool handle with duct tape and either a sheet of metal or a crowbar for a shovel or pick. You can use picks to get through walls and underground rocks, and can use shovels to dig a hole into the ground and dig through dirt

You can cover a hole in the wall with a poster made from a magazine and duct tape, the poster can be removed and placed again meaning you can use it like a door, but if a guard sees the hole you are busted so be very careful when you remove the poster or mine a wall

Digging tunnels can get you out of most early prisons, and they are also a safe place to store contraband. Guards search your desk sometimes but they wont find anything you put inside a tunnel or a ventilation shaft!

Of course, digging tunnels takes ages and is tedious. If you can find out what obstacles are between you and the exit it might be faster. For instance, if all thats in the way is a fence then you just need to cut through the fence with wire clippers (2 files + duct tape) and you can escape. If you are outside during the day doing that then the guards on the towers will shoot you though so you need to do it at night. It's up to you then to decide how to get out at night, either with copies of plastic keys, or by digging through the walls and replacing them with posters. You also need a guard uniform if you are going outside your cell at night, and a bed dummy for your bed so no one will know you're gone

As for where you get all this stuff for crafting, you can loot other prisoners cells which generates loot every day, you can buy from prisoners, knock them out and search their bodies (or rob them when someone else knocks them out) or steal items from supply chests like wood or metal supply chests in the workshops

Later on you'll find it gets really hard to escape because there are walls preventing you from digging all the way out, you need to keep looking around at the obstacles and plan out how to advance through them and find alternate ways to get around. Make use of crafting, dig tunnels, make poster walls, copy keys from guards, replace vents with fake vents, cut through fences etc til you find the path to escape

List of things I know will get you busted instantly:
A guard sees a hole. Don't leave items on the floor near a hidden hole such as in a utility corridor or a guard might go in to pick up the items and see the hole
Seeing a hole in a wall
Stealing a key from an unconscious guard and not putting it back before he wakes up (make a copy and give it back before he wakes up)
Being seen outside your cell at night without a guard uniform (if you are spotted with a guard uniform on and the guard recognises you he will fight you instead of busting you)
Having contraband found in your desk
Dropping dirt or a broken wall on the floor where a guard can pick it up (you can give it to prisoners to dispose of it)
Missing rollcall and not turning yourself in before the timer runs out
A guard sees your cell is empty at night (unless you put a dummy in your bed)

Basically dont do any of the above or the guards will instantly lock you up, fill up your holes, replace the walls and take away all the contraband you have hidden away, all that remains are the tunnels that you dug underground