The Ultimate Escapists Guide [DRAFT] (All prisons, tips, some items.)

I have pretty much abandoned working on this guide. It's still has quite a lot about the game so I will leave it here.

In this guide I'm trying to get a full image of all the maps, all crafting recipes, and explaining how some items work and about the game mechanism. This guide will be a work-in-progress for a while. Also some neat tricks and tips.

Thanks to Roarke Suibhne for giving me the permission to use his Institutionalized Overview videos for the guide.

Somethings to know about this guide

In this guide you will be seeing images like this:

I will most likely include some example or the item name in them if you hover your mouse over it so you can read it. This is to save space and make the guide clearer and shorter. I will maybe include even some useful stuff.
( they will be really messy since if you put lines inside them, steam decides to make the entire guide into ascii art... )

Statistics & Game Mechanism

Guard Keys

The Five first guards in the rename menu have the keys always in the same order, rest of the guards have nothing. If you just want to beat a prison quickly you can check their names or rename them to know which key they have or if they don't have any.

The first three guards are always the ones in rollcalls/meal times/exercise/shower block.
The first guard is the one talking in rollcall.

Strenght (STR), Defense (DEF), Attack (ATT)

Strenght determines your health and attack power, and is limited to 10-100.
Every 2 STR points gives +1 HP to your maximum health.
10-19 STR points give +1 ATT, after that every 20 STR points give +1 ATT.

Different outfits may have defensive properties. (listed in items section)
Every DEF point your outfit has will be removed from incoming attack.

Different weapons have extra attack power. (listed in items section)
The amount of ATT your weapon has will be added to your attack damage directly.

Speed (SPD) (10-100)

Speed determines your attack speed.

Intellect (INT) (10-100)

Intellect determines what you can CRAFT and what JOBS (covering this later on) you can attend in prison, specific items require higher intellect to craft, like making of a shovel which requires 40 intellect, while putting a soap in a sock requires 30 intellect, but putting a battery in a sock it requires 50 intellect!
What the hell is logic?

Opinion (OPN) (1-100)

Opinion determines how people around you will act.
Inmates opinion on you is shown in their name color gradianting from:
Red (mad) - Yellow (moderate) - Green (excellent)
A guard/inmate with bad opinion might just attack you when they see you.
While time goes by OPN will very slowly always restore to 50/100.
Hover mouse over images for extra information:

Guard Heat

Your guard heat can only lower by getting knocked out, which resets it to 0 or waiting.
If your guard heat is ~50% or above, you cannot apply for jobs.
If your guard heat is ~90% or above, all guards on sight will attack you and snipers will shoot you.
Your guard heat raises from:
Guards yelling to you about things (10% each yell)
Beating up guards (25%, even with the cup of hot chocolate)
Passing through detectors with contraband without a pouch (instant 100% heat)
Seen out of prison area or on roof without guard outfit at day (instant 100% heat)
Detected by a guard at night time (with guard outfit on, if no guard outfit you get sent to solitary)
Missing rollcall (100% heat and Lockdown) Lockdown covered later on

Jobs

Jobs are one of the main sources of money in-game.
Different jobs pay different amounts of money, the prison you are on also affects the payout.
You cannot apply or resign for a job during "leisure/work period"
You cannot apply with +50% guard heat, but you can resign
Job Intellect requirement list:
THE PAYOUT WILL BE IN EACH PRISONS DESCRIPTION AS ITS NOT A CONSISTENT VALUE

Job	Gardening	Janitor	Kitchen	Laundry	Library
INT	20	20	40	30	40

Job	Mailman	Metal Shop	Tailor	Unloading	Wood Shop
INT	50	70	30	60	50

Lockdown

Lockdown will happen if you miss a rollcall, or if you have knocked out 4 guards at once.
During Lockdown you have 100% guard heat at all times, you get 100 seconds to either show up if you missed rollcall, which will cancel Lockdown (you don't have to get yourself beat up). If you beat up 4 guards, you will have to wait until there are less than 4 guards beat up before the lockdown cancels itself.
If the Lockdown timer goes to 0, you will be sent to solitary and you lose everything.
If a lockdown occurs during a work period, all the work stats reset meaning that you have to redo your job. (complete the job quota, get lockdown, your job quota isn't done anymore). This will get every single inmate to lose their job at once. (you can also farm money using this since you get paid for ever single completion of the quota.)

Prison Takeover

If you beat up all the guards during lockdown, the warden will inform that he leaves the front gates open, you will have the lockdown time left to escape or you will be sent to solitary,
if you get beat up by the guards during Takeover you will also be sent to solitary.
You can also still get sent to solitary through every other normal way you would (contraband check on desk, guard key missing, open vent, hole in ground or wall, etc.)
One problem is that you still need the keys from the 5 guards to get past the other doors. In which case you would have to have a plastic key, or tie up the guard and hide him somewhere guards don't check and get the key because if a guard sees a tied up guard, he will release him and then you get sent to solitary because his key went missing.

Solitary & Infirmary

If you are sent to solitary, you will lose almost everything.
All your stats will be reduced by 10%, you DO NOT lose any money, all your legal items will stay if they are anywhere where guards don't check, or your desk. You might lose your job.
When you get sent to infirmary, you will lose 10% of your current amount of money, if you have $10 or less, you will always lose $1 when sent to infirmary.

Pricing

The Price is BasePrice*(1 -Opinion% +0.50) Example:
Hammer= 70$, Opinion 25 or 100
70$ * ( 1 - 0.25 + 0.50 ) = 70$ * 1.25 = 87.5$ which would translate to 88$
70$ * ( 1 - 1.00 + 0.50 ) = 70$ * 0.50 = 35$
The price of an item can be half the price or the original price and a half on that depending on inmates opinion.

Differences between loading a day & continuing to next day

There are some differences between saving a day, then loading into the game, and
Continuing to play the next day after sleep without loading.
If you load a game:
All items in toilets will be deleted, All clogged toilets will become unclogged, All toilets can be flushed again, Guards and Inmates will be re-positioned, Inmates with favours will reset, if you have a vent it will be repaired. Empty jobs have higher chance of being taken.
If you keep playing after sleeping:
The opposite of what would happen if loading a game.
The guards coming to beat you up will sleep with you.
If you keep playing without sleeping:
Everything stays the same.

Items: Outfits, Useful Items & Tools PT1

Hover mouse over items to see the names.
There are Inmate outfits and POW outfits, both function the exact same but have different ID and recipe in crafting journal.

Outfits

Name, ID, Illegal?	Acquiring	Defense	Notes
ID4(Inmate) ID127(POW) Legal	Laundry, Other inmates, Yourself	0 DEF	After getting KO'd you get one if you don't already have one.
ID128(Inmate) ID142(POW) Contraband	INT30	+1 DEF	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID129(Inmate) ID143(POW) Contraband	INT60	+2 DEF	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID130(Inmate) ID144(POW) Contraband	INT80	+3 DEF	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID38 Contraband	INT50	0 DEF	Inmates: +30 OPN (glitch) Allows you to access the medical storage in infirmary. Guard heat raises with this on.
ID3 Contraband	Laundry, Guards, INT50	+1 DEF	Inmates: +3 OPN Allows you to walk on roofs and pass through guards without them yelling at day time, guard heat increases if in snipers sight, and when on guards field of view. Allows you to walk outside of your cell at night without instantly getting caught if in flashlight beams.

Useful Items

Soon...

NEVER

Tools Part 1

Name, ID, Illegal?	Acquiring	Digging Chipping Cutting Unscrewing Weapon	Decay% on use	Notes
ID28 Legal	Found in desks, Inmates carry and the Cutlery in Meal area	0/5 1/5 0/5 0/5 1/5	15%	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID28 Legal	Found in desks, Inmates carry and the Cutlery in Meal area	0/5 0/5 1/5 0/5 1/5	15%	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID23 Legal	Found in desks, Inmates carry and the Cutlery in Meal area	1/5 0/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	15%	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID40 Contraband	Inmates carry	3/5 0/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	5%	Inmates: +6 OPN

Items: Tools PT2

Tools Part 2

Hover mouse over items to see the names.

Name, ID, Illegal?	Acquiring	Digging Chipping Cutting Unscrewing Weapon	Decay% on use	Notes
ID24 Contraband	Buy, Prisoner Stash Base Price: 75$	0/5 2/5 0/5 3/5 0/5	10%	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID186 Contraband	INT 80	0/5 0/5 0/5 5/5 0/5	5%	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID115 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, 40 INT	3/5 2/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	8%	Inmates: +9 OPN
ID114 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, 60 INT	4/5 2/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	5%	Inmates: +9 OPN
ID5 Contraband	80 INT	5/5 2/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	3%	Inmates: +9 OPN Can be repaired with + 80 INT to keep it Sturdy.
ID25 Contraband	Buy, Prisoner Stash Base Price: 75$	0/5 2/5 0/5 0/5 3/5	5%	Inmates: +9 OPN Can be equiped to get past contraband detectors with it.
ID118 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, 40 INT	2/5 3/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	8%	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID119 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, 60 INT	3/5 4/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	5%	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID39 Contraband	80 INT	4/5 5/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	3%	Inmates: +9 OPN Can be repaired with + 80 INT to keep it Sturdy.
ID181 Contraband	90 INT	5/5 5/5 0/5 0/5 0/5	1%	Inmates: +9 OPN Cannot be repaired!
ID62 Contraband	Buy, Prisoner Stash, Found in desks, Inmates carry Base Price: 50$	0/5 0/5 2/5 0/5 0/5	10%	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID120 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, INT40	0/5 0/5 3/5 0/5 0/5	8%	Inmates: +3 OPN
ID121 Contraband	Prisoner Stash, INT60	0/5 0/5 4/5 0/5 0/5	5%	Inmates: +6 OPN
ID120 Contraband	INT80	0/5 0/5 5/5 0/5 0/5	3%	Inmates: +9 OPN
ID185 Contraband	INT40	0/5 0/5 3/5 0/5 0/5	8%	Inmates: +6 OPN Ingredients for crafting are not contraband. Great if no Duct Tape or Files.

Prison: Center Perks

Basics

Prison Layout:

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-12:00 Free Period
  
• 12:00-13:00 Lunch
  
• 13:00-16:00 Leisure \ Work Period
  
• 16:00-17:00 Exercise Period
  
• 17:00-18:00 Shower Block
  
• 18:00-19:00 Evening Meal
  
• 19:00-22:00 Evening Free Time
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

Enterance doors are unlocked between 10:00-22:00
In this prison you start with the laundry job by default, this can be useful for getting a guard outfit without lowering some guards opinion.

Job	Payout
Janitor	$25
Kitchen	$50
Laundry	$40
Mailman	$55
Metalshop	$70

Method 1: Easy and Fast

If lucky, you can escape the prison in 1 day!
1. Overview:
After evening free time at 22:00 the enterance doors lock, and after that is a rollcall so you have to get to the rollcall or there will be a lockdown, if you try to cut through the fence before 23:00 the tower guards will shoot you. You want to get outside after 23:00 with a guard outfit on so you don't get spotted, you need the key for the enterance doors and you want to have cutting tools to get through the fence.

2. Items for escaping:

• 1x Guard Outfit
  
• 1x Plastic Enterance Key*
  
• 3x of any 1/5 Cutting Tool OR 2x of any 2/5 Cutting Tool OR 1x of any 3/5 or better Cutting Tool

*You can either get yourself Cup of Molten Chocolate, OR work out to get high strenght and speed, have a good weapon and maybe some armor to beat up guards until you get one with the Enterance Key. MAKE SURE TO CRAFT A KEY MOLD AND RETURN THE KEY TO THE GUARD.

3. Getting the items:
Most of the required items you get from other inmates desks/buying, guard outfit you can get from the laundry or an officer, the enterance key you get from the third guard.

Video Tutorial:

1 Day Center Perks escape with Method 1

Method 2: Easy and Slow

1. Short showcase:
Get shovels, pickaxes, and timber, duct tape, metal, one poster. Chip upper wall and place poster there. Every night place a bed dummy on your bed, then go behind the wall and dig a hole there and go east since it's the shortest way under the entire prison.
You might want to get the Staff Key to get timber from north-east corner of the prison, no detectors and guards do not care if you go there, get as much timber as you ever need.

Method 3: Hard

1. Short showcase:
For this you need preferably 100 strenght and speed, get bunch of health kits and cups of hot chocolate. You want a good weapon too and preferably some armor.
Next beat up all the guards (there are only 5 of them and they are relatively weak).
You can easily beat them all up without any rope/duct tape needed to tie them up.
Once all 5 are down at once the warden opens the white locks.
Go ahead and walk out from the bottom of the prison, be prepared for snipers firing at you, you need atleast 1 large health pack to survive with 5 hp, as you have 50hp and the pack gives 15hp, and you will take 3 shots at that point, 4th shot will kill you.

Prison: Stalag Flucht

Basics

Prison Layout:

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-13:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 13:00-14:00 Exercise Period
  
• 14:00-17:00 Free Period
  
• 17:00-18:00 Evening Meal
  
• 18:00-21:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 21:00-22:00 Shower Block
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

No ventilation system, no doors that require enterance key.
In this prison you start with the gardening job by default.

Jobs

Job	Payout
Gardening	$20
Library	$30
Tailor	$20
Unloading	$50
Wood Shop	$45

Method 1: Easy and Fast

If lucky, you can escape the prison in 1 day!
1. Overview:
(You might not need guard outfit at all, but you might want to consider getting one.)
You want to have a bed dummy in bed (your roommate will bust you otherwise) and the required items for escaping. At 22:00, visit the rollcall, then go south past the job and exercise buildings to the gate and through the door with plastic staff key. Go into the generator room, just before the clock hits 23:00, disable the generator and walk in the south-west corner of the gate and when it becomes lights out, start cutting the south fence (at this point you may want to have a guard outfit since sometimes the guards check that area, this is very unlikely since you will only have 2 guards patrolling the entire prison at lights out.) make sure there is no guards coming your way before you cut the last bit of the fence down, you might get spotted then, if no guards then run to your freedom.

2. Items for escaping:

• 1x Plastic Staff Key
  
• 3x of any 1/5 Cutting Tool OR 2x of any 2/5 Cutting Tool OR 1x of any 3/5 or better Cutting Tool

• Optional: 1x Guard Outfit

3. Getting the items:
Most of the required items you get from other inmates desks/buying. Staff key for a mold from the fourth guard, make sure to also grab a guard outfit if you wish to play it safe.

Video Tutorial:

1 Day Stalag Flucht escape with Method 1

Prison: Shankton State Pen

In the Institutionalized Overview you will be shown a great escape route and also all the prison areas and some other stuff.

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-13:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 13:00-14:00 Afternoon Rollcall
  
• 14:00-16:00 Free Period
  
• 16:00-17:00 Evening Meal
  
• 17:00-18:00 Exercise Period
  
• 18:00-19:00 Shower Block
  
• 19:00-22:00 Evening Free Time
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

In this prison you start with the janitor job by default.

Jobs

Job	Payout
Janitor	$20
Kitchen	$?
Laundry	$?
Metalshop	$65
Woodshop	$?

Prison: Jungle Compound [Basics only!]

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-13:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 13:00-14:00 Afternoon Rollcall
  
• 14:00-16:00 Exercise Period
  
• 16:00-17:00 Free Period
  
• 17:00-18:00 Evening Meal
  
• 18:00-21:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 21:00-22:00 Shower Block
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

In this prison you start with the gardening job by default.

Jobs

Job	Payout
Gardening	$15
Laundry	$25
Library	$30
Mailman	$40
Tailor	$20

A Temporary escape guide:
1. Your main working area will be the left side of the library (the 4 tile maintenance room)
2. Get a poster, chip through the wall in library to the maintenance room
3. Get another poster, chip the wall left from the maintance room to get into the metal/wood supply area
4. Dig a tunnel in the maintance room, you want to go left underground (the whole tunnel is 10 tiles long), you can get free timber/metal for timber braces, repairing pickaxe and shovel etc. from the supply room next to you.
5. you want to get jar of ink and exotic feather
6. get AT LEAST 60 intellect,
7. get guard outfit and plastic staff key
8. once you have all that done, make sure all of your items (1 trovel or shovel with 100%, jar of ink, exotic feather, guard outfit, plastic staff key) are in the maintenance room or the tunnel, also make sure to have more than 60 intellect incase it drops to 59 just before you get to craft the ID papers.
ESCAPING:
9. place bed dummy in bed, get beat up by a guard at evening rollcall.
10. get sent to infirmary, go to library
11. pick the 5 items i told you to have, go to your tunnel, wait for the truck to pass by and then dig up at the end of the tunnel.
12. fill in the hole with the dirt you picked you picked up
13. go north, there is a house that requires staff key, go pick up the unsigned ID papers (make sure camera isn't looking and no guards)
14. Craft ID papers with ink, feather and the unsigned ID papers
15. go south and give the ID papers to the guard at the checkpoint
16. ESCAPE

Prison: San Pancho

In the Institutionalized Overview you will be shown a great escape route and also all the prison areas and some other stuff.

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-13:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 13:00-14:00 Exercise Period
  
• 14:00-17:00 Free Period
  
• 17:00-18:00 Evening Meal
  
• 18:00-19:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 19:00-22:00 Shower Block
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

In this prison you start with the gardening job by default.

Jobs

Job	Payout
Gardening	$15
Kitchen	$?
Library	$?
Tailor	$20
Unloading	$50$

Prison: HMP Irongate [OV only!]

I will work on this section later, in the mean time I will let you guys watch Roarke's Institutionalized Overview video of this prison which is actually very informative and shows a great escape route.

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Early Prison: Fhurst Peak Correctional

Trivia: Fhurst Peak Correctional was the first prison in The Escapists at early access stage.
After the full release, the prison became exclusive for Early Access players, and then later was added as a DLC for anyone to buy. The DLC you can get HERE!

I will work on this section later, in the mean time I will let you guys watch Roarke's Institutionalized Overview video of this prison which is actually very informative and shows a great escape route.

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

Prison Schedule:

• 23:00-08:00 Lights out
  
• 08:00-09:00 Morning Rollcall
  
• 09:00-10:00 Breakfast
  
• 10:00-13:00 Leisure/Work Period
  
• 13:00-14:00 Afternoon Rollcall
  
• 14:00-16:00 Free Period
  
• 16:00-17:00 Evening Meal
  
• 17:00-18:00 Exercise Period
  
• 18:00-19:00 Shower Block
  
• 19:00-22:00 Evening Free Time
  
• 22:00-23:00 Evening Rollcall
  
• 23:00-08:00 Lights out

Promo Prison: Fort Bamford [OV]

Trivia: Fort Bamford is a promotional prison as a reward for over 3000 escapes in a week.(10-16.11.2014), dedicated to Eurogamer.net and the prison riots of November 2014. OP

I will work on this section later, in the mean time I will let you guys watch Roarke's Institutionalized Overview video of this prison which is actually very informative and shows a great escape route.

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

No ventilation system, no rooftop.

Jobs

Job	Payout
Janitor	$?
Kitchen	$?
Tailor	$?
Woodshop	$?

Custom Prison: Camp Epsilon

Institutionalized Overview by Roarke Suibhne:

.

[tf2 pomson enjoyer #FIXVACPLS]

This guy ain't gonna update is he?

[DogeDev]

cool

[Meepy]

tysm, been getting back into the game and finally getting around to doing HMP irongate and this is helping out a ton. Thank you so much for making this guide :)

[Brauny]

thankyou

[pheebs_cats]

Thank you m0rgi, sorry but only just seeing your comment. Laundry is my default job and I still can't get through the door. Or do I press a certain key on my board? I'm on my mac. Thanks again.

[BlatheringTumorCells]

You beat up 5th guard for the green key which lets you go through ANY green door. Without one you can only use the green door that lets you do your job.

[pheebs_cats]

Hi there, new to this game. Need green key for laundry room Center Perks as default job. Does guard number 5 just give you the key for that if you go up to him or do you have to beat him up and steal? If the latter, not sure why seeing as laundry is default job so don't understand. Thanks.

[Luxocracy]

opinions also tell you if they will yell GUARDS! when you try to escape or not
I find using tunnel routes as a escape route you need vents and such with high intel but for a riot you need strength and speed

[BlatheringTumorCells]

You forgot to learn to read.
The very first thing under Statistics & Game Mechanism is guard keys.

[♦Badger♦]

you forgot to add which guard has which key by the way.