Prison Architect Discussion

MiskyBoyy

It appears us Prison Architect lovers addicts are starting to hijack the Steam Summer Sale thread so it was recommended starting a separate thread so we could leave the rest of ye alone!

For those of you who don't have it: Prison Architect on Steam

Yes it is slightly expensive for a game that's in Alpha but trust me it's VERY addictive and you will get your money's worth from it!


Here's a taster of some of the in game madness:

gavmcg92

My new desktop background.



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Turtwig

I'm beginning to regret not getting this in the steam sale. Damn you to hell boards!:mad:

gavmcg92

Jernal wrote: »

I'm beginning to regret not getting this in the steam sale. Damn you to hell boards!:mad:

Yeah, besides minecraft (when it was new), this is one of the most addicting games I have played in a long long time.

gavmcg92

Ohh quick question. Do you ever manage to feed all prisoners? The closest I've gotten is like 75%. It's mostly around 50%. Not sure if it's a bug or I don't have enough benches/cooks/serving trays.

Turtwig

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Ohh quick question. Do you ever manage to feed all prisoners? The closest I've gotten is like 75%. It's mostly around 50%. Not sure if it's a bug or I don't have enough benches/cooks/serving trays.

It's probably prisoners withholding food from other prisoners. :cool:

Wooden Jesus

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Ohh quick question. Do you ever manage to feed all prisoners? The closest I've gotten is like 75%. It's mostly around 50%. Not sure if it's a bug or I don't have enough benches/cooks/serving trays.

Maybe give them an extra hour eating time and install another cooker.
Im still experimenting with everything, my first prison is still my most successful and i completely took the piss and tried out everything with it.

gavmcg92

Jernal wrote: »

It's probably prisoners withholding food from other prisoners. :cool:

Their giving away their fry because they're being extorted :P
Better send in the riot squat to do a bit of a shake-down.

mailrewop

started off with 8 (i think) prisoners, 2 escaped others got released. now only have 1 left and for some reason im not getting any new prisoners they just drive by. might be a bug so i think ill start from scratch, really enjoying it though.

Turtwig

mailrewop wrote: »

started off with 8 (i think) prisoners, 2 escaped others got released. now only have 1 left and for some reason im not getting any new prisoners they just drive by. might be a bug so i think ill start from scratch, really enjoying it though.

If it's bug report it so hopefully in a few months time others won't be facing the same situation.

MiskyBoyy

gavmcg92 wrote: »

My new desktop background.

Haha I LOVE it! You know you're addicted to something whn you change your desktop background/wallpaper to it! :L :P

mailrewop wrote: »

started off with 8 (i think) prisoners, 2 escaped others got released. now only have 1 left and for some reason im not getting any new prisoners they just drive by. might be a bug so i think ill start from scratch, really enjoying it though.

Maybe try go into your report book, click on the prisoner tab and close the prison to normal prisoners and switch it to allow maximum security or minimum security prisoners in to see if it accepts them then? Oh also, make sure you have a delivery area set near the road because that's where they need to be dropped!

gavmcg92

mailrewop wrote: »

started off with 8 (i think) prisoners, 2 escaped others got released. now only have 1 left and for some reason im not getting any new prisoners they just drive by. might be a bug so i think ill start from scratch, really enjoying it though.

I've had this problem, not with prisoners but with food/objects. Did you move the deliveries and garbage plots? I've noticed that if you move these sections to, lets say, the middle of the overall plot, the trucks just keep driving on by.

I had this problem with a prison that I spent nearly 2 hours planning out. Had to end it because I couldn't fix it. My OCD kicks in everytime I start a new prison and realise that the entrance is not in the centre.

Just noticed reddit have a great prisonarchitect subreddit too. Found this video there. I think it's the developers talking about the recent patch. Alpha 11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OsN3OSk8G0

gavmcg92

Another question: Do you guys have any problems getting the game into full screen. Mine seems to always be in a window.

Wooden Jesus

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Another question: Do you guys have any problems getting the game into full screen. Mine seems to always be in a window.

Mines always been full screen.
Is anyone constantly having problems with the workshops? The jobs are queued but the prisoners stand around doing nothing, when i try re deploy them nothing seems to happen

MiskyBoyy

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Another question: Do you guys have any problems getting the game into full screen. Mine seems to always be in a window.

Under graphic settings, do you have the 'Windowed' option unchecked and your resolution set to match your monitor?

Wooden Jesus wrote: »

Is anyone constantly having problems with the workshops? The jobs are queued but the prisoners stand around doing nothing, when i try re deploy them nothing seems to happen

Have you set their regime to include work? You can do so by clicking underneath your game clock.

Wooden Jesus

Yea everything seems to be set up for them to work but they just refuse to. I think its a bug but there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it within a save

shaneb92

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Another question: Do you guys have any problems getting the game into full screen. Mine seems to always be in a window.

Try adjusting your screen resolution under the graphics settings

shaneb92

Did anyones prison go on fire yet? Only mad to use the hose on the fire trucks :P

gavmcg92

Wooden Jesus wrote: »

Yea everything seems to be set up for them to work but they just refuse to. I think its a bug but there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it within a save

Has the sheet metal been delivered?

Wooden Jesus

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Has the sheet metal been delivered?

Yea, the jobs are queued up to go but the prisoners just stood there and one of them decided to start a fight. I tried re deploying the prisoners but now theres no one even showing up for the work time and the old jobs are still queued to be done

Wooden Jesus

shaneb92 wrote: »

Did anyones prison go on fire yet? Only mad to use the hose on the fire trucks :P

Mine caught fire after some prisoners destroyed the toilets and the wires got wet. Try running a few electrical cables through the shower and see if anything happens

gavmcg92

I think I might be still in alpha 10. I can't get riot guards.

Ohh and I fixed the resolution issue. It's working now, full screen.

McSasquatch

How do you set up patrols for guards? I have deployment enabled through the Bureaucracy screen, and I'm able to drag out paths made of square dots that "should" be their patrol route, but no guards follow it. Do I have to have a guard selected before drawing up the patrol route or what?

wnolan1992

I've come across a few bugs, but not nearly as many as I'd have expected from a game in Alpha. :P

Perhaps the biggest one is that even when you turn the Fog of War setting off, it's still enabled, not a biggie, but annoying.

The only one I've gotten that actually affected gameplay was my workmen refusing to lay one piece of electrical cable to connect up part of my holding cell building. I had to lay another piece further along just to get them out with the spools. :P


Question: Is there a more efficient way to get people through doors? At the moment my cooks have to go through 4 jail doors to get to the delivery area (door from the kitchen to canteen, canteen to corridor, corridor to outside, then through the main gate of the prison. Each time a guard has to leave where he is to open it up for them, which adds about 5 seconds to each door.

mailrewop

gavmcg92 wrote: »

I've had this problem, not with prisoners but with food/objects. Did you move the deliveries and garbage plots? I've noticed that if you move these sections to, lets say, the middle of the overall plot, the trucks just keep driving on by.

I had this problem with a prison that I spent nearly 2 hours planning out. Had to end it because I couldn't fix it. My OCD kicks in everytime I start a new prison and realise that the entrance is not in the centre.

started a new prison and its all working now but after reading your post i think i built a fence through the delivery and garbage plots, when i deleted the fence i think it messed up the plots.

McSasquatch

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Question: Is there a more efficient way to get people through doors? At the moment my cooks have to go through 4 jail doors to get to the delivery area (door from the kitchen to canteen, canteen to corridor, corridor to outside, then through the main gate of the prison. Each time a guard has to leave where he is to open it up for them, which adds about 5 seconds to each door.

Where possible, I use staff doors. If not possible, ie I should use a jail door, I set it to "locked open" if possible - obviously there'll be some where this just isn't possible, like the front gate. :pac: But if you leave some locked open, you can still override that setting by hitting the lockdown button in the lower right, in the event of a riot or whatever.

wnolan1992

McSasquatch wrote: »

Where possible, I use staff doors. If not possible, ie I should use a jail door, I set it to "locked open" if possible - obviously there'll be some where this just isn't possible, like the front gate. :pac: But if you leave some locked open, you can still override that setting by hitting the lockdown button in the lower right, in the event of a riot or whatever.

Maybe I'm just mistrusting of my prisoners...

though if ever I needed vindication that keeping all doors locked down was a good idea, one of my cooks just gave it to me... he came back in and dropped a box of food in the main doorway of the prison! If my prisoners hadn't been locked in their cell or the canteen they'd have easily ran out. :P

Elessar

This looks interesting, I've been waiting a LONG time for something that could be as addictive as theme hospital.

21 quid for a buggy alpha though? I don't think so.

MiskyBoyy

Elessar wrote: »

This looks interesting, I've been waiting a LONG time for something that could be as addictive as theme hospital.

21 quid for a buggy alpha though? I don't think so.

But that just gives you access to the fun of the buggy Alpha right now and then the Beta and actual game, so it's not JUST the buggy Alpha. You probably know this already but still just saying :P

Wooden Jesus

Elessar wrote: »

This looks interesting, I've been waiting a LONG time for something that could be as addictive as theme hospital.

21 quid for a buggy alpha though? I don't think so.

Its still a great game and buying it now will be cheaper than the full version.
Theres not that many bugs, its mainly just stripped down with more features being constantly added

Mister Man

I'm having serious craic playing P.A. lately! Made four failed attempts at a decent prison before I've finally got it right! Holding 20 off at the min, and most needs are meet. I've run out of money to finish it off though, with is a bit annoying. Will probably let it run for an hour when I'm AFK and just let the money build for a while.
On another note, does anyone know of any decent mods for the game? I was hoping the workshop would have some, but seems to be just other users prisons!

Dothehustle

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Question: Is there a more efficient way to get people through doors? At the moment my cooks have to go through 4 jail doors to get to the delivery area (door from the kitchen to canteen, canteen to corridor, corridor to outside, then through the main gate of the prison. Each time a guard has to leave where he is to open it up for them, which adds about 5 seconds to each door.

I usually have all doors open bar the front door and have had two guards deployed there. Anyone tries to escape hit the lock down button the guards should catch anyone who gets out

Anyone having trouble trying to make money I have the workshop but only making around 2 grand a day

MiskyBoyy

If you just want to have the craic and make a big ass prison without worrying about money;

You can open your saves folder, open your save file using notepad, hit CTRL + F to open the search box, search for 'FINANCE' and change the number beside it to whatever you want. Then load up your prison and you'll have all the money you want.

You could just give yourself enough to build your prison and then earn money the legit way to keep it running or to add improvements.

gavmcg92

McSasquatch wrote: »

How do you set up patrols for guards? I have deployment enabled through the Bureaucracy screen, and I'm able to drag out paths made of square dots that "should" be their patrol route, but no guards follow it. Do I have to have a guard selected before drawing up the patrol route or what?

Doors separate out areas. There has to guards assigned to the area in order for them to patrol it. You can see this if you go onto deployment and there should be a blue circle symbol in the area. I think you right click to station a guard in that area and left click to unassign.

gavmcg92

Starting a new prison tonight. Have come up with a new plan. I have a 8x4 area in the centre of the map, this is the hub of the prison. Then I have 4 square areas at each corner of that inner hub. The two squares to the left are going to be my two cell blocks. The upper right square is going to be for the kitchen and the canteen (close to the deliveries area) and the lower front square is going to be for everything else (hospital, Offices, power, water laundry, holding cell etc).
Still not sure where I'm going to put the yard. Might do it in-between the two cell blocks.

The whole idea of this plan is to funnel the prisoners through the centre so as to have metal detectors there. Will hopefully prevent a lot of fatalities when I get a big riot :P

wnolan1992

DaLad wrote: »

If you just want to have the craic and make a big ass prison without worrying about money;

You can open your saves folder, open your save file using notepad, hit CTRL + F to open the search box, search for 'FINANCE' and change the number beside it to whatever you want. Then load up your prison and you'll have all the money you want.

You could just give yourself enough to build your prison and then earn money the legit way to keep it running or to add improvements.

I *may* avail of this later...



I just had my first riot. Apparently keeping 8 men locked up in a holding cell isn't a good idea... No deaths, but 2 escapes and 3 people unconscious...

If they'd just waited a day the new cellblock would've been finished...


Lads, the showers... mine keep flooding for some reason. I've more drains than shower heads and it's still flooding every morning...

shaneb92

Whats a good guard to prisoner ratio?

Dothehustle

shaneb92 wrote: »

Whats a good guard to prisoner ratio?

Well so far I have 5 guards and 25 inmates and no riots since the start
i think its more always having guards in the same room and happy inmates

gavmcg92

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Lads, the showers... mine keep flooding for some reason. I've more drains than shower heads and it's still flooding every morning...

You're probably using the drains wrong. You only put them before the door out of the shower. The shower room "floods" when the prisoners are taking a shower but if you have 2 drains in front of the double door to the room then the water is contained.

As for the previous comment about the price. I was reluctant to get it during the sales because I felt like the price should have been dropped further but I'm glad I didn't leave it. It is a great game and well worth the price. You really feel like part of the process playing the game at this early stage. Like when I bought Minecraft when it just went into Beta.

gavmcg92

shaneb92 wrote: »

Whats a good guard to prisoner ratio?

My last prison, before I tore up the cables and pipes causing a riot, I had 8/9 guards and 60/70 prisoners. Could have had less because they were doing little to nothing. I had no fights what so ever and the only point I actively used them was when I saw a prisoner hiding a weapon.

noisenotmusic

Did you guys know you can download a map of Limerick Prison through the Steam Workshop? Nearly died laughing when I found out.

Starts at 09:25

*cough*If someone could send me on the files for it, it'd be appreciated as I have Prison Architect through "other means" than Steam*cough*

SeantheMan

Arrrrr, I not be able to help ya thar matey,
They must have been hard at it to fit a whole city into a mod :P

Elessar

And the price is gone up again! Are discounts ever done on this game apart from the steam sale?

Gummy Panda

Elessar wrote: »

And the price is gone up again! Are discounts ever done on this game apart from the steam sale?

Only during sale. In the community page, people were saying the devs said they set that price to deter people who wouldn't accept it's alpha state, wouldn't provide feedback and would flood the forums with complaint threads.

Not sure how true any of that is

gavmcg92

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Only during sale. In the community page, people were saying the devs said they set that price to deter people who wouldn't accept it's alpha state, wouldn't provide feedback and would flood the forums with complaint threads.

Not sure how true any of that is

shaneb92

One thing about the game is that its hard to get more large amounts of money when your funds are low. Maybe if you could more money if you raise ur cell capacity ? Or would this make it too easy :P

Gummy Panda

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Charming guy lol

Genghiz Cohen

shaneb92 wrote: »

One thing about the game is that its hard to get more large amounts of money when your funds are low. Maybe if you could more money if you raise ur cell capacity ? Or would this make it too easy :P

You could save your grants until you need the money.
But yeah there needs to be grants that scale with your prison.

So like extend your prison to holds 10/20/40/60/100 prisoners.
Create enough jobs to employ 10/20/...
Keep inmate satisfaction high for X days.

That kind of thing.

gavmcg92

shaneb92 wrote: »

One thing about the game is that its hard to get more large amounts of money when your funds are low. Maybe if you could more money if you raise ur cell capacity ? Or would this make it too easy :P

It's all about the workshop really. It takes a couple of hard hours to get a 20 person workshop, but when you do you earn 10 grand a day. For this prison I'm going to have a considerably large area for my workshops. Build them 240 squared blocks each. That's the cap for the workers. (every 12 blocks allows you to add a new worker). So I'm going to have 3 x 240 squared spaces which will allow me to employ 3/4s of the prison there and the rest spread across the kitchen and laundry.

MiskyBoyy

There is a mod for Alpha 11 that gives access to more grants which add more interest & variation to the game whilst giving you access to the funds to improve and expand your prison!

Download here: New Grants Mod

Here is a video showing it:

Wooden Jesus

gavmcg92 wrote: »

It's all about the workshop really. It takes a couple of hard hours to get a 20 person workshop, but when you do you earn 10 grand a day. For this prison I'm going to have a considerably large area for my workshops. Build them 240 squared blocks each. That's the cap for the workers. (every 12 blocks allows you to add a new worker). So I'm going to have 3 x 240 squared spaces which will allow me to employ 3/4s of the prison there and the rest spread across the kitchen and laundry.

Sweatshop architect
How long per day can you make prisoners work before they get angry and stabby?