Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

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Chris
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Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby Chris » Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:49 pm

Alpha 16 has been released! Steam users will be automatically updated. Non-steam users can download the latest version from the builds page here:
http://www.prison-architect.com/builds.html

You need an active forum account to access the builds from our website. If you haven’t already done so, please register your game here to gain access to the builds, the private forums, the bug database and the wiki.
http://www.prison-architect.com/register

Here is our video demonstrating the new features:


Happy new year everyone, and welcome to alpha 16. It’s a big one.

For starters, all ‘Name in the Game’ customers can now customize the size, face type and colour of their prisoners by using our new Name in the game system which you can find here. For two weeks only, we're offering all alpha customers the chance to upgrade to our Name in the Game tier for only $10. This will enable you to name a prisoner, write a short bio about why he's inside and customize his look. This is your opportunity to permanently stamp your personality on the game and prove that you were one of the generous few that helped Prison Architect to become a reality.

We’ve made extensive improvements to the AI across the entire range of the game. For the first time ever it is now possible to fully segregate your prison based on prisoner category. You can (for example) create an entirely self contained ‘wing’ within your prison for maximum security prisoners, with its own cells, its own canteen, its own yard, even its own laundry service (staffed by maximum security prisoners of course). These AI improvements also cover the ‘industry’ side of the game, meaning kitchens/canteens/workshops/laundries are all much more efficient, and prisoners staffing them work much more intelligently. Fundamentally the game previously supported only one of these room types. This change is difficult to see in the video, and perhaps hard to fully appreciate, but it touches every area of the game.

With such an extensive change, we’d expect to have introduced quite a few bugs as well as fixing many more.

A side benefit of this change is that prisoners are now able to tell when their route to freedom has not been locked. We see a lot of prisons on Steam Workshop that keep the front doors permanently unlocked, and even sometimes unlock entire sectors (For efficiency - it means you don’t need to wait for guards to unlock doors all the time). What kind of prisoner wouldn’t want to take advantage of this if they could? So prisoners who are near the front of your prison and notice the doors unlocked *might* decide to make a run for it. The more dangerous the prisoner, and the closer he is to the exit, the more likely it is to happen.

We’ve added new options to procedurally generate your starting landscape so it looks a bit less empty. Lakes, forests, sand and even derelict buildings can now be found within your zone. Lakes block all construction and movement, forcing you to be creative in your layouts. The forests have to be cleared but the lumber is itself a resource that can now be harvested - order your workmen to cut the trees down and then sell the logs for a quick cash injection.

Later on when you have a functioning Workshop you can process logs into planks of wood on a bench Saw, and sell the resulting stacks for greater profit. If you find you have some spare space within your land you could even consider planting your own forests, to be harvested entirely for profit later. Trees are now planted by gardeners, begin life as saplings, and take a long time to grow to full size, so this is a long term but highly profitable industry if you have the space. We will be expanding this new wood industry in future alphas, letting you use your prisoners to do the tree planting and felling, and training your prisoners in carpentry to produce high quality furniture from the refined planks of wood.

Image

We’ve extended the mod system so you can now use Steam Workshop to share your mods, or download existing mods. This works in a similar way to prison sharing - just ‘subscribe’ to a mod from within Steam, and it will show up within your mods window auto-magically.

Anybody who has tried to build a prison that spans the road will have found it pretty much impossible, because you cannot build on the road and therefore cannot create a secure zone between the east and west sides of your prison. We’ve introduced a new Road Gate which can be built to span the road, allowing you to run a secure deliveries zone. These road gates act just as all other door types, requiring a guard to unlock them when vehicles want to pass through.

Image

All of that plus a vast collection of bug fixes detailed below - alpha 16 has been a huge update to the core of the game, and has brought us a lot closer to our final vision of how the AI should function. We hope you have fun playing the new version and hope you have a great Christmas, and a happy new year.



Full change list

Code: Select all

= Procedural landscape generation
    There are new options when generating a new prison :
        Forests adds random collections of trees, including new types of tree (Oak, Pine, Orange, Cypress, Palm)
        Buildings are usually derilict and can be used or demolished as you wish
        Lakes provide additional construction challenges by forcing you to work around them
        Warning: Including lakes can make your map totally unplayable. Experimental!

= Wood industry
    You can now cut down trees using "Dismantle" from the objects menu, and each tree will produce wooden Logs
    You can sell the logs for an immediate cash boost ("Sell" from the objects menu)
    Or if you have a workshop, your prisoners will cut the logs into stacks of wood planks, which sell for more
    Gardeners are now required to plant trees, and trees take time to grow from saplings
    Stacks of finished wood planks will auto-sell at 1am

= Steam Workshop for mods (Steam versions only)
   Mods can now be shared via the Steam Workshop, just like prisons
   The mods menu now lets you publish mods, highlights mods you have published, and shows newly downloaded mods
   Mods will automatically download when an update is available
   Adding FileID "-1" to your mod's manifest.txt will stop the game asking users to publish the mod. Useful for
      mods shared outside of the Steam Workshop.

= Full segregation support
    Extensive AI work means you can now fully segregate your prison by prisoner category
    You can create self contained wings (eg for Max Sec only) containing their own cells, yard, canteen, laundry, workshop etc
    New zone type : Med Sec, for medium security prisoner ONLY (orange)
    Note: The default zone colour (White) is SHARED, meaning all prisoners are permitted to enter

- Work/Employment/Industry AI improvements
    Kitchens are now significantly more efficient (Chefs waste much less time)
    You can now build any combination of kitchens and canteens, and your chefs will figure it out
        (Eg one kitchen serving multiple canteens, or each canteen having its own kitchen etc)
    Fixed: Multiple chefs would sometimes go to collect a box of ingredients from the deliveries zone, wasting time
    Fixed: Chefs often stood around doing nothing in the kitchen when they should be cooking
    Laundries and Workshop jobs are now performed more efficiently and intelligently
    Laundries will only service zones of the prison that prisoners working in that laundry would be permitted to reach
    Janitors will now help out with the prison Laundry service

- Prisoner cell re-assignments now happen without requiring shackled guard escort (if possible)
    They will be shackled and escorted by a guard if they are not permitted to make the journey themselves

- New object : Road Gate
    Can be built spanning the entire road
    Acts as a secure door, requiring a guard to unlock it whenever a vehicle or person wants to pass through
    You can use this to span your prison across the road, or build a totally contained drop off zone

- Doors now open at different speeds.  A normal wood door is the fastest.  The large road gate is the slowest.
    The Large jail door opens slower than the normal jail door.

- Prisoners will now "make a run for it" if they are near the exit and you leave too many doors unlocked
    Be careful when setting zones to "Unlocked" (green), or setting doors to "Locked open"
    Note: More dangerous prisoners are more likely to take advantage of lapses in security

- New red marker icon for escaping prisoners

- Electrical items no longer short out when wet
    It is now safe to use Firemen in the kitchen, or to repair laundry machines without having to worry about electrocution
    EXCEPT the power station which now explodes most spectacularly when wet

- Workshop balance nerf
    The workshop has been judged far too ridiculously profitable
    Cutting sheet metal and stamping license plates now takes twice as long as before
    Sheet metal now costs $10 per sheet, and produces 2 license plates which sell for $10 each, giving $10 profit
        (Previously $3 per sheet, producing 3 license plates selling at $10 each, giving $27 profit)
    Workshop saws and presses now cost 50% more to build

- Prisoners will now make better use of their stolen contraband when misbehaving:
    Lighters if they are feeling destructive
    Weapons if they get into a fight
    Tools if they are escaping

- All staff now have a base toughness of 5 (previously 1) so they no longer die from a single punch

- Offices must now be indoor

- Vehicles will no longer be blocked by entities, objects, trees etc

- Fixed : Purchasing neighbour plots of land sometimes caused the game to get the road location wrong
    vehicles spawned in the wrong place and construction was blocked in a stripe down the middle of the prison

- Fixed : Purchasing land west or north of your prison broke all in-progress escape tunnels

- Fixed : Prisoners who are digging escape tunnels will now be rumbled if a guard comes to escort them somewhere
    (Previously they were able to keep digging despite being taken to a different place!)

- Fixed : Some long running prisons had active escape tunnels that were being dug by prisoners who were
    no longer on site - either dead, escaped or released.

- Fixed : Sometimes workmen took a very long time to finish foundations, leaving them unfinished for hours

- Fixed : Trees will no longer be generated on the road

- Fixed : Workers will no longer get stuck in the first delivery truck trying to do a job

- Fixed : Guards no longer need to use their keys to open wood doors

- Fixed : Mod system now correctly loads replacement font graphics every time

- Fixed : Mods can now override the base grants with their own if the grants share the same name

- Fixed : Dead visitors will no longer float home

- Fixed : Historical contraband moved when you purchased a neighbour plot of land

- Fixed : Released prisoners will no longer get stuck on the toilet or in bed

- Fixed (Alpha15b) : Right click to cancel stopped working

- Fixed (Alpha15c) : All existing contraband was being lost after level load



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thekillergreece
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:56 pm

Nice futures, was waiting for armed guards :/,


Anyway, Chris, I wanted to buy Name in the game on steam but I cant because I already got PA game.. I try on your website but it needs PayPal, ONLY! I have paysafecard and I always use it to buy games...How can I pay Name in the game with paysafecard?
Sporegen
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby Sporegen » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:19 pm

Really nice update, I saw some weapon racks in the alpha video, can we expect armed guards in the next update?

Anyway, Happy New Year!
Rems
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby Rems » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:23 pm

I saw a room called armory.
In next updates, we will have armed guards I think. =)

Thanks for this greateful game.
rsdworker
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby rsdworker » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:24 pm

looks great - i like it the separated wings are excellent idea - i would love to see guards serve the food to cells for prisoners in cell
i bought a cheap upgrade - its great :) so its worth having this after i bought very bad game so i love Introversion company :)
Last edited by rsdworker on Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rsdworker
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby rsdworker » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:26 pm

thekillergreece wrote:Nice futures, was waiting for armed guards :/,


Anyway, Chris, I wanted to buy Name in the game on steam but I cant because I already got PA game.. I try on your website but it needs PayPal, ONLY! I have paysafecard and I always use it to buy games...How can I pay Name in the game with paysafecard?


well best is contact support for that - they might offer alternate payment
thekillergreece
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:27 pm

Guys, even before Alpha16, Alpha15 materials.txt said Armoury and Library. Though we see that they do not feature in this alpha and is very likely to feature in alpha 17. One of the biggest feature behind of gangs,multifloor,watchtowers etc features.
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby erbkaiser » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:32 pm

Awesome updates in this alpha, I am really looking forward to see how this breaks my exploits prison :)

And I appreciate the offer for the Name in the Game upgrade. I had the standard edition, but no longer.
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby xander » Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:41 pm

5063 unread emails? Damn!

xander
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby Atticus » Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:18 pm

For starters, all ‘Name in the Game’ customers can now customize the size, face type and colour of their prisoners by using our new Name in the game system which you can find here.


All i'm seeing in the link is the choice to upgrade for $10. Looked in game too and no options to customize look, just transfer prisoner.

Any help for those of us who previously purchased 'Name in the Game' and would like to customize prisoner?

**Update**

Thx for reply
went to http://www.introversion.co.uk/prisonarchitect/register/
Last edited by Atticus on Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
iScripters
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby iScripters » Fri Dec 27, 2013 4:40 pm

To me this is the best update so far, thanks IV! :D
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Macdoo
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby Macdoo » Fri Dec 27, 2013 5:08 pm

An excellent update! I'm looking forward to the year ahead for PA (and a birthday celebration, perhaps?)
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby froesch » Fri Dec 27, 2013 5:43 pm

cool thing to have now the chance to separate the high security prisoners from the rest. i tried this already a long time ago and the visitors mixed up in both visitation buildings. so they couldn't visit their families if the family tooks the wrong building. i hope its fixed too ;-)

another problem were the energy and water pathways. it wasn't possible under the street and i need an extra powerstation on the other side... but its fixed. thx for that!

http://saved.im/mtg2ntazyxq2/largetry3e.jpg

edit: why my trucks now hate the street and deliver offroad?
http://saved.im/mtg2nte2mw1o/2013-12-27_00003.jpg
Last edited by froesch on Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Dec 27, 2013 5:48 pm

I notice that prisoners are not taking foods..
MiriW
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 16 released

Postby MiriW » Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:10 pm

Amazing update, thank you so much! <3 (and thank you for the mention... still haven't managed to pick my jaw up from the floor)

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