Prison Architect Alpha 17

The only place you'll ever hear the truth
User avatar
Chris
Introversion Staff
Introversion Staff
Posts: 1172
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2000 7:28 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK
Contact:

Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby Chris » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:17 pm

Alpha 17 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:


The ultimate deterrent is here. Having trouble with your prisoners? Constant fights and destruction of property? Deploy armed guards and bring your prison under control with force.

Armed guards have so much authority that all prisoners nearby will begin to feel suppressed. This is a status effect previously accumulated during a stay in solitary confinement. It means the prisoner is so beaten down by the system that he no longer has the will to resist. He will be compliant to your regime, far less likely to cause trouble. Armed guards can project this effect all around your prison, however there is a downside - prisoners who are suppressed for most of their time in jail will eventually be far less amenable to any attempts at reform, skill teaching etc.

Image

Armed guards will not use lethal force unless you give them permission. If they see trouble nearby they will shoulder their weapons and fight with their fists. You must give the ultimate order by clicking the “Weapons Free” emergency button in the bottom right of the screen. (You can’t 100% rely on this though - they are human after all. If they fear they are about to die, they will use their weapons to defend themselves if you’ve given them permission or not.)

Armed guards will always shout a warning to prisoners unless the prisoner is attacking them or another member of staff, and prisoners will often surrender immediately when faced with the prospect of being shot dead. But things can escalate very quickly if you don’t control the situation. Armed guards are perfectly capable of killing everyone in the area, so you must use this power with discretion unless having an empty jail is your thing.

To hire armed guards you must research the Armoury and then construct a room to hold the weapons racks and lockers. Each armed guard needs a locker of his own. The armoury is however a massive security hazard, and prisoners will deliberately target it during a riot or a mass escape. Your most dangerous prisoners will try to break in and arm themselves, which can be very difficult to deal with.

Image

Other changes include a new Forestry zone, which continues our work with the wood cutting industry from alpha 16. Gardeners will automatically plant saplings in the forestry where there is space, and once those saplings have grown into full size trees they will be cut down automatically. Logs will be stacked and hauled back to your workshop. This is a great way to use the empty space of your prison for the purposes of industry and profit, and eventually prisoners will be able to work alongside the gardeners).

Finally we have a much needed improvement to the Objects toolbar. The list of objects had become so large that it no longer fitted on a single screen without a scrollbar, so something had to be done. We now filter the objects list based on what you are looking at, hiding any objects that simply aren’t relevant. For example, we will only show the cooker, fridge, and sink if you are currently constructing a Kitchen. This brings the size of the objects menu right down, and you can still click on the + icon to see the full list if something is missing.

That’s all from alpha 17. We hope you enjoy messing with your new found powers, and we can comfortably predict many violent youtube videos as a result of this month. We will see you again next month when the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite has left the air.


Full change list

Code: Select all

= Armed guards
    You can now hire armed guards to patrol your prison, intimidate your inmates, and put down trouble
    You must research the Armoury first, and your armoury requires a weapons rack and one locker per armed guard on site
    Armed guards have a strong "Supression" effect on all prisoners near them, making the prisoners less likely to misbehave
    They can be instructed to follow a patrol from the Deployment screen
    They will only use lethal force if you give them permission - by clicking the "Weapons Free" emergency button
    They will always shout a warning first, unless a Prisoner is attacking a member of staff (guard, armed guard, administrator etc)
    They will also shoot on site any prisoner who is about to escape, without shouting a warning, so long as they have "Weapons Free"
    Note: Armed guards who genuinely fear for their lives may still shoot, even if you have not given them permission via "Weapons Free"
    Note: The Armoury must be very secure. Your most dangerous prisoners will attempt to raid it during a riot or mass escape event
   
= New Forestry zone
    Automates the process of growing trees for the purposes of felling them and using the wood
    Saplings will be planted automatically by Gardeners
    Fully grown trees will be felled, and the logs taken to Storage or your Workshop if you have one
    Trees now take much longer to grow to full size : 5 game-days on average
    Trees no longer scale up as they grow.  Instead there are three discreet sizes : Sapling, Young, and Old.
    You can no longer remove tree stumps. These will vanish over time after a tree has been felled.
    Note: The forestry will spend your money by ordering tree saplings automatically. Be sure you have enough
   
= Objects toolbar filtering
    The objects list was becoming too long to manage, and no longer fitted on a single screen
    A new filtering method hides any "room specific" objects unless you are looking at that type of room
    Eg the Cooker, Fridge and Sink will only appear in the list if you are looking at a Kitchen
    Note: You can press the + button to show the full objects list at any time

= Modding continued
    - materials.txt is now additively loaded
    - The mod loading screen now looks better and displays the mod name, author, screenshot and description during load
    - Added a "Find more mods (Steam Workshop)" button that opens the steam workshop
    - Renamed "Steam Workshop" to "Prison Sharing", and made it list prisons only (not mods)
    - Made Prison Sharing sort prisons by subscribed time (newest subscribed prisons at the top of the list)
    - Fixed manifest.txt files from being corrupted due to newline breaks in Steam file description. May require people to redownload the mod.

- You will now be asked "Are you sure" when purchasing neighbour plots of land (to prevent expensive mis-clicks)

- The Main Menu screens now scale correctly to high resolution / high DPI screens (eg Retina Mac at 2560x1600)

- Guards now target the nearest misbehaving prisoner during fights, rather than choosing one randomly from those in range

- When prisoners urinate or soil their suits (Bowel/Bladder need maxed out) there is now a corrisponding particle effect

- Fixed : Selling finished license plates or wood manually generated only half the correct sale price

- Fixed : Subscribing and unsubscribing to your own mod in Steam Workshop will no longer delete your mod from your hard drive

- Fixed : The scrollbar in the Staff and Prisoner list screens now works correctly

- Fixed : Prisoners can no longer tunnel under lakes

- Fixed : The contraband window sometimes massively overestimated the supply of contraband

- Fixed some subtle bugs in the Misconduct System, whereby misconduct attributed to prisoners who had long since left was still recorded

- Fixed : Sectorisation of the world could fail if you had a lake covering the top right of the map (All sectors marked as NO ACCESS)



Stay up to date:
Subscribe to our Blog
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Follow us on Twitter
Join our mailing list
Follow our twitch.tv livestream - we sometimes code live on twitch
thekillergreece
level4
level4
Posts: 876
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 pm
Location: Ammm...Greece maybe?

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:23 pm

Wow...I am stunned...this must be the major update I have ever seen!

Are there gonna Watch Towers after this alpha17?
RGeezy911
level5
level5
Posts: 1098
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:21 pm

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby RGeezy911 » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:31 pm

Wiki main page updated. I shall get some rest to check this out tomorrow.
thekillergreece
level4
level4
Posts: 876
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 pm
Location: Ammm...Greece maybe?

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:33 pm

Would wonder if armed guards pistols as well...
thekillergreece
level4
level4
Posts: 876
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 pm
Location: Ammm...Greece maybe?

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:34 pm

RGeezy911 wrote:Wiki main page updated. I shall get some rest to check this out tomorrow.


I will do the work on staff etc. Rely on me
Axios
level2
level2
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:50 pm

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby Axios » Fri Jan 31, 2014 1:27 pm

Thanks for this new awesome update!

Waiting for Alpha 18! :D
kaeltxwz
level0
Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Jul 21, 2013 12:06 am

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby kaeltxwz » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:15 pm

i realy love this new update! keep up with the great work,also sniper guards would be realy,realy,REALY cool! :wink:
gmyx
level1
level1
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 1:44 am

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby gmyx » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:29 pm

I know what I'm doing to tonight! I've got a materials.txt mod waiting to go.

And "Fixed : The scrollbar in the Staff and Prisoner list screens now works correctly" thank you x1000. Now I can truly shut down the intake if I want to.
andrehsu
level1
level1
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 3:01 pm

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby andrehsu » Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:47 pm

A problem I found is that everyone is so suppressed that the efficiency of the prison is severely decreased due to the fact that their walking speed is too slow.
And also, due to their slow walking speed, it takes forever for the prisoners to reach their destination, such as the canteen, and when they can't make it in time to the canteen, they complain due to the lack of food.
droddo
level0
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:06 am

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby droddo » Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:17 pm

If you close the acceptance of a type of prisoners (max / med / min) you won't perceive the $$$ from the government.
Ex: if you have 100 mid sec but wanna allow only max sec you DON'T get the payment for the 100 med sec.

Is this supposed to be ok ?
thekillergreece
level4
level4
Posts: 876
Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:31 pm
Location: Ammm...Greece maybe?

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby thekillergreece » Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:04 pm

andrehsu wrote:A problem I found is that everyone is so suppressed that the efficiency of the prison is severely decreased due to the fact that their walking speed is too slow.
And also, due to their slow walking speed, it takes forever for the prisoners to reach their destination, such as the canteen, and when they can't make it in time to the canteen, they complain due to the lack of food.


Thats why you should NOT overdo on hiring armed guards and sent them to patrols. It clearly says this "prisoners who are suppressed for most of their time in jail will eventually be far less amenable to any attempts at reform, skill teaching etc."
User avatar
VoiD88
level5
level5
Posts: 1001
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:24 am
Location: Soltau, Germany
Contact:

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby VoiD88 » Fri Jan 31, 2014 4:33 pm

Great work on the Update, although armed guards is a feature I wasn't really looking forward to. I don't need them in the prisons I usually build and the Armory would just be an unnessecary risk. The improved objects menu is a nice thing and I'm glad that the scrollbar in the prisoner report finally works; but except for the Forestry, this update is not really that interesting to me personally.

I think I'm going to wait for the next one and hope the wood industry gets finished in it^^ Please don't take this post as a rant, it's still a great update for all the people who wanted armed guards for so long, I'm just stating my personal opinion here :wink:
RuneShadowclaw
level0
Posts: 0
Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2013 5:08 am

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby RuneShadowclaw » Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:17 pm

There should be an option later on to where to can decide what armed guard has in use. Like a shotgun for on and another with a taser, that way if someone resists they can be tased and not killed, but should be shot if they killed someone
MiriW
level2
level2
Posts: 94
Joined: Fri Nov 29, 2013 5:29 pm

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby MiriW » Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:25 pm

Brilliant! Thank you!
Rokiyo
level0
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 11:05 am

Re: Prison Architect Alpha 17

Postby Rokiyo » Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:51 pm

Wow, this is really cool. Good job guys.

Personally I'd like to see the in-prison impacts of prolonged suppression fleshed out a bit more (before you start touching on the end-game impacts). I think suppressing an entire prison should be a bit like taking pain-killers for a broken arm. Sure, it makes the pain go away for now, but that arm is only going to get worse if you don't get proper treatment.

For example, being highly suppressed could start building up a prisoner's "Safety" need, where they start fearing for their lives and making decisions accordingly. They become more sneaky and violent, stashing contraband in other prisoner's cells, escalating to lethal force at the first sign of trouble, and banding together with other prisoners to maximise their chance of survival.

Imagine if you will, 8 or 9 fed up prisoners suspiciously following an armed guard around (while otherwise behaving). If the player doesn't take notice and react, then when no other staff are around, they all eventually pounce on the guard at once. Sure, maybe the guard kills 1 or 2, but the rest kill him and steal his gear. One guy takes the gun, another guy takes the keys.

At this point, guerrilla tactics kick in: Their goal at this point is to minimise casualties and get more guns. To this end, the unarmed prisoners hover around the guy with the gun, fighting only those who get too close. The guy with the gun makes a beeline for the armory, stopping only to shoot guards who are directly threatening his group. Should they succeed, their next goal becomes escape. Meanwhile, any prisoner who encounters an armed prisoner or a dead guard immediately becomes unsuppressed but feels a spike in their Safety need. This allows the prison thermometer to resume normal operation, potentially triggering a full-scale riot if conditions are bad enough.

In this, suppression becomes a system of counter-escalation, where prisoners react to brute force with more of their own. The more they believe their lives are in danger, the more prone they become to highly lethal guerrilla tactics.

Return to “Introversion Blog”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests