What should we focus on next?

[Highwang]

I want to have a 5-story mega-prison with rooftop yards. Prisoners committing suicide if the roofs aren't fenced (and in other ways)

Multiple stories makes sense for higher walls, guard towers, and of course digging for escapes

firstly, i love all the suggestions for improvement in the OP

secondly, this multi-story idea is horrible - how would it even work from a UI perspective? moving up and down floors manually? you'd lose track of what was happening and it would add UI complexity for no obvious benefit (indeed, it would harm the ability to zoom out and 'take in' a strategic overview of exactly what was happening in the whole prison)... one of the best things about this game is the clean, simple way the prison is represented graphically, multi-storey prisons would ruin that... for anyone who's ever played UFO: Enemy Unknown will remember exactly how annoying those large multi-storey UFO's were

Actually, with a visual representation like Dwarf Fortress or XCOM it'd be pretty easy to manage multi-floor prisons. I personally don't see the problem, I mean hell without the XCOMutil the ufos were all ridiculously easy to navigate since it was all pre-made.

[Le Soup Guy]

I think that there should be Fire Extinguishers that can be unlocked so that whenthere is a fire and you don't have enough fundage to get Firefighters, you can have your guards at the scene and extinguish the pesky flames. And if you do have the fundage for the Firefighters, the extinguisher equipped guards will extinguish the flames in less time preventing the spread of fire.

[danbeneton]

I seriously want all of these things. They're all brilliant ideas and I find it hard to pick up one, but I would go with the first option for now, I reckon.

[dr_mibbles]

I want to have a 5-story mega-prison with rooftop yards. Prisoners committing suicide if the roofs aren't fenced (and in other ways)

Multiple stories makes sense for higher walls, guard towers, and of course digging for escapes

firstly, i love all the suggestions for improvement in the OP

secondly, this multi-story idea is horrible - how would it even work from a UI perspective? moving up and down floors manually? you'd lose track of what was happening and it would add UI complexity for no obvious benefit (indeed, it would harm the ability to zoom out and 'take in' a strategic overview of exactly what was happening in the whole prison)... one of the best things about this game is the clean, simple way the prison is represented graphically, multi-storey prisons would ruin that... for anyone who's ever played UFO: Enemy Unknown will remember exactly how annoying those large multi-storey UFO's were

Actually, with a visual representation like Dwarf Fortress or XCOM it'd be pretty easy to manage multi-floor prisons. I personally don't see the problem, I mean hell without the XCOMutil the ufos were all ridiculously easy to navigate since it was all pre-made.

The issue is that with Prison Architect, so many of the cue's are what you see happening, i.e. a suspicious looking person hanging around the kitchen, disruption in the wing at night, and so on - adding floors would gain you nothing (that I can tell) from a gameplay perspective, but would limit the ease with which you could survey your prison and manage it effectively.

[Highwang]

The issue is that with Prison Architect, so many of the cue's are what you see happening, i.e. a suspicious looking person hanging around the kitchen, disruption in the wing at night, and so on - adding floors would gain you nothing (that I can tell) from a gameplay perspective, but would limit the ease with which you could survey your prison and manage it effectively.

Setup patrols then, guards aren't stupid. CCTV (if optimized with guard communication in a later build) and patrolling guards almost always deal with suspicious activity and vandalism all the time.

Deployment is great for getting your hands free for other stuff.

[dr_mibbles]

The issue is that with Prison Architect, so many of the cue's are what you see happening, i.e. a suspicious looking person hanging around the kitchen, disruption in the wing at night, and so on - adding floors would gain you nothing (that I can tell) from a gameplay perspective, but would limit the ease with which you could survey your prison and manage it effectively.

Setup patrols then, guards aren't stupid. CCTV (if optimized with guard communication in a later build) and patrolling guards almost always deal with suspicious activity and vandalism all the time.

Deployment is great for getting your hands free for other stuff.

Well, they don't. Guards don't automatically search people who act suspiciously, for example, you need to spot it yourself and direct them to do so.

So, as I said, within the gameplay mechanics I really don't see how adding floors will make the game more enjoyable - it just adds a layer of unnecessary complexity to the UI. What would the game gain from you having to manually navigate up and down floors to see what was happening? If there was a compelling gameplay reason to do it, I'd support the idea, but it seems to add nothing of value and would, certainly for me, actually detract from the enjoyment of the game by adding a layer of complexity at the expense of fluid gameplay.

[mlk]

Personally I'd like to see the following:
1. When you hire a staffer, you hire them for day shift or night shift, with the night shift obviously costing more for overtime.
2. Hired staff appear on the next bus, not just magically out of thin-air.
3. Staff rostered as day shift arrive in the morning and leave at the end of the day.
4. Night shift staff (fewer needed obviously) arrive at the end of day and leave in the morning.
5. Each staff member has to have a 30min-1 hour break during the day. I don't think the player should be involved in this scheduling. I think I staff member should just decide to take their break when they 'want' to, where 'want' is dependent on:

a. How long they've been without a break
b. Whether there will be sufficient staffers to cover their break.
c. Is the prison currently on fire or full of blood?

I like, but I think the player should be involved in the break, so you can make sure you have cover. Having employee needs would be cool.

[gravyleaves]

The issue is that with Prison Architect, so many of the cue's are what you see happening, i.e. a suspicious looking person hanging around the kitchen, disruption in the wing at night, and so on - adding floors would gain you nothing (that I can tell) from a gameplay perspective, but would limit the ease with which you could survey your prison and manage it effectively.

Setup patrols then, guards aren't stupid. CCTV (if optimized with guard communication in a later build) and patrolling guards almost always deal with suspicious activity and vandalism all the time.

Deployment is great for getting your hands free for other stuff.

Well, they don't. Guards don't automatically search people who act suspiciously, for example, you need to spot it yourself and direct them to do so.

So, as I said, within the gameplay mechanics I really don't see how adding floors will make the game more enjoyable - it just adds a layer of unnecessary complexity to the UI. What would the game gain from you having to manually navigate up and down floors to see what was happening? If there was a compelling gameplay reason to do it, I'd support the idea, but it seems to add nothing of value and would, certainly for me, actually detract from the enjoyment of the game by adding a layer of complexity at the expense of fluid gameplay.

With the current features, added floors make no sense.

However, anyone that has played Dwarf Fortress likely cannot imagine this game without multiple floors. Guard towers, and more difficult to escape walls (the higher the better) and digging tunnels are all obvious gameplay elements that would benefit from multiple floors. It will be easier to organize prisons, for some. The large map isn't terribly large anyway

But the biggest reason would be for emergent gameplay - like some crazy prison designs that have buildings high on stilts and therefore are impossible to dig escape tunnels from.

[Natnation]

They all sound awesome, But prisoner pipeline by far! i hate having to manually search prisoner when they arrive.

[McKenzie]

Hello,

I would really like to see the performance to get better ! And the game crash while in planing mode when you move towards the edge of the screen.
And the Workers and Cooks ain't doing their jobs right really often ! Leading to hungry prisoners -> fighting -> lots of trouble in the whole prison !

Please let the game run better before adding new stuff !

[maxdu666(fr)]

Hey I can't vote...Why?
Well it's not so bad because i'm for the new prison facilities

[paktsardines]

You can vote, just not twice. I think you'll find you've already voted.

[dr_mibbles]

You can vote, just not twice. I think you'll find you've already voted.

I can't vote and I haven't voted

[DutchJackal]

When creating topics, you can set a timeframe for your poll to be open. Maybe the timeframe closed?

[111none]

i disagree.the pipeline is influenced by their stay. and you need rehab to try and change them.

Here's hoping that there's a chance of rehab failing so you can get those prisoners returning and watch their mounting list on the rap sheet.

(thumbs up)