TokMor's efficient design

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TokMor
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TokMor's efficient design

Postby TokMor » Thu May 30, 2013 7:45 pm

In builder games like these, I always like to figure out ways to make buildings as small as possible while still retaining at least as much functionality as a larger version of the building. I wanted to share with you the designs I came up with for prison architect.

The designs are created with the following "global assumptions"
    I care solely about the layout and functionality of the design, no room for aesthetics. (except where aesthetics have an impact on game mechanics)
    It appears that everything works fine with single square wide hallways. If you've observed otherwise (or if the game changes because it's alpha and all) then let me know and I'll head back to the drawing board.
    Hallways go in the middle whenever possible.
    I do my designs by "blocks" which are combinations of related rooms which follow a set of design rules to achieve them in as small a space as possible. If you disagree with any of the design rules please let me know.
    Designs are listed by size, which includes a one square wall running around the perimeter.
    Possible door locations are blank spots in the outer border. Feel free to fill in several of the door ways, we don't want our prisoners to have too much freedom after all.
    I design the diagrams in excel so it's easier for me to move things around and I can make the blueprint more clear (and label it)

So I'll start off with the cell block. This consists of cells (naturally), showers, and Solitary cells. First my list of assumptions/design rules
    I've found it helpful to try to have at least half as many shower heads as prisoners in the cell block to allow showers to progress rapidly.
    Shower heads should have a least one space gap between them, walls filling the space where possible
    Drains need to be at the exit of a shower room to prevent flooding
    Solitary cells can be pretty much any size, seem to just need a toilet
    Cells should be along the outside edge so a window can be placed

So the design I'm most proud of packs all of the following into a 25x21 square space
    20 Cells
    4 Solitary Cells
    12 shower heads
    A 7x7 space in the middle, for a common room, yard, or as I have it in the diagram a yard and a cleaning closet

Image

Next cell block design is more narrow and forgoes a open area in the middle. It has the all the other "amenaties" though in a 28x17 square space
    20 Cells
    4 Solitary Cells
    12 shower heads

Image

If you are thinking "I don't need that many solitary cells", then this next design may be for you. It has a 25x17 square size
    18 Cells
    2 Solitary Cells
    12 shower heads

Image

That wraps up my clever designs for cell blocks. Are there other shapes/ratios you'd like to see?


Next up is the cafeteria block. This consists of a kitchen and a canteen, and has the following design rules
    I read that the optimal ratio of kitchen equipment is 5 cooks, 5 cookers, 2 fridges, 2 sinks, 1 serving table. This works for me, but if you know a better one please let me know.
    The kitchen and the canteen have a dividing wall between them to keep the utensils from walking off

So my first cafeteria has a size of 13x13, and contains the following
    5 cookers
    2 fridges
    2 sinks
    2 serving tables
    Seating for 24 (6 benches, 3 tables)

Image

One of my favorite things about this cafeteria design is that it scales very nicely. Increasing the size to 20x13 gives us the following result (twice the capacity)
    10 cookers
    4 fridges
    4 sinks
    4 serving tables
    Seating for 48 (12 benches, 6 tables)


Image

You can also scale it sideways for a quadruple sized kitchen (and either pack it with seating or allow some extra entrances

Image

Image

That concludes the kitchen section.


Next up is the office. This ended up not being quite as interesting as I thought it would be to design, so I'm calling it just the boring office. Has room for all 6 officers, and forgoes internal walls because who needs them. Size comes out to 16x11

Image


If you made it this far, thanks for reading, Please let me know what you think, and what rooms you'd like to see next.
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Postby Chewbacado » Thu May 30, 2013 9:07 pm

Great work on the designs by the way. :o
Could you make something for laundry distribution? That's my biggest problem.
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Postby TokMor » Thu May 30, 2013 9:26 pm

So I must admit, I usually restart not long after I get some basic buildings up because I realize that I didn't squeeze every little bit of efficiency out of the design that I could have, which is part of the reason I started this thread.

So I have some ideas on laundry, but I was wondering, about how many convicts can be supported by a single machine?

Also, I'd be interested to know about how many convicts out of say 20 are typically in a solitary cell for misbehaving?

Thanks! This info will help me tweak my design a bit more.
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Postby AgentPaper » Thu May 30, 2013 11:01 pm

Your cells are a lot larger than they need to be. All you actually need is a 1x3 cell space with a door on one of the sides. If you include the door in the "cell" room that you designate, the game recognizes it as a 2x3 cell, even though it's actually only 4 cells in size. This allows you to squeeze in roughly 33% more cells per square footage than a normal 2x3 cell. If you're feeling really stingy, you can even forgo hallways altogether and simply have each cell lead to the next one, giving you another 50% more cells per square foot compared to the 1x3 cells with hallways, or twice as many cells as a standard 2x3 layout.

Another method would be to go for the "shared" cell layout, where you put two or more prisoners in the same room. Basically, what you want to do is designate a 2x3 "L" shape, and then take out the corner of the "L" so you have two vertical squares with a diagonal, seemingly unattached square next to it. The game remembers that these three blocks are one room, and so accepts them as a 2x3 size, and you can put a bed on the 1x2 portion and a toilet in the 1x1 portion. The point of this is that you can easily stack these directly next to other cells, with no space between them, effectively negating the need for walls altogether. Using this method, you can easily have 266% more cells per square foot compared to a "normal" layout with 2x3 cells and hallways. Of course, this method has the issue that the prisoners aren't actually confined to their cells, so at this point you may as well simply use holding cells with beds in them, which is even more efficient (roughly 355% over "standard" 2x3 with hallways cells).
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Postby TokMor » Thu May 30, 2013 11:24 pm

Interesting. Is that a bug though? If it's the way the game is supposed to work then I'm happy to pack in the cells even tighter. If it's something that will get broken in the near future, then I'm not sure I should design to accommodate it. I'll try the new version tonight with this method and see what I find, If I go with the "include the door" method I think I can shrink my 25x21 cell block into just 25x17, although it means going from 12 showers to 9, and the central yard shrinks to 7x5 instead of 7x7, but I think it's a fair trade off.
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Postby paktsardines » Fri May 31, 2013 3:57 am

It's a bug.
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Postby TokMor » Fri May 31, 2013 4:58 am

Figured that may be the case.
That being said, curiosity got the better of me, and I ended up building this. I had an idea to flip the bottom two cells, which let me build a drain followed by a metal detector, this plus a few patrolling guards essentially finds any contraband.
Image
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much further I can go with this prison since I seem to be unable to build both a medical ward and a laundry, no matter what I research.
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Postby furrot » Fri May 31, 2013 3:43 pm

Don't forget you need at least one doctor before it lets you makes a medical ward.
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Much Thanks

Postby Manbropig » Fri May 31, 2013 9:38 pm

Thank you for posting these floor plans. I think they are very useful. :)
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Postby 4folders » Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:29 pm

Love the designs, kitchen/canteen one is extremely efficient it has stopped all of my feeding time problems. However the cellblock design with the cleaning cupboard means that the cleaning cupboard doesn't work because it needs walls around it and a door, which significantly cuts out the yard space so I find it better to just put the cleaning cupboard elsewhere. But great job anyway, thanks! :)
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Postby Ha3 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:25 am

Seeing from the discussion as you didn't know some mechanics (bug or not), here are some inspirational designs for you; I didn't make entire cell blocks but hopefully you might get some bright new efficient ideas from these:

Image

(I don't use the diagonal room designation glitch)


The cells on the far left can't have windows, it's an example of how it can be abused.

The cells at the middle of the picture have windows, and it can be repeated.


On the far right, there's a pattern for compact open space offices. The empty office on the bottom right shows how it's made.
This pattern can be repeated blindly (the pattern doesn't rotate), so if I want to add a single more office I can extend the room.
Notice how there are no 1-width corridors. All the furniture can fit in a contiguous 2x3 rectangle. By rotating the pattern 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise, other arrangements of the furniture relative to the orientation of the room can be made.
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Postby Parker22 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 2:32 pm

All thi being well, as soon as the smallest/most efficient space is found, that is what the player is likely to stick to....

...its means alot of prisons may end up looking the same.

So can there be more to it than just building the most efficient? Could there be more 'culture' to be had by a more aesthetic layout?

(Im not sure how to do this without getting complicated though)
TokMor
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Postby TokMor » Mon Jun 03, 2013 8:28 pm

Ha3 wrote:I didn't make entire cell blocks but hopefully you might get some bright new efficient ideas from these:

The cells at the middle of the picture have windows, and it can be repeated.


Thanks, that was quite helpful to see, and it gave me inspiration to make the below diagram.

The stats are:

    26 by 23 squares
    28 cells
    2 solitary cells
    14 shower heads
    internal 14 by 7 square space for a common room or other needed items.


Image

Let me know what you think. Next up I'm working on stringing 4 of these cell blocks together with some other bits. I'm thinking in a 57 by 75 square space will have everything that 112 prisoners could need (and work in), including laundry, cleaning, and a max size workshop to pump out money to help cover the costs.

Thanks to Ha3 naturally for the cell design I've used, and also I'll be thinking Rawrish for figuring out the smallest amount of tiles needed to get the max 20 workers in a room
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Postby Ayron » Mon Jun 03, 2013 9:02 pm

I'm pretty sure showers don't need a space in between them (and certainly not a wall), that might save you some more space.

Also, I don't think yards needs surrounding walls.

(and your prisoners will be happy enough without windows, but I can imagine you'll still want those.
do they necessarily need to be placed in an outside wall in order to 'function'?)
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Postby TomFadge » Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:48 pm

posted this in another thread but thought I would show it here too
Image
16 prisoners and shower room in a 13x13 square

only 10 doors needed and everyone can be locked in their cells

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