Random Aggression Needed?

[_alphaBeta_]

This is something more for BETA and balancing etc., but I wanted to get others' feel for the current level of prisoner aggression. It's been my experience so far that addressing all the needs of prisoners results in no problems. No fights, escape attempts, nor solitary. Just the occasional contraband confiscation and minor individual prisoner lockdowns. Guess I'd like to see my solitary cells and infirmary getting some action here and there. I'm not looking for random full-scale riots for no reason either.

I realize this is an ALPHA, but eventually I think it would add some flavor if some minor fights and scuffles take place, even in a prison where the vast majority of prisoners' demands are met. Some random aggression if you will. As of now, I have to specifically let things start to fall apart before I see some action. Just a suggestion.

The level of aggression when the needs are not met feels pretty good.

[xander]

You seem to be suggesting that it is too easy to find an equilibrium, rendering the game tedious. I am inclined to agree, and while I also agree that this really is an issue for beta balancing, let's consider possible solutions.

1. As you (and others) have suggested, more random prisoner behaviour could create some interest. My guess is that this would simply require some tweaking of some of the hidden variables to which Chris has alluded in the past. Things like aggressiveness, desire to escape, and so on. This should also relate quite a bit to the level of inmate you have, I think. A prison full of minimum security prisoners should be "easy mode", while a ton of lifers represents "hard mode." While the balance still isn't perfect, it is possible even in the current game.
2. While we are on the topic, and to add something from some other threads, another possible solution to the problem is to implement disasters (like in the original SimCity---I haven't played since then, so maybe newer versions have them, too). An electrical short causes a fire. The pump breaks down and no one gets a shower until parts arrive from Toronto. A shipment of bacon goes off and half the prison gets food poisoning. And so on. As long as we have the option to turn these off, I like it.
3. One other thing to consider is possible play modes. Right now, we essentially have a single play mode: sandbox. There are various things that we can do to increase or decrease the challenge, but play is currently not oriented around goals that are set by the game, but around personal goals (nothing wrong with this, by the way). I can see the beginnings of a "pressure cooker" mode (continuous intake), and it is clear that there is meant to be a campaign eventually. These are things that might alleviate the tedium later on.

And of course, there are probably other ideas that haven't been brought up before (or which have been brought up before, but which I haven't seen or don't remember).

xander

[Collic001]

I agree that currently once you have met all needs it's pretty much smooth sailing. No fights, no real issues just business as usual. This seems much more prevalent now we have the prison temperature feature; individual prioners just don't seem to act out unless everyone is getting close to boiling point.

However, I think this is actually a good thing. What we have right now is what should happen when you have an efficient, reasonably well administrated prison. It gives the game a good base line for how prisoners should be behaving once the prison itself is operating as it should. With this in place other coming features can introduce problems for the player. The suggestions mentioned already are good ones, but other upcoming things like gangs, expansions on the personal relationships of prisoners perhaps, and contraband (drugs, weapons etc) should add in a lot more prisoner misbehaviour to deal with.

I think the game is in a good place right now. Now we dont have constant fights breaking out other features can be added that add to the challenge in a more meaningful way.

You can't really add or balance any of that if the default state of all prisoners is seconds away from a fist fight.

[Pogo]

I think (and I just posted something to this effect in another thread), that minimum security vs maximum security shouldn't necessarily be easy mode versus hard mode. I think instead, they should just offer different challenges.


The lower security risk prisoners should award your prison less daily (nightly) grant money, but this is made up for in being able to employ fewer guards as well as being able to put these prisoners to work in all of the jobs without a very major security risk.

Conversely, higher security risk prisoners should award your prison more daily (nightly) grant money... but you spend this money on guards, CCTV, metal detectors, plus it would be extremely dangerous to have them doing prison labor.


So, you might consider one or the other to be easier or harder... and of course, you can have a good mix of all of it in your prison... but I think the security level of prisoners should represent different challenges, not a scalable difficulty level of the same challenge. The challenge in a minimum security prison would be making sure you're getting enough labor out of your prisoners in order to stay profitable because you're not getting nearly as much of the guaranteed nightly money out of these prisoners. But the challenge with maximum security prisoners is all of the security risks. So minimum security is more of a challenge on how to manage your finances, and maximum security is more of a challenge with how to manage your prison security.

[Acreyzek]

As you aked for, you wanted someone else' opinion.

I feel like some random aggression is needed too, but not exactly the same amongst all of the different security level prisoners, example: High level security prisoner should be more prone to carry out random aggression than low level security prisoners.

I think that random aggression should be something that the prisoners "think" about before they carry it out, if for example a low level security one has been thinking to carry out some random aggression but has not gotten a "reasonable" reason to do so, then suddenly the prisoner does if a need is not met... ...or something

[MAdMaN]

If we get gangs in the game the same programming for aggression could probably be applied to individual prisoners too.

[CplHenderson]

My opinion here is that it should be impossible to ever run a perfect, no incident prison. I mean, no matter how good a prison is, there will always be those two guys that hate each other's guts, or that one guy who hates the system and tries to resist every possible moment, or that guy that just doesn't like authority, or the man who tries to murder his visiting wife. I think an ideal solution would be the system we have now, plus random events, the frequency of which are controlled by the thermometer.

I understand that some people enjoy having "success" by running a perfect prison. Perhaps we could add an option to disable random events?

EDIT: Hidden traits would of course determine how likely someone is to be involved in a random incident.

[Michzm]

An issue I've noticed in some of the prisons I build is prisons can have very little in the way of needs required but over night hygiene needs build up, so by the time the morning shower time is planned they are just ready to brawl. They will march to the shower and instead if showering they will just stand in the room for 15-20 minutes then pick a shower head, this happens at food time too, so when 25-40% of the prison has players with red needs it regularly breaks out in to chaos.

[_alphaBeta_]

Great suggestions all around. Big theme seems to be random events or disasters in the form of equipment or facility malfunction and/or more randomized prisoner behavior. I think it's very realistic that a prisoner will have a bad day even if all the essential needs are met. In this case, I also think it improves gameplay.

I always like having the option available. This being a simulator and all, options for things like this keep everyone happy. I imagine many players will have more personal objectives while playing than the game could ever offer. Perhaps you want that perfect prison that's gone 30 days without incident. Perhaps you were able to overcome a string of bad tempers one morning that sets off several fights or taking care of that generator that needed to be repaired in the middle of free time. There's something for everyone.

[Drakonos]

I would like to see more small riots (few prisoners) rather than full scale riots. Or prisoners who dont listen to the daily roster. Like say sleeping while they should be showering, and where you have to force them to get that lazy bum to the shower.

[Dajmin]

Or prisoners who dont listen to the daily roster. Like say sleeping while they should be showering, and where you have to force them to get that lazy bum to the shower.

+1 for this

[CplHenderson]

I would like to see more small riots (few prisoners) rather than full scale riots. Or prisoners who dont listen to the daily roster. Like say sleeping while they should be showering, and where you have to force them to get that lazy bum to the shower.

+1

I also support more individual behavior such as one on one fights. Maybe even a circle of prisoners watching

[xander]

I would like to see more small riots (few prisoners) rather than full scale riots. Or prisoners who dont listen to the daily roster. Like say sleeping while they should be showering, and where you have to force them to get that lazy bum to the shower.

+1

I also support more individual behavior such as one on one fights. Maybe even a circle of prisoners watching :)

In Darwinia, the DGs will run from grenades. Thus the code for aversion clearly already exists somewhere in the IV super library. It would probably be fairly straight-forward (if not necessarily easy) to modify that code for somewhat more complex behaviour: prisoners are attracted to fights, but averse to fighting. Similar models have given rise to interesting emergent behaviour in other settings, so it is reasonable to assume that some very simple rules about what prisoners are attracted to and repelled by could lead to nice patterns like the one you suggest.

xander

[Pogo]

It would also be very interesting (assuming these 1v1 fights are put in) if you could instruct your guards on how to respond to these fights. In some prisons, the guards may immediately break up the fight. In other prisons, the guards may just turn a blind eye as long as it's just 1v1 and only step in if either some contraband shows up or if the fight is about to turn into more than just 1v1.

[MAdMaN]

In Darwinia, the DGs will run from grenades. Thus the code for aversion clearly already exists somewhere in the IV super library.

It's already in the game. Workmen avoid areas where prisoners are out of control.