Light bulbs - what's the point?

[Novbert]

Apart from aesthetic reasons what's the point of having light bulbs? Do they affect fog of war somehow?

[Terminaaaattori]

They give you light so you can see better.

[vulgarman]

And they sap power from the generator, indoor lights that is.

[henke37]

Try looking at an empty building when it doesn't have power at night.

[_alphaBeta_]

There's no gameplay effect that lighting has, other than staff using their own flashlights in dark places, and the player being able to better see what they're doing. Currently, staff and prisoners won't care if they spend their life in darkness with no windows or lights. I'd like to think there will be an eventual gameplay reason to provide both windows and lighting. Same goes for an incentive to turn lights off at night while prisoners are sleeping. A variation of the current power switch (think timer) that corresponds to regimes would be nice, by turning the lights off during sleep.

[VoiD88]

There's no gameplay effect that lighting has

Yes there is, albeit a very minor one, vulgarman has already mentioned it: Every indoor lightbulb drains a tiny amount of power from your Power Stations

[Novbert]

That settles it - I'm getting rid of them. ALL OF THEM
Let the darkness arise!

[Dajmin]

I keep randomly clicking the damn things and I don't see the point in being able to! I want to dismantle something or select a prisoner and end up getting a light that I can't control instead. Pointless. I'd like to keep them in game but make them unselectable.

I'll tell you something though, I'm interested in the possible social implications of denying prisoners light. Would they complain? Riot? Sleep all the time? Does it say more about you than it does them, you sick sick man?

[neofusion]

That settles it - I'm getting rid of them. ALL OF THEM
Let the darkness arise!

If you do that you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

[Artophwar]

Im hoping windows and lights will have some effect on prisoners happiness in the future. For now I just use for aesthetic purposes.

[Novbert]

I'll tell you something though, I'm interested in the possible social implications of denying prisoners light. Would they complain? Riot? Sleep all the time? Does it say more about you than it does them, you sick sick man?

It certainly does
Actually I've tried removing all the lights last night - not that fun as it sounds as the whole prison just got too dark and I couldn't see a thing. However once I started to selectively place lights back to crucial points it turned out that an entire small map can be sufficiently lit with about a dozen - instead of those hundreds the game places by default.
I hope my prisoners are happy to live in such an eco-friendly prison.
They don't seem to mind about the lack of lights though. Or the lack of windows. Or the lack of a yard. Or the lack of visitiation room.
Pretty peaceful folks, if you ask me

[Ric666]

I don't think having lights affects the gameplay either way but as Novbert has said, it kinda helps if you can see

You can also cancel the placement of all the lights that are auto-placed if you're fast once the building completes. you will still pay for them though.

There may be an option in the future to not autoplace them. Would certainly help me. Who knows though

[_alphaBeta_]

You can also cancel the placement of all the lights that are auto-placed if you're fast once the building completes. you will still pay for them though.

There may be an option in the future to not autoplace them. Would certainly help me. Who knows though

I hope so. Like most gameplay items, making it an option will keep everyone happy. I never ever use the automatic placement of lights, always canceling them as soon as they're auto-placed. I don't mind still paying for all of them, since I usually wind up using them somewhere (including outside).

[freedomispopular]

Yeah, maybe an option to toggle auto-placement would be cool.

I'd definitely like to see some gameplay effects related to lights. Maybe people stumbling around in the dark. Maybe some prisoners don't like lights/vice versa, so you could end up with two guys next to each other ticking each other off by not turning the lights on/off, or you could mess with a guy's head by sticking him in solitary and leaving the lights on/off for hours. Or maybe prisoners could turn off/destroy lights and use stealth to do misdeeds and either fail or succeed.

[killerx243]

That settles it - I'm getting rid of them. ALL OF THEM
Let the darkness arise!

If you do that you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Ha! The only game where you can throw a knife at an ogre just to fail horribly then watch him pick it up and eat it, which kills him.