I think the game is too easy in the current state (alpha 17)

[sokkur]

I have about 170 max sec prisoners generating about 16000 a day plus workshop profit with only 9 normal guards. There are little to no problems. My jail doors are always open except the entrance. I have normal door in the offices and I hardly do a shakedown. I also haven't any metal detectors. I still have no contraband issues (my prisoners hardly ever use it). My prisoners do about 6 hours of work a day in one turn which I do think is a little short. Here is a pic:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/93nezd1t2vula4g/max%20sec.png

May I suggest adding a need that can't be fulfilled unless the prisoner causes trouble but increases very slowly (speed varies between prisoners and some don't have it).

[Egg-Roll]

Start a new game with 18 it's harder afaik I've only started playing it lol. But yea 17 was a little easy even without work...

[VoiD88]

Why are you still playing Alpha 17 when the next version came out four days ago? It won't alleviate your problem, it's just something I'm wondering...

[gopheratl]

You're somewhat right, the game is a bit sandboxy right now, without that much in the way of intrinsic challenges. My 2nd prison was all min-sec, and had open-door policies on almost all facilities all the time; doing my 3rd, I was surprised to find the same measures equally effective with med-security, tho I've not tried it on max yet. Difficulty is a balance issue, though, and balance is most definitely not a high priority during alpha, when some essential features are yet to be implemented.

That said, I rather like the idea of "trouble" as a need, or possibly "violence." Could be an issue that has to be identified and, to some extent, mitigated by the psychiatrist, with some prisoners perhaps just being sociopaths, who can never be cured of their need for violence/trouble. These people might have to be identified and separated into smaller cell blocks to prevent the inevitable fights they cause from erupting on too large a scale.

[111none]

Well, the new safety introduction in the workshop nerds them very hard. soo...

[thekillergreece]

Alpha 18 is even harder.

1.Education and workshop safety, kitchen work permit required for prisoners
2.Workshops unfair sell lowest profit.
3.Riot are deadly when you have armoury or armed guards.

Naaaah, I like the hard difficult

[Sorenson]

The problem is that there just isn't much in the way of prisoner antagonism right now - sure, they'll start shit over outright mistreatment, but once you get a good setup that meets all of their basic needs, even max-security dudes become pretty complacent. We need things like prisoners developing bad relationships that eventually boil over, prison gangs with their own relationships, race relations, attempts by external forces to meddle in prison affairs, stuff like that.