[Suggestion/Issue] Multiple issues that inhibit gameplay

[Keragon]

I wanted to wait to post something until I had played the game for a length of time so I would feel informed and properly versed in the game so that my suggestions and issue reports would be accurate and mean something. After having the game destroy my life for a few weeks and 65 hours in game now, I feel like I can report a few things here that make the game more chaotic than it needs to be.

1. Critical Prisoner Capacity - I've built a few different prisons now, and I'm getting down to a good layout that doesn't cause congestion and allows prisoners to get where they need to be quickly. I have recreation, telephones and bathrooms available in every corner and area of my prison, and regardless of having plenty of free time, there seems to be a critical capacity of prisoners (around 500 seems to be the magic number) where regardless of what you give them, a riot will ensue. It always happens in the morning or shortly after because during their rest they accumulate a tonne of needs. After the riot I'll kill off a few hundred and then as it nears 500 again, another riot ensues. I cannot seem to break this trend, the only way to fix it is to replace the entire regime with free time which seems like something you shouldn't have to do to me. What would be the point of an editable regime then if all you need is 24/7 free time?
- Seems to be caused by the massive buildup of needs over night.
- All needs are fully met before bedtime
* Slowing increase of needs overnight and making the increase spread out for certain ones like recreation, family etc. to avoid this problem.

2. Path-finding - Prisoners can be faced with two jail doors, one locked and one locked open, side by side, and they will decide which door they attempt to pass simply by their approach. If their approach is in line with the locked jail door then they go to the locked door and wait, if its in line with the open jail door, then they will pass through that. Staff do the same, instead of aiming their routes through staff doors and staff only corridors I have made specifically to speed up their access, they will go straight to a jail door and wait. Guards and prisoners also get caught on jail doors into individual cells. Guards escorting prisoners into cells will get caught on the door on the way in and spin around in circles with the inmate until they get tired and go for a break. Prisoners do the same thing when heading in for bed and will stay up the entire night and be pissed off the next day.
- Jail doors into cells seem to catch guards and prisoners making them spin in circles
* Staff and prisoners need to prioritize their paths by open doors and areas they can access without getting hung up instead of just most direct.

3. Alternative Riot Resolution - Lock downs appear to be as a whole very in-effective. Rioting prisoners quickly destroy locked doors, guards refuse to vacate areas when told to do such and are mobbed to death, and if you are un-lucky and the riot breaks out in a common area where prisoners mass, you are going to take heavy casualties on both sides. Then once the riot is over and there are 250 dead bodies spread dramatically across your prison, it takes more than two weeks of day/night cycles in the game to clear the corpses, and sometimes longer. I know this is an Alpha and it will be a while before we see any real game-play mechanics added, but I would like to throw in the loop other means to resolve a riot OTHER than just brute physical force. Prisons these days make good use of technology such as tear gas, flash bangs, water canons etc. Asides from the aggressive approach, a lot of riots and potential riots can be disarmed by negotiating with the prisoners to make a happy medium and disarm the situation. Maybe I'm just tired of the regular and now becoming routine riots, but I feel the game shouldn't have to play out like this.
- Lock downs do little, corpses take ages to be removed, riots result in massive casualties because of the way they must be resolved currently
* Adding alternative means to disarm a riot through technology or negotiation


I'm sure there are other issues I'm forgetting but these are really the big ones that I can think of that seem to really wreck the game play. Its caused me to go on a hiatus of the game a few times because of how much it gets in the way of game play. I have other complaints but I see they have already been addressed so I don't see a need to re-state them.

Otherwise I *REALLY* enjoy the game. I feel it has a lot of potential and I can't wait to see all that it becomes because its really got my fancy right now.

[5hifty]

While I agree with most of the point in this, I would like to point out that it is actually TO easy to house 500 prisoners without riot. Ive got a couple of designs that are 200 days + without incident that have 480-580 max sec prisoners, with at least 50 of them held in holding cells. I can literally leave these prisons running at max time lapse and go off and do stuff for a hour or so and come back and everything is still fine.

[EddieG]

I'm going to second your #2, however this IS an Alpha. I've not found a solution for guards or prisoners getting hung on doors/corners. I watch my intakes very carefully. If a prisoner gets stuck while working, they'll typically unstick themselves when work time is over.

I run three prisons - a small (~100), medium (~200) and large (~500) . I have zero problems with any of them, however I do notice that slight regime adjustments need to be made. Sleep seems to be fulfilled more quickly and can be set an hour or two less than the small and medium. Doing Sleep -> 1H Shower -> 1H Eat -> 1-2H Free Time usually resolves any lingering "needs" issues.

The only time I've gotten riots in my large prison is when a rested guard gets stuck on a corner with a prisoner who tried to smuggle something out of the cafeteria after the evening meal. If I don't catch it, the guy is a real jerk by the time morning rolls around and a full on riot breaks out in the shower.

Also FYI installing toilets in your shower will help keep needs in line. Some prisoners will pinch a loaf while waiting for others to shower.

[planettop92]

I think (2) is a known bug, you might want to check Mantis for that.

For (3), I believe you have to do a Bangup first in order for that to work. This tells your prisoners who aren't involved and/or don't want to be involved in the riot to go back to their cells, therefore dispersing the crowd before things gets really ugly. Then when you do a Lockdown, prisoner's can wait in their cells away from the riot while your guards try to break it up. Doing a Lockdown before a Bangup keeps everyone together in whatever room they're currently in. The AI (as glitchy as it is) is smart enough to figure out that the amount of rioting prisoners is greater than the amount of guards currently locked up in the room with them.