[suggestion] Prisoner of interest / Wardens' pet

[balar]

Great game so far, I'd like to share my idea on how it can be enhanced, feedback is very welcome.

Currently it is very difficult to keep track of specific prisoners. You can find a prisoner with a drug problem and decide you want to keep them in solitary confinement to get them to quit cold turkey. You basically send them to confinement and rarely get any feedback from that action. We need a way to keep track of a few specific prisoners we've taken an interest in. to track the results of actions taken on them. the idea here is a system that would allow you to "bond" with specific prisoners, letting you help / punish them on their way to detox / reform / parole / release. (This would enable emergent game play and complement other game systems).

The way this system would work is this: every prisoner would have a "keep track" button on their details, once you click it, a link to that specific prisoner will be added to the interest panel. The interest panel would just be a list of all the prisoners you've tagged with the keep track button, accessible through either a report or a HUD button (like contraband, clone etc...). You would need to research prisoner interest (or some other name) to unlock this ability.

"keeping track" of a prisoner should allow you to give them special treatment, you should be able to punish him (solitary, lockdown, searches etc) as you currently can, but you should also be able to help him, you should be able to reserve spots in reform programs (that the prisoner qualifies for) for him, you should be able to prioritize them for medical treatment, and you should get notified when something is wrong with a prisoner of interest (rioting, unconscious etc)
And most important, all of these decisions and their results should be logged in a sort of prisoner story (accessible in the prisoner details).

As an example, let’s say we take an interest in a prisoner named Alex with a drug problem. The prisoner story could look something like:

Day 1: interest taken in Alex.
Day 2: Alex caught with drugs, 2 hour lockdown
Day 2: Alex sent to 24 hours solitary
Day 2: Alex collapsed from detux
Day 2: Alex received medical treatment
Day 3: Alex signed for methadone clinic
Day 4: Alex had a family visit
Day 6: Alex was in a fight, 2 hour lockdown
Day 8: Alex completed methadone clinic successfully
Day 9: Alex interested in basic education
Day 10: Alex signed for basic education
...
Day 34: Alex paroled.

Once the prisoner is released the prisoner story would be supplemented with an ending, calculated using the reoffend rate and the prisoner history, something like:
After being released from prison, Alex used his basic education to get a job bagging groceries. he continued to get support for his drug habit, and has remained sober. (I'm no writer obviously, but you get the main idea).

Please let me know what you think about this idea, would you like to see it in the game? How can it be improved? Enhanced? Thanks.

[konso]

I think this is a great idea and should be implemented somewhere along the way. A bit like following your sims in SimCity 4.

[acegamer08]

.

[balar]

Interesting, all of these events are already being simulated, and logging them shouldn't have a noticeable effect on speed, except maybe on really large prisons.
One solution would be to limit the number of prisoners of interest a player can have at any given time, and only log events for those prisoners (ignoring anything that happened before they became of interest). Some testing will probably be needed to decide on the exact amount. But I'm assuming (from my own programming experience) that logging the events of 5-10 prisoners would have a negligible effect on speed, even on really slow devices.

[acegamer08]

.

[jaisbadais]

Yeah that would really improve the game!

[pati04]

+2(lol?)

[Kirbyfreak411]

+1

I've looked at one prisoner in my game before and noticed good stats and a desire to keep track of him.
Then I look somewhere else and I can't find the dude again. XD Yeah, I'd love a feature like this. It would be extremely useful.

[Spike88]

Reminds me of Dwarf Fortress, which is a good thing. I personally support this idea. Maybe have a limit of 4-6 Prisoners tagged as followed as a time.

This would also allow you to punish prisoners you do not like with unjustified searches, denying them parole, etc.. Would be interesting having a prisoner show up in your prison again because you were hard on him.

[balar]

okay so it seems this suggestion has some support, anything more that can be done to make sure it gets noticed by the devs ?

[Robbedem]

Remember it untill the devs want to know the most sought after features? Alo, I think they look at the forum occasionally, so perhaps it's on their to-do list already.

[Kernook]

I would love to see this, as it could tie in well with the prison rating system.

I think it would also be note worthy that re-offenders that you've taken an interest with, should come into the prison with a changed attitude the second time, based on how well you've treated them based on that interest...for example, if he was treated very poorly as a normal security prisoner, and you've left him in confinement too long, or something...he'll come back more dangerous than before as a max-sec prisoner, and more willing to cause trouble, riot, and perhaps even kill guards if he has a chip on his shoulder...

On the flip side, if he was treated well, maybe his re-offending chance will go down with each consecutive visit, and, because you treated him well, he will be a lesser threat, and more willing to comply and reform properly the second or third time. That story would be cool, if a re-offender came back, so that you could see how your play style influenced him.

[Firefitter]

+1

Great idea.

[pderuiter]

+1

Having stories like this is what makes DwarfFortress great and i feel it would complement this game as well.
Hey, maybe even go so far as to log the fights (Prisoner X tore off the finger nail of the right index finger of Prisoner Y. Prisoner Y headbutts Prisoner X. ).
That last sentence was obviously a joke, but getting stories like this really add to the experience

[balar]

OK, I've added this suggestion to the wiki suggestion page with a link back to this post.
http://devwiki.introversion.co.uk/pa/in ... uggestions
Feel free to edit and expand on it as you wish,