Prisoner decisions and path finding

[cruck1000]

Greetings!
I'm not sure if this is intended or just a down side to the AI, so I'm posting it here.

I am making a prison with a tile able cell block design, and I'm having a problem with the way prisoners path find to the nearest common room/yard during free time.

That's my prison. Just before that hour was an 'Eat' hour. Once the prisoners finish many go to play pool/exercise.
Some of the prisoners go to the other cell block to use the commodities they have right next to their own cells. This problem also seems linked with my previous layout where prisoners would go to the ABSOLUTE closest yard/common room. So they would go to the closest common room, but it would be the farthest to go to route wise. (Does that make sense? They go to the area with the closest distance formula, but don't take into account the path needed to get to that room.)

But now the problem I'm having with this prison just in general is that sometimes prisoners go to the wrong common room or yard. Or sometimes guards take prisoners to the wrong solitary. Are there any plans in the future to have the Logistics extend to more areas of the prison? That would be awesome to be able to tell the AI what you want it to do.

I think this is a bug, but not actually a bug. Or I may just be out of my mind. Thanks!

[Threehorns]

Room and Halls you do not want prisoners to walk, you should mark as "staff only".
Same goes if you turn your prison into two sections, you can make a connecting hall "staff only" so they don't roam to each others wing.

Guard will escort prisoners through staff only halls towards cells and released prisoners can leave through halls marked as staff only.

In your case, I think you want to mark the outer hall as: staff only.

[cruck1000]

I can't mark my outer halls as staff only because the prisoners need to get down to the reform/labor areas. For now I've put a door in between the yards but I think it would be nice to see better pathing with guards and prisoners, or the more micromanagement/logistics options.

[Threehorns]

Freetime doesnt mean go to common room. Prisoners will just go where top needs can be reduced.
This might be shower if they feel dirty, cell if they prefer privacy, library if they want literacy etc.
Or just a strawl, if there is no "need" priority.

As for pathing, you could test and prove it's faulty
Try making a maze with several possible routes: example from cell to shower. (which is something that you can force upon prisoners)
Maybe you can show that prisoners prefer a certain route, example, bottom right routes are more often selected or something. or corners etc.

[Trumbettoo]

I dont think devs can predict all the patterns that players can come up to, with all combinations going around. Hence, pathfinding in general will always run into problems. No AI can predict what player EXACTLY wants with their regime & deployment.

Are there any plans in the future to have the Logistics extend to more areas of the prison? That would be awesome to be able to tell the AI what you want it to do.

This has been THE request of community right after logistic mechanic was introduced. Propositions were made for kennels, yards, solitaries, doctors, WORKSHOPS!, CCs! KITCHENS! (basically every working area) etc. which would really solve the problems and put more control into players hand. Few were complaining about it being too much of micromanagment but I dont see it that way. This is a game about micromanament; you dont do it and you have riot in 1-2 days...

When i see guard escort inmate to a solitary cell half across prison, and there is one just few meters away from the incident area, I take example of my inmate pixels and release my bowels & bladder need right in front of my computer, instead of nearby bathroom.

[TeeWee]

I concur, more micromanagement would be nice. If necessary, add it to extra research topics for the warden or other key staff, depending on the nature of the micromanagement.

Showers are the worst for me. I'm building a prison in blocks of 32 cells, with each block having its own shower area. If the blocks have the same security codes there are paths to other cell blocks due to access to common areas. The inmates often choose a shower in another block even if that's all the way accross the prison. Or when they're in the shower block, they will wait until a specific spot is free, while there are tons of free shower heads in the shower area.

Solitary is also one of those things. It's so annoying for an inmate to be carted off to the farthest solitary cell available, when I've built solitary cells adjacent to the regular cell blocks.

[Renamis]

Showers are the worst for me. I'm building a prison in blocks of 32 cells, with each block having its own shower area. If the blocks have the same security codes there are paths to other cell blocks due to access to common areas. The inmates often choose a shower in another block even if that's all the way accross the prison. Or when they're in the shower block, they will wait until a specific spot is free, while there are tons of free shower heads in the shower area.

This. I have over 200 shower heads for 100 prisoners, and they never get clean. Shower was the one area I never had a problem with, but after a couple updates it's turned into hair tearing frustration. I've watched the same prisoner arrive in a shower block, decide they don't like that one, run out so that he can reach the other shower block, stop halfway and decide the original would work, go back to it... and then sit there at the door, all while loudly proclaiming that he needs a shower. And when he goes out to the yard next hour? Goes on a destruction spree because he wants a shower.

It doesn't help that I think prisoners won't notice things for a good long while. I've had shower sessions where some of the prisoners will wait a good 30 minutes in the front, complaining about not getting a shower, before they realize that not a single shower head is in use, and then go en mass to the showers. And if the room is too deep I've wasted a bunch of resources, because most prisoners won't ever go that far back. Just sit right there at the door.

I would love to be able to tell them where their shower is, because that would solve most of my problems. I could create smaller showers more often, and not run the risk of half my prison deciding that the 30 shower head shower was the one they all want to go run to.

[metalbunny]

Pathing problems get worse the more prisoners you have, at the same pace as the framerate slowly crawls downwards towards single digits. As far as I can tell from looking at what the nearly 1000 people in my prison does (prisoners+staff), then everything is about the object you build first. If someone is using that, then they head for the next, and the next. Proximity is completely ignored and even moving prisoners to a different cell sometimes make them go back to the shower they used before, even though it's all the way on the other side of the prison.

As for the micromanagement: I don't want to have to hold the hand of every prisoner in the game just to avoid congestion. It's silly and shouldn't be necessary. But like in the thread about denying pathing in certain rooms at certain times, I think the problem would be solved almost 100% if we could designate blocks. So then block A prisoners use block A showers and block A common room, etc. Then of course we'd need to be able to make some things shared between blocks, otherwise we'd get a situation where everything needs to be built in every single block. But the current situation where everything in max sec is usable by all max sec prisoners, becomes a complete clusterf*** because no one will use the closest object that could possibly fulfil their need, or even the one closest to their assigned cell.

[Robbedem]

Exactly. The deployment schedules and zoning would make much more sense if done per cell block instead of security level.
(Like they did for the laundry and kitchen+canteen)

[Zombi3HeroBrin3]

no the game works fine already.i love having my prisoners spend the night in solitary when they in my supermax cells.the min sec can just use there own but nope.and they showers, its awesome.just watch they show.they all run to the shower area wait...nah i wanna shower with the max sec.WHAT NO STOP THIS HERD OF PRISONERS NEEDS TO RETURN TO THE YARD FOR SOME WORKOUT!!!okay now i need a shower.im gonna go eat. GOD GIVE ME SHOWER TIME!!!!!!!!!oh wait it is shower time.k im here.wait a second the showers need people for me to share with.im going to start a riot.