Alpha 33 Cell relocating feedback.

[muahaa_the_french]

Hey guys

This is relieved greatly by creating security grade specific holding cells.

If you don't have a shared then the system works better, although I think it is still broken and needs a major update

[Deville]

Prisoners should just be located to the cell closest to their level in their designated security zone, no further "they are too high we have to do some weird maths and put all the rpisoners in the holding cell". Never should Maxsec be moved to general level cells if there are Maxsec cells. Same for moving to the holding cell, this is just not thought through.

[Dawnmist]

I hope I'm posting in the right thread.

What I've observed:
* Prisoner entitled to a level 1 cell being left in a level 7 cell, despite there being level 1 cells available (in another "cell block" for the same security level).
* Prisoner entitled to a level 4 cell being left in a level 1 cell, with a level 4 cell empty directly behind that cell (in another "cell block" for the same security level).
* Prisoner entitled to a level 3 cell being left in a level 2 cell, next door to a prisoner entitled to a level 2 cell sitting in a level 3 cell (in the SAME cell block).
* Prisoner entitled to a level 2 cell being left in a level 4 cell, with another prisoner entitled to a level 5 cell left stuck in a level 2 cell (in the next-door cell block).
* Prisoner entitled to a level 10 cell being left in a level 7/8 cell for multiple days despite the cells next to them being level 10 and empty.

The above examples are not exceptions - they are the norm within the prison. I'm finding that if I check the assignments about 10pm-11pm (when they're all actually at their cells so I can find them to swap them), I'll need to move/swap around 2/3 of the prisoners to get better matches between what cells they should be in compared to what cells they actually are in. When I tested the level 10s in level 7 & 8 cells, after 2 days in-game they still hadn't been moved to the empty level 10 cells.

1. Does the optimisation only look at cells within the same cell block, or all valid cells for that security (either security restricted or shared cells)?
2. What time of day in-game is the cell optimisation done? Am I checking the results at the wrong time of day/pre-empting the process too soon?
3. Does manually moving prisoners between cells override future optimisations/lock them in the manually assigned cells? (i.e. Am I accidentally sabotaging the process in trying to fix it?)

[dapullia]

I will chime in here and say that the cell reassignment is fundamentally broken as long as we do not have the ability to fine grain control the security levels for rooms in our prisons. This is something we have been asking for for ages is the ability to tell the game precisely which security levels can use the rooms so you could have mixed true shared but within reasonable limits. Example...shared don't mean put PC and Max guys together because the nice cells are shared for the better behaved prisoners. Cell reassignment should give prisoners the best possible cell within their own security ranking first then drop down to shared cells if and only if there is not a cell left within their own level then as soon as a cell opens, they should immediately be booted from shared and moved to their zone. If you have a Max Sec guy and to quote the video about this alpha you only have a sh** hole of a cell left in your Max Sec zone but the guy is entitled to a level 10 cell and there is one in shared....Guess what....he gets the sh** hole in the wall because security level should trump privileges. You should also have the option to override this through policy for each level of security class as well as set a class to NEVER assign it to shared cell blocks. Key problem I ran into and I have a bug out for it is Death Row. I have cells for them right by the execution room zoned DR. Here comes cell reassignment along and WHAMO it does not matter any more...because cell quality overrides security zones. Now i have PC and DR going all over the place into a new shared cell block I was working on. Not kosher. As stated, security level should be the primary deciding factor unless overrided for that security class by the player.

[Deville]

Cell reassignment should give prisoners the best possible cell within their own security ranking first then drop down to shared cells if and only if there is not a cell left within their own level then as soon as a cell opens, they should immediately be booted from shared and moved to their zone. .

I disagree, prisoners should always be put in their security level first (like before a33), and only as a second priority to a cell with a level as close a s possible to their entitled level. Never should they be moved to a holding cell or outside their security level just because no cell with an exactly matching level is available.

[dapullia]

Cell reassignment should give prisoners the best possible cell within their own security ranking first then drop down to shared cells if and only if there is not a cell left within their own level then as soon as a cell opens, they should immediately be booted from shared and moved to their zone. .

I disagree, prisoners should always be put in their security level first (like before a33), and only as a second priority to a cell with a level as close a s possible to their entitled level. Never should they be moved to a holding cell or outside their security level just because no cell with an exactly matching level is available.

Deville, that is exactly what I was saying but I was being generous to those who may prefer to have a mixed population or who may not segregate their prison by security level. For those of us who do (I would assume this would be a high percentage) then we need the ability to pick for each area what "Shared" means. Did I mean that Shared means Low and Medium only or did I mean that Everyone but DR, SM and PC? You see my point?

[WyDavies]

The cell relocation seemed to function really strangely. Relocation seemed to bear no relationship to the cell grade and the value the inmate was due for. That was until I hit day 33 (with 460 inmates). And suddenly they all got reallocated in a way that makes sense.
I have no clue what triggered it, but I noticed in the middle of a shakedown at 2am suddenly inmates all upped and went for a walk to their new cells.
I thought the guards were meant to reallocate them, not the inmates just up and move.

Unfortunately I had to rescue a snitch who had been banished from the nice Protected Inmate cells, so it still has issues.

Why did the relocation system suddenly fix itself in the middle of a shakedown on day 33? Very odd.

[MightionNY]

May I suggest that cell quality ratings not apply to Death Row inmates? I have a DR inmate who got moved to a level 2 cell because that was all he was entitled to... and my one DR cell is quality 3. He's a snitch, so I worry about him getting shanked before his execution. (Yes, I know how ironic that sounds.)

[Deville]

Deville, that is exactly what I was saying but I was being generous to those who may prefer to have a mixed population or who may not segregate their prison by security level. For those of us who do (I would assume this would be a high percentage) then we need the ability to pick for each area what "Shared" means. Did I mean that Shared means Low and Medium only or did I mean that Everyone but DR, SM and PC? You see my point?

I'm with you there, being able to define what "shared" means would be neat. I didn't read your post carefully enough.

[Robbedem]

I think holding cells need to be included in the cell grading with a penalty for the number of prisoners in the cell: a big holding cell with 20 prisoners should get a low rating unless it has tons of extra luxuries. This would prevent that high rated prisoners are send to a holding cell when there is no high level cell available.

Ofcourse mixing designated security types (f.e. min and med together, but nothing else) would still be needed.

@WyDavies
On the topic of relocation not working, I think the devs stated in the video that relocation is only triggered when prisoners are caught misbehaving and then their cell is swapped with another prisoner (in a way that the new fit is better than before). I assume that the shakedown caused enough prisoners to be caught for misconduct to get the train of prisoners moving started.