[Suggestion] Make Cell Grading Deactivatable by a Check Box

[Deville]

I would love it if cell grading could be deactivated with a check box like gangs can be deactivated.

Cell grading forces a certain play style upon players, if they like it or not. It minimises creative or alternative ways to play the game.
I for example had a very different approach to supermax, protected custody and death row prisoners, they get all the basics in their cell, so they can be locked up in there except for eating and do not cause too much trouble outside their cells, except the not too few times they escape their cells. Unfortunately, the cells are graded very high for them, getting the guards to put several supermax and protected custody prisoners together in a general population holding cell. Cell grading also ignores security zones, pulling prisoners from maxsec cells into "general population" cells in an entirely different cell block with much lower security measures.

For me, cell grading is not an additional challenge, but plainly frustrating. I tried several times to play after it was introduced, but quit the game shortly after each time end ended up playing Cities Skylines or Anno 1404. I want to try out all the new features, but I just can't get myself to play with cell grading.

Am I alone on this or would others prefer cell grading to be optional as well? Or am I just missing the mod to deactivate it? I couldn't find one...


Edit: Two other users have perfectly summarised my thoughts on the current system:

I must say I really don't think the game should insist that prisoners go into the holding cell if the only real cell available is the wrong status for them. I think they should all go into one as close as possible to their status, from those that are available. If the right one isn't there then they should have to go into the wrong type until a better one is available. And I think a nice cell should make any prisoner happier, seperately from the actual bonus happiness for the reward factor. So the increase in good mood should be at a baseline for being in a nice cell in the first place, and an additional behavioural bonus for being in one that is above average for the prison as a whole (ie enhanced). There is no harm in penalising the player financially somewhat for nice facilities - eg a cost per item in "general upkeep" or whatever, rather than just making it easy to give everyone a nice cell.

Bingo. I don't know a single prison that would send max sec prisoners to a holding cell because the cell they're currently in is too "nice". If I thought the cell was too nice for the guy I wouldn't have built it in the first place. I was hoping this update would fix the problem, but... while the new features are cool I just have no desire to play the game when it blatantly forces you to design a prison you don't want.

It's an incredibly simple fix. Prisoners get moved to the AVAILABLE cell, closest to their rating. Tbh it's killed the game for me, because now I have to babysit supermax to make sure my legendary's didn't decide to all hop over to the holding cell for shaking party.

[PrisonerJoe]

I definitely agree with you. In my mind there are two options here:

Option 1 - Make security zoning>cell quality and simply assign prisoners to the cell that best fits them regardless of whether or not they deserve it.

Option 2 - Make it optional like you said

I've stopped playing for now because it pigeonholes me into building my prison in a certain way which I just don't enjoy. I prefer to have everyone except supermax and death row in standard, equally graded cells. For supermax and death row I provide all of their needs in a large cell since they are both on permanent lockdown. Like you stated, I then have to manually keep putting the supermax guys back in their cells whenever they go to solitary or have a parole hearing.

[xPyr0x]

I definitely agree with you. In my mind there are two options here:

Option 1 - Make security zoning>cell quality and simply assign prisoners to the cell that best fits them regardless of whether or not they deserve it.

Option 2 - Make it optional like you said

I've stopped playing for now because it pigeonholes me into building my prison in a certain way which I just don't enjoy. I prefer to have everyone except supermax and death row in standard, equally graded cells. For supermax and death row I provide all of their needs in a large cell since they are both on permanent lockdown. Like you stated, I then have to manually keep putting the supermax guys back in their cells whenever they go to solitary or have a parole hearing.

I found a temporary work around and sort of an exploit to fix this problem. Instead of permanent lockdown for supermax (havnt tried with deathrow yet) make the solitary cells big, with everything they need, give them permanent solitary, they never change cells, even if they start a fight, etc. The best part is, they can't tunnel out of solitary cells! But they can still get out for visitation and parole/death row appeals, unless you block that room off too (put a phone in his room)

Then either punish everyone else with lockdown, or make more solitary cells, you can dezone them to move prisoners around and then rezone them.

[Phoenix591]

I also really really want the ability for guards to ignore cell grading for the worst of the worst of my prisoners. I want to keep a separate cell block for gang leaders and lieutenants so they can't really make plays or recruit from the general population, but the guards will ignore my specifically assigned cells and randomly reassign them throughout the prison.

[sehnstein]

Personally I continue to play as before the update, all prisoners have a 2x2 cell with only bed and toilets ... And I have my 10 days without incident and max "!!" for risks ...

[blackdwarf]

I've found ways to construct prisons so that the cell grading system is mostly a non-issue.

What I don't really understand is the point of the cell grading system. I'm not clear on what it is supposed to accomplish. It really doesn't do a good job of moving the better behaved prisoners to the better cells, as far as I can see. Or of keeping the more troublesome prisoners in the poorer cells. Maybe that was the intent, but if so, it really doesn't work too well.

[5hifty]

Yeah I couldn't agree more. I'm not exactly sure what it's mean to be accomplishing. Since prisoners don't seem to think ahead, nor draw on past experiences, I don't really get what giving some guys a better cell is meant to do. I generally have all my cells 3 (normal size a window and a tv/bookshelf) and that only because I want to have that stuff in there. Then out of every 40 cells I make 2 lv10, 4 lv8 and 6 lv 6. I just did it to test what happens. Mostly I haven't really seen any change - everything runs as it did before hand, only now I have 2 less cells because I took a wall out between two to make the lv 10s.

People don't really get moved around properly so they are never really utilised properly anyway. Most of the time I don't really want people moved anyway.

I think maybe PA might have done a little better define the scope of the game. They have catered to the people who want 1000+ prison, and then added mechanics that would have been better suited to a smaller, more 'intimate' prisons, and also the opposite. I really think that they could really have had something if they focused on either small prisons with fewer more individual prisoners who offer individual challenges, or large 'themepark world' scale facility's where the focus is on the 'flow' and design. Instead they tried to do both, which means it doesn't have the options or data feedback for big prisons and the individual is lost. The individual also isn't developed enough to offer a real challenge for small prisons, they also don have many options available to offer a challenge - prisoner expressions are limited to fighting or not, going or no going to class or maybe digging a hole.