[Suggestion] Combine Laundry Baskets and related thoughts

[Kilyle]

Well, my jail will once again not make it to the education grant on account of laundry service problems. I may still be doing something wrong, but after reviewing the general process as noted on this Steam post, I think there need to be a couple additions.

First, I should be able at any point to click on a uniform or basket that's out of place and add a "fetch" job. Not sure on terminology, but like "Return to Laundry" or "Pick Up" or whatever. There's a bunch of uniforms that somehow got spilled all over one room, and a basket in the wall between two cells, and everyone seems to be ignoring it. I can't do anything about it even though logically I should be able to tell the group there's a thing I spot that needs to be fixed so go fix it.

Secondly, if the sticking point is a full stack of 20, then this should be adjusted to take account of laundry services that handle groups that aren't in nice twenty-inmate sets (I prefer to work in 8, 16, 24, 32's myself). If the laundry service handles fewer than 20 inmates, it should use that number as the max; if more than 20 but less than a multiple of 20, it should somehow be able to split the job for better efficiency and fewer problems.

Thirdly, the workers/inmates should be able to consolidate or combine loads. I understand not using a washing machine on fewer than 20 items (except in cases of my second point there), but surely they could see that there's a bunch of uniforms in this one cart and a bunch in the other cart and stick them all in the same cart. I'd say they should look for this whenever they're standing there doing nothing and there's two partially filled carts nearby, but especially in two cases: If the number of uniforms of the same type would add up to a full stack, or if there's just 1-2 uniforms in one basket and a good stack in another, so that it frees up the smaller basket (might look for large inequalities, like a difference of 3 or more, and move from the small to the large).

Fourthly, if there's nothing to do in the laundromat itself, they should be scouring their route to find items that've been dropped or carts out of place or something. Also, carts should bind to their laundry or origin, and I should be able to switch that at will. (I should actually be able to name rooms in some fashion, but that's a larger issue. At least being able to give them numbers and say "Laundry 2 has lots of baskets and Laundry 1 has very few, go take a couple over to Laundry 1" would help, and wouldn't require the nonsensical "dismantle" step at every turn.) Might be nice to have the carts switch colors (or a colored band on the otherwise orange cart) so it's easier to tell which ones are going where.

Fifthly, if I connect a laundry to a shower and there's a table in the shower, they should deliver a number of clean uniforms to that table equal to the number of inmates who make use of that shower (or until the table is full). I can understand not programming in the ability to do this for all room types but at least for showers. They shouldn't have to return to their rooms to get dressed in clean clothes, and shouldn't have to rely on the laundry being able to get clean clothes to their beds in a timely manner; in fact, I should be able to assign cells to showers and then have the laundry happen exclusively through the showers if I want (thus reducing the things the computer fails at figuring out).

Sixthly, it'd be nice to be able to have some number of extra uniforms stacked on a table in the laundry itself, and that during free time if someone needs fresh clothes they can nip off to the laundry and grab some. This mechanic alone would probably solve some of my problems.

And seventhly, I agree with what someone said on a different post, that the Laundry job could be combined with the Cleaning job, that inmates whose laundry duties are done would be free to pick up mops and help out in other ways, rather than get paid to stand there milling about. Though this switch shouldn't happen while certain criteria exist to make laundry jobs still important. Laundry should still be primary when there are uniforms waiting to be processed, and whenever there is even one inmate (of the cells connected to this laundry) whose Clothing need is above a certain threshold.

With some or all of these put into place, I think laundry would be handled a lot more smoothly and without so much "Why are you just standing there when the laundry is right there" moments. And fewer riots over clothing.

[Citizen]

Eighthly: My prison is now broken due to the laundry. Everyone is pissed off because they have no clothes. Meanwhile, 10 prisoners mill about the laundry shop starring at the washing machine, basket and ironing board doing nothing.

Needs fixing!!

[aubergine18]

Do you have enough laundry rooms for the number of prisoners you have?

[Kilyle]

Do you have enough laundry rooms for the number of prisoners you have?

Well, according to the Wiki, I have an overabundance. Two machines should be sufficient for 128 inmates; I've been sticking to 108 inmates for the moment, trying to figure out how to balance the rest of my system.

I have three laundry rooms, each distributing to a different set of cells (and a few other rooms where showers exist, though I have no evidence that that does anything... although the two cells that definitely get served by janitors are somehow code-wise connected to the Common Room, since their doors open into that room and all the room-related things I can do count them as one unit). Each laundry room has at least two machines and four ironing boards, plus a small variety of laundry baskets, and I recently added tables because one site said tables might change how janitors make use of laundry rooms.

I've seen inmates fill the machines and iron the clothes and move bundles of bunched-up clothes around, so some of it is working. But there are baskets with 1-3 uniforms in them here and there, and dirty uniforms on the floor here and there, and given the behavior I just saw with those Common Room cells, it seems like if an inmate picks up a fresh uniform and drops their new one on the floor, that somehow makes it so that only one uniform in the entire room is targeted for removal, so if inmates are changing clothes faster than janitors are fetching their old clothes (which I'm doing in a desperate move to prevent riots while waiting for a couple grants to complete), the extra uniforms just fill up the room. The only option I have when selecting them is "Dump." They don't seem to have the "bring to laundry" (however it's phrased) job anymore, when you hover over them.

I have seen lots of fresh uniforms in the holding cell. Maybe I should just move a bunch of prisoners to the holding cell for a while.

But seriously, this needs to be fixed. And I'd say the most immediate fix would be having tables inside Shower rooms count as places that the laundry fills up with fresh uniforms, and that inmates make use of.

Also, if I direct an inmate with a severe need for clothing to a cell with a fresh uniform in it, then even if it's not really time for him to be in the room (lockup, sleep, or free time), he ought to at least look around for a couple minutes, notice a uniform and change. He shouldn't run off because he's supposed to be in the yard or canteen or whatever, or during free time decide it's more important to fill his minuscule other needs than to grab the clean clothes that seem to be his primary desire. Inmates should always try to fill their biggest desire first if it's available.

[5hifty]

First off, Kudos to you for figuring it out the numbers as far as you have - I've been having troubles with laundeys since their inception.

Dumping uniforms is a good work around to restart the laundry system. As you have found out, it's extremely easy for uniforms to just get outside the loop - the spill you talked about (not sure how they happen, but I've seen them) normally results in those clothes staying there for a long time, if not indefinitely.

I think some of the problem comes down to the number of uniforms in the prison being linked to the number of prisoners. When some of the uniforms fall in between the cracks, there just isn't enough uniforms in the cycle.

What I do is then dump large stacks of uniforms that are in the wrong place - it's time consuming and tedious as hell, but all new uniforms as brought into the prison and generally make it into circulation. It's not great, but it helps.