yuk wrote:All of these things are such big features....it's so awful they aren't mapped yet. I think they mentioned working on hooks so HOPEFULLY they're going to get that done.
As for my Prison it's 20% cutoff (IIRC, I started a new one ha ha) but there's over 1k prisoners, which makes a queue. I have noticed sometimes prisoners who just arrived are up for parole as well...that doesn't seem normal.
How do you use the rooms etc to maximise? So far I just have dorms and lots of reform programs. It's a huge struggle making sure there's jobs for everyone and that's another reason I want those 2% graders out of there....to let the other guys get jobs. They don't rotate, the same x amount of prisoners get the jobs first. It's not even based on closeness or chance.
Problem with minsec and that is the lower payments. The only reason I am moving guys around is to make space and stop wasting reformery on them lol. I know what you mean about the 8th update causing a huge letdown. I'm not even sure I like what's in it and it's making me really sluggish because I feel like it's not worth it
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Well I think Update 8 could have been a bit better especially if it is going to be the last Update for now. A last big feature Update and after that only bugfixing if there are some. It's not like they can't come back to the game in the future for DLCs/Addons or whatever and I'd gladly pay another few bucks for that. That said some features in Update 8 are quite nice...
- Work/Lockdown and Work/Freetime regime slots (which is one I wanted to have for a long time now, even I wish there'd be a regime slot type for "Commonroom" too as an additional alternative to Yard to have more variety, especially in a shared zone prison with rotating regimes.)
- The TV/Radio rework
[*Long awaited Menu rework (though I would also have liked to see a rework of the Reports because the Reports book is really clusterf*cked sometimes and some of the tabs cause huge delays when open. On top of that they don't provide nearly enough information on how your prison is actually doing... you don't even have statistics on how many prisoners per security level released in a time period and all such things. Yeah the grading menu is doing that a bit but pretty shallow to say at least.) - World Scripts for modding (though I still have to check them out once I'm migrated to Update 8. I'm already curious how useful they are going to be... and if one is able to refer to "this" Properties set on that script outside with other scripts)
- Various other small improvements/bug fixes which are always welcome.
Too bad we can't just pick up the game once they stop development and implement everything lacking with mods because most of the stuff in the game seems pretty much hardcoded to me... A lot of the things seem to be compiled into the .exe which means that most of the things can never be modified or extended upon.
By the way... Payments for MinSec are only lower on FIRST Intake... but the DAILY federal grant per prisoner is the same for every Security level... so if you decide to downgrade a MaxSec Prisoner to MinSec you don't lose money at all... They changed that behaviour a long time ago because people where abusing the system by manually recategorizing MinSec prisoners to MaxSec = Profit.
That mechanic is good because of this behaviour my mod can recategorize Prisoners based on Good behaviour time and I don't lose any money because of changing a prisoner's category... and since the automatic recategorizing priorites downgrading prisoners from higher security levels to lower security levels it constantly makes room in the higher security levels (meaning more intakes of MaxSec than MedSec than MinSec, with MinSec only being taken in if there is noone egligble for downgrading at the time of intake).
For a while I thought that the dailay federal grant should be based on the time without misconduct or on the seriousness of the crimes comitted or something, but I guess that that would be less transparent and there would have to be some information on a prisoner's repsheet how much that particular prisoner is worth every day and why... and for the total federal grant each day sum up the indivudal grants per prisoner.
As for using the rooms to maximize:
For Reform Rating I'm using that guy/girls (can't decide because the name sounds girly but I'm not sure because I don't know him/her
) prisons as example/inspiration for my own prisons:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... crollTop=0That player has a lot of concept prisons... some are quite interesting in design and layout. The player is often building absolutely every possible item for need satisfaction everywhere... in Canteens/Yards/Cells etc. And thereby the prisoners are "happy" most of the time, which encourages them for reform programs... which means the Reform rating skyrockets.
Also I'm scheduling at least 6 hours (currently I'm experimenting also with 8 hours) of work every day so that prisoners who are still not convinced to do reform programs at least get a high reform rating by working a lot.
The Health Rating is upped by having High Quality/High Quantity food at least 2 times a day. I have 2 x 2 hours of Eat spread over the day. (In the morning after shower, and 8 hours later again). The well fed status effects caused by the 2 Eat times are barely enough to push the Health rating to 5.
Security Rating is pushed by having enough Lock Up over the day. I think currently I'm using 6 hours of sleep + 4 hours of Lock Up every day. the 4 hours of Lockup are 2 x 2 hours spread over the day after the work hours, followed by Yard time... so that their freedom need doesn't rise too much. The rest is done by random supression due to Solitary. I currently put gang members all to SuperMax... and everyone in SuperMax is under Armed Guard supression pretty much 24/7 (if their rep isn't stoical, then nothing helps anyways)... that takes the air out of the gang members.
The Punishment Rating normally goes up by long sentence time itself, but is also affected by the Lock Up regimes.
That said I'm using a shared zones prison... with rotating regimes so that the MinSec, MedSec, MaxSec and SuperMax prisoners almost never meet. Only the cellblocks for the 4 security levels, which are like 4 quadrants, are designated.
They share a centered work/reform area... and it's rotated around in 4 hour shifts. First MinSec 4 hours, then MedSec 4 hours, then MaxSec 4 hours and repeat... so the Work/Reform area is in use 24/7.
The single shared centered canteen is used in that rotation scheme, which means my two providing Kitchens are preparing meals pretty much 24/7... and since there is always someone prisoners working there it's maximizing their efficiency.
I have 2 yards... each is shared by two Security Levels.... MinSec+MedSec and MaxSec+SuperMax, using zoned airlocks so that only the 2 types can enter. Only one security level is present in the yard due to the regime rotation. It's basically to get the prisoners away from the work area or canteen to make room for another Security level.
Basically 1 Security Level is Locked Up, 1 Security Level is Eating, 1 Security Level is working, 1 Security Level is in the Yard... rinse and repeat.
The guards move with the Security levels... so if the SuperMax people are locked down in the cell block the armed guards are patrolling there. If they are in the Yard the Armed guards move with them to the yard. If they are in the Canteen they move with them to the canteen.
Generally I'm using quite a lot of zoned airlocks for doors so that only a particular Security level can enter through that door... and with that directing/regulating the flow of prisoners.
And now to the best part: Since the Gangleaders try to stay out of fights almost 100% the time they have a long time without misbehaviour. I currently have an additional 3 prisoner SuperMax Cellblock just for the 3 Gang Leaders that is entirely encapusled from the rest of the Prison (surrounded by Staff Area)... the area provides everything to keep the Gang Leaders happy. The cells have a rating of 10, so it's almost guranteed that only the gang leaders deserve them since they are the only SuperMax Prisoners that can make it for more than 10 days without misconduct due to their "don't interfere" behaviour. With that I ensure that they can never recruit anyone else to their gangs, but the gangs don't go mad... because their Leaders aren't locked down. They are just seperated.
It's designed for 240 prisoners in each Min/Med/Max/SuperMax, since I'm always using packets of 20 cells (10 on each side of the hallway, a habit I developed due to Small Pipe length). Together with the Protective Custody wing and DeathRow which are seperate it has a prisoner capacity over 1000. My computer's processor basically can't handle more than that since it's only a first generation i7 860, after a 1000 prisoners the slowdown becomes unbearable... and it used to be unbearable with 400-500 already before the performance updates. And yeah... the 240 SuperMax cells for gang members are quite filled up due to how many Med/Max Sec prisoners already arrive with that trait. I think the chance is 30% or something?
It's what I personally call the Ultimate Layout + Ultimate Regime.
It's not yet finished and I might have to rebuild it from scratch since I'm waiting for Update 8 to get "stable" and some changes would make it easier to rebuild than to adapt. I hate adapting/rebuilding stuff when the game has already slowed down to a crawl due to performance problems, I rather build the prison from scratch then and profit from the performance as long as there aren't staff/prisoners yet. But if it is ready I may upload a picture album to my own Steam Account.