[Brainstorming] Ideas to improve this awesome game.

[Shuro]

Better way of getting prisoner, it the current situation, your prison gets spammed with prisoners, the first ones to early, you should add an "now open" button or so, and a normal prison only gets a limit amount over maximum, then its full.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

I think prisoners should no longer be dropped off at the deliveries room, and instead given their own room titled "prisoner intake" or something similar. Perhaps the trucks would only drop off prisoners here, allowing us to make the zone secure and prevent escapes before theyre taken into the complex.

Further to this, it would be very cool if the prisoner bus could be made to pull into a gated enclosure, unload the prisoners, and then leave the secure enclosure only after the prisoners are beyond a closed gate.

[Diago21]

I definitely think that different backgrounds for maps would be a fantastic idea, imagine and Alcatraz type island template. Or maybe one in the desert? Or even one in the city, but with other buildings on the border of the map.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

I definitely think that different backgrounds for maps would be a fantastic idea, imagine and Alcatraz type island template. Or maybe one in the desert? Or even one in the city, but with other buildings on the border of the map.

Screw it. I want a full-on science fiction moon prison for an expansion after the full game is released.

[Shuro]

I definitely think that different backgrounds for maps would be a fantastic idea, imagine and Alcatraz type island template. Or maybe one in the desert? Or even one in the city, but with other buildings on the border of the map.

Screw it. I want a full-on science fiction moon prison for an expansion after the full game is released.

expansion? Screw it, include it into the next build! Awsome, with aliens as prisoner!

[Mathieu]

The staff in the prison should have their own facilities like other prisoners. For eating, sleeping. And they should go home twice week so we would have some timeshift to organize.

And during the day, the planning should be organize to meet the planning requirement of the inmates (no guards lunch during free time, or during the canteen...)

What do you think ?

Great topic by the way. Hope the dev find ideas in it.

[Pixelchaser]

id like to seperate prisoners and have their "blocks" A block, B block, C block...... all with different regimes. but those in different blocks are given a statistic so they dont get on with "other" block inmates. thus having to control the regimes more explicitly.

[Rhodri]

Forgive me if these have already been suggested, but keeping them stored in me head has been keeping me awake at night!

Flexible sentences

Once prison sentences have implemented, well behaved prisoners could have their sentence reduced, while those who constantly fight, get caught carrying contraband and weapons, try to escape have their terms increased. Worst case scenario, they could end up on deathrow for the murder of a fellow inmate or guard. Which brings me on my next point.


Deathrow

Those on deathrow can be sent to separate block within the prison and have separate facilities and unique needs eg, spiritual as we’ve seen in the tutorial. From my understanding of the American judicial system (which I presume PA is following), some prisoners on deathrow live in limbo as they await for appeals to go through the system, sometimes up to many years. As such, prisoners on deathrow could be ‘processed’ within a few ingame hours (players get a bonus if the condemned gets his last meal in time?), or face an indefinite period of time on deathrow, which players will have to consider when building the facility as it could lead to a backlog. Another possibility just came into my head, a viewing chamber in the execution room?


Staff Regimes

Would like to have the guards to automatically follow a daily pattern like the prisoners, for nothing annoys me more than forgetting to send guards to the canteen, where a fight subsequently breaks out. A regime tab can tell a certain amount of guards to secure an area before prisoners arrive. No more bloodbaths in the shower room (no pun intended) for me! And should that happen, once the prisoner regime ticks over into the next event, janitors (I prefer the term ‘housekeeper’) can move in the clean up the area. While this is going on, another group of guards are carrying out a routine search in the cells looking for contraband. And say during prisoner freetime, a bunch of staff members can go to a staff room for their own needs, for a happy workforce is an effective workforce!


Description and attributes

How much food can a fridge store, how much does the workbench effect ‘exercise’, what’s the differences between the 2 TVs, how many meals in an ingame hour can a cook make, how much faster can the CCTVs prevent fights and alert guards to fights and (when properly implemented) does the security room act as a multiplier? All these and many more can be answered with a simple text description!

[metalace21]

Guard Roles - Guard Tower, Gate Guard, etc etc

Prisoner Processing - when they arrive it would be neat to see them get their mugshots, fingerprints taken and get their prison garb then getting their evaluations (medical, mental), then getting their classification as to what level of prisoner they are, generally the rating is 1-5, found a good article online about it

just thought these things may be neat if they haven't been mentioned previously.

[Whyman]

Better way of getting prisoner, it the current situation, your prison gets spammed with prisoners, the first ones to early, you should add an "now open" button or so, and a normal prison only gets a limit amount over maximum, then its full.

I agree with this 100% also dosent the prisoners ever get out? Are they all in there for life?
If there was a system for when they had served thier time and got out that would be great.

[Ada]

id like to separate prisoners and have their "blocks" A block, B block, C block...... all with different regimes. but those in different blocks are given a statistic so they dont get on with "other" block inmates. thus having to control the regimes more explicitly.

That is a great idea and pretty easy to implement. Pixelchaser for president!

Guard Roles - Guard Tower, Gate Guard, etc etc

Prisoner Processing - when they arrive it would be neat to see them get their mugshots, fingerprints taken and get their prison garb then getting their evaluations (medical, mental), then getting their classification as to what level of prisoner they are, generally the rating is 1-5, found a good article online about it

just thought these things may be neat if they haven't been mentioned previously.

Great idea too. metalace21 for president aswell!

[thekev506]

really simple suggestion that doesn't need any explanation - bunk beds

[Rokusho]

I would like to see the following added:

Days of the week (perhaps a full calender added so we can have seasons), have certain events happen on certain days, such as trash collection only happens on certain days.

Chapel and Chaplain (already mentioned), I would like to see all inmates go to the chapel on Sundays say and also have the Chaplain to help keep the prisoners better behaved. Also good for executions. Some prisoners may totally reform and become very co-operative, making them targets for other prisoners.

Types of prisoners, you should know their crimes, so petty offenders will behave differently in general than death row inmates. Also, medically insane prisoners, who need regular sessions with the psychotherapist.

Have a progressive story mode, the first prison you build only houses inmates for short periods who are typically non-violent and well behaved, gradually building up to a full on death row prison for very violent offenders. Perhaps even a level where you get severely psychologically disturbed prisoners who need to be treated differently. Plus, very much like Theme Hospital, each level has a set of criteria to meet (prisoner capacity, cleanliness, reputation etc.).

Add in prison inspections, so inspectors come, have a tour. If they like what they see (ie. little mess, no rioting, every clean and in good repair) you get a bonus. If not, you get a penalty, or perhaps a challenge to get it "up to code" before a certain date

A way to control the flow of prisoners, perhaps a bureaucracy control panel to adjust some settings like this to be implemented

Weather affects, rain means everyone wants to stay indoors, baking sun makes prisoners more angry/thirsty from the heat

Prisoner processing. A room where prisoners are stripped, clothing stored, prison uniforms issued etc.

Different views on items, classify them by an item type or by room they typically belong to

Tooltips on the different items, describing what each item does and how it benefits/causes problems

CCTV cameras linked to a security room (where you can wire the cameras up to a specific security room monitor. Guards seeing bad behavior on monitors will trigger an alarm/go sort out the prisoners

Prisoners in staff only areas who get spotted should be punished

Laundry rooms get my vote. I want to see laundry having to be managed and get done, prisoners can help out here in a "work hour"

Another thing that gets my vote is assigning prisoners to blocks and being able to adjust each blocks regime independently. So I don't need to have everyone eating at once

Being able to control patrols of guards by the hour too, so they switch patrols when the prisoners move around

Staff rooms, staff toilets and staff canteens. They need to be looked after too!

Room inspections! Should be able to assign when these happen, everyone gets up and out of their cells and guards inspect each one. Would help cut down on contraband, escape tunnels etc.

Other kinds of contraband! Also being able to control what is contraband, so a lower security prison with less violent criminals may get extra perks such as cigarettes.

Prisoners eventually leave! Once they have served their time, they leave the prison and a bus or a car can come and pick them up

Special prisoners, built in with the story-line idea of Polaroids. They may randomly appear or be part of the story missions, usually have big impacts, or certain, very specific needs to satisfy. Like a mob-don, who needs lots of perks in his cell, otherwise he'll get everyone to riot more often. If you do satisfy him, he can help to make sure there is order in the prison.

Visitation rooms. Phone calls can only go so far, could even have some trailers where prisoner and visitors can get some privacy!

Prison breakouts! Some people come in to try and break a specific prisoner out, causing all kinds of disruptions

Different type of prisoners give you different amounts of money

Staff specific upgrades which can be researched

Well, this is all the ideas I have for now. I really think this game has so much potential to be really awesome. Will love to see how it turns out![/list]

[Scriptwolf]

I would like to see more meaningful prisoner profiles and interaction, so prisoners could belong to a gang and thier position in the gang e.g. Under boss, captain.

Also prisoners will make friends and enemies depending on crime, gang, race and other things. And colour does play a part in prison where they will keep to them selfs. Also depending on crime would also have prisoners react in a different way so a prisoner with rape or crimes against children will be targeted by other prisoners more often so you have to keep these prisoners segregated from the rest to stop them from being killed.

Also I would like to be able to interact with prisoners so as a warden you can find snitches who will generate reports. Or you could set up a private contraband buisness in the prison generating more money so you higher a prisoner to give out the contraband and gives you a cut of what he makes. Or even giving up whole parts of the prison to a gang underboss where he regulates what goes on in his section.

[Hessen]

I'm sure many of these have been thought of or are on the board for future development, but I'll add my 2p worth in anyway:

UI
- Zoom to cursor
- Fixed tooltip position and/or tooltip delay
- Resizeable UI
- Edge of screen scrolling

Gameplay
- Separate storymodes, challenge modes and sandbox modes
- A sandbox mode with unlimited money and definable parameters
- Prison Open/Closed switch (to receiving new inmates)
- Staff and Prisoner personalities

Cosmetics
- Carpet
- Fence to retain the ground type underneath it
- Bunkbeds
- Multiple colour options for everything, from placeable objects, to uniforms
- Community encouraged custom cosmetic objects (see RCT3)

Random last request
- Change the individual prisoner "needs" icons from +'s to the same coloured line style as the needs report tab from the psychologist