By painting a line down the cellblock you divide it into two, splitting the search cell block function into half blocks. Graphically it goes on top of existing materials so won't change your floors.
Other uses:
- Divide work areas - say if you just want inmates to work the sinks in the kitchen and not food, or split a workshop into press/saw divisions.
- Set up multiple security areas - say you want to split up high/med/low security inmates in the canteen or yard, or designate entrances for each group through an otherwise open area, keep a secure zone around a staff entrance, etc. Obviously stepping over the line is the easiest thing in the world for a prisoner to do, and you could set punishments for area violations in policy.
- Create a wall of doors you can unlock all at once - the unlocked area option is great for opening a lot of doors at once, but it's both ends of a room, if you could divide the room you could use the unlock area to set up an 'airlock' without extra redundant doors and walls.
- Pretty up the joint.- It just seems pretty prisony, right? There should be multiple colours of course, in case you want to run a red line in high security or something, but this is just a player side decision and doesn't effect the sole outcome of dividing the area on the deployment screen.
- Put your low risk inmates in the cells nearest the perimeter wall.
EDIT: This idea now has a Mantis page here where you can express your support (or disapproval, but I mean... come on).
Nekjjw has also made something along these lines (lol) as a mod, and I thought I'd pop his post on the front page in lieu of a round of applause. Go and give the mod a big thumbs up, why don't you.
nekjjw wrote:I've long wanted to see wayfinding lines in PA, I've brought 'Deployment Lines' out as a Mod which will allow you to achieve a painted line effect.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =322850092
Unfortunately due to the limitations imposed by spare tile availability in the tileset.png, and a compatibility effort I'm driving forward with mods that myself and jordyarm are developing, this has only been achievable with white tile and concrete backgrounds so far. Hopefully IV with provide better support for materials soon so that I can expand on this mod with a range of other materials as backgrounds.
In the meantime hopefully some of you will find this useful, enjoy!