Holding Cells whats the point?

[sburymozza]

What is the whole point of holding cell? I understand that if you don't have a cell they get put in there, but whats stopping you (i do) accepting prisoners and leaving them cuffed up out side and when a prisoner gets released 1 left out side gets bought in. I do this with no problem, a problem pops up when you have 20+ sat outside and you then make a new cell block and all of them are integrated into the prison, then after days left outside there needs are all over the shop so a riot starts. But if you don't make any cells you keep and keep them out side you still get the daily allowance for each of them.

[xander]

What is the whole point of holding cell? I understand that if you don't have a cell they get put in there, but whats stopping you (i do) accepting prisoners and leaving them cuffed up out side and when a prisoner gets released 1 left out side gets bought in. I do this with no problem, a problem pops up when you have 20+ sat outside and you then make a new cell block and all of them are integrated into the prison, then after days left outside there needs are all over the shop so a riot starts. But if you don't make any cells you keep and keep them out side you still get the daily allowance for each of them.

At the moment, nothing. However, that is clearly "Doing it Wrong"(tm), and will likely get fixed before the game is actually released.

xander

[blipadouzi]

Well, I wouldn't say "nothing"... Holding Cells become useful when your prison gets overcrowded. If you have a cell capacity of 50, and you intake 57 prisoners... those additional 7 prisoners will go into the Holding Cell until 7 prisoners die or are released, or until you build additional cells.

[sburymozza]

Well, I wouldn't say "nothing"... Holding Cells become useful when your prison gets overcrowded. If you have a cell capacity of 50, and you intake 57 prisoners... those additional 7 prisoners will go into the Holding Cell until 7 prisoners die or are released, or until you build additional cells.

Yer that would be good but theirs no incentive to get them in you can leave them outside cuffed and still get paid for them and not have any of the bother of sorting out needs, Should prisoners die if not fed? that would stop me leaving them outside and also insure there is ample food?

[blipadouzi]

Yer that would be good but theirs no incentive to get them in you can leave them outside cuffed and still get paid for them and not have any of the bother of sorting out needs, Should prisoners die if not fed? that would stop me leaving them outside and also insure there is ample food?

Yeah but leaving them outside... don't their needs grow, and therefore they'd be more likely to riot once they are brought inside?

[xander]

As noted above, this is clearly evidence of an incomplete feature. I am willing to be dollars to donuts that in the final version of the game, keeping prisoners locked up in the deliveries area will not be possible, or will have severe negative effects.

xander

[sburymozza]

Yer that would be good but theirs no incentive to get them in you can leave them outside cuffed and still get paid for them and not have any of the bother of sorting out needs, Should prisoners die if not fed? that would stop me leaving them outside and also insure there is ample food?

Yeah but leaving them outside... don't their needs grow, and therefore they'd be more likely to riot once they are brought inside?

Yer they do but if you have a prison of 100 you prob have 1 or 2 leaving at any given point, so then 1 person gets bought in. All your inmates are happy apart from the guy bought in from outside he aint going to riot on his tod. As said at start the prob is when you have a few waiting out side and then make a new cell block then you have a number of unhappy customers.

As Xander said its not a complete thing so expect changes to it, so you can't stoke pill ppl outside

[CrazyHazy]

I'm sure that they will have some sort of use in the main game to deal with arriving prisoners. For example, like in most Hollywood prison films the prisoners arrive, get processed then led to a cell. So maybe in the full game there might be some sort of this also so you will need to process prisoners before just locking them up.

[Maya]

Well, I wouldn't say "nothing"... Holding Cells become useful when your prison gets overcrowded. If you have a cell capacity of 50, and you intake 57 prisoners... those additional 7 prisoners will go into the Holding Cell until 7 prisoners die or are released, or until you build additional cells.

Yer that would be good but theirs no incentive to get them in you can leave them outside cuffed and still get paid for them and not have any of the bother of sorting out needs, Should prisoners die if not fed? that would stop me leaving them outside and also insure there is ample food?

You could set yourself a handicap by forbiding yourself to leave them outside as long as you have no cell (that is what i do right now) so you have to put them anywhere while they're waiting for an own cell. It's up to you if you just want to try to take as much advantage of the game mechanics as possible or if you set yourself some rules to make the game harder/more realistic/whatever you want or to make useless features usefull (like holding cells^^)

[McLumberjack]

Judging from the alpha video (I forget which one one, 10? 11?) that went over the temperature gauge it's not unhappy prisoners that riot, it's violent prisoners that have a low threshold. They riot when conditions in the prison deteriorate. If you've got 25 angry prisoners chained up in the car park then that's going to raise the temperature inside the prison anyway, and you'll get a riot.

That's how it SHOULD work. If unprocessed prisoners aren't contributing to the danger level then that's a bug, but the mechanic to deal with leaving them there already exists.

[_alphaBeta_]

While it may be possible to do so since that part isn't finished yet, leaving prisoners cuffed in your delivery area doesn't leave much of a game to play. They probably don't count towards much of anything or affect the gameplay, but what's the point in leaving them there?

As to the holding cell's current functionality, this was discussed most recently here. Since this thread was created, the privacy need has been implemented (and so was the necessity to have enclosed cells) and is tracked, but doesn't currently contribute to prisoner anger or the danger level of the prison, much like the laundry need. I'm assuming the developers wanted to ease this in and not have everyone's prison uncontrollably riot like when laundry was first introduced. That is, until all the kinks are worked out, if there are any with this need.

Once privacy truly affects gameplay, it will not be possible to have an indefinitely large holding cell without constant disorder.

[TooDAMNMuch]

pretty sure they'll eventually realize no guard is watching over them and make a break for it escaping if you leave them outside in the delivery area, not positive this happens in the current alpha but i know i've seen it work like that a few times before.

[sburymozza]

Dose not happen in the current game,