Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

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christopher1006
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Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Fri Sep 13, 2013 12:27 pm

While the contraband screen is useful for optimizing your checkpoints to stop your prisoners from getting those dreaded tools, I believe the contraband screen could become a lot more. Instead of just contraband make it a button called "Incidents" (example) which displays everything illicit that has happened in recent time as a gradient from green to red in each room based by taking in to account all incidents that have occurred there. The main part of this is that clicking the Incidents panel would give you options to use more buttons, each with its own use:

-Fights: This would allow the player to see the number of fights and murders that happened in each room/area by mousing over the selected room/area , otherwise it would display as a heat map going from a bright and happy green of safety to blood red signaling lots of fights. This way I would be able to easily see what areas are prisoners causing me grief so I would know to monitor their time in that room to understand what exactly is going wrong.

-Contraband: Of course this shouldn't go away, this is still a very helpful tool.

-Escapes: This would show discovered tunnels and by mousing over them would highlight the cell that it was dug from, this would be useful as, especially on larger prisons, it could be difficult to find a tunnel that one of your guards uncovered during a shakedown when you were more focused on the prisoner to make sure they didn't riot. It would also show escape attempts by having an icon of a prisoner in his cell which would show his routine for the day and end at the end of his escape attempt, be it the line going off the map of being led to solitary for the next 36 hours.

-Security: With the security office giving added 'security' to certain areas and guards I would imagine doing the same, not sure if CCTV does it or no, it'd be nice to see what that means. With Security selected then we can see from green to red, green being 100 percent secure and red being very low/none, it would help to understand how much is actually required to lock down a zone and make it very difficult for a prisoner to try anything there.

If anyone else can think of more views or ways to make the current ones I've come up with better feel free to post. 'I don't like it' or similar comments isn't acceptable, if you don't like the idea that's fine but at least explain your thoughts on why you don't like it.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby Xoligy » Fri Sep 13, 2013 4:01 pm

Fights: Find this abit pointless myself seeing as its the needs that start the fights not the room they are in, id personally find an overlay of the needs panel on my screen more useful than a tab i would never use. But if its "optional" then whatever, but i dont see people using it myself.

Escapes: People keep saying move this in there, but i have no issues finding the tunnels i guess i have better eye sight than everyone? Personally i think all thats needed is more information on people that have escaped. Im happy with just a simple list but people keep saying they want a slugs trail like they get with contraband view. But seeing as you dont know when the escape has happened and it could be days before you noticed that trail might of already been deleted, where as a list is permanent.

Security: Quite like the idea of this and see what your saying, security has a radius in which it works. This be good on many things like laundry i feel but there needs to be leeway with that setting because if a circle is used your always going to have a prisoner with dirty clothing unless you build more than whats necessary of laundry rooms and overlap them in stupid places. Or is suppose it could be a square radius box and the user gets to say which laundry room does which areas....
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:11 pm

Fights- to clarify this is a visual way to show how many fight/murders happen in each room or area so you can, with the use of the security tab, optimize your prison to make those areas safer.

Escapes- I agree currently there's not much of a problem seeing tunnels as most prisons so far aren't what the size that we should expect. I would think we could easily see 600-1000 prisoners and I personally don't want to look at all those cells to find a tunnel.

Security- okay I think understand what you're saying. A laundry room should prioritize the shortest route to cells wihout clothes unless we were able to assign work areas to certain cell blocks. A radius would be annoying because, as you stated, it'd just require overlapping areas of control.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby iScripters » Sun Sep 15, 2013 3:57 pm

Tunnels are visible in the Deployment screen. Very easy to spot.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Sun Sep 15, 2013 4:26 pm

iScripters wrote:Tunnels are visible in the Deployment screen. Very easy to spot.


That sounds more like a bug than a feature that stays forever, not to mention it would be easier to have a view designed for seeing escapes as well as all discovered tunnels and their openings. It makes more sense to a have a view designed to find info about escapes rather than using your deployment button to find them.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby neale1993 » Sun Sep 15, 2013 4:38 pm

-Fights: This in some degree could help. I mean in combination with the security, having a heat map would be useful to pinpoint where fights are breaking out, investigate possible security issues in that area (Metal detectors, guards nearby etc) and use that to cut down the risk of an issue in that location.

-Contraband: Obviously will stay. What i would like though is to be able to click the icons that are found (from the status bar) and then jump or cycle through in the prison where the item(s) was found. It annoys me every time my guards find a gun and I cant actually find it in the prison itself to locate where it came from and why it wasn't detected.

-Escapes: I feel this can be weird if they actually escaped. I mean a tunnel can be found with a shakedown anyway, and that would make the escape route obvious. As to them running out of the front door then that would make sense, but again if they can do that freely then you know where the issues lie: the entrance. A list of recent escapes could be useful though, just to see how many people have escaped and how long ago it was. A warning sound (similar to a death or contraband being found) should go off in the event someone has escaped i think.

-Security: This would be insanely useful. Having a room by room or even just heat map type of system to show the security levels in rooms and across the prison would be useful. Where metal detectors, guards patrolling or deployed, security doors, cameras etc would affect the "safeness" of a location. I feel this would also lead on to affect the levels of how safe the prisoners feel in the prison also.

I think the ideas you have are pretty good, my thought however is whether it actually belongs in the contraband screen or not. Or if there's a whole separate screen for this information. A screen where you get a basic map or overview of the prison, then just tick what you want to show/hide. I can see where your coming from however, it could work in the screen if done right. I suppose with the show/hide suggestion contraband could be in there too so.

Good ideas though.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Tue Sep 17, 2013 12:20 am

-contraband: For figuring out where an item was found just zoom out and open the contraband view. Look for the red icon that has the item you want and mouse over it, this alows you to where the prisoner got the item and where he went with it.

Escapes: Walking out the front door was merely an example. To keep with the idea of walking out the front door, how about if you have a couple prisoners working in the kitchen and they walk out to go get ingredients, well if I notice there's a steady stream of escapes and use my handy dandy escape view and make the front entrance staff only to fix this problem.

As for that last paragraph, I feel the easiest way to clarify that is to ask that you read my first paragraph.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby Axios » Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:19 am

christopher1006 wrote:While the contraband screen is useful for optimizing your checkpoints to stop your prisoners from getting those dreaded tools, I believe the contraband screen could become a lot more. Instead of just contraband make it a button called "Incidents" (example) which displays everything illicit that has happened in recent time as a gradient from green to red in each room based by taking in to account all incidents that have occurred there. The main part of this is that clicking the Incidents panel would give you options to use more buttons, each with its own use:

-Fights: This would allow the player to see the number of fights and murders that happened in each room/area by mousing over the selected room/area , otherwise it would display as a heat map going from a bright and happy green of safety to blood red signaling lots of fights. This way I would be able to easily see what areas are prisoners causing me grief so I would know to monitor their time in that room to understand what exactly is going wrong.

-Contraband: Of course this shouldn't go away, this is still a very helpful tool.

-Escapes: This would show discovered tunnels and by mousing over them would highlight the cell that it was dug from, this would be useful as, especially on larger prisons, it could be difficult to find a tunnel that one of your guards uncovered during a shakedown when you were more focused on the prisoner to make sure they didn't riot. It would also show escape attempts by having an icon of a prisoner in his cell which would show his routine for the day and end at the end of his escape attempt, be it the line going off the map of being led to solitary for the next 36 hours.

-Security: With the security office giving added 'security' to certain areas and guards I would imagine doing the same, not sure if CCTV does it or no, it'd be nice to see what that means. With Security selected then we can see from green to red, green being 100 percent secure and red being very low/none, it would help to understand how much is actually required to lock down a zone and make it very difficult for a prisoner to try anything there.

If anyone else can think of more views or ways to make the current ones I've come up with better feel free to post. 'I don't like it' or similar comments isn't acceptable, if you don't like the idea that's fine but at least explain your thoughts on why you don't like it.


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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby neale1993 » Tue Sep 17, 2013 3:53 pm

christopher1006 wrote:-contraband: For figuring out where an item was found just zoom out and open the contraband view. Look for the red icon that has the item you want and mouse over it, this alows you to where the prisoner got the item and where he went with it.

Escapes: Walking out the front door was merely an example. To keep with the idea of walking out the front door, how about if you have a couple prisoners working in the kitchen and they walk out to go get ingredients, well if I notice there's a steady stream of escapes and use my handy dandy escape view and make the front entrance staff only to fix this problem.



I understand what you mean with the contraband, but I can never seem to find a gun on the map, to mouse over it. In my prison i have around 6 -700 places to search, it can turn up quite a bit of contraband at times. But I can never find one specific item that has been found to find out where it came from. Which is why I suggested you would be able to click the icon on the shakedown overlay which will take you to or cycle through instances of that item being found on the map.

This is an issue that needs looking at. At the moment, I have... lets say "borrowed and manipulated" an idea i saw on the steam workshop. This seems to tackle runaways, but as your not actually meant to be able to build on the road i feel this may become impossible soon.

Image

I dont quite understand what you mean when you say about using the escape view in that instance however. Forgive me if i am wrong, but do you mean that you would use the escape view to be able to pinpoint that is where they have escaped, or too see how many people are escaping?

Normally with the tunnels, if they are discovered in a shakedown the whole tunnel from the cell to the escape burrow is uncovered making the cell it was dug from obvious anyways.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby Xoligy » Tue Sep 17, 2013 5:56 pm

christopher1006 wrote:Fights- to clarify this is a visual way to show how many fight/murders happen in each room or area so you can, with the use of the security tab, optimize your prison to make those areas safer.

Escapes- I agree currently there's not much of a problem seeing tunnels as most prisons so far aren't what the size that we should expect. I would think we could easily see 600-1000 prisoners and I personally don't want to look at all those cells to find a tunnel.

Security- okay I think understand what you're saying. A laundry room should prioritize the shortest route to cells wihout clothes unless we were able to assign work areas to certain cell blocks. A radius would be annoying because, as you stated, it'd just require overlapping areas of control.


Sorry i forgot about this post.

Fights:
Like i said, if they are fighting then its because their needs are not being met. If at a later date code is added so that they will just randomly fight for no reason for example "You stole my snickers!" then sure it might become useful. But, with it being random, that means they could be alot of fights in a corridor for no reason unlesss its coded to work on a percent base like 5% for corridors 20% work, 15% yard etc etc

Escapes:
Yes i see what you mean, this is why i, when i play do searches during eat times etc. of cause when the prison is alot larger it could become a pain, but then this is the players fault :P Maybe something could be added or researched to check the structural integraty, or maybe prisoners that rat or something i dunno not thought abot it, thinking more about a brew right now.

Security:
Yes if the area was circular then it would be a pain but, if it was a square area maybe that could work out more. Like i said further the distance the less priority they get, of cause im on about laundry now, but it can also work with security the closer they are the more compliant the prisoners are the further away the more chance for mischievous actions.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:37 am

Fights- I understand what you're saying in terms of just glancing at prisoner needs. This would be more useful on prisons where the player has the simple goal of crushing all hope. If you know where most of the prisoners are boiling over then you can assign more guards to that one area, make as many prisoners suppressed as possible, split them up, etc.

Escapes: It's the players fault when they want a 1000 prisoner complex but can't see the tunnels? I'm not sure I understand.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby Xoligy » Thu Sep 19, 2013 1:41 am

christopher1006 wrote:Fights- I understand what you're saying in terms of just glancing at prisoner needs. This would be more useful on prisons where the player has the simple goal of crushing all hope. If you know where most of the prisoners are boiling over then you can assign more guards to that one area, make as many prisoners suppressed as possible, split them up, etc.

Escapes: It's the players fault when they want a 1000 prisoner complex but can't see the tunnels? I'm not sure I understand.


Fights: I suppose no harm in adding something like this is people really want it, not arguing jut trying to see what use its going to be thats all.

Escapes: Like said i dont think they are that hard to see you do a search adn there cell lights up saying "Room requirements not met!" plus you can always over lay the tunnel tool if your unsure, but again. If people really want it then, no quarrel here.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby christopher1006 » Thu Sep 19, 2013 2:20 am

The escapes is to tunnels bu lt personally I'd find it better for the use of actual runners. Now thinking, it'd be a better feature for a notification system to tell you where rooms are not legal. I still say tunnels should be shown in the escape panel in order to have a way to view where it is and how far all of the prisoners are getting on a centralized screen. A notification though would make it easier if you're just interested in filling in holes.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby Brnthay » Thu Sep 19, 2013 4:23 am

Actually see were fight are happening would mean that I could put more guards in that room. Add more CCTV cameras. Escape view would show mean were I had the most problems. I one prison I accidentally create a security problem. The only way I found about that problem was to watch an escape happen. This would show mean were I had the problem and basically how to fix it.
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Re: Suggestion: Upgrade the contraband screen

Postby _alphaBeta_ » Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:38 pm

Having these overlays is a good idea, and has been discussed here. As I say in the thread, I also agree that tools like this are going to be necessary with huge prisons someday. The player will become more reliant on their staff, perhaps investigators, to show what happened while you were on the other side of the map looking at something else.

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