[Suggestion] Traffic, area and staff control options

[HeroFV]

This started in another thread because I had trouble getting guards to properly station to open doors. I'm hoping to compile things here to get them read by the devs to get them implemented as I think these ideas are crucial. In a prison simulation, it's of utmost importance to have full control over traffic and how staff and areas behave!

Not everything on this list is my idea! I'm just trying to get it all together in one place as they are all very related. Feel free to suggest things that are similar and I'll add them in.

Things that should be added to the game:
- Priority settings for patrolling and stationed guards. I think this would be best implemented as a list with checkboxes including...

• Leave post for prisoner control.
• Leave post for prisoner escort.
• Leave post for search procedures.
• Leave post for unlocking doors.
• (Any other reason they would need to leave their post).

EDIT: This suggestion could also extend to all staff, giving a choice to better control who does what jobs. Basically, each type of staff would have a list of jobs they do and you can select what jobs they do or don't do. It was suggested to me that this could all be added as a bureaucracy unlockable titled "Staff Specialization" which I think is simply genius!
(of course they would leave for rest/emergencies, which leads me to suggest a setting of "shifts", meaning that they can't leave without a replacement taking over)

- Routes to show how staff should travel. I think this should be used like stationing. Select any areas you want staff to stay in and any areas linking them in travel. This way they won't just try the shortest route.
(I'm not sure this should be used for prisoners. I think they have enough control for the prisoners. Prisoners should be a bit unpredictable I think.)

- A "Secure" area designation. Using this will prevent any staff from going into this area without being told to. It would work like the opposite of "Staff Only" area designation. Or maybe simply making it so that staff avoid min/med/max security areas as adding a "secure" area will sort of overlap on the min/med/max sec areas, and this would cause the whole area designation to need to be reworked.

- An option to select multiple area types in deployment. This could be done as a checklist and displayed as stripes of color. If the "unlocked" area designation was changed to show by a green border then there would only be a need for 2 colors of stripes (staff is always allowed and 3 types of prisoners is simply white). This would add a lot of control for things like adding a gen-pop area of say min and med sec prisoners while only separating the max-sec. This would also open options like having an area connected to say a gen-pop area but only allowing access to one type (for example: min-sec prisoners to work in the workshop).

- Prioritizing jobs. Being able to set a "to do" as "high priority" makes a lot of sense. This is on the suggestions page but I want to endorse it and it's goes right in line with this thread.

- Door rights. Regular and/or staff doors could have a list of checkboxes to designate which personnel can access the door. This would help greatly in controlling staff traffic.

Other things that could be really cool/useful:
- Prisoner admission. I have seen people suggest more use of the holding cells as well as walking prisoners in a line, but both together is a great idea. It would make a lot of sense for the prisoners to be walked to the holding cell, chained together in a line, instead of just dropped at the deliveries and trusted to not just run. It makes sense that a government funding a prison wouldn't allow prisoners to be delivered without at least a holding cell to process them.

- A door/area schedule. This could be used to lockdown certain areas in certain parts of the day. For example. cell blocks could lockdown during sleep hours, while everything else unlocks for easy/safe access.

[HeroFV]

I have added in a couple things^^

[Pietro]

I was thinking of this in the past days:

allow multiple deployment tabs, for example one for each scheduled activity. More explicitly:
I would like a guard stationed in my showers, since many fights start there as they all are packed and angry because they're dirty. But it seems pointless to have a guard there also when my prisoners are working elsewhere. Same for workshop, laundry, yard and canteen.
So, I would like to assign guards to patrolling or to stationing dynamically: different patrols and different stationing places depending on the time of the day (or on the schedule.) Of course I still would like some fixed patrolling routes, such as dogs' ones. So, it's better to have at least one "permanent" tab, or perhaps a couple of configurations you can switch between, such as an emergency: all staff fall back to the entrance.

Sorry if this has been already proposed somewhere else..

P

[HeroFV]

I was thinking of this in the past days:

allow multiple deployment tabs, for example one for each scheduled activity. More explicitly:
I would like a guard stationed in my showers, since many fights start there as they all are packed and angry because they're dirty. But it seems pointless to have a guard there also when my prisoners are working elsewhere. Same for workshop, laundry, yard and canteen.
So, I would like to assign guards to patrolling or to stationing dynamically: different patrols and different stationing places depending on the time of the day (or on the schedule.) Of course I still would like some fixed patrolling routes, such as dogs' ones. So, it's better to have at least one "permanent" tab, or perhaps a couple of configurations you can switch between, such as an emergency: all staff fall back to the entrance.

Sorry if this has been already proposed somewhere else..

P

I want to say I have seen something similar to this somewhere... but these are my thoughts...
The question is how to actually achieve this, or at least, the easiest way to achieve it. The easiest way I can think of atm is to have a window pop-up when you click to station or patrol. This pop-up would have the different regime "classes" and you could select which ones you want/don't want, then place your guards like normal. It could have them all selected by default. This could also work by selecting the time of day instead of regime "classes", however, I'm thinking that by setting them to the classes it will sort of "sync" them with the regime. Otherwise any regime changes would result in having to reset all the stations/patrols manually, whereas the classes would keep them working.

I'm not exactly sure how to approach the emergency suggestion you have

[Meeeps]

Things that should be added to the game:
- Priority settings for patrolling and stationed guards. I think this would be best implemented as a list with checkboxes including...

• Leave post for prisoner control.
• Leave post for prisoner escort.
• Leave post for search procedures.
• Leave post for unlocking doors.
• (Any other reason they would need to leave their post).

I think, this is not needed, AI could simply be changed to use nearest staff for whatever job, it is also very annoying if you see a truck and beside 10 idling workmen but nobody does unload the truck, then you see the workmen which is almost on the other side of the map seems to be assigned to unload a stack. I

This already works quite fine with guards, if I have patrolling a guard beside a door, this guard also usually opens this door.

[HeroFV]

Things that should be added to the game:
- Priority settings for patrolling and stationed guards. I think this would be best implemented as a list with checkboxes including...

• Leave post for prisoner control.
• Leave post for prisoner escort.
• Leave post for search procedures.
• Leave post for unlocking doors.
• (Any other reason they would need to leave their post).

I think, this is not needed, AI could simply be changed to use nearest staff for whatever job, it is also very annoying if you see a truck and beside 10 idling workmen but nobody does unload the truck, then you see the workmen which is almost on the other side of the map seems to be assigned to unload a stack. I

This already works quite fine with guards, if I have patrolling a guard beside a door, this guard also usually opens this door.

No it isn't "needed" but in a "god game" where you control a prison it only makes sense for you to have more control. As well as, in that sense, practically no suggestion is "needed". Most suggestions are just giving more options or adding more control/entertainment. The game runs fine without them, but they will bring more depth and enjoyability to the game.

Yeah, the guy stationed by the door "usually" gets it. Except when, like in your example, the idiot from the other side of the room comes. Indeed, a proximity upgrade would help but it still won't give near the same level of control.

Let's use another example to show what I mean... You post a guard by a jail door, intending him to unlock it. The proximity issue is fixed. A staff member is approaching his door, heading to a vital task. Just before he gets there, a near-by metal detector goes off or a fight breaks out. The guard you have set to station that room intended to control it is on the other side of the room, so your unlocking guard is assigned the job. Meanwhile the vital task is waiting at the door.

It may be small things here, but it all hurts efficiency. Having the ability to post a guard and say, "This is your job. Don't leave this spot for anything" or "Your job is to control this area. Don't leave to open doors over there. There's a guard posted for that!", gives much more control and allows things to run smoother and more efficient. It allows you to post guards dedicated to important task. Things like posting guards at the entrance to escort in new prisoners or by metal detectors to ensure flagged prisoners are promptly searched before they can sneak away to hide their contraband.

In a real prison, not all guards have exactly the same job.

Also, for all I know, it's much easier to tell the AI to not do things, than it is to actually improve pathfinding & task-assignment issues. It's very likely that this is much quicker to implement and also gives more control at the same time.

[HeroFV]

Anyone have any opinions or suggestions to this list?

[nini]

I've wanted to delegate certain tasks to some form of automation for a while. Some want to micromanage, I want to be able to not have to worry about certain things like in-depth guard deployment so yeah, something that allows you to tell the Chief or Foreman to manage that aspect be that in an aggressive way or light touch. If you want to control that then you can but for those who would like to be free of managing the staff as much, the option is there. Give those guys something to do other than unlocking the tech tree, you're not the warden after all... gotta hire that guy.

Though unrelated, I would love for solitary doors to close if someone is being held inside and also for everyone to stop avoiding the lights and zig-zagging around them!

[HeroFV]

I've wanted to delegate certain tasks to some form of automation for a while. Some want to micromanage, I want to be able to not have to worry about certain things like in-depth guard deployment so yeah, something that allows you to tell the Chief or Foreman to manage that aspect be that in an aggressive way or light touch. If you want to control that then you can but for those who would like to be free of managing the staff as much, the option is there. Give those guys something to do other than unlocking the tech tree, you're not the warden after all... gotta hire that guy.

Though unrelated, I would love for solitary doors to close if someone is being held inside and also for everyone to stop avoiding the lights and zig-zagging around them!

What are you suggesting that they do? I like your idea, I'm just not sure what they would be able to do...

I agree about the solitary doors, but I'm not sure what you mean by the lights... If you mean people walk around the lights, then I must not have noticed that

[nini]

What are you suggesting that they do? I like your idea, I'm just not sure what they would be able to do...

I agree about the solitary doors, but I'm not sure what you mean by the lights... If you mean people walk around the lights, then I must not have noticed that

They'd do what you'd do, assign routes and staff to those routes and/or manage the number of staff. You determine what sort of style they'd use (like you might say to be as lean with staff numbers as possible or to have very aggressive guards for instance) and the AI would handle that sort of thing. You'd probably only need it for guards and dogs as they're the most involved when it comes to deployment but sometimes you don't notice you have too few gardeners or too many cooks so it'd handle the staff numbers for most of the other workers and the deployment strategies for guards. It's probably a real tiny subsection of people who'd find interest in it at this stage but if the in-game stuff gets deeper and you have a lot of things to keep in the air, you'll probably want to have the option to automate some of the smaller things.

And yeah, that light thing is very weird because when outside they'll dodge them as they are in their way physically so it makes sense, indoors though it's plain odd to see a guard you sent to the infirmary have a path which always works around lighting for no reason. Same with everyone else, if they're off to someplace they act as if walking under a light will make it fall on them.

Which also reminds me, I dislike the indoors requirement for the kennel and have no clue why it needs that.

[HeroFV]

Oh ok. I see. I kind of like the idea, but it seems like a hard thing to have automated. Seems like the type of thing I'd end up doing myself because I didn't like how the game was doing it. The auto-staffing could be tricky too with figuring how many people to use. I'd be curious to here a devs opinion on how difficult this could be. However, you're right about needing some sort of help if the game does add that much more, which seems likely

Yeah, outdoors makes sense with the lights since they seem to be on a sort of post. I indeed have not noticed that they avoid them indoors though. They likely are still treated as solid objects, if I had a guess.

About Kennels, you may be misunderstanding the requirements. It doesn't need to be "indoors". It simply needs to be "enclosed"^^

[nini]

Oh ok. I see. I kind of like the idea, but it seems like a hard thing to have automated. Seems like the type of thing I'd end up doing myself because I didn't like how the game was doing it. The auto-staffing could be tricky too with figuring how many people to use. I'd be curious to here a devs opinion on how difficult this could be. However, you're right about needing some sort of help if the game does add that much more, which seems likely

Yeah, outdoors makes sense with the lights since they seem to be on a sort of post. I indeed have not noticed that they avoid them indoors though. They likely are still treated as solid objects, if I had a guess.

About Kennels, you may be misunderstanding the requirements. It doesn't need to be "indoors". It simply needs to be "enclosed"^^

I figured it'd be hard to code and also go off in ways you'd prefer it didn't but the option to automate would be there if you needed it, not as a mandatory element. The lights should be a bug but never got around to filing one with the tracker, still not sure if it's worth that much bother. The kennels do indeed need to be enclosed, not indoors like I said (it's been bothering me for long enough I forgot the specifics) which I guess means making fences work as if they were walls.

[HeroFV]

Well I'm definitely curious to see how the devs do it, or something similar^^

[TheFunnyOne1125]

I like the new segregated prisons. But guards don't follow the rules when moving prisoners(or at least when prisoners arrive). So even though i made a max and medium security entrance, prisoners are still brought in through medium security.

[nini]

Staff don't follow the restrictions, oftentimes they'll take new inmates through staff only areas as they're going by fastest route, not what you defined for the prisoners.