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).
(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.