Dog and Metal Detector false alarms?

[burfo]

Occasionally a dog or metal detector will alert and prompt a search of a prisoner but the search doesn't find anything. Is this a bug, or are my prisoners really clever?

[lunaticneko]

There are false alarms.

[Deehok]

I'm not sure but I think they have a chance to hide something during a search. I could be mistaken but I believe I saw a prisoner get searched at a metal detector and get searched on one further down and something was found.

[ouyin2000]

Dogs/metal detectors have a % chance to give a false reading. Also, searching has a % chance of missing the object.

[Drakexz]

False alarms, at least the tunnel messages are quite annoying.
In my prison, the inmates can only run around in the left half of the map, but dogs keep finding many tunnels in the right half. This are all false alarms as a tunnel in this area would make absolutely no sense. Prisoners would have to dig ~5 to 8 times the way compared to the easier way under the perimeter wall.

It would be nice if we could select what the dogs have to search for in a specific area. Eg. only look for drugs in the deliveries area but ignore all tunnel alarms.

[grimmy72]

I have only ever had false dog-tunnel alarms, it's getting a bit much. Can we have a training program for dogs ?

[CumpyLustard]

There are false positives for metal detectors and guard dogs, yes. I personally don't mind them for metal detectors (the resulting unreasonably searched effect on prisoners is usually negligible), but the ones that come from guard dogs drive me bonkers. I can't tell you how many cells I've searched and toilets I've dismantled only to find nothing every time.

[Drakexz]

Usually i ignore the tunnels found by dogs until there are quite a few marks on the same spot.
So far i got no escape with around 76 days ingame time, 26 hours real time and 260 high risk prisoners.

But still, the 100% false findings are just annoying. I don't mind the findings in / around the cell block, but not 100 blocks away from any prisoner in the deliveries area.
Eg, this is how my current map looks like after around 15 minutes of doing nothing.

[ElSalvaje]

It's pretty easy to determine if it's a false positive or not. If one of your dogs leaves a flag somewhere, just let the dog explore the area around it. Order him to walk around a bit. Just 1 flag? Like Drakexz said, don't bother it's nothing. When your dog goes nuts and leaves multiple flags it's a tunnel.



CI's can provide useful information:



I now know that dude there is digging the tunnel. I ordered guards to search this cellblock 3 times. They didn't find anything. Had to dismantle the toilet to reveal it.