Prison Architect Alpha 14

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Mikko_blu
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Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by Mikko_blu »

It's finally out!


Full change log here:
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= Guard Dogs
You can now hire guard dogs from the staff menu. Every dog has a dog handler.
Dogs will sniff any nearby prisoners or hiding places, and will detect drugs, cigs etc
Dogs can sense escape tunnels and will scratch at the ground when they find one, giving the player a strong hint
If a dog smells a prisoner digging under them, they will dig up the prisoner and reveal the entire tunnel
Dogs are fast runners and are very good at chasing down escaping prisoners
Note: Dogs smell drugs and detect tunnels incorrectly sometimes
Note: If either a dog or his handler is killed, the survivor will act unpredictably for a while, before leaving the prison

- Dogs can be assigned to patrols just like Guards : From the Deployment screen
Click on "Dog Patrols" then click on any existing patrol to assign a dog to it

= Kennels
New room type. Requires dog crates for each dog to sleep in
Can be outdoor, but must be surrounded by walls or fences or doors
Dogs have an energy level represented by a green bar under their body, which discharges as they work
When they become exhausted they will return to a Kennel and sleep in a dog crate to recover
They will also heal any injuries sustained in the line of duty

= Prison Sale
You can now sell your prison from the Valuation report screen, and use the profits to start a new prison with a large bank balance
You require an Accountant on site, a minimum positive valulation of $50,000, and at least 20 prisoners to be eligable for sale
You can always return to a prison you have previously sold and continue managing it, but you can only sell a prison once
Note: You cannot sell someone elses prison shared via the Steam Workshop, for obvious reasons
Note: We are aware this system is highly exploitable, and it will remain that way until we balance the financial side of the game

= Major performance optimisations
We have resolved numerous performance glitches and done a great deal of optimising for this alpha.
Areas optimised : Sector system, Work Queue, Rendering
The navigation / route planning system has been multithreaded and will now run on a second processor core
On large / heavily populated maps the average frame rate is now significantly higher

- Escape tunnels have been nerfed and are now much more rare.
- Only prisoners with the "Clever" trait will even consider escape tunnels (10-20% of your inmates)
- They need to have a stolen digging tool within their possession
- Motivations for digging: Fear for life, High freedom need, Misses family
- Prisoners caught digging will have the punishment for "Escape Attempt" automatically applied

- Deliveries and Garbage rooms can now be placed anywhere on your prison site, including behind locked doors
- Delivery trucks will stop and load/unload when aligned with delivery/garbage rooms
- Prisoners will get off the truck immediately if they can walk to deliveries easily
- However if your deliveries zone is within your prison they will be escorted in by a guard

- The Load / Save dialogs now have the option to sort by "Date modified" as well as by filename.
This is very useful for quickly finding your recent prisons.
Click on the column headings to toggle the different sorting methods

- There is now much more variety for many of the existing staff types:
Male and female versions of many staff types
Body shapes and sizes vary
Skin tone also varies

- Planning Mode continued
We have extended the planning mode to permit three different types of materials:
Walls : Plan where your walls will be
Objects : Drag out any size of object to show where you plan to place the furniture
Paths : Use this to mark your planned outdoor pathways

- Fixed: Workers will no longer load and unload garbage in an endless loop
(This happened when you had the Garbage zone above the Deliveries zone)

- Fixed: The tooltip regarding guard patrols was being displayed in all kinds of wrong places

- Fixed: All entities would drop whatever they were carrying after loading a saved game
Changelog is here : http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewto ... 17&t=44984

I'm personally very happy for the performance updates.
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userzero
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by userzero »

Got the email a few minutes ago and just finished updating. : ) Been looking forward to this.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Better Than Prison Dogs? :)
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Katalliaan
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by Katalliaan »

I like that they kept the art style of the dogs consistent with that of the humans rather than trying to make dog bodies that look right. Functionality-wise, they're definitely a nicer way to discover tunnels than frequently checking your inmates' toilets (right now, don't really care about them finding narcotics; there's no harm to your inmates having them yet).

The idea behind selling your prison is a bit hit or miss to me. If it's a prison you don't care about but still have made semi-profitable, then it's a nice way to get an extra bit of cash for the prison you want to build to replace it. But if it's a prison you really like and don't want to sell, it seems like a bad idea.

And lastly, the pathfinding being moved onto a separate thread sounds like it's pretty good for big prisons, but I've never reached a big enough prison for that to be an issue, so I have no idea how much of a benefit that'll give.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Katalliaan wrote: The idea behind selling your prison is a bit hit or miss to me. If it's a prison you don't care about but still have made semi-profitable, then it's a nice way to get an extra bit of cash for the prison you want to build to replace it. But if it's a prison you really like and don't want to sell, it seems like a bad idea.
I really think this is just placeholder functionality for what will eventually be a campaign of sorts where you're tasked with building multiple prisons to meet different goals. In that context, you can think of selling off your previous prison from the last scenario as a form of bonus system where if in addition to meeting your targets, you run an efficient prison (few escapes, etc.), you'll start off the next level with a nice bit of extra cash.

You hear them mention in the vid that it's just the first step in something much larger, and I really don't think it's representative of what will be in the final game in its current state. More of just a quick placeholder to provide some sense of continuity between different prisons.

And really man, while I know people like to complain about being unable to make enough money to keep expanding on their forums, I haven't found this to be an issue. Once you start making license plates, unless you've hired way too much staff (for example, once I have a basic prison setup one of the first things I do is fire half my workmen right from the get go as staff is a major financial drain), the money pours in. So yeah, if you want to just keep playing one prison, I don't see anything stopping you from doing so.
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Katalliaan
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by Katalliaan »

Yeah, I get that. However, if you've already got a prison that's valuable, it seems to me that (until the campaign comes) it'd be better to stick with it unless you're incredibly bored with it. It costs a lot more to build a prison up than its value when you sell it, for the most part; you'll be setting yourself back by selling it.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Katalliaan wrote:Yeah, I get that. However, if you've already got a prison that's valuable, it seems to me that (until the campaign comes) it'd be better to stick with it unless you're incredibly bored with it. It costs a lot more to build a prison up than its value when you sell it, for the most part; you'll be setting yourself back by selling it.
I'm ultimately getting bored with my prisons after awhile, so that suits me fine :)

Aside from that I think "it's an alpha" truly does apply to this game in particular, despite how I despise how that phrase is commonly used these days. We're just getting a taste of a larger system, so how it affects play right now is largely irrelevant.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Spent a few hours with this tonight. I find the dogs aren't anything special at the moment, given that drugs don't have any negative impact, and the prisoners seem to tunnel much less than in the previous version.

However, aside from that, the game definitely feels more polished. I don't think I've had this much fun with it before as pretty much everything seems to be working right.

And yeah, the sell off your prison thing really isn't tempting at present. I generally start a new one with each release, and I can't see myself wanting to start a 2nd this time around without any additional content being unlocked by doing so.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Played a few more hours last night, and just wanted to note that performance is VASTLY improved.

I think this is the first time I've gone over a hundred prisoners without the game starting to chug and without units getting stuck in their pathfinding. It makes running a larger prison much more enjoyable, and for me anyways, is making it much more interesting to continue playing with the same prison for an extended period.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

Ok, starts to chug around 200 prisoners and here ends my play time with alpha 14 :)

Still, it's the largest prison I've ever felt compelled to run, so I may as well post a screen:
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kregoth
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by kregoth »

Had to bump this, but this is the best halloween update ever :)

FlowerChild wrote:My theory is that stupidity acts like an infectious organism on the net. Unless it's regularly pruned from your "garden", it will inevitably overwhelm it and kill off everything else.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Prison Architect Alpha 14

Post by FlowerChild »

kregoth wrote:Had to bump this, but this is the best halloween update ever :)
Lol! Ok, that's awesome :)
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