Prison Architect Alpha 16 dispo !

Code:

    = Procedural landscape generation
        There are new options when generating a new prison :
            Forests adds random collections of trees, including new types of tree (Oak, Pine, Orange, Cypress, Palm)
            Buildings are usually derilict and can be used or demolished as you wish
            Lakes provide additional construction challenges by forcing you to work around them
            Warning: Including lakes can make your map totally unplayable. Experimental!

    = Wood industry
        You can now cut down trees using "Dismantle" from the objects menu, and each tree will produce wooden Logs
        You can sell the logs for an immediate cash boost ("Sell" from the objects menu)
        Or if you have a workshop, your prisoners will cut the logs into stacks of wood planks, which sell for more
        Gardeners are now required to plant trees, and trees take time to grow from saplings
        Stacks of finished wood planks will auto-sell at 1am

    = Steam Workshop for mods (Steam versions only)
       Mods can now be shared via the Steam Workshop, just like prisons
       The mods menu now lets you publish mods, highlights mods you have published, and shows newly downloaded mods
       Mods will automatically download when an update is available
       Adding FileID "-1" to your mod's manifest.txt will stop the game asking users to publish the mod. Useful for
          mods shared outside of the Steam Workshop.

    = Full segregation support
        Extensive AI work means you can now fully segregate your prison by prisoner category
        You can create self contained wings (eg for Max Sec only) containing their own cells, yard, canteen, laundry, workshop etc
        New zone type : Med Sec, for medium security prisoner ONLY (orange)
        Note: The default zone colour (White) is SHARED, meaning all prisoners are permitted to enter

    - Work/Employment/Industry AI improvements
        Kitchens are now significantly more efficient (Chefs waste much less time)
        You can now build any combination of kitchens and canteens, and your chefs will figure it out
            (Eg one kitchen serving multiple canteens, or each canteen having its own kitchen etc)
        Fixed: Multiple chefs would sometimes go to collect a box of ingredients from the deliveries zone, wasting time
        Fixed: Chefs often stood around doing nothing in the kitchen when they should be cooking
        Laundries and Workshop jobs are now performed more efficiently and intelligently
        Laundries will only service zones of the prison that prisoners working in that laundry would be permitted to reach
        Janitors will now help out with the prison Laundry service

    - Prisoner cell re-assignments now happen without requiring shackled guard escort (if possible)
        They will be shackled and escorted by a guard if they are not permitted to make the journey themselves

    - New object : Road Gate
        Can be built spanning the entire road
        Acts as a secure door, requiring a guard to unlock it whenever a vehicle or person wants to pass through
        You can use this to span your prison across the road, or build a totally contained drop off zone

    - Doors now open at different speeds.  A normal wood door is the fastest.  The large road gate is the slowest.
        The Large jail door opens slower than the normal jail door.

    - Prisoners will now "make a run for it" if they are near the exit and you leave too many doors unlocked
        Be careful when setting zones to "Unlocked" (green), or setting doors to "Locked open"
        Note: More dangerous prisoners are more likely to take advantage of lapses in security

    - New red marker icon for escaping prisoners

    - Electrical items no longer short out when wet
        It is now safe to use Firemen in the kitchen, or to repair laundry machines without having to worry about electrocution
        EXCEPT the power station which now explodes most spectacularly when wet

    - Workshop balance nerf
        The workshop has been judged far too ridiculously profitable
        Cutting sheet metal and stamping license plates now takes twice as long as before
        Sheet metal now costs $10 per sheet, and produces 2 license plates which sell for $10 each, giving $10 profit
            (Previously $3 per sheet, producing 3 license plates selling at $10 each, giving $27 profit)
        Workshop saws and presses now cost 50% more to build

    - Prisoners will now make better use of their stolen contraband when misbehaving:
        Lighters if they are feeling destructive
        Weapons if they get into a fight
        Tools if they are escaping

    - All staff now have a base toughness of 5 (previously 1) so they no longer die from a single punch

    - Offices must now be indoor

    - Vehicles will no longer be blocked by entities, objects, trees etc

    - Fixed : Purchasing neighbour plots of land sometimes caused the game to get the road location wrong
        vehicles spawned in the wrong place and construction was blocked in a stripe down the middle of the prison

    - Fixed : Purchasing land west or north of your prison broke all in-progress escape tunnels

    - Fixed : Prisoners who are digging escape tunnels will now be rumbled if a guard comes to escort them somewhere
        (Previously they were able to keep digging despite being taken to a different place!)

    - Fixed : Some long running prisons had active escape tunnels that were being dug by prisoners who were
        no longer on site - either dead, escaped or released.

    - Fixed : Sometimes workmen took a very long time to finish foundations, leaving them unfinished for hours

    - Fixed : Trees will no longer be generated on the road

    - Fixed : Workers will no longer get stuck in the first delivery truck trying to do a job

    - Fixed : Guards no longer need to use their keys to open wood doors

    - Fixed : Mod system now correctly loads replacement font graphics every time

    - Fixed : Mods can now override the base grants with their own if the grants share the same name

    - Fixed : Dead visitors will no longer float home

    - Fixed : Historical contraband moved when you purchased a neighbour plot of land

    - Fixed : Released prisoners will no longer get stuck on the toilet or in bed

    - Fixed (Alpha15b) : Right click to cancel stopped working

    - Fixed (Alpha15c) : All existing contraband was being lost after level load


Happy new year everyone, and welcome to alpha 16. It’s a big one.

For starters, all ‘Name in the Game’ customers can now customize the size, face type and colour of their prisoners by using our new Name in the game system which you can find here. For two weeks only, we're offering all alpha customers the chance to upgrade to our Name in the Game tier for only $10. This will enable you to name a prisoner, write a short bio about why he's inside and customize his look. This is your opportunity to permanently stamp your personality on the game and prove that you were one of the generous few that helped Prison Architect to become a reality.

We’ve made extensive improvements to the AI across the entire range of the game. For the first time ever it is now possible to fully segregate your prison based on prisoner category. You can (for example) create an entirely self contained ‘wing’ within your prison for maximum security prisoners, with its own cells, its own canteen, its own yard, even its own laundry service (staffed by maximum security prisoners of course). These AI improvements also cover the ‘industry’ side of the game, meaning kitchens/canteens/workshops/laundries are all much more efficient, and prisoners staffing them work much more intelligently. Fundamentally the game previously supported only one of these room types. This change is difficult to see in the video, and perhaps hard to fully appreciate, but it touches every area of the game.

With such an extensive change, we’d expect to have introduced quite a few bugs as well as fixing many more.

A side benefit of this change is that prisoners are now able to tell when their route to freedom has not been locked. We see a lot of prisons on Steam Workshop that keep the front doors permanently unlocked, and even sometimes unlock entire sectors (For efficiency - it means you don’t need to wait for guards to unlock doors all the time). What kind of prisoner wouldn’t want to take advantage of this if they could? So prisoners who are near the front of your prison and notice the doors unlocked *might* decide to make a run for it. The more dangerous the prisoner, and the closer he is to the exit, the more likely it is to happen.

We’ve added new options to procedurally generate your starting landscape so it looks a bit less empty. Lakes, forests, sand and even derelict buildings can now be found within your zone. Lakes block all construction and movement, forcing you to be creative in your layouts. The forests have to be cleared but the lumber is itself a resource that can now be harvested - order your workmen to cut the trees down and then sell the logs for a quick cash injection.

Later on when you have a functioning Workshop you can process logs into planks of wood on a bench Saw, and sell the resulting stacks for greater profit. If you find you have some spare space within your land you could even consider planting your own forests, to be harvested entirely for profit later. Trees are now planted by gardeners, begin life as saplings, and take a long time to grow to full size, so this is a long term but highly profitable industry if you have the space. We will be expanding this new wood industry in future alphas, letting you use your prisoners to do the tree planting and felling, and training your prisoners in carpentry to produce high quality furniture from the refined planks of wood.





We’ve extended the mod system so you can now use Steam Workshop to share your mods, or download existing mods. This works in a similar way to prison sharing - just ‘subscribe’ to a mod from within Steam, and it will show up within your mods window auto-magically.

Anybody who has tried to build a prison that spans the road will have found it pretty much impossible, because you cannot build on the road and therefore cannot create a secure zone between the east and west sides of your prison. We’ve introduced a new Road Gate which can be built to span the road, allowing you to run a secure deliveries zone. These road gates act just as all other door types, requiring a guard to unlock them when vehicles want to pass through.



All of that plus a vast collection of bug fixes detailed below - alpha 16 has been a huge update to the core of the game, and has brought us a lot closer to our final vision of how the AI should function. We hope you have fun playing the new version and hope you have a great Christmas, and a happy new year.