Prison Architect escapes Early Access in October – Alpha 35 update

It feels like Prison Architect has been serving considerable time at Her Majesty’s Early Access Pleasure (the first alpha was all the way back in 2012). But after a very long stint in Steam’s pre-release-but-also-sort-of-released limbo, the game is at least likely to come out feature-packed and fairly bug free.

Parole is coming up, so that release date is not far off.

Budding prison builders who are are ready to get stuck into the final game will be able to start constructing their penitentiaries in October – though there’s no exact release date beyond that just yet.

Meanwhile, Alpha version 35 is the latest Prison Architect update. As usual, that means the Introversion guys are back with one of their excellent development update videos along with a fistful of patch notes (which can be found below).

– Gang Leaders

• Sometimes a Legendary prisoner who arrives through Intake will also be a gang leader.
• They will immediately assume control of their gang, and will establish a leadership hierarchy.
• Can promote gang members into Lieutenants, up to a maximum of 1 lieutenant per 10 soldiers.
• Can recruit non gang members into the gang. (Must visit the prisoner first)Gang members are fiercly loyal to their leaders:
• They will become angry (temperature increase) if their leader is being punished in Solitary or Lockdown
•  If a gang leader is killed, the entire gang will immediately try to start a riot

– Gang Territory Capture

• Gangs will attempt to take control of key areas of your prison.
• The attempt is called a ‘Play’, and is led by a Lieutenant.
• He will gather a group of gang members together and give them instructions.
• The soldiers will then proceed to the zone in question, and assert their authority over that zone.
• If they are unchallenged, the territory will turn their colour and they will have ownership of it.
• The player cannot build or change room setups within gang territory

– Captured Territory

• Once captured, territory shows up in the Gangs view as the colour of the gang who has claimed it
• Rival gang members are not permitted into the territory
• Non gang members can enter the territory and use the facilities (eg Phones), but must pay Protection Money to the gang
• Gangs accumulate money from non gang members this way, and will use the money to buy equipment such as stolen weapons
• From time to time a lieutenant will arrange a ‘Play’ to revisit the territory with a group of soldiers, as a show of force.

– Contested Territories

• Sometimes a gang will be strong enough to take a territory from a rival gang.
• They will only attempt this if they have sufficient numerical advantage.
• A lieutenant will arrange a Play and will send enough soldiers to take the territory by force.

– Eviction

• Once a gang has claimed a territory, they must be Evicted to remove their influence.
• Click on the EVICT button in the gang view to begin this process.
• Any gang members within the territory will immediately turn hostile.
• Nearby gang lietenants will arrange new ‘Plays’ in an attempt to re-capture their territory from your guards.
• Once you have defended the territory for 24 hours, the ownership reverts to ‘Unclaimed’.

 Securing a territory

• With enough guards, you can protect a territory against any gang control.
• Nb this can only be done with an unclaimed territory – any gangs must be evicted first.

Security Rooms

• Security rooms also count as territory, and are automatically guard controlled.
• Guards can project their power from security rooms to any neighbouring territory.
• Eg a security room with 10 guards inside will ‘project’ 10 guards onto all neighbouring yards, common rooms etc.
• Nb. ‘Neighbouring’ means there must be a door between the security room and the yard/common room.

Contraband trading

• All prisoners can now trade their stolen contraband with other prisoners for money.
• Prisoners will sell items they don’t particularly want, and use that money at the shop or to buy other items from other prisoners.
• The price of any item is based on the supply and demand of that item within the prison.
• The approximate trade prices of all items can now be seen in the Intelligence / Dangers view.

Ranged Weapon accuracy

• All ranged weapons have had their accuracy nerfed (previously 100% for anyone).
• Tazers: 60% accuracy
• Tazers used by Armed guards: 70% accuracy
• All other ranged weapons: 70% accuracy
• All other ranged weapons used by Armed guards: 90%

 The following rooms now all require Prison Labour to be unlocked:

• Shop
• Library
• Mail Room

Additional Contraband can now be stolen from the following rooms:

• – Forestry : Saw / Axe / Spade
•  Guard deployment screen now uses same layout engine as Jobs