TIP: Prisoner Common Rooms

[dStreamline]

Placing a prisoner bed in a room, and setting individual cell doors to "hold open" lets prisoners wander around, while still having the option lock away any of the more unruly or dangerous should the need arise. (simply unchecking the "hold open" option on their cell)

With a setup like the one below, one can make a "common room" area that several prisoners can use without needing large individual cells. The main benefit is that while in the common room, the prisoners get mood buffs from impressiveness and space, and from eating off a table.

The rooms below serve as a "solitary confinement" wing in case any have mental breaks or have low mood, so that the player can hold them for safe keeping.

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[Bozobub]

Good idea but I'll probably never do it.  If they wanna murder each other, fine.  More hats for all!

[eadras]

I used a setup like this back in A15, complete with a nutrient paste dispenser to minimize the amount of work for my warden.  Overall it works quite well, and is a worthwhile investment if you plan to keep multiple prisoners for selling or recruitment.

[Nainara]

Does prisoner happiness impact anything besides their likeliness to break/break out? It would be kind of neat if a luxury prison made them easier to recruit, but I've never heard of a mechanic like that.

Usually I just make a few extra colonist-sized dual purpose bedrooms that I can switch back and forth easily when pawns get recruited or captured. With two prisoners to a room, if one breaks, they fist fight and tend to conveniently neutralize each other.

[GreatDookuTree]

This sounds like an excellent way for them to bond over their mutual hate of the doctor who a their lung and kidney then installed peg legs and dentures.

....Guess I'll need to remove the dentures.

@Nainara: Yeah, a luxury prison actually does help (individual rooms is important). I tend to make a massive room with statues and smoothed floors + granite walls with the best bed in the colony, and you can see the success rate go up each time you improve the room (watch when someone tries to recruit the prisoner).

[ProjectXa3]

Does it in any way make them less likely to succeed in a "breakout" scenario?

[Chibiabos]

Does prisoner happiness impact anything besides their likeliness to break/break out? It would be kind of neat if a luxury prison made them easier to recruit, but I've never heard of a mechanic like that.

Usually I just make a few extra colonist-sized dual purpose bedrooms that I can switch back and forth easily when pawns get recruited or captured. With two prisoners to a room, if one breaks, they fist fight and tend to conveniently neutralize each other.

I have found prisoner mood does affect ease of recruiting, though I haven't really investigated since pre-Steam releases, that may have changed.  I do, indeed, butter my prisoners with luxuriant accomodations, highest-quality beds, install sculptures in my prisons and manually micromanage my cleaners to clean the prison areas.  I'm eventually able to recruit any prisoner.  The 99% recruitment difficulty ones still tend to take awhile though.

[Bozobub]

Frankly, nice furniture including a table and chairs, a well-made floor of almost any sort but especially carpet, and *lots* of potted plants works fine for bringing up prisoner mood, at least so far; I 've felt no need to make it even nicer.  Every recruitment has been VERY fast, even though I let 4 pawns w/ varying Social stats attempt recruitment for the skill training.

Especially early on, before you have a pipeline of positive mood-buffing furniture or statues, potted plants are neglected far too often.  They're cheap, effective, and reasonably easy on colonist time (for both construction and the occasional replanting).

[GreatDookuTree]

Frankly, nice furniture including a table and chairs, a well-made floor of almost any sort but especially carpet, and *lots* of potted plants works fine for bringing up prisoner mood, at least so far; I 've felt no need to make it even nicer.  Every recruitment has been VERY fast, even though I let 4 pawns w/ varying Social stats attempt recruitment for the skill training.

Especially early on, before you have a pipeline of positive mood-buffing furniture or statues, potted plants are neglected far too often.  They're cheap, effective, and reasonably easy on colonist time (for both construction and the occasional replanting).

Just a note: The effect of furniture on room stats was drastically reduced in A17. From the patch notes:

Rebalanced the beauty system to be much more dependent on art; random furniture has less or no beauty effect.

[Bozobub]

I'm referring to *current* play.  It's not as large, but is still there.

I replace the flower pots with sculptures eventually but as an early boost, it works quite well.  Remember, flower pots themselves (AFAIK) don't give a quality bonus towards beauty/mood.  Rather the flowers IN them do, depending on maturity =) .  They do absolutely nothing when unplanted.

[Albion]

Huh... I never came up with that idea but the moment I saw this setup I loved it. I tend to have decently large individual rooms with a table, Art and a high quality bed but I never had the idea to just connect them to a common room with a table etc.
However prisoners get a "nice prison cell" mood buff. Not sure how this works with a common room. You might still want to put some Art etc. in the individual cells so they are impressive enough to get the mood buff for the prisoners.

[dStreamline]

This may even be a bug, but turns out the prisoners get the "nice prison cell" mood buff exactly the same as if it were an individual cell. Of note is the fact that they only get it while INSIDE the common room. They don't seem to get any mood buffs when they return to their cells.

[erdrik]

This may even be a bug, but turns out the prisoners get the "nice prison cell" mood buff exactly the same as if it were an individual cell. Of note is the fact that they only get it while INSIDE the common room. They don't seem to get any mood buffs when they return to their cells.

Probably because the buff is tied to which cell they are currently in, not which cell is currently "theirs".
I think the same thing happens in Dinning Rooms and Rec Rooms. Those Room Types are not something they "own" so they only get the buff while they are actually in the room(and for X amount of time after they leave). Where as they always get the buff for their bedrooms(if there is one to have).

[Albion]

This may even be a bug, but turns out the prisoners get the "nice prison cell" mood buff exactly the same as if it were an individual cell. Of note is the fact that they only get it while INSIDE the common room. They don't seem to get any mood buffs when they return to their cells.

Probably because the buff is tied to which cell they are currently in, not which cell is currently "theirs".
I think the same thing happens in Dinning Rooms and Rec Rooms. Those Room Types are not something they "own" so they only get the buff while they are actually in the room(and for X amount of time after the leave). Where as they always get the buff for their bedrooms(if there is one to have).

That's a good point. Since you can't actually assign prisoner beds to individual prisoners the mood buff might just calculate based on the room they are currently in. There probably won't be to many recruitment attempts in their bedroom compared to the common room when the prisoners wander around so this common room might be a resource and space efficient solution to get prisoners into a better mood.
The only downside I can see is that there is probably a higher chance for a prison breakout event since the prisoners can mingle (and plan) better. However I never actually had a prisoner escape in the past. Fists landing in their face a few times usually discourages them quickly enough.