Second Chances DLC & “The Pen” Update Patch Notes

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Fifnaril

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Jan 21, 2020
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  • Prison Architect
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Wardens,

In just a few days, we will be releasing the new DLC Second Chances with the free Update "The Pen"! You can now check out the patch notes and see all the cool things that will be coming!

Open the gates!


Second Chances - New DLC:​

  • 3 new Rooms
    • Bakery - a room for inmates to produce food for civilian purchases.
    • Restaurant - a room for inmates to produce food for civilian purchases.
    • Therapy Room - A place for the new animal therapy sessions and Juvenile Correction program to take place.
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  • 3 new Quick Rooms
    • Bakery
    • Restaurant
    • Therapy Room
  • 5 new Grants
    • Bakery Production Skills - A grant that rewards building a Bakery and selling Goods to Civilians visitors.
    • Restaurant Service Scheme - Rewards building a Restaurant and serving Civilians.
    • Reformed Prisoner Initiative - Awarded for reforming a required number of prisoners.
    • Prisoner Reoffending Rate - Reducing the Reoffending rate to a specific percentage.
    • Reform Program Research - Creating the new Therapy Programs and their successful completion by prisoner enrollee's.
  • 5 new Programs
    • Includes 1 new external staff member, 1 item sprite (animal crate/box), and multiple animal sprites.
    • Juvenile Correction (meeting) - A program for inmates and troubled youth to interact, with hopes of a positive effect on both prisoners and the youth visitors.
    • Juvenile Correction (training) - A training program that allows inmates to take part in the main Juvenile Correction program.
    • Former Prisoner Consultations Former inmates who have been released and reformed will come back to prison to talk with those still incarcerated.
    • Conflict Resolution - Groups of inmates with issues on resolving conflict peacefully, will receive guidance on how to do so in the future by a former, reformed inmate.
    • Animal Therapy - A behavioural therapy session alternative with animal interaction.
  • 1 new Reform & Rehab Menu - provides information on the reoffending rates of all inmates, their work experience levels, and the number of reoffending prisoner.
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  • 1 new DLC info tab - A new page will be added to the Todo list to explain each of the key features of the new DLC.
  • 2 new Prisoner Mechanics
    • An inmate's sentence can be lowered or raised depending on their actions in-game.
    • Inmates who have been released from the player's prison can be sent back after they re-offend, each time the player will be fined.
  • Prisoner Work Credentials - Ex. Cook, Craftsman that influences what jobs prisoners can take.
  • Prisoner Uniform Colour Options - Customize uniform colours for any sec type.
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  • Adjustable Wages - Set wages for prisoners so they will prefer certain jobs.

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The Pen Free Update​

  • New objects
    • (Grass road bridge, dining table (large), dining table (small), dining chair, diner booth, saloon doors (double), Additional signs (no entry, gym, phone, visitation) ornate wall light, Chandelier, Wall Panel, Wall Panel (Wood), Wall Panel (stone), Shop Counter).
  • New Security Orders - Narcotic Search! - Similar to shakedown but searching specifically for drugs with Dog Handlers.
  • New Policy: Staff Keys - Allow additional staff to carry keys, improving efficiency but adding a security risk
  • New Quick Room - Reception.
  • Custom Intake - Allowing players to choose the intake's arrival time.
  • Relax Outdoor room restrictions - Restrictions removed from certain rooms (a limited number), allowing players to build for example an outdoor classroom or canteen.
  • Misc Improvements & Community Requests - Prisoners always use Recreational. Facilities during free time.

Other fixes and improvements​

  • Going Green
    • Imported Ingredients cost stays at 0 in the Green Power Plant regardless of actual import values.
    • Crops moved to the Exports Room on Storage Shelf will not be taken off of it and it will block the Road.
    • Reputations 'Foodie' and 'Green Thumb' from DLC Going Green appear in the game without DLC enabled.
    • Criminally Insane Prisoners can do "ActionHerb".
    • "Grants" and "Green Energy Goals" tooltips inconsistency.
    • Names for Carrots and Tomatoes are swapped in the tooltips.
    • There is no sound for recent transactions until 8:15 am, in Premade Prison "Green Power Plant: Going Green".
  • Other fixes
    • Player able to exploit Deliveries by Dismissing Vehicle.
    • Staff Alerts overlap with UI elements when Todo list is minimized.
    • Guard Tazer Certification program can now reschedule and work fine
    • Performance improvments when placing a copy of a large area over some objects (trees, other buildings etc.).
    • Scanner machine improvements
    • Cost of building some Walls via Planning tool is higher than the price of building them manually.
    • Players are charged twice for the construction of curtain Wall types while building them via the Planning tool.
    • Multiple copies of an object can be bought by holding LMB if the player buys it in a building that's in progress of Quick Build.
    • Building foundations with concrete/brick walls does not charge players with the cost of building walls.
    • Misaligned ingredients sprite on the fridge.
    • Horizontal Drip Pipes have got flickering water icons if those pipes are connected with vertical ones
    • Ingredients with Bacon texture are not put into a Fridge, unless Meal Variety is set to 'High'
    • Alert "The prison is not running at the maximum capacity" is showing even if there is only a Holding Cell in prison
    • Alert about missing Laundry Room shows incorrect number of prisoners and has wrong description tab.
    • Guard dog that was assigned to the area does not return to Kennels after reaching "Exhausted" status.
    • Some actions are cancelled during Sleep time.
    • Texture of Light(Solar) displays on The Ecologist/The Botanist Warden instead of Vest.
    • Staff's exhaustion in task list, Staff Well-Being Initiative and Staff list are inconsistent with each other.
    • Tab informing the Player that the map uses content from disabled DLC is not appearing properly.
    • Localisation improvements for Traditional and Simplified Chinese.
    • Noticeable stutter when opening overlays.
    • Prisoners are affected with virus/sickness when events are not enabled.
    • Building objects into quick rooms not working properly.
    • Transaction with $0 income/expenses showing in the Bank Balance summary.
    • Players can only allocate work slots if there are prisoners with required qualifications.
    • Insecure area blinking bug when multiple helipads are surrounded with walls.
    • Grant "Government Bailout" that has been accepted is re-locked after one of the requirements is not met.
    • Finance Report "Total" tab overlapping with other UI when it is too long.
    • Guard Pavilion objects are raising false room requirements.
    • Choice of dogs not having the same behavior as choice of warden.
    • Alert about adding Death Row appears, even if Death Row is already researched.
    • Accepting some grants will complete certain tasks immediately on grants.
    • Grant "Overproduction" timer resets every time the game is loaded.
    • A street lamp asset overlaps with a bench (park) asset.
    • Recruit informant button overlaps with the recent misconduct list.
    • Warden icon in the slider background in the "Choose your warden" section.
    • Missing sound when hiring/deploying staff.
    • Vertically connected drip pipes can disconnect due to adjacent horizontal ones.
    • There is no confirmation sound after deploying dog handlers and armed guards to the area.
    • A "Todo" list is shown in the Inventory tab after using the "+" or "-" button.
    • Legendary Prisoner callout icon does not disappear automatically.
    • The warning sign does not show up for inactive CCTV for the client player.
    • After choosing the category in "Objects", items are not sorted.
    • Options disappear from the window when dragged/moved.
    • NPC's are using the Office Desk from behind causing them to walk into a wall.
    • Game displays "The prison is running out of money" when playing with unlimited funds.
    • Using the +/- to resize the UI crashes the game.
    • Prisoners who died from starvation remain in prison and are counted as living prisoners.
    • The dog handler, armed guard's and orderly's status icons in 'deployment' tab remain grey for the client player despite units being
    • deployed.
    • UI elements shifted when creating a new prison.
    • The CEO call when a large number of prisoners die reads "help_warning_prisonerreleased" instead of correct text.
    • Idle workers are making work noises.
    • [Escape Mode] Stationed Dog Handlers do not take any actions towards the Player.
    • [Escape Mode] Game crashes when clicking "Sleep".
    • [Escape Mode] The Guard Response button works in Escape Mode.

  • Console only fixes
    • Dog handlers cannot search objects.
    • Workers and Janitors become stuck when trying to clear objects in a library.
    • Flour is using the sprite for an Auto Gatherer.
    • Eggs are left in the deliveries.
    • Religious figure execution witnesses have a black square covering their face.
    • The black square is displayed instead of the prisoner lawyer's face.
    • Land Expansion is displayed as paused in the Bureaucracy menu.
    • Premade map freezes within 1 day in game time.
    • Buttons icons are shifted below the "Grants" tab.
    • Incorrect selection of the area of objects with the Dump Object tool.
    • Wall objects float if the wall is removed.
    • Prison Value turns negative after reaching a certain amount.
    • The Bricks and Mortar value fluctuates.

  • Known Issues:
  • In the coming days, we will have some updates fixing the known Issues and also some other fixes and improvements.
    • Prisoners drop ingredients when their shift at the Restaurant ends.
    • Active programs might end when saving and loading the game.
    • It's currently possible to change prisoners with different security levels to wear the same colour using map settings in Extras.
    • NPCs walk under the Grass Road Bridge.
    • Prisoners' heads are separated from their bodies when they sit facing North.
    • Bureaucracy isn't researched in the order it's queued.
    • Single log crowding storage.
    • Overlaps and Overflows for some languages.
    • Technical text is displayed in the prisoner biography after passed of any new program.
    • Some reoffending prisoners Bio shows a different prisoner.
    • Reform Program Research requires 10 prisoners to pass Reformed.
    • Prisoner Consultation instead of 1.
 

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Seems like we're talking days :)

I thought it was out....it has a free update and stuff for other DLCs?

Oh I see. Oh crap it's 1am, the clock ticked over on me I thought we were hours from release LOL.

EDIT: Nevermind they're going to release a day after that because they're probably in America lol. I'm very tired.
 
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I’m a bit sad that there’s no console update for the missing stuff vs PC version.

For reference Glasshouse (Going Green) gave consoles a watered-down weather system, the ability to choose different types of dogs and a flooring type.

But I look forward to this new update & DLC anyway
 
I don't see any mention of a fix for the bug where dormitories don't form cell blocks, is it going to get looked at? It's been months. For example:

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Though I guess it's nice to see that the planning tool will no longer screw us over with the price fixes. Has the team considered devoting an update cycle to bugfixes to fix all the bugs introduced in all these DLCs? It feels like you're just piling on barely/maybe worth it DLCs on to the game with little regard to whether basic features of the game work (as evidenced by this bug as well as the cooks not cooking, cooks not cooking enough meals, janitors not cleaning, and the laundry not working bugs that were present after previous DLC releases and took months to partially fix).

It feels hard to justify buying those DLCs (especially since they're not exactly great value from the get-go) when you don't even know if the game is going to be broken when it updates, and if it is, whether it'll get fixed quickly, in some months/next DLC update, or just never. I feel like I could trust the game to "go somewhere" more when it was early access under Introversion, or when Paradox had just taken over and added a bunch of nice QOL updates, compared to today. Hell, those early updates were so good I would have paid for them had they not been free, unlike these DLC!
 
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I don't see any mention of a fix for the bug where dormitories don't form cell blocks, is it going to get looked at? It's been months.

That's not a bug I don't think? It's intentional so that dormitory's can be locked to deployment zone because they're not supposed to be just for sleeping like cells are. They're supposed to be very big and have a lot more amenities in them than regular cells, they are basically requiring they have a shower and a common room in there to get a decent grade. I'm actually making a mod that overhauls dorms right now so that they can have less junk in them and work for just sleeping and require less space which is how I want to use them too....I'm still testing it to get the right grading balance.

If you want though try this mod without "requires sector" on it to see if it makes dorms behave how you want...I haven't tested it but in theory it should work and it has all the original dorm code just minus that line. Just extract it into your mods folder. If you have steam you'll have to google because I don't know how to get mods to work on steam that aren't from the workshop, the mods folder is probably in documents instead of appdata.
 

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I wonder why they don't release multiplayer updates anymore. The multiplayer has a lot of potential and you can do a lot but you can only expand a map in co-op because then the world no longer works and the partner can no longer establish a connection. You put so much work into it, get DLC's and later in the game you can no longer play together properly without starting over.
If you contact the support, you get the dissatisfied message that it's not the game, but yourself. You can only beat your hands over your head with rage.
Sad is, that several have this problem that after a long time can no longer play together, because simply the connection breaks off at the game partner without reason & quite seriously, we have tried different PC systems, and there it no longer works even to the later game progress.
Paradox, you do very good work, please keep it up! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 
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Does anyone else experience the bug of being unable to manually change a prisoner's security level now? I tested this on a new prison, because I thought it was just the update broke my old prison - but indeed, on new prisons and old I cannot manually change a prisoner's security level. This was how I dished out punishments, i.e. putting prisoners in supermax for an extended period of time then returning them to the normal world, but now I can't do this at all.

This is kind of game breaking.
 
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I have bought the DLC and can sadly confirm that changing of inmates security level has been broken.

Securing prisoners with some traits is one of key concept of the game. While this mechanic is broken, the game is naturally unplayable.

I'm glad to see multiple annoying schedule-related bugs fixed. Thank you for your work, Paradox, but now I'm really looking forward to this fix so I could continue play and check out new features.
 
By the way, in other Paradox games there is an easy way to rollback the game to previous version via Steam Betas. Can we have such a feature for Prison Architect? I tried to check it, but it looks like in the list of version there are only outdated ones, from 2016-2018.
 
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That's not a bug I don't think? It's intentional so that dormitory's can be locked to deployment zone because they're not supposed to be just for sleeping like cells are. They're supposed to be very big and have a lot more amenities in them than regular cells, they are basically requiring they have a shower and a common room in there to get a decent grade. I'm actually making a mod that overhauls dorms right now so that they can have less junk in them and work for just sleeping and require less space which is how I want to use them too....I'm still testing it to get the right grading balance.

If you want though try this mod without "requires sector" on it to see if it makes dorms behave how you want...I haven't tested it but in theory it should work and it has all the original dorm code just minus that line. Just extract it into your mods folder. If you have steam you'll have to google because I don't know how to get mods to work on steam that aren't from the workshop, the mods folder is probably in documents instead of appdata.
I don't think it's the intended behavior unless that "feature" was silently added with Going Green for some reason. Given how even tiny UI changes are in changelogs (hell, most of the changelog for this update is tiny fixes)I would doubt they would have made such a big change intentionally and not mention it.

This has also been mentioned a couple of times in the past and @Fifnaril has requested and been given savegames in relation to this, it's just that there's been no news since.

The game specifically mentions that it can have multiple sizes and depending on size it can fit more or less people. It's also not hard to make it a good grade even if small. For example I've put an image below of a small 2 person, realistic (no bunched up items) dormitory of Grade 8/10. You can make it 10/10 if you wanna play unrealistically by leaving no open blocks like tons of players do. Most importantly though, it specifically has "Has PA system in cell block" as a negative just like normal cells do, which suggests that cell blocks should be possible.

Screenshot 2021-06-16 220933.png
 
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The game specifically mentions that it can have multiple sizes and depending on size it can fit more or less people. It's also not hard to make it a good grade even if small. For example I've put an image below of a small 2 person, realistic (no bunched up items) dormitory of Grade 8/10. You can make it 10/10 if you wanna play unrealistically by leaving no open blocks like tons of players do. Most importantly though, it specifically has "Has PA system in cell block" as a negative just like normal cells do, which suggests that cell blocks should be possible.

Fair enough, when I make mine I always have 4 people (to max the grading savings since it's x objects per 4 prisoners I can buy 1 of each instead of 4) and to make it private it needs to be quite large. For 2 prisoners it needs to be 25 squares (12 x 2 prisoners +1) or for 4 it needs to be 48 squares (12x4+1). So your cell may be highly graded but it won't help the privacy need...and I guess that's what bothers me most lol. That and needing a pool table and stuff in there. I guess because I want 4 in there that maybe changes things. I'd love to see how you handle 4 person dorms!

Wiki says this: "To cater to prisoners' privacy need, the dormitory must be larger than 12 squares times the number of prisoners housed in it. For example, a 4x6 size dormitory housed by 2 prisoners can't satisfy their privacy needs, while having just 1 square space more can do it. Using bunk beds instead of normal beds, or different room gradings won't affect this standard."