Deployment

Deployment is a menu that allows you to deploy your guards, doctors and cooks to be stationed or work in specific areas or rooms, prioritise areas for guards, cleaners or gardeners, set up patrols and designate areas for certian security types or staff only.  When opening the deployment menu an overlay is activated that shows the designations, patrols and stations. In order for an area to count as deployable room, it must be surronded by walls and have a doors. (Techinally the wall requirement is only required to work but the room will say INSECURE and flash in cautionary yellow and black stripes).

Patrols are set up on grid scale. There are 2 versions of the patrol, blue and mangenta patrol. They work exactly the same as each other but they allow for patrols to overlap. Multiple guards can be stationed in the same area. Patrols can have guards, armed guards or dog handlers assigned. Patrols can be prioritised over others by selecting the prioritise patrol button.

When using the overlay if a guard is stationed a blue line is visible to the station marker he is currently stationed. Un-populated station markers are greyed out.

Paths can be made for prisoners, staff and visitors. These paths are made so that the respective entity will follow them if they have to go in that direction. This can be useful to set up secure pathways and ensure people don't go where they're not meant to because nobody told them they can't.

Probably the most useful deployment use, specific rooms can be set to allow only specific security levels, staff or anyone in. Every security level in the game can be assigned to a room. This is helpful to cell blocks that are only for a specific security level like a max sec cell block.There are other options like the Staff only area, which explains itself. Using this option in a canteen room will make the room name say "STAFF CANTEEN". Access only areas are designated rooms which entities will try to avoid unless neccessary. Unlocked rooms locks open all doors that are used to enter the room, though the deployment will be overridden by the emergency command Lockdown. As of The Bucket update, custom sectors can be made allowing for a number of security levels to be allowed in a room.

Guards, dog handlers and armed guards can be stationed in specific rooms in any amount by selecting the option and pressing on any room, which as said before, any room secured by walls and doors. As of The Bucket update, These stations can then be prioritised manually to suit the players' need by selecting the Prioritize Room(Guard) button. The priortise button comes in 3 variant,level 1,2 and 3 priority, each trumped by the one that comes after. E.g, a room with 1 level prioritised setting will be more important then a room which is not marked while it will be ignored if a level 2 priority is set on another station needs to be filled.

Note all of the below features are introduced in The Bucket Update

Cooks and doctors can also be assigned to specific kitchens and infirmaries respectively. This will ensure that the amount of workers assigned to the room is always attempted to be filled. As an example you can always have 3 doctors working in a certain infirmary while the others can work in others ones.

Rooms can be prioritised for janitors and gardeners. These seperate options make cleaners prioritise specific rooms before cleaning other rooms.

Deployment Schedules

The Deployment Schedule is a feature added in Alpha 28 to allow different deployments and patrols per time of day. A bar now appears indicating times of day and patrol settings. A player can assign up to seven settings (plus the default setting), each of which can have its own staff and patrol assignments. The setting for a non-current time can be set by clicking on the time above the desired schedule. Right or left click to cycle through deployment numbers in the white zone below the numbers.

Simplified the previous paragraph allows for staff to only be assigned to specific rooms at specific times of the day. To do this you must mark a time other than the current time a number by pressing the white button underneath the time. After this, you assign the jobs needed and you're done. You can then mark any hour of the day with the number to have the setting on that hour. 7 settings can be selected.

This functionality is intended to be used to have guards in different locations at different times of day (e.g. so guards only patrol the canteens during meals and freetime) to free up guards for specific "to-do" jobs.

Requirements

• Chief staff member (Unlocks via Bureaucracy)

Bugs

As of Alpha 28, the deployment schedule for plain guard controls often fails to save. If unchecked, this can lead to unguarded areas during dangerous times of day. Guard patrols, armed guard patrols, and dog patrols, however, save properly. If you will be saving and loading your prison frequently and wish to use the deployment schedule, use patrols instead of standard deployment to ensure proper guarding after loading your save. This bug may not apply, as it appears to be fixed in Alpha 33.

Tips, Tricks and Hints

• This is a very important tip. Any room that is recongised by the deployment screen with the default shared setting will allow prisoners to enter the room at any time espically if the rooms leading to it are marked a security level they are allowed to enter. This is espically bad if you made the space between the prison and outer fence classifiable as a deployment room but didn't mark it as staff only as prisoners may walk out there without any troubles. This may allow for contraband pick ups or escape attempts.
• Do not station all of your guards when the stations can not cover the entire prison. If something happens too far out of range from any guard, there will be no one to respond to it. By leaving a few guards un-stationed they will generally respond to problems.
• By designating contraband rich areas such as the kitchen, and the corridors leading up to it as staff only, you can greatly reduce the amount of contraband stolen. The same principle applies to storage.
• If you have fenced off your entire prison, you could designate the entire area inside and outside the fence as staff only to isolate cell blocks from each other. Do remember to provide passage to other rooms if these are in a separate building.
• Prisoners will be escorted into Staff Only areas by a Guard.
• Shared areas are accessible by all prisoners, guards, staff, and visitors. This is true even if the room is close to the exit of the prison and was not marked.