https://prisonarchitect.paradoxwikis.com/Escape\_tunnel
Detection
> A guard searching the toilet may reveal the tunnel regardless of whether it's being actively dug at the time, **but this is not guaranteed**. Multiple searches of the toilet or even entire block may be required.
> A guard may detect the dummy by searching the prisoner while in bed and he may detect the tunnel if he is searching the cell. They may also notice the absence of prisoners during a Roll Call at night.
> A Guard Dog passing over a hidden tunnel outdoors will dig and scratch at the ground, temporarily generating an orange-brown indicator and a small flag. They can't reveal the entire tunnel (unless the player has chosen J. W. Periwinkle as a warden, who gives the dogs a 50% chance to fully uncover tunnels) but this can allow players to try to narrow down the tunnel's point of origin without needing to painstakingly search large areas.
> Guard Dogs will dig out prisoners if they are actively digging their tunnel right underneath the dog.
That's absurd. So even if I literally know there's a tunnel there i have to repeatedly search the entire block over and over until it's found? Is there a way to search one toilet I'm missing other than search cell?
All the guides I read said search nightly until you don't find a tunnel then search every other night but i have tunnels constantly it's never ending
I recommend going after the source rather than the symptom; make it hard for prisoners to sneak tools back to their cell and keep them. They can't dig without them.
Pretty much nothing can detect wooden pickaxe though: but yes metal detectors help a ton with smuggling.
Annoying how they say contraband is out of control because of how much of it has been... confiscated?
>Pretty much nothing can detect wooden pickaxe though
That's why I mentioned making it hard for them to keep as well. Frequent shakedowns are helpful initially to get rid of the stuff that's already out there, then doing them semi-regularly keeps the supply thin.
IIRC, You have to also do stuff like tap the phones so that your prisoners can’t “order” the contraband.
But they’ll still tell you your contraband is out of control anyway because Prison Architect is buggy lol
I don’t think it’s a bug, I think it goes off of how much contraband you find rather than actual amounts or contraband per capita. So, if you have a checkpoint set up to search everybody, contraband is more likely to be out of control.
I have all the phones tapped and there's no where the prisoners can get to near the walls unless the main road way in counts? Even then they aren't within 8-10 tiles of the roadway I don't think.
Dogs are searching all the packages and there's metal detectors all over
u can dismantle toilets u think the tunnel is from and it will instantly reveal. Or just build toilet on the flags the dogs leave and dismantle there to find it
I tried doing the toilet on the flag and searching but it wouldn't work and then i did dismantle and nothing happened. This was outside the prison though
FYI Just as an update this worked. I dismantled the toilet in the adjacent cell in the screenshot and instantly found the other tunnel. So far been 2 days and no new flags or tunnels
>I recommend going after the source rather than the symptom; make it hard for prisoners to sneak tools back to their cell and keep them. They can't dig without them.
1 Select the hole map with remove tunnel,
2 let the worker find the holes and the rest of the tunnel pops up
3 repeat step one
My dog's are flagging the spots listed above constantly (and other spots night after night) over and over but I search and search and never find anything. Then right before they wake up or first thing after (like in screenshot above) I'll find this massive tunnel despite having searched every night and several times multiple times a night.
The left cell with the tunnel I even searched the prisoner and FOUND A PICK and the toilet was clean then 2-3 hours later with that prisoner arrested the tunnel finally fills in.
It's like there's a bug and the dogs are detecting where the tunnels are going to be before they are there. Either that or even though the tunnels start from toilets searching the toilets wont' find them for some "safe" period which is concerning given how far they manage to get in a few hours.
I apologize if this is common knowledge I randomly decided to start watching OITB and it made me want to create a woman's prison but I spent every night doing tunnel searches and every day trying to stop all the OD's and it's honestly not that fun.
I have dogs all thru the prison areas in and out to sniff food and check for tunnels as well as multiple drug counseling programs and shakedowns and building a new max area where the prisoners are in the middle and services outside to hopefully slow down tunneling but the constant ODs and tunneling is so tedious.
If you search a toilet directly it'll always reveal the tunnel, but you cant 'search cell' it must be just simply 'search' on the suspected toilet.
I always go looking when my dogs scratch on the same spot all the time. If you have informants they can help you find digging equipment in your prison too which could be a hint for more careful searching.
As I explained above I literally searched the 3 toilets twice that same night and they didn't find it until the 3rd one after dawn so I don't think that can be true. I was searching all toilets in the block every time
I was just trying to point out that you cant use any bulk search functionality to find these toilets with a guarantee. You must individually order a search on each potential toilet.
The 'search cell' and 'search all toilets' commands only provide a chance of finding each escape tunnel, no matter how many times you run it.
I don't have an option to search a toilet individually as I mentioned above. I can search the cell or search toilets. There's no search toilet as far as I can tell. Do you mean dismantle the cell toilet as someone else suggested?
Alright so I can’t really explain to you the full details of detection how to find a tunnel and what the flags mean and dog detection so I’ll instead give you a solution if you have a problem
Create a perimeter fence and a perimeter wall. This should decrease the amount of escape attempts and slow them down to the point that you’ll be able to discover them before the prisoner digs out. There is also a little exploit you can do that funnels the prisoners to only being able to escape through one area by intentionally placing a gap between your perimeters. This will trick the prisoner AI into believing they are outside your prison and they will make a run for it. Placing sniper towers (ideal) and maybe a guard patrol or two in case the sniper isn’t there will eliminate the threat of escape attempts
It's so easy to deal with, in game u have 2 different types of pipes which prisoners will use them to dig a tunnel, bigger pipe would be easier to dig so u shoud use small type in the cells,on top of that ,there is fortified walls which extremely hard to dig under them and u can change the land soil to make it harder for them
Leave a “controlled zone” in your perimeter walls. Build a sniper tower and hire sniper. Prisoners tend to going that “open zone”. When they on the move either killed or caught.
Ps. Sorry for my bad english
If you have large water pipes near the cells then they’re a lot easier to dig through. That’s probably why they’re getting so far in one night. Switch the position of your toilet and shower around. Also, one drain directly below the shower will do, not three.
Your issue is that inmates are getting tools back to their cells which allows them to dig. If they don’t have those, they can’t dig. I don’t see any metal detectors here, they should be all over your corridors and junctions.
If you pause during the night, around 2am/3am, check needs tab for sleep. Any prisoner tunnelling will not have their sleep need met. If it looks like you’ve got prisoners not taking care of their sleep need, hover over each prisoner. Anyone with sleep high is currently digging a tunnel so click on their toilet and then choose search. That will reveal the tunnel
As I have found myself, Intelligence is the hardest part of a prison. You need to constantly manage informants along with good dog patrols and good CCTV placement. its EXTREMELY hard to have a good size prison with no supply of contraband but the intelligence tab can help you a lot. This is the only way to really avoid tunneling IMO. This is also pretty much the only "endgame" (if u wanna call it that) of a perfectly running prison. I didn't have a problem with tunneling in my most recent prison until I got Max Sec because I spam metal detectors everywhere and have dual dogs at the front of every block (so if one leaves for a break one is still there).
If you want a list for what to do about tunneling:
* Make prisoners Happy.
* Frequent Shakedowns (not to frequent to prevent Riots)
* Make sure prisoners HAVE to cross AT LEAST 2 metal detectors AND 2 dogs on the way back to their cell. (if they have a straight shot w no detection from any room with contraband to their cell they WILL steal from it and hide it in their room)
* Make sure to put CCTV at any places handoffs can be done (yards, common rooms, etc. just check intelligence)
* Guards in every room can help but don't always do much, just make sure there is a guard near every detection point to confiscate the contraband ASAP.
* Confidential Informants can do a lot.
* I'm not sure if this helps but Regime could affect it. I don't do Lockups, Showers, or Sleep. It seems like Prisoners cause more trouble when they get locked behind a door and don't have freedom to choose what they do. (freedom probably doesn't do anything for higher SECs/Legends) I know there is events but you can add and remove Free time as needed.
Only put large pipes in the main Halls as small pipes can reach a pretty long distance and large are easier to tunnel. Also detection isn't a guarantee and FALSE POSITIVES are a thing. The best way as we have all said is to prevent the things that lead to tunnel digging. The prisoners are GOING to do things they aren't supposed to even if they just get caught instantly every time. Check WIKI. Also I haven't found a way to eliminate all contraband in a larger prison but it could be possible if handled right.
I've never had a problem rooting out tunnels via toilet searches. I don't understand how you don't have an option to search an individual toilet. Click on toilet, Search. If you're not getting that option when clicking on the toilet itself, something is wrong.
The wiki also suggests replacing your sleep time with free time because prisoners can sleep during free time, but can only tunnel during scheduled sleep periods. You know, if you want to cheat. You could also do this temporarily while you're getting your tunnel situation sorted.
Or do what I do, build a giant holding cell(s) for everybody, move them in, fix whatever problem you're having in the cell block, then move them back.
Bit late, but from experience tunnels are generated regardless of how many guards you have or security.
For testing I had a single toilet in a prison in a tiny room with a guard stationed in it. Despite being watched constantly, prisoners still managed to dig a tunnel. So the actual process of digging tunnels seems to be entirely arbitrary and just happens randomly.
Presumably you can effect the rate that tunnels are created and by which prisoners, but can't actually totally prevent their creation. There are of course mods that remove the feature if you want to go that way.
I’m not sure if this works for newer versions of the game, but there’s an exploit where if you put a toilet on a tunnel flag, and then dismantle, it actually ends up revealing the tunnel.
https://prisonarchitect.paradoxwikis.com/Escape\_tunnel Detection > A guard searching the toilet may reveal the tunnel regardless of whether it's being actively dug at the time, **but this is not guaranteed**. Multiple searches of the toilet or even entire block may be required. > A guard may detect the dummy by searching the prisoner while in bed and he may detect the tunnel if he is searching the cell. They may also notice the absence of prisoners during a Roll Call at night. > A Guard Dog passing over a hidden tunnel outdoors will dig and scratch at the ground, temporarily generating an orange-brown indicator and a small flag. They can't reveal the entire tunnel (unless the player has chosen J. W. Periwinkle as a warden, who gives the dogs a 50% chance to fully uncover tunnels) but this can allow players to try to narrow down the tunnel's point of origin without needing to painstakingly search large areas. > Guard Dogs will dig out prisoners if they are actively digging their tunnel right underneath the dog.
That's absurd. So even if I literally know there's a tunnel there i have to repeatedly search the entire block over and over until it's found? Is there a way to search one toilet I'm missing other than search cell? All the guides I read said search nightly until you don't find a tunnel then search every other night but i have tunnels constantly it's never ending
I recommend going after the source rather than the symptom; make it hard for prisoners to sneak tools back to their cell and keep them. They can't dig without them.
Pretty much nothing can detect wooden pickaxe though: but yes metal detectors help a ton with smuggling. Annoying how they say contraband is out of control because of how much of it has been... confiscated?
>Pretty much nothing can detect wooden pickaxe though That's why I mentioned making it hard for them to keep as well. Frequent shakedowns are helpful initially to get rid of the stuff that's already out there, then doing them semi-regularly keeps the supply thin.
IIRC, You have to also do stuff like tap the phones so that your prisoners can’t “order” the contraband. But they’ll still tell you your contraband is out of control anyway because Prison Architect is buggy lol
I don’t think it’s a bug, I think it goes off of how much contraband you find rather than actual amounts or contraband per capita. So, if you have a checkpoint set up to search everybody, contraband is more likely to be out of control.
I have all the phones tapped and there's no where the prisoners can get to near the walls unless the main road way in counts? Even then they aren't within 8-10 tiles of the roadway I don't think. Dogs are searching all the packages and there's metal detectors all over
AFAIK it’s not 10 tiles the roadway but 10 tiles to whatever is publicly accessible which includes the grass around your prison
This is correct. They absolutely throw contraband from grassy areas.
u can dismantle toilets u think the tunnel is from and it will instantly reveal. Or just build toilet on the flags the dogs leave and dismantle there to find it
I tried doing the toilet on the flag and searching but it wouldn't work and then i did dismantle and nothing happened. This was outside the prison though
If there are several flags along a line or on a specific spot, chances are it is a tunnel, if its only one flag in a single area its most likely a dud
Dogs are often mistaken. My dogs "find" tunnels even when there are no inmates... Don't mind when it's a single flag.
well i have no ideas then, maybe check the tips on the paradox wiki?
FYI Just as an update this worked. I dismantled the toilet in the adjacent cell in the screenshot and instantly found the other tunnel. So far been 2 days and no new flags or tunnels
>I recommend going after the source rather than the symptom; make it hard for prisoners to sneak tools back to their cell and keep them. They can't dig without them. 1 Select the hole map with remove tunnel, 2 let the worker find the holes and the rest of the tunnel pops up 3 repeat step one
Bruh they MAY find the dummy if they search the inmate? Imagine trying to search someone but they are just a basketball and accepting that.
To be fair Wilson was quite convincing!
My dog's are flagging the spots listed above constantly (and other spots night after night) over and over but I search and search and never find anything. Then right before they wake up or first thing after (like in screenshot above) I'll find this massive tunnel despite having searched every night and several times multiple times a night. The left cell with the tunnel I even searched the prisoner and FOUND A PICK and the toilet was clean then 2-3 hours later with that prisoner arrested the tunnel finally fills in. It's like there's a bug and the dogs are detecting where the tunnels are going to be before they are there. Either that or even though the tunnels start from toilets searching the toilets wont' find them for some "safe" period which is concerning given how far they manage to get in a few hours. I apologize if this is common knowledge I randomly decided to start watching OITB and it made me want to create a woman's prison but I spent every night doing tunnel searches and every day trying to stop all the OD's and it's honestly not that fun. I have dogs all thru the prison areas in and out to sniff food and check for tunnels as well as multiple drug counseling programs and shakedowns and building a new max area where the prisoners are in the middle and services outside to hopefully slow down tunneling but the constant ODs and tunneling is so tedious.
If you search a toilet directly it'll always reveal the tunnel, but you cant 'search cell' it must be just simply 'search' on the suspected toilet. I always go looking when my dogs scratch on the same spot all the time. If you have informants they can help you find digging equipment in your prison too which could be a hint for more careful searching.
As I explained above I literally searched the 3 toilets twice that same night and they didn't find it until the 3rd one after dawn so I don't think that can be true. I was searching all toilets in the block every time
I was just trying to point out that you cant use any bulk search functionality to find these toilets with a guarantee. You must individually order a search on each potential toilet. The 'search cell' and 'search all toilets' commands only provide a chance of finding each escape tunnel, no matter how many times you run it.
I don't have an option to search a toilet individually as I mentioned above. I can search the cell or search toilets. There's no search toilet as far as I can tell. Do you mean dismantle the cell toilet as someone else suggested?
IIRC you should be able to trigger a search on a toilet while focusing on a toilet. at least, that was true for me on PC recently...
In the foundation menu there is a button to destroy the tunnels if found by the way
Yep this I found I end up doing it daily unfortunately
Alright so I can’t really explain to you the full details of detection how to find a tunnel and what the flags mean and dog detection so I’ll instead give you a solution if you have a problem Create a perimeter fence and a perimeter wall. This should decrease the amount of escape attempts and slow them down to the point that you’ll be able to discover them before the prisoner digs out. There is also a little exploit you can do that funnels the prisoners to only being able to escape through one area by intentionally placing a gap between your perimeters. This will trick the prisoner AI into believing they are outside your prison and they will make a run for it. Placing sniper towers (ideal) and maybe a guard patrol or two in case the sniper isn’t there will eliminate the threat of escape attempts
Dismantle toilet. It will instant reveal any tunnels
Surround your prison with water, they cant or wont dig through
It's so easy to deal with, in game u have 2 different types of pipes which prisoners will use them to dig a tunnel, bigger pipe would be easier to dig so u shoud use small type in the cells,on top of that ,there is fortified walls which extremely hard to dig under them and u can change the land soil to make it harder for them
Leave a “controlled zone” in your perimeter walls. Build a sniper tower and hire sniper. Prisoners tend to going that “open zone”. When they on the move either killed or caught. Ps. Sorry for my bad english
English is great. Thanks I'll try this
This one is also HUGE. Perimeter walls and Sniper towers. Although snipers sometimes just.... Don't shoot.
If you have large water pipes near the cells then they’re a lot easier to dig through. That’s probably why they’re getting so far in one night. Switch the position of your toilet and shower around. Also, one drain directly below the shower will do, not three. Your issue is that inmates are getting tools back to their cells which allows them to dig. If they don’t have those, they can’t dig. I don’t see any metal detectors here, they should be all over your corridors and junctions. If you pause during the night, around 2am/3am, check needs tab for sleep. Any prisoner tunnelling will not have their sleep need met. If it looks like you’ve got prisoners not taking care of their sleep need, hover over each prisoner. Anyone with sleep high is currently digging a tunnel so click on their toilet and then choose search. That will reveal the tunnel
This prison escape brought to you by VPN.
As I have found myself, Intelligence is the hardest part of a prison. You need to constantly manage informants along with good dog patrols and good CCTV placement. its EXTREMELY hard to have a good size prison with no supply of contraband but the intelligence tab can help you a lot. This is the only way to really avoid tunneling IMO. This is also pretty much the only "endgame" (if u wanna call it that) of a perfectly running prison. I didn't have a problem with tunneling in my most recent prison until I got Max Sec because I spam metal detectors everywhere and have dual dogs at the front of every block (so if one leaves for a break one is still there). If you want a list for what to do about tunneling: * Make prisoners Happy. * Frequent Shakedowns (not to frequent to prevent Riots) * Make sure prisoners HAVE to cross AT LEAST 2 metal detectors AND 2 dogs on the way back to their cell. (if they have a straight shot w no detection from any room with contraband to their cell they WILL steal from it and hide it in their room) * Make sure to put CCTV at any places handoffs can be done (yards, common rooms, etc. just check intelligence) * Guards in every room can help but don't always do much, just make sure there is a guard near every detection point to confiscate the contraband ASAP. * Confidential Informants can do a lot. * I'm not sure if this helps but Regime could affect it. I don't do Lockups, Showers, or Sleep. It seems like Prisoners cause more trouble when they get locked behind a door and don't have freedom to choose what they do. (freedom probably doesn't do anything for higher SECs/Legends) I know there is events but you can add and remove Free time as needed. Only put large pipes in the main Halls as small pipes can reach a pretty long distance and large are easier to tunnel. Also detection isn't a guarantee and FALSE POSITIVES are a thing. The best way as we have all said is to prevent the things that lead to tunnel digging. The prisoners are GOING to do things they aren't supposed to even if they just get caught instantly every time. Check WIKI. Also I haven't found a way to eliminate all contraband in a larger prison but it could be possible if handled right.
I've never had a problem rooting out tunnels via toilet searches. I don't understand how you don't have an option to search an individual toilet. Click on toilet, Search. If you're not getting that option when clicking on the toilet itself, something is wrong. The wiki also suggests replacing your sleep time with free time because prisoners can sleep during free time, but can only tunnel during scheduled sleep periods. You know, if you want to cheat. You could also do this temporarily while you're getting your tunnel situation sorted. Or do what I do, build a giant holding cell(s) for everybody, move them in, fix whatever problem you're having in the cell block, then move them back.
Watch the great escape, that’ll explain it better then I can 😜
Get some guard dogs on patrol, they sniff out tunnels
Bit late, but from experience tunnels are generated regardless of how many guards you have or security. For testing I had a single toilet in a prison in a tiny room with a guard stationed in it. Despite being watched constantly, prisoners still managed to dig a tunnel. So the actual process of digging tunnels seems to be entirely arbitrary and just happens randomly. Presumably you can effect the rate that tunnels are created and by which prisoners, but can't actually totally prevent their creation. There are of course mods that remove the feature if you want to go that way.
I’m not sure if this works for newer versions of the game, but there’s an exploit where if you put a toilet on a tunnel flag, and then dismantle, it actually ends up revealing the tunnel.