TheoTown

First of all, let me clarify: It is by no means that I am hating on this expansion. Seriously.
I had been waiting for something like this for a long time, and seeing a plug-in bundle be officialized is probably among the best feelings a creator could have. Congratulations Kingtut, this is an accomplishment.

Now, back on the main topic. Before this expansion was officialized, what I severely disliked about this is the Fines System. Basically, if you have no prison, or if the prison is in awful conditions, you get exportation fees and fines, respectively. This is fine as you should be punished for not providing enough services for your citizens. However, these are the reasons why these are kinda broken:

1. You get fined per day and not per month. Normally, for every expense that you have, it gets deducted on you budget slowly throughout the month. The total is evenly divided to 30 days, and would be normally deducted to your monthly income. In this expansion, however, this is not the case.

2. In addition to #1, the amount of fines you could get is ridiculously high. In some of my old, small towns, I had some cases where I was unable to progress. This was because I was losing 500T per day vs. My monthly income of 8000T.

Note that this means that I will only get 8000T in a month! Assuming that everything stays constant, if we sum up all the fines I would had gotten in a month, we get a 15000T deduction from fines alone. In other words, we lose 7000T a month. That is the equivalent of -7000T in your monthly income, and I tell you, it is nearly impossible for that to happen normally.

3. The prison system is online since the first houses get built. That means that your little town can already be losing a lot of money per day since day 1. This significantly reduces your progress, as money is everything in this game.

Now, how can we fix these?

1. Very simple for #1 and #2: Just make the fines deduct your money per month, not per day. Honestly, I am fine if I would be losing a ridiculously large of money as punishment, as the amount of fines that you get is reasonable anyway. That is, if monthly.

For example, in my given example of 500T deduction from fines, 500T is just perfectly reasonable in a monthly basis.

2. For #3: Just make the prison system be active once you had reached a certain city rank. For example, maybe at rank 15 or so? It will make sense if a massive prison exists in a large city, but maybe not in a small town. In a gameplay standpoint, I don't think that you should be forced to build these when you're just starting out since you have no money just yet.

That's it, sorry for the long post. I missed this forum.

3. The prison system is online since the first houses get built. That means that your little town can already be losing a lot of money per day since day 1. This significantly reduces your progress, as money is everything in this game.

Yep, I like that pack but not using only for that reason

The reason why these fees are subtracted per day is because the game handles this process similarly as well. I do agree that it is imbalanced though and I might look into it. For the rank, I'm not sure if it's possible, but I'll see what I can do about that as well.

Trust me, I don't see this as an attack on the plug-in. I've been so desperate for feedback for it since it's release, but most people don't say anything. Stuff like this is helpful.

After thinking about it, if I'm going to rebalance this plug-in, I might as well release all of the previously cancelled features I was working on as well. This will make development take a bit longer, but you'll get more content.

I plan on adding the SWAT team and dangers system, and I might add the prison labor system as well. I'm also working on adding a manifest so it can be used in MP regions as well.

Today, I made it so the prison system doesn't become active until you get at least 15000 XP, which is slightly after hitting rank 5. At rank 5, you'll unlock the warden's office and the tier one prison buildings and you'll be given a notification to push you to build a prison.

With school over (for now), I can start working on this plug-in again. I'll probably continue development again pretty soon.

I've gotten a little more work done recently:
-Most prison buildings will unlock at ranks 5, 7, and 10. Optional buildings will be unlocked at later ranks.
-Each prison building will now have a small police influence, with guard towers and armories giving off a larger effect
-Prison buildings will no longer spawn police cars
-Prison roads will allow any vehicle at an x-crossing (thanks flag: all!)
-I added a manifest file to allow this plug-in in Multiplayer

I'm working on adding some extra notifications right now to help the player understand the system better, and after that I might take a look at revamping the riot system. The new system will likely be based off of prisoner happiness. This will be dependent on your treatment of your prisoners, which will make the system less RNG dependent. Prison riots will also not occur until around rank 10, which is about the point where you'll unlock the SWAT HQ anyway.

A short video showing a few of the new feature I've been working on:
https://youtu.be/6y9H6DXNF5M

I think you'll be happy to hear that after a few months of work, version 1.2 of the Prison Expansion is almost complete! If everything goes to plan (and I don't find any major bugs), the update should release sometime in the next week or so. It's a shame I didn't get to add every feature I wanted to, but I guess they can wait for v1.3. Anyway, here's a draft of the current changelog:

Update 1.2:
-Made the prison plug-in easier by nerfing the fees and fines system.
-Added Armories, which can be used to quell rebellions using the SWAT team.
-The Prison Expansion can now be turned on/off on a per-city basis through the console using "Prison Enable" and "Prison Disable."
-Added a manifest to the plug-in so it can be used in multiplayer maps.
-Prison buildings will now require ranks to unlock.
-Prisons will not be required until rank 5 and prison riots will be disabled until rank 10.
-Added a notification at rank 5 that will tell you to build a prison and another notification at rank 10 to warn you about prison riots. Also, two additional notifications have been added to warn you when your prison services are nearing max capacity.
-Expanded on the prison riot system by incorporating "Prisoner Happiness," which is influenced by how well you provide services to your prisoners.
-Added a "Posted Guards" item that'll act like a cheaper version of the Guard Tower.
-Added lights to some of the prison buildings.
-Changed the build times of several buildings.
-Added a small police influence to prison buildings.
-Prison buildings will no longer spawn police cars.
-Removed power and water requirements from the Prison Yard.
-Removed rotation support from the Warden's Office.
-Made some minor changes to the textures of a few buildings.
-Fixed the descriptions of the Mess Halls.
-Changed the ordinals of some items to accommodate some new changes and additions.
-Prison Pathways should allow emergency vehicles now.
-Made a variety of changes to the Prison System's pedestrian system.
-Prison pathways now support any road flag at x crossings.
-Removed the maximum holding cells mechanic. Holding cells are now balanced out by the new Prisoner Happiness system.[/list]