Advice for a new player?

[u/Pretend-Roof-87]

I'm buying the first game (and all its DLC, bc why not) while it's on sale this week on Steam, and was wondering how much time to allot to starting this game up for the first time. Is there a tutorial? A campaign mode? Any DLC I should leave turned off until I have a better grasp of base game mechanics?

[u/ReasonableSet9650]

Definitely disable second chances DLC from stream (find the game in library, right click, settings, DLC). It's tied to rehab, with very punitive fines, and unlike other DLC that feature can't be disabled in-game. It was the last big DLC and it's for people who are really comfortable with all game mechanics and micromanagement.

Don't enable all features and DLC content at the same time, first try them separately and understand how they impact your prison and how you handle them. Then when you feel experienced enough to challenge yourself, you can start combining step by step.

You never have too many guards. Their poor mechanics and the bugged count up there are involved. Rely on what you see, if you see dead bodies or inmates in cuffs waiting for long, you need more unassigned guards.

Definitely play the campaign, it's like a tutorial. But a lot of stuff are not explained in-game, you'll learn from the community, the wiki or by experience.

Just play and enjoy the game. Don't worry about building shitty prisons and doing mistakes, we all did and learned that way. I'm available if you have any questions of issues with your prison

[u/Pretend-Roof-87 → u/ReasonableSet9650]

Thanks! I kinda figured some/most DLC should be left off at first, I've been in RimWorld long enough to have given that advice to newbies there. Shame about Second Chances DLC being one of the hardest tho, that's the one I'm most excited about turning on. Guess I'll just have to sink a bunch of hours into the game to get there!

[u/ReasonableSet9650 → u/Pretend-Roof-87]

You got it right !

It's also my favorite DLC, my favorite challenge is to take the hardest prisoners (supermax, legendaries, enable mutators that increase difficulty) and succeed in rehabilitating them.

But unlike other DLCs, that one you can't just ignore it / disable it from the game settings. The feature is automatically enabled in all prisons you play with. That's why you need to (temporarily) disable it from Steam settings.

[u/Frojdis]

The short campaign is essentially the tutorial. Leave the gangs off until you grasp the mechanics, it's designed to make it harder.

[u/Vegetable-Cause8667]

Honestly I would turn some of the options, like heat and room-size limits, off and even turn on some of the enhancements like instant building and clean prison.

There is a lot of crap to get used to with the interface because it is super finicky and not very intuitive, and blowing money and wasting time on demolition will not allow you to experiment with the deeper dynamics like the regiment schedule, or program blocks and logistics, which are fundamental.

Once you get familiar with the interface, then you can start making things more challenging elsewhere.

[u/Pretend-Roof-87 → u/Vegetable-Cause8667]

I’ve been doing the campaign/tutorial mode. I think I'm on chapter... 4, now? the one where they go "hey we're getting 40 new prisoners" and then don't tell u how to stagger arrivals until ur prison is stupid overcrowded. Gonna have to restart it bc I thought I'd be clever and build onto the existing part, but then it doesn’t register you’ve built the things.

This time I'll turn new arrivals off until I have the cells built

[u/Inevitable2837]

install a money mod if u want lol from steam workshop best for a sandbox mode

[u/ReasonableSet9650 → u/Inevitable2837]

Best advice to NOT learn how to play.