Getting started: Prerequirements
[Please contribute to this tutorial to make it more complete and accurate. Also, if you can change the name, I feel this one doesn't fit the topic.]
To escape a jail you will have to :
- Gather supplies
- Rob and Fight inmates
- Make friends (at least, not too many enemies).
- Buy supplies.
(and craft)
- Flee !
- Hide Supplies.
- Cut.
- Dig.
Gather Supplies
To survive in this jail, you need many things, such as Roll of Duct Tape, Sheet of Metal, keys, etc... You don't have them at the beginning, but your inmates (and the guards) do, so you can find them in desks! You have to do different things to earn stuff:
Fight
You can rob or fight for any items: To fight, just press spacebar (default) and click the poor victim. Don't forget to press spacebar again after you've knocked him out, to come back to normal mode. However, you should attack with weapon for example with pillow. Pillows deal more damage than punches (don't test it IRL). Also train up your strength (Stats) as you can to get more health.
To rob inmates, just walk into someone else's cell and click their desk, and after a short time an inventory window will open. Be careful, guards don't like to see you in someone else's cell. Also, if you try to open someone else's desk in front of him (or while he's sleeping in his room), he will attack you.
Using these methods, you must gather as much stuff as you can before you try to flee. Try to gather shovels, pickaxes, cutters and plastic keys.
Have Friends
Friends are important in the game. To make friends you can click on a prisoner to talk to him or complete favors for them (more on that later). This will raise his opinion of you, and to check his opinion right-click on him and mouse over the bar labeled OPN. Try to get this above 80. Pressing Q on him will recruit him. When you do this, he will attack whoever you attack and defend you, but will cause his opinion level to go down each time you attack someone with him. press Q on him again to dismiss your prison friend.
Buy
You will often not be able to find the supplies you need. Your inmates often have supplies for sale. When someone has something to sell, a small yellow bag appears over his head, and you can right click on him to open his menu, and you can click the third tab on the right. Just click the item you want to purchase, but you will have to pay him the labeled price in money. As said before, someone who likes you very much will sell you things at lower price, but someone who does not like you will sell you things at a higher price.
Hide Supplies
Many tools are illegal and if guards find them in your cell they will confiscate them.
So you must hide them. The main place to hide you valuables is in your desk, but they still might be found by guards. You can hide stuff in the vents (cut the vent), between two walls (chip the wall) or under the ground (dig a hole).
You will also have to hide the entrance to your stash because if guards find it, they will cover it.
To hide a hole in the vent, just craft a Fake Vent Cover. You can also hide your hole with your desk, and hide wall breach with a Poster or with a Fake Wall Block.
Tips
Make sure you make the most out of your time! Find patterns in your daily activities and find out where you have some free time to dig/chip/cut into areas. It might also be useful to explore guard patrol patterns to find out where it is safe to dig without being caught.
Often in a prison layout, you will see metal detectors (Often found separating two halves of a prison). These will detect illegal items and increase your guard heat dramatically. To avoid these, find a way to dodge them by digging under or creating a fake wall entrance. You can also use a contraband pouch, but these have a limited durability and are hard to replace.
This tip is a minor bug, but it might save you some guard heat if you see a guard when you are searching mate's desk. To do when you're searching the desk press esc or 7-0 NUM to stop the game, but it doesn't not stops the Searching. So restart the game when you are almost finishing the searching because if you don't the searched window does not come up. This might seem just small, but it might help you sometimes so use it well!