This game rewards creative thinking and experience but this guide will give you a hand up for escaping on your first try. Throughout the guide we will go over basic mechanics then move on to things like weapon specifics and special escape tricks.
Other The Escapists 2 Guides:
- Basics of Undergrounds.
- Centre Perks 2.0 (Meet the Crew / Escape on Day 1).
- How to Make Money Very Fast.
- How to Escape the USS Anomaly.
- How to Escape the Centre Perks 2.0.
- How to Escape the Rattlesnake Springs.
- How to Escape the Air Force Con.
Contents
The Stat Bar
All credit goes to Pyrotanker!
On your stat bar you have three stats that you have to worry about. Health, Stamina, And your Heat.
Your Health represents how alive your character is. When this is reduced to zero your character is knocked out and medics will come to bring you to the infirmary, taking any contraband you were carrying with you at the time. Health very slowly regens on its own but regens much faster by resting in a bed. You can also use some consumables to restore health. There is no way to increase your health but wearing armor makes you take less health damage with each hit making you harder to knock out.
Your Stamina represents how much energy your character has. When this is reduced to zero your character will be unable to do most actions aside from walking, talking, and picking up / dropping items. Like Health Stamina restores on its own but can be sped up by doing actions such as taking a shower or lying down. And also like health many consumables restore stamina. It is a good idea to bring consumables if your going to be doing a lot of work during the night as lying in your bed will speed up the night making it hard to restore stamina (unless your playing in multiplayer in which the night will only speed up if everyone lies in there bed at the same time).
Your Heat represents how much negative attention you have from the guards. Unlike the other two stats your generally going to want to have this number as low as possible. Doing actions like being late for a routine, starting a fight with an inmate, or being in another inmates cell will raise your heat. Once your heat reaches about 80 most guards will atack you on sight, and at 100 being outside will result in being shot by snipers. Actions that represent active escape attempts or aggresion to guards will often result in an instant 100 heat. Unlike the other two stats your heat will gradually decrease over time and there is no real way to speed this up.
The Skill Bar
The skill bar is a set of three skills that directly effect your characters ability to perform actions and create usefull items in the prison. All of these skills are increased by going to a specific area and performing a skill increasing mini-game. These three skills are Strength, Fitness, and Intellect.
Strength is a measure of how hard your characters hits in combat. Strength is increased at the gym and is only useful if your escape plan involves knocking out a lot of inmates or a guard. An important note is that high strength is not REQUIRED to knock out a guard, it only makes the task easier.
Fitness is a measure of how much stamina is used to perform certain actions. Stamina like strength is increased at the gym. High stamina means that you can fight or use tools longer without having to stop to rest. This skill is arguably the most useful to max because almost any escape plan will involve using tools or fighting. Stamina is almost a neccesity if your going to be doing any digging at night because resting in your bed at night will speed up the night making it very hard to restore stamina during the night (unless your in multiplayer in which the night will only speed up if everyone lies in a bed at once).
Intellect is a measure of your characters ability to make certain items. If you open your inventory with “C” then you probably will notice that many items are locked behind an intellect requirement. Intellect unlike the other two skills is not raised at the gym but is instead increased at bookshelves throughout most prisons. Intellect in my opinion is the most useful of the three skills and should be maxed on almost any run as the high intellect items are very useful. One things to note though is that “maxing” on intellect should only be brought up to 70 for as of the time of writing this guide intellect does not provide any benefit outside of creating items, all of which are unlocked at 70 intellect.
Your Cell and the Prison Around You
When you start off in a prison you will begin in your cell. Depending on the prison you play you might be alone or with some cellmates. If you are with cellmates it is a good idea to remember their names and try to avoid beating them up as low opinion (a mechanic i will cover later) will result in them probably trying to beat you up during lights out. In your cell each prisoner (including you) will have a desk in which they can put items in. Your desk will also have a very useful hidden compartment, this is used to hide contraband that can’t be found during cell searches. Searching your desk is instant but searching others desks will take a little time ( and might cause the owner to attack you if he is nearby). Outside of your cell is the rest of the prison, a wonderful place full of other criminals and guards who will not hesitate to beat you. Now that your in here you’ll probably immedietly pondering how to escape (as you should its kinda the purpose of the game) but i reccomend that you hold that thought for just a moment. Your first run in each prison should be taken fairly slowly as you do not have a specific plan and no specific goals on escaping. for now i reccomend you follow the schedule and use free times to explore the prison and learn guard patterns and weak points.
Schedules
Each prison has a schedule that you must follow, the schedule is different from prison to prison but each prison starts and ends they day with a Role Call. Whatever the current schedule is will be shown right under your mini-map next to the time, along with a yellow arrow that will guide you to the place your supposed to be going. Not showing up to a scheduled area will result in the security of the prison to be raised by half of a star (security is covered later just for now know that you want it low) UNLESS it is Role Call, missing Role Call is VERY BAD and will raise you to an INSTANT 5 STARS and put the whole prison in lockdown. During lockdown all of the prisoners will be sent to their cells except for whoever missed rolecall, who will be chased down and beat down. To make sure none of that happens all you have to do is show up to the required scheduled area, you know you have done this when a green checkmark appears next to the name. You do not have to stay in the area the entire time, once the green checkmark is there you can roam and do whatever even during Role Call.
Security
Security is how much…well…security the prison has at the time. Security is measured by the five stars under the schedule and is increased by suspicious activity such as not showing up for schedules and damage done to the prison. As security increases certain things happen in the prison.
- 1 Star – More Guards
- 2 Stars – Dogs are released
- 3 Stars – Even More Guards
- 4 Stars – More Dogs
- 5 Stars – SWAT Team
Security goes up half a star per player when they miss a non Roll Call schedule. Security goes up a few stars when damage is found on the prison (a missing wall or a damaged airvent and such). Security goes up to 5 stars when Roll Call is missed or a prisoner is caught actively damaging the prison. When 5 stars is reached the prison enters lockdown. The bright side is that when lockdown is finished the prison goes back down to 0 stars. Security also decreased by a few stars after each night.
Opinions and Your Fellow Inmates
Opinions are a way to measure your relationship with a fellow inmate or guard. When someones opinion is too low they might attack you randomly if they are an inmate or in the case of guards tail you around making it difficult to do criminal actions. Increasing opinions can be done by giving them gifts or doing quests.
Quests are recieved by inmates that have a green exclemation mark above their head and are the main way from making any decent money. When you press “E” on one of them you will see how much the quest pays out along with a description of what they want you to do. If you accept the quest will be added to your journal and assuming you don’t accept another quest will have an active checklist beneath the security meter. Most quests while active will also have a yellow pin on the map indicating where your current objective is. Some quests are very simple such as flood a toilet or find an item and bring it back to someone. But some quests are harder such as crafting a high intellect item or making someone lose their job.
With the money that you earn doing quests you can buy things from some of the prisoners that have wares to sell, represented by a coin above their heads. Prisoner Venders only sell contraband but are a great way of getting items that your having trouble finding.
Guards and How to Avoid Them
Guards are obviously going to be your main problem for escaping. There are 4 types of guards that will try to stop you from escaping.
The normal guards that walk around the prison. These guys either stand at a scheduled area or roam about the prison. The main problem these guys can cause is increasing your heat and fighting in numbers as they aren’t actually that hard to knock out if you are used to the combat system.
Snipers, These guys can’t actually be seen but they’re there, trust me. These guys will snipe any prisoner with high heat who are outside during the day. These guys are the reason you cant just clip out of the fence and leave, as their attacks are unblockable and hit hard. Their main weakness is that they are only able to see during the day and so they cant shoot you during lights out.
Guard dogs, These guys only show up if you’ve hit two stars but are major pain in the a**. They are invulnerable and will chase down players with high heat. Theres not really any counters to them other then to save your guard beatdowns for when they are gone.
SWAT Members, I actually don’t have a whole lot of knowledge on these guys cause normally when a lockdown occurs i get taken out by the dogs before i get anywhere near them. if i had to guess though id say these guys are a bad deal and should be avoided if possible.
The guards that walk around the prison carry around keys and occasionaly keycards. There are 5 different key types and 2 keycards. Keycards are only usable in multiplayer and this guide is mainly for singleplayer so ill avoid talking about those but the keys are very useful. The 5 key types are yellow, cyan, red, purple, and green. Cyan and green are often used for staff doors and in my opinion aren’t super useful. Yellow keys are used for your cell doors. Purple keys are used for doors that are unlocked during the day but locked at night, and is often useful if you plan on clipping the fence at night. And red keys, which are used for guard only doors and are probably the most useful. However you cant just take the keys off of the guards because if the guards are brought back to the infirmary missing a key or keycard the prison goes into lockdown. You have to make a puddy mold using toothpaste and talcom powder, then use the puddy and key to make a keymold then put the key back on the body. If your not fast enough to do this then you can use ducktape on the guard to stop the medic from picking him up. Once you have the keymold use melted plastic to make the key itself. Know that keys made this way have 10 uses before they break.
Misc Tips
- Dug holes can be refilled with dirt or covered with your desk.
- Chipped walls can be covered with a poster until they are fully removed.
- Guards and prisoners youve knocked out can be bound in ducktape or rope to stop medics from recovering them.
- Prisoner NPC’s that are stopped from going to work will lose their job.
Be the first to comment