institution/Wiki/contraband/Home.md

# Institution: Contraband

*Prisoners get hold of things they should not have. Wardens turn the cell over looking for them.*

This is the player-facing wiki for **Institution: Contraband**, a RimWorld 1.6 mod. It documents
every mechanic with the real numbers, explains why each one works the way it does, and tells you how
to play with them — and against them.

> **Note on scope.** Contraband was recently *split*. It is now one thing: the **physical smuggling
> loop** of a prison. The engine it used to carry — a pawn's criminal propensity, the criminal
> record, and which pawns count as "in custody" — now lives in **Institution: Core**, which this mod
> requires. The response systems (classification, deterrence, discipline, parole, regime) went to
> **Institution: Justice**, and the gang network to **Institution: Gangs**. When this page mentions
> "the record" or "a pawn's propensity," those belong to Core; Contraband reads them.

## The one idea

The whole Institution suite rests on a single sentence:

> **Every pawn has a criminal propensity on a spectrum — nature (traits) × nurture (circumstance,
> mood, treatment) — and the colony can police it.**

Contraband is the half of that sentence you can *hold in your hand*. A propensity is abstract until a
disposed prisoner files a blade off his bunk, palms a twist of yayo on the way into a cell, or starts
digging. Contraband is where the spectrum becomes an object with edges.

## Vanilla built the demand and forgot the supply chain

RimWorld already ships a fully-built junkie. Raiders spawn addicted and carrying combat drugs. You
down one, capture strips everything, and now withdrawal grips them in the cell. A prisoner already
*seeks* a drug on their own, and already *ignores* the forbidden flag inside their own cell.

Put a drug within reach of an addicted prisoner and the base game makes them take it. Today. The
consumer, the craving, the reach, the ignore-forbidden — all of it already works.

What does **not** exist is any answer to two questions:

| Vanilla has | Vanilla lacks |
|---|---|
| A prisoner who wants contraband | Any route for contraband to reach the cell |
| A warden with fifteen jobs | A sixteenth called *search* |

The base game's warden can chat, convert, feed, execute, enslave, release, suppress — and cannot look
in a pocket. Contraband builds exactly the missing two halves: **supply** and **search**. It does not
need to build the junkie, because Ludeon already did.

## Concealment is a secret, not an item

This is the load-bearing design decision:

> **While it is concealed, there is no item.**

A hidden shiv is not in the gear tab. There is no icon. There is no stack on a shelf. The player is
told **nothing**. The item does not become a real object in the world until exactly two moments:

- when the prisoner **uses** it (it appears in their inventory), and
- when a warden **finds** it in a search (it is confiscated and never becomes an item at all).

Why go to the trouble? Because *an item you can see in the UI is not contraband* — it's inventory, and
there would be nothing to discover and no reason to ever order a search. The whole tension of the
system is that **you never know**. A warden you send to toss a cell might find a blade, might foil a
tunnel, or might waste twenty minutes on a prisoner who was hiding nothing — and that empty search
still has to cost, or the mere *offer* of the job would be the discovery.

Read the full lifecycle in **[Concealment and Intake](Concealment-and-Intake.md)**.

## The four supply routes and the one counter

| Route | What it is | Page |
|---|---|---|
| **Intake** | A captive hides the small contraband they walked in with | [Concealment and Intake](Concealment-and-Intake.md) |
| **Improvise** | Whittle a shiv from the cell's own furniture | [Improvised Weapons](Improvised-Weapons.md) |
| **Tunnel** | Dig out under the perimeter with a filed pick | [Tunnels](Tunnels.md) |
| **A bent warden** | A greedy or over-kind guard smuggles *for* a prisoner | [Corruption](Corruption.md) |
| **The counter** | A prioritized cell toss that reads the tells | [Warden Search](Warden-Search.md) |

And because every guard is a person with their own diligence and their own price, the search is only
as good as who you send — see **[Corruption](Corruption.md)**.

## How everything is contraband without a list

Contraband names no items. It recognises three kinds of thing:

1. **Anything explicitly marked as contraband** — the opt-in, with pluggable behaviour a mod can
   supply.
2. **Every drug** — vanilla's, Vanilla Expanded's, mods that don't exist yet. Hard drugs conceal
   better (0.75 vs 0.5).
3. **Every weapon** — how well it hides, and where, is decided by its **mass**. A knife rides on the
   body; a heavy gun goes under the floor; a minigun (over 10 kg) hides nowhere.

It reads the item's own stats rather than editing anything. Nothing changes another mod's items.
Details in [Concealment and Intake](Concealment-and-Intake.md) and [Compatibility](Compatibility.md).

## Index

- **[Concealment and Intake](Concealment-and-Intake.md)** — the secret model, where a thing can hide,
  the three kinds of contraband, intake on capture, redemption, and how a smuggled vessel keeps its
  contents.
- **[Improvised Weapons](Improvised-Weapons.md)** — the shiv whittled from furniture, how its
  material carries through, the damage tell, and who reaches for it in a breakout.
- **[Tunnels](Tunnels.md)** — the Prison-Architect dig under the perimeter, which pawns dig, and how a
  search uncovers the shaft.
- **[Warden Search](Warden-Search.md)** — the prioritized search, how tells and the record drive
  priority, what a search does, and how it feeds back.
- **[Corruption](Corruption.md)** — Diligence and Corruption from traits and mood, how they scale a
  find, and the bent warden who looks away or smuggles in.
- **[Compatibility](Compatibility.md)** — the Core dependency, the Foul Play bridge, Justice/Gangs
  interplay, and the prison mods the suite is tested against.

## The suite

Each mod stands alone as an install; together they form one system.

| Mod | Owns | Depends on |
|---|---|---|
| **Institution: Core** | propensity, criminal record, secured context | base game |
| **Institution: Contraband** (this) | concealment, intake, shivs, tunnels, search, corruption | Core |
| **Institution: Justice** | classification, deterrence, discipline, parole, regime | Core |
| **Institution: Gangs** | gangs as contraband economies | Core, Contraband, Justice |
| **Foul Play** | vessel + substance + throw framework; the Piss Nuke; bridges its carboy in as contraband | standalone |
| **Ward** | a ward prison mode | — |

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*Part of the **Institution** suite — Core · Contraband · Justice · Gangs, alongside Foul Play and
Ward. Each stands alone; together they interlock.*