How to Make a Prison Server

What Is Prison

Prison is a progression-focused gamemode where players mine ores to earn money, rank up through a letter-based system (A through Z or beyond), and eventually prestige to start the loop again with multiplied rewards. The appeal is its satisfying grind loop, every pickaxe swing earns something, every rankup unlocks new mines with better ores, and the prestige system ensures there is always another milestone ahead. Prison servers attract players who enjoy incremental progress and number-go-up mechanics, which is a massive audience.

Building a good Prison server is less about complex redstone or world building and more about economy math, progression curves, and quality-of-life features. Get the numbers right and players will grind for weeks. Get them wrong and players hit a wall or blow past everything in an afternoon.

Plugin Options

Prison Plugin

The Prison plugin (available on SpigotMC, maintained by the Prison team) is the most established option. It handles mines, ranks, prestiges, and mine resets in one package. The configuration is done through in-game commands and YAML files. It integrates with Vault for economy and supports auto-sell, multi-block break, and mine access permissions out of the box. This is the recommended choice for most new servers.

UltraPrison

UltraPrison is a premium alternative that bundles additional features like token systems, auto miners, multiplier boosters, and enchantment systems directly into the plugin. It is popular on larger servers because it reduces the number of plugins you need. The downside is cost and the fact that you depend on a single developer for the entire gamemode. If you want fast setup and don't mind paying, UltraPrison works well.

Designing the Mine Ranks

The A-Z ranking system is the backbone of Prison. Each rank corresponds to a mine filled with specific ores. Early mines have mostly stone and coal. Later mines introduce iron, gold, diamonds, and emeralds. The progression should feel smooth, each new mine should visibly contain better ores than the last, and the rankup cost should require roughly 20-40 minutes of mining at the current mine.

A typical 26-rank layout:

Rank	Primary Ores	Rankup Cost
A	Stone, Coal	$1,000
B	Stone, Coal, Iron	$3,000
C-F	Coal, Iron, Lapis	$5K-$25K
G-L	Iron, Gold, Redstone	$30K-$200K
M-R	Gold, Diamond, Lapis	$250K-$2M
S-Y	Diamond, Emerald, Quartz	$3M-$50M
Z	Emerald, Diamond Block, Netherite	$100M

These numbers are starting points. After launching, monitor how fast players progress and adjust. If everyone reaches Z in two days, double the later costs. If players quit at rank M, the jump between L and M is too steep.

Building the Mines

Each mine is a large cuboid region filled with ores. Use the Prison plugin's built-in mine creation commands:

/mines create A
/mines set area        <-- select the mine region
/mines block add A STONE 50
/mines block add A COAL_ORE 35
/mines block add A IRON_ORE 15
/mines reset time A 3  <-- reset every 3 minutes

Mine sizes should grow as ranks increase. Rank A might be 20x20x20, while rank Z could be 50x50x50. Larger mines mean more ore per reset, which compensates for the higher rankup costs. Set mine reset intervals between 2 and 5 minutes, fast enough that players rarely mine out the entire pit, slow enough that the server isn't constantly regenerating chunks.

Access control is handled through permissions. Each mine's entry area should be gated by a LuckPerms permission that the rankup system grants automatically. Use WorldGuard regions for the physical boundaries and link them to the LuckPerms groups.

Mine Reset and Performance

Mine resets are the most performance-intensive operation on a Prison server. Regenerating a 50x50x50 mine means setting 125,000 blocks every few minutes. The Prison plugin handles this by spreading block changes across multiple ticks to avoid lag spikes. If you have 26 mines resetting on overlapping timers, stagger them, don't let all mines reset in the same second. In the Prison plugin, you can offset reset timers so that mine A resets at :00, mine B at :10, mine C at :20, and so on.

For additional performance, read our server optimization guide and make sure you are running Paper or Purpur rather than vanilla Spigot. Pre-generating the world with Chunky also helps since mine regions won't trigger chunk generation during resets.

Prestige System

Once a player reaches rank Z, they can prestige. Prestiging resets their rank back to A but gives them a permanent multiplier on all future earnings, typically 1.5x, 2x, or a scaling formula. Some servers also give prestige tokens that can be spent in a prestige shop for exclusive perks. The prestige system is what turns a 5-hour experience into a 50-hour one. Without it, players max out and leave.

Configure prestige in the Prison plugin with:

/ranks create p1 prestige
/ranks set cost p1 100000000  <-- cost to prestige

Each subsequent prestige should cost more than the last. Prestige 1 might cost $100M, prestige 2 costs $300M, prestige 3 costs $700M. The scaling keeps high-prestige players grinding without making prestige 1 feel impossible for newcomers.

Economy: Selling Ores and Enchanted Pickaxes

Players earn money by mining ores and selling them. The most common approach is auto-sell: ores go directly into the player's balance without cluttering their inventory. The Prison plugin supports this natively, or you can use a separate auto-sell plugin. Set sell prices per ore type in your economy config and make sure they scale with mine rank, coal from mine A should sell for less than coal from mine Z, or use a global multiplier tied to rank.

Enchanted pickaxes are the other progression axis. Players spend tokens (earned from mining) to upgrade their pickaxe with custom enchantments: Fortune (more drops per ore), Explosive (breaks a 3x3 area), JackHammer (breaks an entire layer), Speed (haste effect), Token Finder (bonus token drops), and Nuke (breaks massive areas at high levels). These enchantments are typically handled by TokenEnchant or the enchantment system built into UltraPrison.

Token Shop and AutoMiner

Tokens are a secondary currency earned from mining. Players spend tokens on pickaxe enchantments, cosmetic items, temporary boosters, and pet companions. The token shop gives players a reason to keep mining even after they can afford the next rankup, there is always another enchantment level to buy.

AutoMiner is a premium feature that lets players AFK-mine. While standing in a mine, the auto miner breaks blocks around them automatically for a set duration (earned through tokens, ranks, or donor perks). This is controversial, some players see it as pay-to-win if it is donor-only. A balanced approach is to give everyone a small daily auto mine allowance and let donors have more.

Plots and Building

Higher-ranked players should have something to do besides mine. Many Prison servers include a plot world where players can build freely once they reach a certain rank. Use PlotSquared to manage the plot world and gate access behind a mid-tier rank (rank M or higher). Plots give players a creative outlet and a reason to show off their wealth through builds. Some servers tie plot size to prestige level, prestige 0 gets a 32x32 plot, prestige 5 gets a 64x64 plot.

Plugin Stack

• Prison, core gamemode, mines, ranks, prestige.
• Vault + EssentialsX Economy, money backend.
• LuckPerms, permissions per rank.
• TokenEnchant, custom pickaxe enchantments.
• PlotSquared, plot world for building.
• WorldGuard, mine region protection.
• WildStacker or RoseStacker, stack drops to reduce lag.
• EssentialsX, utility commands, homes, kits.

Want to see a polished setup in action? Astroworld MC runs economy survival with custom bosses, ranks, crates and crossplay. IP: play.astroworldmc.com