The Lengthy Guide

(Updated for 1.1.2) Technical breakdown of weapons, attachments, enemies, skills, and more. Has timers, triggers, and walkthroughs for every heist. Not quite the long guide, but close enough.

Overview

This guide is very long, so use of Ctrl + F is recommended.

Thanks a lot to everyone for using this guide. This took countless hours of work to put together and requires even more work to keep it up to date. I hope you can spare 3 seconds to give it a rating if you found it useful, because it really helps!

~KarmicChaos

Frequently Used Terms

In order for this guide to not alienate new players, the following list will break down all the terminology and abbreviations used frequently in this guide or by the community.

• Root Skill: The leftmost skill on a skill line (the one that can be aced by spending 2 skill points).
  
• Mastery Skill: The rightmost skill on a skill line (the one that can be bought without buying the basic root skill).
  
• Recovery Armor: After taking damage, your armor bar will have a red flashing portion of armor which we refer to as "recovery armor." This is the chunk of armor that can be recovered via skills or by not taking damage for a few seconds.
  
  
• Meta: Short for "meta-game." The meta is a strategy, loadout, or playstyle that is considered by the larger community to be the most optimal and efficient way to achieve victory in a game, but is not always necessarily the most fun. For example, something "being meta for loud" would mean that it is part of "the meta" for loud gameplay.
  
• Proc: Short for "process" or "procedure." When some item, effect, or event "procs" or "is proccing," that means it has occurred/activated or is occurring/activating respectively.
  
• Anti-Synergy: Two things have a synergy if they interact to produce a combined effect that is better than the sum of their separate effects. An anti-synergy is the opposite of this concept, where two things interact to produce a combined effect that is worse than either of their separate effects alone. In other words, you would be better off using one or the other, because using both makes their effects cancel out.
  
• Stacking: When effects "stack," it means they can both be applied or active at the same time. This is usually used to clarify whether or not the same effect can be applied to the same target multiple times.
  
  
• "~": Short for "about / approximately." Numbers with this symbol might not be exact, and could be slightly off.
  
• NPC: Short for "Non-Player Character." This refers to cops, guards, civilians, and employees. This does NOT refer to the bots that take the role of other heisters if you are playing alone.
  
• RNG: Short for "Random Number Generation." RNG is used by video games to make things unpredictable, such as what enemies will do, or where items will spawn. Gamers will frequently use "RNG" to refer to this process in a way that is similar to the word "Luck," such as referring to something beneficial as "having good RNG."
  
• HUD: Short for "Heads Up Display." This is the name for the overlay in a video game that tells the player things like health, ammo, and armor.
  
  
• NRFTW: Short for the heist "No Rest For The Wicked."
  
• Civ: Short for "Civilian."
  
• Cam: Short for "Camera."
  
• kc: Short for "Keycard."
  
• ADS: Short for "Aim Down Sights / Aiming Down Sights."
  
• AoE: Short for "Area of Effect."
  
• FoV: Short for "Field of View."
  
• LoS: Short for "Line of Sight."
  
• HP: Short for "Health Points."
  
• DMG: Short for "Damage."
  
• AP: Short for "Armor Penetration."
  
• RPM: Short for "Rounds per Minute."
  
• AR: Short for "Assault Rifle."
  
• SMG: Short for "Submachine Gun."
  
• 2p: Short for "2 player(s)."
  
• P1 / P2: Short for "Player 1" / "Player 2."

Changelog & To-Do

This guide will be regularly updated with new information for the foreseeable future. Below are a list of major changes that have been made as well as a to-do list of planned changes for the future. Small changes are not listed in the changelog. Please do not leave a comment suggesting topics to cover in the guide unless you check the entire guide, as we probably already covered (or are planning to cover) the topic.

Changelog:

• 10/19/23 - Guide published
  
• 10/20/23 - Add base reload times, thermal lance, breaching equipment pics.
  
• 10/21/23 - Add AP formulas, armor hardness, custody times/penalties/respawn supplies.
  
• 10/24/23 - Add weapon mods with numerical stats, stat descriptions.
  
• 10/25/23 - Add corpse carry mechanics, weapon recoil patterns, section on recoil/gunkick/spread.
  
• 10/26/23 - Add NRFTW (stealth) walkthrough.
  
• 10/27/23 - Add Dirty Ice (stealth), Rock the Cradle (stealth) walkthroughs, weapon mod pics.
  
• 10/28/23 - Add "Hack & Smack" exploit.
  
• 11/2/23 - Add Under The Surphaze (stealth) walkthrough, new 1.0.1 enemy behaviors; Remove mentions of exploits patched in 1.0.1.
  
• 11/3/23 - Add Gold & Sharke (stealth) walkthrough, Strategist skill line synergies, sections on favors, weapon EXP.
  
• 11/5/23 - Add Dirty Ice (loud), Touch The Sky (loud) walkthroughs.
  
• 11/6/23 - Add new 1.0.1 favors.
  
• 11/7/23 - Add Under The Surphaze (loud) walkthrough, Blast Shield synergy.
  
• 11/12/23 - Add 99 Boxes (stealth), Touch The Sky (stealth), NRFTW (loud) walkthroughs.
  
• 11/13/23 - Add Rock The Cradle (loud) walkthrough.
  
• 11/14/23 - Reorganized exploits into their own new sections. Add "Infinite Marking" exploit, Gold & Sharke (loud), 99 Boxes (loud) walkthroughs.
  
• 11/30/23 - Add new 1.0.2 skills/heists/balance changes. Remove mentions of all patched exploits (most notably "hack & smack", killing lead guard with Cover-Up, & Touch The Sky microcam exploit).
  
• 12/2/23 - Add armor lining recovery speeds, table of heist IP rewards, Turbid Station walkthrough.
  
• 12/3/23 - Fixed all outdated walkthroughs except for Touch The Sky. Add Cook Off walkthrough.
  
• 12/6/23 - Fixed outdated Touch The Sky walkthroughs. Add Camera Drone section.
  
• 12/8/23 - Add sections on "How to Cook Meth" & armor chunks.
  
• 12/12/23 - Add new 1.1.0 skills/weapons/heist/balance changes/enemies, section on Consumables, missing pics for enemies.
  
• 12/13/23 - Add Syntax Error (loud & stealth) walkthroughs.
  
• 12/15/23 - Add ammo pickup for mag mods, new DLC weapon mods.
  
• 12/20/23 - Add enemy respawn timers, described this in enemy spawning section.
  
• 3/28/24 - Add new 1.1.2 skills/armor and skill/weapon changes. Updated Security Modifiers.
  
• 3/29/24 - Remove mentions of patched exploits.
  
• 3/30/24 - Add section on Adrenaline. Updated enemy spawn mechanics.

To-Do:

• Test sniper damage to HP.
  
• Add reload speed, recoil patterns, & weapon mod pics for Syntax Error DLC weapons.
  
• Section on bot behavior.
  
• Determine how gun mods change damage distance mechanics
  
• Determine what causes Bile to never drop in the street (Gold & Sharke).
  
• Test & update unconfirmed bits of guide, missing numbers, percentages
  
• Per-heist diagram of guard patrols, item/loot spawn locations, etc. (can't be done until we have a map or freecam)

Enemies - Guards & Civs

In stealth, the main threats to blowing your cover are cameras, guards, and civilians. Each of these are described in more detail below.

Civilians/Employees
1 HP
~20m detection range

Civs are split into two types: civilians (pictured on the left) and employees (pictured on the right). The only way to visually distinguish between them is how formal their clothes are, with civilians typically wearing casual clothes and employees typically wearing formal clothes or construction vests. When this guide refers to "civs", it generally means both civilians and employees (unless employees are explicitly mentioned, in which case we are referring to them separately).

Employees will call security if they see something amiss, which takes them a full 10s, after which they will return to what they were doing. Civs are harmless to the player, but will panic at the sight of a masked heister. If a scared civ can make it outside of the map, they will call the cops, which instantly sounds the alarm.

Civs can be taken as hostages, traded for supplies, and used as human shields to deter cops from shooting at you. When holding a hostage as a human shield, you move slower, can only use your secondary weapon, and take longer to reload, but cops will only shoot at you if they are sure they won't hit the civ, leading to you taking a lot less damage from the front. Common enemies who are close enough will run up to you and attempt to stun you with a melee attack, making you drop the civ you were holding as shield.

Killing a civilian (or other enemy that is taken as a hostage) incurs a cleaning cost to the person who killed them. This is a decent amount of money that is deducted from your payout at the end of the heist, and can pile up fast if you kill a lot of hostages. Killing a hostage will also increase the amount of time you spend in custody. You can pick up and relocate a civilian's dead body to hide it in a better spot, but while carrying a body you cannot crouch or sprint.


Guard
100 HP
~20m detection range

There are a certain number of guards in each heist, each with their own unique patrol pattern. Higher difficulties may add more guards and change up certain patrol patterns to be less forgiving. Guards will regularly walk between certain spots on their patrol route, stopping for several dozen seconds at each spot. They will sometimes stand still, wander in circles, go on their phone, or smoke a cigarette while they wait at these spots, but each behavior is tied to each specific spot; If a guard smokes when he reaches a certain spot in his patrol, he will always stop to smoke there. Learning these waiting animations can give you a heads up to know when a guard is about to move on to the next spot in his patrol.

If a guard is unaware of you, you can sneak up behind him and grab him as a human shield, just like you can with a civ. Doing this will allow you to choke him for a silent kill, known as a "takedown." If you kill or takedown a guard, hold one as a shield for long enough, or force a guard to surrender, their radio will go off after 10s. If a heister then interacts with the guard's body, they will take several seconds to answer the pager. You can answer a guard's pager while you are carrying his body.

You are only allowed to answer a limited number of radios in a heist. If you use up all your radios, the next radio you answer will instantly sound the alarm. If you instead let the next radio go unanswered, the heist will enter search mode, or if the heist was already in search mode the alarm will sound.

Failing to answer a radio, or starting to answer a radio but releasing F before you finish, will reduce the amount of radios you can answer by 2. It will also cause the closest guard to come investigate the spot where the pager was when you failed to answer it. If you move the body before the next guard arrives, he will simply look around before returning to his regular patrol.

If a guard spots something, it will only take him 3s to radio in to sound the alarm or initiate search mode.

After the alarm sounds, guards will continue to fire at the heisters until the assault indicator says "First Responders Incoming", at which point all guards will surrender, obeying all the same rules as a civilian hostage for the rest of the heist (including the penalties for killing them).

Lead Guard
100 HP
~20m detection range

The lead guard is an extra troublesome guard that only spawns on a heist with the "Lead Guard" security modifier. Only one lead guard will spawn. The lead guard is identical to a regular guard in almost every way, having only two differences: An infinite radio & an extremely unforgiving patrol path.

If the lead guard is killed, his radio will go off after a short delay like a normal guard, but once it is answered or ignored, a new timer will start for 70s, after which his radio will go off again. This process repeats infinitely, draining your radio uses the longer the lead guard is dead. For this reason, it is generally recommended to leave the lead guard alive if attempting to stealth.

In addition, the lead guard has a carefully crafted patrol path that is designed to screw over the player much more than a regular guard. He patrols across important areas across the heist, and will regularly enter rooms and paths that heisters are likely to hide in. Many of his patrol spots exist in rooms that no other guard ever visits, turning rooms that are usually safe into unsafe hiding spots. His patrol route will frequently update to include new patrol spots when certain objectives are completed or new areas are unlocked.

A common way to deal with the lead guard is to stick a micro cam or a motion detector on his butt. The micro cam can be used to mark him at any time, and the motion detector will keep him marked permanently. This will let you know where he is at all times, helping you to avoid getting caught by his unusual patrol path.

Enemies - Cameras & Drones

Camera
~10m detection range

Cameras are operated by a central CCTV system in each heist; Hacking into one camera will give you access to all other cameras. Cams will rotate between looking to either side every 10s, and have a fairly big blind spot underneath them.

Most heists have a security room somewhere on the map that requires a blue keycard to enter. Inside you will find a stationary security guard at a computer which monitors the entire CCTV system for that heist. Interacting with this computer will give you to access the cameras, which can even be done while the guard is still at the computer by sneaking up behind him.

If the security room guard is killed or temporarily lured away from his computer, all cameras on the CCTV system will no longer detect anything for the rest of the heist. When this happens, the red camera LED lights will go dark and they will stop rotating from side to side. Cameras can still be hacked even after cams have been disabled.

For heists that do not have a security room, there will be some other method to access the CCTV system in the heist, such as the laptop in Turbid Station. Due to the lack of a security room, it is impossible to permanently disable cams on these heists. When paired with the Cerberus Core security modifier, this can make cameras extremely tricky to deal with.

Regular cams (pictured on the top) can be destroyed by a gunshot, throwing knife, explosion, the overload from the Hacker Aced skill, or even a melee attack. Titan cams (pictured on the bottom) are completely indestructible. If a security cam is destroyed, it can no longer detect anything or be hacked by heisters, and will be treated as a sabotaged object (see "Sabotaged Objects" in the section Stealth - What Counts as Illegal?).

Camera Drone
Spotlight detection

A Camera Drone (AKA "Stealth Drone") is a special type of camera that only appears in certain heists. They will fly in a patrol pattern above a secure area, acting like a camera that can only spot things in the red spotlight beneath them. Their reactions to spotting things are identical to that of a normal cam, but they are not part of the heist's central CCTV system; They cannot be accessed via the CCTV computer, and are not disabled if the security room guard is killed.

Cam drones can be shot and destroyed like a regular camera, and are still destructible even with the Titan Cams security modifier. A destroyed cam drone is treated as a sabotaged object, just like a regular destroyed cam. Be careful, because unlike a regular destroyed cam, destroyed cam drones have physics when they initially fall out of the sky, and thus can sometimes bounce around and land in an unfavorable position.

Combat Drone
50 HP, 150 Armor
Armor Hardness: 2.0

While a Techie is hidden in the heist, Combat Drones will begin to spawn alongside regular SWAT units (See "Techie" in the section Enemies - Specials (cont.) ). Up to 2 combat drones can spawn at a time, and only 2 can exist in the heist at a given time. They can be shot and killed like any other enemy, but will not count as a "kill" for any skills or challenges.

Combat drones are the only flying enemy in the game, and thus can find new and unexpected angles to fire at the heisters from. They come equipped with a small machine gun that deals decent damage with a high rate of fire, making them much more deadly than any regular or Heavy SWAT unit. They can shred your armor and health in seconds on higher difficulties if they can get the drop on you. Keep a close eye and ear out for them, and try to shoot them down quickly before they become a problem. Combat drones can sometimes blend into their environment when in front of dark-colored walls and ceilings, so try to make it a habit to mark combat drones so your team can see them.

Activating an ECM Jammer will destroy all combat drones on the map and prevent more from spawning until the ECM is finished. Drones can also be hacked and sabotaged with skills such as Scrambler Basic.

Enemies - Common SWAT

There are 3 types of police units you need to worry about once you go loud, each with their own spawning rules. These are Common, Uncommon, and Special.

Common Enemies

Common enemies are simply the cannon fodder that you will find yourself up against for most of the heist. There is a limit to how many common enemies can be on the map at once (unconfirmed amount, but it seems to scale with difficulty?).

First Responders
100 HP

First Responders are the cops that pull up in police cars when you initially go loud. The negotiation period starts when they arrive, but will be skipped if anyone in your crew takes certain actions (See "Negotiations" in the section Loud - Hostage Mechanics). The first responders will advance to attack with the first assault wave, but are very weak, and no more will spawn once they are killed.





SWAT
150 HP, 70 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5


SWAT units are the armored cops that you will be fighting most of the time. They have set locations on each heist where they can spawn, but will always choose to spawn from spots that are nearby to the players. Some SWAT units wield an SMG (pictured on the left), others wield an AR, and others wield a shotgun. SWATs with different weapons can be differentiated by what is on their chestpiece and the badge on their shoulder; A white badge & red shotgun shells mean they have a shotgun, a white badge & smaller chestpiece with large magazines means they have an AR, and a yellow badge & larger black chestpiece with small magazines means they wield an SMG. Shotgun SWATs will switch to a much weaker pistol if there is a hostage nearby to their target.

Heavy SWAT
150 HP, 170 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5

Heavy SWAT units will replace regular SWAT units later in the heist, which will happen at the same time that Bulldozers start spawning. The only difference between SWATs and Heavy SWATs is their increased armor; They deal the same damage and have the same health. Despite having more armor, they have the same armor hardness as a regular SWAT. Heavy SWATs can wield an SMG (pictured on the left), an AR, or a shotgun, just like regular SWATs. Note that Sabotage Specialists and Hostage Rescue Squads are also replaced by Heavy SWAT variants.

Enemies - Uncommon SWAT

Uncommon Enemies

Uncommon enemies spawn alongside common enemies, but spawn much less frequently and have specific roles to give the common enemies an easier time filling you full of lead. Each type of uncommon enemy can spawn in a squad of multiple copies of the enemy, up to the amount needed to fill the maximum amount allowed on the map at once. Uncommon enemies do not count as specials as far as challenges and (most) skills are concerned.

Hostage Rescue
150 HP, 70/170 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5

Hostage Rescue units periodically spawn in groups of up to 3, and only 3 hostage rescue units can be on the map at once. They spawn as long as there are hostages on the map that are tied down, and Shade will announce when they spawn in, giving you time to react. Just like regular SWATs, they can equip an AR, SMG, or shotgun, and have Heavy SWAT variants.

Instead of pursuing the heisters, they will seek out cowering or tied up hostages on the map and set them free. When a hostage is being targeted by a hostage rescue unit, the hostage's outline will be visible through walls. Upon reaching the hostage, they will begin to help them up, at which point the hostage rescue unit will also be visible through walls. If they are killed before they can finish freeing the hostage, the hostage will remain tied up/cowering, but if they are successfully freed, the hostage will be immune to damage and will flee while ignoring all attempts from heisters to intimidate them.

Sabotage Specialists
150 HP, 70/170 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5

Sabotage Specialists periodically spawn in groups of up to 3, and only 3 sabotage specialists can be on the map at once (this does not apply to Cook Off, which spawns 4 at a time). They spawn as long as the heisters are performing an objective that can be sabotaged, and Shade will announce when they spawn in, giving you time to react. Just like regular SWATs, they can equip an AR, SMG, or shotgun, and have Heavy SWAT variants.

Instead of pursuing the heisters, they will go out of their way to sabotage objectives by doing things like pulling fire alarms or disabling power boxes. When a sabotage specialist is mid-sabotage, they will have a glowing outline that can be seen through walls, and a waypoint is placed on the object that they are sabotaging. If they are killed quickly after this happens, their sabotage attempt will fail. Note that normal and Heavy SWAT units can also sabotage some objectives, but they are less likely to do so.

Shields
160 HP, 180 Armor
Armor Hardness: 2.0
Respawn Time: ~30s (?)

Shields regularly spawn alongside regular SWATs, and only 2 Shields can be on the map at once. Their primary role is to use their Shield to protect common enemies from oncoming gunfire, but they do come equipped with a pistol to deal damage. Common enemies will line up behind the Shield as he advances in order to take advantage of the mobile cover he provides. Shields will use a bash to stun you if you get too close. They have a small window on their Shield that can be shot out in order to fire at the enemy directly, and tossing a flashbang or grenade will cause the Shield to face the explosion to block it, giving you an easy opportunity to kill him.

Snipers
40 HP
Respawn Time: 45s

Snipers spawn far outside the playable area, and only 2 Snipers can be on the map at once. They will pick a heister to aim at and point their laser at them, firing after a small delay to take out a massive chunk of armor or health. A single Sniper shot will deal ~80 HP damage on Normal, and will instantly down a player with no armor on any other difficulty. A Sniper shot will destroy 1/1/2/4 armor chunks (depends on difficulty).

Snipers will never miss unless you are sprinting laterally, but by breaking LoS just before they fire, the bullet can be blocked by the environment. Their shots follows the same path as the laser, so if the laser is blocked by the environment, the bullet won't hit you. If they lose sight of their target for too long, they will switch targets or simply stop aiming if they can't find anyone to shoot. Snipers do not drop ammo when killed.

Enemies - Specials

Special Enemies

Special enemies spawn one at a time, and only one of each type can exist on the map at once. Only up to 2 specials can exist on the map at a given time (excluding the FBI van), so it can be beneficial to leave weaker specials like the Zapper alive. On Overkill difficulty, this limit is increased to 3. In addition to regular difficulty scaling, specials also deal increased damage to health on Overkill difficulty (does not apply to armor damage).

As you progress throughout the heist, completing certain objectives will make more types of special enemies start to spawn (see "Enemy Spawning" in the section Heists - The Basics).

Any special (except the FBI van) can be marked by looking at them and clicking middle mouse.

Zapper
150 HP, 140 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5
Respawn Time: 15s
Taser DMG: 15 / 15 / 15 / 25 HP/s

Zappers are the only special enemy that don't require an objective to start spawning. When a Zapper gets within range of a player, they will pull out a yellow taser, make a high-pitched windup noise, and tase that player from a distance. You can interrupt the windup by breaking LoS or shooting/stunning him. Note that Zappers will never target bots.

Being tased makes the player unable to move, reload, interact, use throwables, or switch weapons, and will restrict your ability to aim while making you fire your weapon at random. Tased players lose 15/15/15/25 of their health per second (depends on difficulty), ignoring armor.

If not in combat, Zappers will sometimes lay down up to 2 shock mines. Shooting or touching a mine will fully tase any allies or enemies within a 3m radius, stunning them for 3s. Zappers also have a yellow battery pack on their hip which can be shot to tase players & NPCs in a 5m radius of him, along with the Zapper himself, for 6s. Unlike the regular taser, being stunned by a Zapper battery or shock mine does not deal any damage.

Nader
150 HP, 140 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5
Respawn Time: ~25s (?)
Gas DMG: 20 / 20 / 20 / 30 HP/s

Naders will start spawning after a certain early-heist objective is completed. This objective is usually so early in the heist that it will likely be done before the start of the first assault. In some rare cases, it can be wise to delay doing this objective until the first assault has started, in which case Naders will not spawn for the entire first assault wave.

Naders carry a belt of grenades on their chest, which can be shot to cause a ~5m radius explosion that hurts & staggers both enemies & allies. Upon coming into contact with heisters, the Nader will attempt to throw gas grenades at them to flush them out of hiding. While in a gas grenade you will not be able to sprint and will lose 20/20/20/30 of your health per second (depends on difficulty), ignoring armor. If there is a hostage nearby, the Nader will instead switch to throwing flashbangs in order to avoid harming the bystander.

Cloaker
150 HP
Respawn Time: 30s
Melee DMG: 2 / 4 / 6 / 15 HP

Cloakers will start spawning after a certain mid-heist objective is completed. Note that Cloakers will never target bots. Unlike in PAYDAY 2, Cloakers can target players if they are the last one alive.

Cloakers are unique in that they are the only special enemy that does not spawn in the same locations as regular SWATs; They can spawn basically anywhere, even busting out of the ceiling. Cloakers are agile, run across walls, can quickly grapple up impossibly high jumps, and will frequently dodge your gunfire by sliding and doing flips as they charge at you. Cloakers will attempt to ambush a player by getting close without being seen, then charging at them at full speed. When a Cloaker initiates a charge at you, you will hear their iconic "wulululu" noise, which will get louder as they approach.

If a Cloaker reaches their target they will kick them in the face, instantly knocking the player to the ground. At this point the Cloaker will proceed to practice police butality on the subdued player, damaging the player for 2/4/6/15 of their health per hit (depends on difficulty), ignoring armor. If a Cloaker downs a player or comes across an already-downed player, they will cuff the player, which reduces the amount of time their team has to revive them from 30s to just 15s.

Both the charge and beatdown can be interrupted by staggering, stunning, or killing the Cloaker. If they are subduing a player, that player will immediately get back up, but the Cloaker will immediately kick them back down once they recover, so act fast! Stunning a Cloaker with a flashbang will make them flail their batons around in panic, which not only looks hilarious, but it will actually still deal damage to a player's health if they get too close!

Cloakers also have the ability to pour acid on any non-sentry deployable bags that were placed by players or bots, destroying them if he finishes the process. They will usually only do this when they find an unattended deployable while far away from the heisters, so it can be difficult to close the distance in time. The process of pouring the acid takes ?s, and while it is happening the Cloaker will be marked through walls, giving you an opportunity to react.

Bulldozer
200 HP, 3500 Armor
Armor Hardness: 4.0
Respawn Time: 75s
Melee DMG: 100 / 100 / 100 / 150

Bulldozers (AKA "Dozers") will start spawning along with Heavy SWAT after a certain late-heist objective is completed. Dozers will spawn in much less frequently than other specials.

Dozers walk very slowly, but will start shredding you with their auto-shotgun once within 15m. If a Dozer has a clear path to a player he's targeting and is ~15m away, he will perform a charge attack to quickly close the distance and stun his target for 3s. This stun will give plenty of time to unload tons of damage into the helpless heister. If he misses a charge, he will stumble forward for a bit before he can recover.

Dozers can kick players that get too close, dealing a whopping 100/100/100/150 damage to the player (depends on difficulty). This kick also stuns the player for 3s. This is especially brutal since in PAYDAY 2, the most effective way to kill a Dozer was to get up close and shoot him in his faceplate. Therefore, the most reliable way to safely eliminate a Dozer in PAYDAY 3 is to use the Red Fox to pick him off from a distance, or smoke grenades if he gets too close.

A Dozer's 3500 armor is split between his various bits of body armor. Thus it's best to focus fire entirely on his faceplate until it breaks, as this only requires you to deplete ~1000 armor before dealing direct damage to his HP. Each Dozer will drop 1 armor repair kit on death.

Dozers are completely immune to all forms of stuns and staggers, with one exception: Sometimes he will taunt the heisters by pounding his chest, during which he won't retaliate and you can get some free hits on his faceplate.

Enemies - Specials (cont.)

FBI Van
300 HP

The FBI van is a unique type of special enemy. It can only spawn once per heist, and will usually spawn at the start of an assault wave (it might be tied to an objective trigger like other specials?). As of 1.0.2, it can rarely spawn in the middle of an assault wave instead, but when this happens, Shade will give you a heads-up before it spawns.

It can spawn on any difficulty except Normal, and has a higher chance to spawn the higher the difficulty is. It is incapable of spawning on certain heists, even on Overkill. It will spawn in one of a few set locations near the outskirts of the playable area. Shade will announce when it arrives, and will regularly remind you to take out its antenna.

While the FBI van is on the map, the police assault indicator will read "FBI Assault", and the assault will never end unless you destroy the antenna on top of the van. If the FBI assault lasts for longer than a regular assault, destroying the antenna will immediately end the wave.

During an FBI Assault, all Uncommon and Special enemy respawn cooldowns are reduced by 50s. This effectively means that while the FBI Assault is active, all Special and Uncommon enemies (except the Dozer & Techie) will be allowed to respawn as soon as they are killed.

Additionally, if the van's antenna is not destroyed within ??s of the van arriving, all special enemies will start spawning from then on, including Dozers & Heavy SWAT. These spawns will stay enabled even after you destroy the van, so destroy it before this happens!

Techie
150 HP, 140 Armor
Armor Hardness: 1.5
Respawn Time: ~60s (?)

The Techie can currently only spawn in the heist Syntax Error, but it is planned for her to spawn in all heists in a future version of the game. She will begin spawning in loud at the same time as Cloakers; Once Cloakers start spawning, so can the Techie.

When a Techie spawns, she will behave like a regular SWAT if approached by a heister. She will try to make her way to the closest "hiding spot" in the heist, at which point she will set up a refractor shield to obscure her location (shown on the right). If you learn all of the Techie's hiding spots in a heist, you can quickly narrow down where she is hiding to kill her much faster. The refractor shield does not stop bullets; You can shoot straight through it. Bots will still mark & shoot at hidden Techies.

While hidden, the Techie will not move or attack, but up to 2 Combat Drones at a time will start to spawn alongside other SWAT units (See "Combat Drones" in the section Enemies - Cameras & Drones). This will put immense pressure on the heisters to seek her out to stop the drones from spawning. Activating an ECM Jammer can buy you time to look for her, since it will destroy all combat drones and prevent more from spawning. Note that you can use the thermal scope on the Red Fox to locate her through walls.

Killing a Techie will destroy all combat drones that are currently alive, and like Dozers, she will drop an armor repair kit upon death. She can be stunned with flashbangs or sonic mines while hidden, but her drones will be unaffected (needs testing to see if more drones can spawn while she is stunned). If a heister hurts her or comes within ~5m of her while she is hiding, she will come out of hiding and attempt to reposition to a different hiding spot. This stops her from spawning more drones until she hides again, but all existing drones will still continue to attack as she flees. If the assault wave ends, the Techie will stop hiding and retreat with the other SWAT.

If a player is within a 20m radius of a hidden Techie, their HUD will begin to visually glitch. This effect becomes more intense the closer the heister gets to the Techie. This can be leveraged to roughly locate her hiding spot if you are not sure where she is.

Stealth - The Basics

Detection

When an NPC or cam sees something out of the ordinary, they will begin to "detect" it, which will make a "?" appear above their head. If you are the thing being detected, the "?" above the NPC will only be visible to you (not to other players), you will hear a sound effect, and a detection indicator will appear on your screen. The longer you are being detected, the more this indicator will fill up, until it is completely full.

Once an NPC has fully detected (AKA "spotted") something, the "?" will change to a "!", which can be seen by all players. The NPC will then react in some way depending on several variables, such as the type of NPC or security level. All of these reactions and what causes them are covered in the other parts of the Stealth sections of this guide.

NPCs and cameras will only be able to detect players if their head has Los to your head. Basically, if you can't see their head, they can't see you. If LoS is broken while you are being detected, the detection indicator will disappear from your screen, and will (invisibly) start to deplete for as long as you stay out of sight. If you are detected by the same NPC after breaking LoS, the indicator will appear and resume filling up from however full it was. Note that NPCs and cameras have a separate detection indicator for each player and object, so if an ally almost gets caught, you can sneak by right after without worrying about the NPC immediately spotting you.

Both NPCs and cameras can only detect things that are within a certain range of them, and only when they are actually looking in that direction. Cameras have a detection range of ~10m, and NPCs have a detection range of ~20m. Several things impact the rate at which you get detected (in other words, the speed at which the detection indicator will fill up). You will be detected slower if you do the following:

• Walk instead of running.
  
• Stand still instead of walking or running.
  
• Crouch instead of standing.
  
• Be as far as you can from the NPC or cam that is detecting you.

These all stack, meaning the best way to not get caught by someone looking in your direction is to get as far away as you can and crouch walk past them. You can even just crouch in a corner as an NPC walks right past said corner, then slip past them once they walk past you.

Search Mode

If a guard cuffs a player, spots a sabotaged object, is hit by an infrasonic mine, is hacked when about to cuff a player, or fails to find a trespassing player that was spotted by a cam, that guard will take 3s to call on the radio in order to put the heist into search mode.

If you use up all of your radios and kill another guard, either answering his radio or leaving it unanswered will put the heist into search mode. This allows you to get away with 1 additional guard kill per heist, at the cost of entering search mode. If the heist is already in search mode, the radio will instead sound the alarm.

While a heist is in search mode, guards & cams will be on high alert. All guards will break from their regular patrols, instead searching through most of the map, never staying in one place for too long. Private areas will be treated like secure areas by guards and cameras (except guards still won't investigate if they hear you running). This means getting spotted by a cam will instantly sound the alarm, and guards will cuff you if you are caught trespassing. If the heist enters search mode while a player is already being escorted, that player will be immediately cuffed.

While in search mode, guards will still investigate suspicious noises and sabotaged items, although they will not take any further action once they are done investigating. This means it is safe for guards to spot things like loot bags or doors that have been shot open once the heist is in search mode.

Trespassing

In stealth, the map is categorized into 3 types of areas: Public, Private, and Secure. Each of these 3 security levels has different rules for how guards, cameras, and civilians will act in response to spotting you trespassing. All of the responses listed below assume you have not masked up, since NPCs act the same regardless of security level once you are masked.

• Public Areas
  • Civilians will NOT detect you, even if you do something illegal. For some reason, they can still detect you picking up a zipline bag.
    
  • Employees, guards, & cams will detect you performing illegal actions.
• Private Areas
  • Civilians will usually not be in private areas, and won't detect you trespassing.
    
  • Employees will NOT detect you trespassing.
    
  • Guards & cams will detect you for trespassing.
    
  • If spotted by a guard, that guard will attempt to escort you back to a public area.
    
  • If spotted by a cam, the closest guard will be notified to come investigate where you were spotted. If you escape before being spotted by the guard, once he finishes investigating the area he will radio to put the heist into search mode. Therefore it is best to let the guard catch & escort you (or a teammate) when a cam spots you.
• Secure Areas
  • Civilians will never be in secure areas, but will detect you for trespassing.
    
  • Employees, guards, & cams will detect you for trespassing.
    
  • Employees will NOT detect you for trespassing or performing illegal actions if the Social Engineering skill is active.
    
  • If a camera spots you, it will instantly sound the alarm.
    
  • If a guard spots you, he will run over to cuff you, then radio to put the heist into search mode.
    
  • If an employee spots you, they will radio for a guard to come investigate.
    
  • If you sprint while in a secure area, one guard who can hear your footsteps will come over to investigate. They will follow your path up until you stopped sprinting and investigate where it sounded like you ended up. This can lead to a guard walking through a door even though you stopped sprinting just outside of the door.

Stealth - Advanced Mechanics

Suspicious Noises

If a guard hears a suspicious noise, they will break their patrol to go investigate. Guards can only hear noises made within ~13m of them, but cannot hear noises made in a sealed room (with all doors shut). Open vents & windows always count as "shut" when it comes to these sound mechanics, so a sealed room is still sealed even if you open all of the windows.

While a guard walks and investigates, they will have a triangular "!" above their head. If a guard hears multiple suspicious sounds, even if they were already investigating a suspicious sound, they will completely investigate each sound before returning to their patrol. The things that cause guard suspicion are:

• The impact sound of a throwing knife.
  
• A heister running in a secure area.
  
• An activated audio lure.
  
• The sound of a door lock being shot off.
  
• A heister opening a door by sprinting through it (even if the door is unlocked).
  
• The sound of glass breaking.

Note that destroying a camera with a throwing knife will not make a noise.

Guards will also investigate other, non-sound things that give them the same triangular "!" icon, but these are covered in separate parts of this guide, and they usually result in the guard taking some further action afterward.

Stealth - What Counts as Illegal?

Questionable actions/objects that are NOT ILLEGAL, SUSPICIOUS, OR SABOTAGED include:

• Grabbing/carrying a loot bag (while unmasked).
  
• Tossing a loot bag to a bot or teammate.
  
• Marking a guard, civ, or camera.
  
• Hacking a camera.
  
• Looking through your already-placed microcams.
  
• Closing window shutters.
  
• Unlocking doors (NOT lockpicking, which IS illegal).
  
  
• Any placed tool, deployable, or favor.
  
• A Zipline Bag that has not yet been picked up by a player.
  
• A computer that has finished a hack (both before and after confirming the hack).
  
• A QR phone or kc left on the ground from a dead NPC.

Sabotaged/Suspicious Objects

Civs, employees, & cams cannot detect sabotaged objects.

Sabotaged objects (some of which are referred to as suspicious objects) include:

• Destroyed cameras
  
• Shot-off door locks
  
• Intact throwing knife (only possible with Retriever skill)
  
• A bag of loot or equipment on the ground (Zipline Bags only count once they have been picked up by a player).
  
• A computer mid-hack
  
• A broken or cracked window

If a guard sees a sabotaged object, they will run over to investigate, stopping the sabotage if possible (such as stopping a hack). They will then radio to put the heist into search mode. If the heist is already in search mode, the guard will investigate the sabotaged object, then go back to searching at no further penalty. This means players are free to sabotage as much as they like while in search mode.

Illegal Actions

Civs cannot detect illegal actions (but employees can).

Illegal actions include:

• Any action prompt marked with a red "!"
  
• Lockpicking
  
• Holding out a tool (preparing to place it).
  
• Being in a secure area.

Certain actions are illegal, and getting spotted while performing these actions will result in a guard coming to cuff you. The first time any player is cuffed, the guard who cuffed them will also radio to put the heist into search mode. Refusing to cooperate with a guard trying to escort you will also result in you getting cuffed.

Most illegal actions are specific to each heist, but you can tell which actions are illegal when unmasked due to the red "!" next to the button prompt. These will also say "(Observed)" if an NPC or cam is currently capable of detecting you if you performed said action.

If a guard, camera, or employee sees you performing an illegal action, they will start detecting you. Fully completing an illegal action prompt (the ones with the red "!") will cause any NPC or cam that was already detecting you to immediately spot you, regardless of how little the detection meter was filled. This instant detection mechanic still applies to some actions once masked, and these actions will still show a red "!" and "(Observed)" even while masked. Actions that lose the red "!" once masked do not have this mechanic for masked players.

Since lockpicking does not have a red "!", you can actually finish lockpicking while detected without triggering this instant detection mechanic. Similarly, if you are detected doing any illegal action AT ALL while you are being escorted, even holding out a tool for just a moment, you will be instantly spotted and cuffed the moment you start getting detected.

Once spotted, the NPC who spotted you will do the following:

• Cameras will instantly signal the closest guard to cuff you.
  
• Guards will run over to cuff you.
  
• Employees will take 10s to call security, which will signal the nearest guard to cuff you. They will then return to their previous behavior.

Illegal Objects

Illegal objects include:

• Cowering civs.
  
• Tied up hostages.
  
• Corpses

Corpses of guards & civs are functionally identical. When you carry a corpse, it is carried over your left shoulder, so upon dropping a corpse, it will drop on your left, face down, feet forward. Corpses are dropped parallel to the direction you are aiming, so looking straight down would spawn the corpse ragdoll standing upright, for example. Momentum does not transfer to dropped corpses like it does for loot bags. Try to use this knowledge to place corpses out of sight, and avoid placing corpses in ways that they clip through objects, as this can cause unexpected NPC behavior.

Corpses count as illegal objects, but will cause harsher reactions that will sound the alarm faster. Using the skill Pressure Points can partially mitigate this.

Upon spotting a hostage (cowering/tied up), NPCs will do the following:

• Cameras will immediately signal the closest guard to come investigate. If the called guard never finds the hostage, the heist will enter search mode (unconfirmed).
  
• Guards will run over to free the hostage, then will take 3s to radio to sound the alarm.
  
• Employees will take 10s to call for a guard to investigate, then return to their previous behavior as if they saw nothing.
  
• Civilians will become uncool, attempting to flee if there is no masked heister within 15m of them. If they escape, they will immediately call the cops.

Upon spotting a corpse, NPCs will do the following:

• Cameras will immediately sound the alarm.
  
• Guards will take 3s to radio to sound the alarm.
  
• Employees will become uncool, attempting to push a nearby panic button or call security.
  
• Civilians will become uncool, attempting to flee if there is no masked heister within 15m of them. If they escape, they will immediately call the cops.

Hostiles

Cams cannot detect uncool civs; Sentries can only be detected by guards.

Hostiles include:

• Uncool civs (NOT cowering civs, which are treated the same as tied up hostages)
  
• Masked heisters/bots
  
• Sentries

Since uncool civs do not get detected by cams until you shout at them, this means that you should hold off on shouting at civs that spot you until you are sure that no cams can see them.

Upon spotting a hostile:

• Cams will instantly sound the alarm.
  
• Guards will open fire if they have LoS to a sentry or masked heister. If they don't have LoS (or LoS is broken) they will radio to sound the alarm.
  
• Employees will become uncool, attempting to push a nearby panic button or call security.
  
• Civilians will become uncool, attempting to flee if there is no masked heister within 15m of them. If they escape, they will immediately call the cops.

Stealth - Exploits

This section contains currently known exploits that are useful in stealth, listed roughly from most to least useful. Note that any exploits that are specific to certain heists are instead listed in the respective section for that heist at the end of the guide. For loud exploits, see the section Loud - Exploits.

Exploits that might actually be intended gameplay features have also been labelled as such.

Sprinting In Secure Areas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQVz6x0fuxo

Loud - The Basics

Armor

Based on the Armor Lining you have equipped, you will start each heist with some number of "Armor Chunks." Taking damage from any source except Cloaker melee, gas grenades, Zapper tasers, and fall damage will deal damage to your "current" armor chunk (unless you have Adrenaline).

A small part of the damage you take will deal immediate damage to your armor, reducing the blue part of your armor bar, which represents how much armor you have left. The rest of the damage is converted into "recovery armor", and is represented by the red, flashing portion of your armor bar. For all intents and purposes, this recovery armor does not exist; Any further damage dealt to your armor will reduce the blue part of your armor bar, and any additional recovery armor will be added to the recovery armor you currently have. If you take enough damage for the blue part of your armor bar to fall outside of your current chunk, that chunk will break, and all recovery armor will be lost. Broken armor chunks can only be repaired by using an Armor Bag or the Clean Slate skill.

Recovery armor can be converted back into real armor by not taking any damage for a few seconds (based on the armor lining you have equipped), or through the use of certain skills. This encourages the player to seek cover after taking damage to preserve their recovery armor and not lose their current armor chunk.

As you take more damage, your armor chunk will get whittled down until it inevitably breaks. This chip damage is known as "trauma damage." While broken armor chunks can only be repaired by using an Armor Bag, you can fully refill your current armor chunk by using certain skills or interacting with an armor repair kit. If your last armor chunk breaks, all damage you take is dealt directly to your health bar, and the only way for you to get armor is to repair a chunk with an Armor Bag.

Damage dealt to your armor scales with difficulty, but damage dealt to your health & Adrenaline (unconfirmed) does not scale.

Adrenaline

Adrenaline (AKA "Overheal") is a temporary type of health obtained by healing yourself above your maximum HP. First Aid Kits convert 50% of excess healing to Adrenaline, while Medic Bags convert 100% of excess healing to Adrenaline.

Adrenaline is represented by a green bar overlayed on top of your health bar, and taking any damage while you have Adrenaline will deal damage to your Adrenaline first; This includes damage from special enemies that ignore armor, which must also deplete your Adrenaline before dealing direct damage to your HP. Overhealing for Adrenaline can therefore not only be a great safety net to use before making aggressive plays, but it can be a great way to protect your armor for a while, such as if you need to reach an armor repair kit, but your current armor chunk is about to break.

All healing done to players is by a percentage of their max HP, meaning that having a higher max HP results in more HP being healed for the same cost. This logic also applies to Adrenaline; Having a higher max HP results in getting more Adrenaline for the same cost. Adrenaline can be thought of as a second health bar, as the max Adrenaline you can have at any given time is the same as your max HP; increasing your max HP will also increase your max Adrenaline. Therefore to get both the highest Adrenaline capacity and the highest yield out of each heal, one should increase their max HP as much as possible before investing skill points into the effectiveness of healing or Adrenaline.

Adrenaline will slowly decay over time (exact rate of decay is unconfirmed), but taking any amount of damage will pause Adrenaline decay for 10s(?).

Reloading

Reloading in PAYDAY 3 is much more complex than in other video games, as it has a "staged reloading" process. Every single weapon has several stages of reloading that can be interrupted to perform some other action, after which reloading will resume from the stage where it left off.

For example, if you were to start a reload, remove the magazine, then switch to another weapon, when you switch back the magazine would still be removed; You wouldn't need to start the reload again from the beginning. You'd then pick up where you left off in the reload process.

Most weapons also require the first bullet to be chambered before the weapon can be fired. This chambering action is done automatically as an extra stage or two as part of a reload, but makes the reload take longer to complete. This can especially be a problem on weapons like the KU-59, where just the stage of chambering the first round takes ~0.65s (A lot of time for an AR). The solution to this issue is what is known as "tactical reloading", which is the act of reloading before your magazine is empty. Since the chambered bullet does not count as a bullet in your magazine, this lets you refill your magazine while keeping a bullet in the chamber, letting you skip the reload stages for chambering a shot.

Note that by performing a tactical reload, your weapon will have an "extra" bullet counted in the magazine (i.e. If your gun uses a 20-round mag, a tactical reload will make you have 21 bullets in the gun). In the Weapons sections of this guide, this is listed as a "+1" next to the magazine size (so our example would have a 20+1 magazine size). Any weapons that do not list a +1 in their magazine size are incapable of a tactical reload. Weapons capable of a tactical reload also have their reload times split in a similar way, with the first number representing the base reload time, and the second representing the added time needed to chamber the first round (i.e. a weapon with a 2s reload and a 0.5s chambering speed would have a reload speed of 2s+0.5s).

Custody

If you run out of HP you will be incapacitated, falling to the floor and being unable to move while only being able to fire your secondary weapon and throw throwables. This is known as "going down", or "downed." When downed, enemies will ignore you until you fire a weapon or use a throwable, after which they will attack you. If you take too much damage when downed, you will lose your ability to shoot and use throwables. Note that remaining armor will "protect" you from taking damage while downed, but since armor is so valuable, it is better to save this armor by not shooting or throwing.

At any point when you are down, a teammate or bot can interact with you to "revive" you, getting you back on your feet. Reviving a teammate also gives them invincibility for 3s. If you are down for 30s without being revived, you are taken into police custody, at which point you will spectate your teammates and be unable to participate in any meaningful way. Depending on your armor lining, you can only go down a certain number of times before you are taken into police custody. These are referred to as "downs." If you have 0 downs left and go down again, you will be immediately put into custody. If you leave the game at any point while you are down, you will be put straight into custody upon rejoining.

Once in custody, you must wait out a "custody timer", after which you will automatically respawn on one of your teammates. The custody timer starts at 60/60/90/90s (depends on difficulty) but is extended by another 10/10/10/20s (depends on difficulty) for every hostage you killed before going into custody. Custody timers cannot exceed 150s, regardless of the amount of hostages you kill. If the assault wave ends while you are still in custody, a teammate can trade a hostage between assault waves to release you from custody immediately.

Upon being released from custody, your custody penalties from killing hostages are reset, & you respawn with:

• 50% HP
  
• Up to 2 downs
  
• Up to 2 mags worth of ammo for both guns
  
• Up to 1 throwable
  
• Half of your armor chunks, rounded up.

Loud - Hostage Mechanics

Intimidation

Note that when it comes to intimidation, bots do not count as other heisters.

Civilians and other hostages have two distinct behaviors in loud. If a hostage is standing, kneeling, running, holding their hands up, or crouching, this state is known as "scared" or "uncool." All hostages will be scared by default when the heist goes loud.

When scared, the hostage will attempt to flee as long as there are no heisters within 15m of them. As long as there is any non-bot heister within 15m, even through walls & floors, they will stop running away and simply freeze in place. If a heister or law enforcer fires a weapon near a scared hostage, they will crouch to get out of the line of fire.

If a heister looks at any scared hostage up to 30m away and middle-mouse clicks, they will shout at the hostage to get down, which intimidates them and any other scared hostages within 30m of the heister. All hostages that were shouted down will immediately curl up on the ground and remain still, which is known as the "cowering" state. Hostages can only be tied up when cowering, and tied hostages will remain on the ground until they are traded or rescued by law enforcement.

Once a hostage has been intimidated, if they are more than 15m away from the closest masked heister, they will remain cowering for only 5s before they stand up and return to their scared behavior. If any masked heister stands within 15m of a cowering hostage, they will remain cowering forever. If a cowering hostage had a masked heister nearby, the 5s cower duration gets extended to 20s; Once they no longer sense a heister within 15m, they will wait 20s before they stand up. This 20s timer can be reset by getting within 15m of them once again.

You can also melee attack any civilian to immediately intimidate them, even if they weren't scared and didn't know you were there. This is useful for quickly tying up civilians in stealth without needing to get spotted first.

Negotiations

On every heist (except stealth-only or loud-only heists), first responders will arrive shortly after the alarm sounds. Once the cops arrive, the heist will enter the "negotiations phase", during which you can trade hostages to delay the first police assault. Each delay gives you an additional 15s before the first assault starts. On most heists you start with 1:00 to negotiate, but this starting time can vary between heists.

Certain actions will immediately end negotiations, skip the rest of the timer, and start the first police assault. Doing any of these actions on harder difficulties is very frowned upon, as skipping negotiations provides no benefit and just serves to make the heist harder. Avoid doing the following actions during negotiations:

• Getting within ~5m of a first responder.
  
• Dealing any damage to a first responder or hostage.
  
• Firing an unsilenced gun.
  
• Causing an explosion.
  
• Igniting a thermite rig.
  
• Standing in a specific area, usually just outside of the front door.

Each time you successfully delay the assault, you must wait between 5-10s before any more hostages can be traded, and the number of trades needed to delay again is increased by a fixed amount, depending on the heist. Heists with higher numbers of civilians will require more hostages to delay the assault multiple times.

For example, in No Rest For The Wicked, you must trade 1 hostage to delay the assault. Then you must trade 3 hostages for the next delay, then 5 for the next, and so on, with each delay costing 2 more hostages than the last.

Trading

After negotiations have ended, hostages can be traded between assault waves. Trading a hostage between assault waves will provide the team with some benefit, all of which scale with Manipulator skills. This means, for example, if you have Manipulator Aced & trade 1 hostage to release a teammate from custody, that hostage will release up to 2 teammates from custody. Hostages will only provide 1 type of benefit, so it is not possible to release a teammate from custody and get a first aid kit from the same hostage. Below is a list of all possible trading benefits, in order of priority:

• (If a teammate is in custody) Release 1 teammate from custody.
  
• (If the last non-custody trade gave a first aid kit) Drop an armor repair kit.
  
• Drop a first aid kit.

Ignoring custody trades, each trade will alternate between giving some number of armor repair kits and some number of first aid kits. These trades are counted team-wide, meaning if your teammate just traded for a first aid kit, your next trade will be for an armor repair kit.

Loud - Damage Mechanics

Damage Distance

The amount of damage each shot deals is based on your distance to the enemy and the weapon's stats. In PAYDAY 3, damage falloff does not occur linearly or exponentially, but instead the damage decreases in steps.

For each weapon in the Weapons sections of the guide, several ranges are listed for both the damage and headshot multiplier values. These listed ranges are distinct "steps", and can be thought of like distance thresholds for that weapon, with the amount of damage the shot deals only ever decreasing when your distance from the enemy crosses a new threshold.

For example, imagine a weapon with three listed steps:

Range	Damage
10m	40.0
35m	30.0
100m	10.0

If you were to shoot an enemy that was anywhere from 0-10m away using this weapon, you would deal 40 damage. If they were anywhere from 11-35m away, you would deal 30 damage, and if they were anywhere from 36-100m away, you would deal 10 damage. Damage only changes at specific range thresholds, which are the ones listed for each step.

Unconfirmed in what way gun mods change damage distance.

Armor Penetration (AP)

Each shot you fire deals its full damage to the armor of any enemy it hits; A 100 damage shot will reduce the enemy's armor by 100. If a shot breaks an enemy's armor, all extra damage the shot would have dealt to their armor is ignored. If the enemy has no armor, the shot will just deal its full damage to the enemy's HP instead.

If a shot hits an enemy that still has armor, even if that shot breaks said armor, the shot also has the capability of dealing some percentage of the shot's damage directly to the enemy's HP while still dealing full damage to the armor. The amount of damage that is dealt to the enemy's HP is determined by the damage and AP of the shot, and the armor hardness of the enemy.

A higher AP means a higher percentage of the shot's damage will hit the enemy's HP, while higher shot damage simply means the shot does more damage (so the same AP on a higher damage shot will still do more damage to the HP). Therefore even with a lot of AP, the most damage that a single (non-headshot) shot can do is 100% of its full damage to HP and armor simultaneously.

To calculate how much of a shot's damage is reduced by armor, use the following formula:

(Armor Hardness - AP) * Damage of Shot = Damage Reduction

For example, lets calculate a point-blank bodyshot from the VF-7S against a Shield. That would be a 36.4 damage shot with 1.25 AP, and the Shield has 2.0 armor hardness.

(2.0 - 1.25) * 36.4 = 27.3 Damage Reduction

Thus the shot would deal 36.4 - 27.3 = 9.1 damage to the HP of the Shield. If it were a headshot, this 9.1 would be the number that gets multiplied.

Headshot Multipliers

When you shoot an enemy in the head, the amount of damage you deal to their HP is multiplied, so landing your headshots is incredibly important.

Headshot multipliers vary based on the weapon you fired and your distance to the target. Like damage distance, headshot multipliers are calculated in steps, with certain distance thresholds reducing the multiplier to the next amount listed in the Weapons sections of the guide. Headshot multipliers are only applied to HP damage, so they will not increase the damage of a headshot if it only dealt armor damage.

Headshot multipliers are applied after AP calculations, and only apply to the part of the shot that pierced the armor and did damage to the enemy's HP. For example, if you fired a 100 damage headshot with a headshot multiplier of x3.0, and 20% of the shot's damage pierced the armor, that shot would deal exactly 100 armor damage and 60 HP damage.

Loud - Consumables & Equipment

Consumables

Consumables are small packs of resources you can find throughout a heist, obtain via skills, or obtain by trading. Using these consumables will restore some resource you have, similarly to using a charge from deployable bag, but will provide less benefits than a deployable bag (See "Deployables" in the section Loadout - Deployables & Tools).

First Aid Kits
Restores ~20% of the player's maximum health. Healing above your maximum health will convert 50% of the excess healing done into Adrenaline.
Unlike Medic Bags, these restore less health, provide half as much Adrenaline, and will not restore any downs if you have the Field Surgery skill.

Ammo Kits
Restores ~15% of the player's max reserve ammo capacity for each weapon.
Unlike Ammo Bags, these restore less ammo and will not restore any throwables.



Armor Repair Kits
Fully refills your current non-broken armor chunk. Does nothing if all armor chunks are broken.
Unlike Armor Bags, these will not repair any broken armor chunks unless the player has the Clean Slate skill.

Equipment

Depending on the heist, you will find yourself using various pieces of equipment to breach areas. The mechanics of these individual pieces of equipment are explained in this section of the guide.

Drills

Drills are small pieces of equipment that the crew uses to breach small locked doors and hatches. The PAYDAY crew are notorious for carrying drills with them everywhere, so you can simply place a drill at the needed location without needing to wait for Bile to drop any equipment.

Drills take a set amount of time to finish drilling, with the same drill always taking the same amount of time. For example, the bottom of the van in Road Rage always takes exactly 30s to drill into. Once a drill is finished, you must disassemble the drill to open the door.

Some drills will also get jammed, which requires a heister to fix them. Drills that jam will always jam at a random point in their drilling process, but the same drill will always jam the same number of times. For example, the bottom of the van in Road Rage will never cause the drill to jam.

When a drill is about to jam, it will start beeping and become outlined, and you will have 10s to come over and "adjust" the drill to prevent the jam. If you fail to adjust the drill in time, the drill will fully jam and stop making progress, which requires you to restart the drill to fix it and continue where you left off. Restarting a drill takes 10s, while adjusting only takes 3.5s, so it is best to adjust drills as fast as possible. Drills will not get closer to jamming while you are in the middle of adjusting them.

Sabotage specialists (and sometimes regular SWAT) can jam the drill by kicking it, so keep them away!

Thermal Lance

The thermal lance (AKA thermal drill) is used to breach large vault doors. She's too big for a single bag of equipment, instead needing to be assembled from 3 bags of equipment. After placing the 1st bag, you will be able to bolt down each of the 3 legs. Once all legs have been bolted down and all 3 bags have been placed, you can interact with the thermal drill to start her up.

When the lance is first activated (or when she is restarted after running out of fuel), she must take 5s to heat up before she can begin drilling. It takes a thermal lance 200s of uninterrupted drilling to finish.

After 60s of drilling, you will get a warning that she is low on fuel, and you will be able to swap out the oxygen tank for a new one to completely refill her fuel gauge. If she runs for 90s without refueling, she will run out of fuel, and will require both a new oxygen tank and a restart, after which she will need to heat back up before she resumes drilling.

She can be jammed and require restarting if she is kicked by a sabotage specialist or regular SWAT, just like a regular drill.

Thermite

There are two types of "thermite." The first type is a small pack of thermite used to breach sealed doors. Bile will deliver a bag of this thermite when needed, and you must then place it where it is needed and ignite the thermite. After waiting for the thermite to burn through, you then must peel off the thermite pack and the door will open.






Thermite Rig

The second kind of thermite is a large thermite rig used for burning through thick metal floors, like in No Rest for The Wicked. These require Bile to first drop off a bag of "equipment", which can then be placed and ignited to start burning through the floor. Be warned: igniting this type of thermite will skip negotiations.

After dropping off the initial thermite equipment, Bile will come back to drop off up to 4 extra bags of thermite. These can be added to the burning thermite to speed up the process for the next 20 seconds. It takes 6:00 for the thermite to finish burning through if uninterrupted, and each bag of extra thermite doubles the burning speed. If another bag of thermite is added while the thermite is burning at double speed, the extra heat will trigger the automatic sprinklers.

If a SWAT unit or sabotage specialist pulls a nearby fire alarm, the sprinklers will slow down the thermite, and you will need to find the controls to disable the sprinklers. While the sprinklers are running, the thermite does not burn any slower than normal, it just stops you from speeding up the burning by adding extra thermite.

Loud - How to Cook Meth

Each batch of meth requires 1 of each ingredient:

• Muriatic Acid (Mu)
  
• Caustic Soda (Cs)
  
• Hydrogen Chloride (HCl)

Multiple of these can be found scattered around the map, and you can carry 1 of each ingredient at a time. It is best practice to collect the ingredients furthest from the meth lab first, as the closer ones are much safer to obtain later.

Adding Ingredients

Cooking meth is a delicate process. Too bad you don't know how to do it, and neither does Shade. Once you find the meth lab, Shade will consult Bain's notes and attempt to tell you which ingredients to add next. She will sometimes tell you to add the wrong ingredient, so it is important to not immediately add ingredients until you are sure that they are correct. Adding the wrong ingredient will cause the meth lab to explode. This will not damage the heisters, but will prevent you from cooking any more meth, and in some cases will fail the heist. Ingredients cannot be added while the power is out.

No matter what, each batch of meth only takes 1 of each ingredient to cook. This means that you can always know ahead of time which ingredient should be added last, and can add it immediately without waiting for Shade to tell you the next ingredient. A common practice to take advantage of this is to have each player pick up a set of ingredients and take turns cooking each batch of meth, with the player that cooks not picking up any new ingredients until the batch is done. This allows the player cooking to know which ingredients still need to be added by looking at their inventory, and the final ingredient left in their inventory can be added as soon as the game lets them.

Each ingredient Shade tells you to add will pull from a pool of possible voicelines. In general, you can be sure that an ingredient is always correct unless she immediately second guesses herself.

Here are the possible voiceline "variations" to keep an eye out for:

• (Correct) Shade gives a long winded explanation of which ingredient to add.
  
• (Correct) Shade states something like "Checking the notes..." or "Hold on a second...", then pauses for a few seconds, then lists an ingredient.
  
• (Correct) Shade lists an ingredient, then pauses for a few seconds, then says something to confirm it like "Yeah..." or "I think that's right..."
  
• (Incorrect) Shade lists an ingredient, then immediately second guesses herself with something like "Hold on a second!" or "That wasn't right," then pauses for a few seconds, then lists the correct ingredient.

Note that the incorrect ingredient is randomly chosen, and can actually be correct sometimes, leading to Shade saying something like "Add Caustic Soda- Wait! ... Add Caustic Soda instead."

Also note that the variations where Shade pauses can be interrupted by other triggers and voicelines, leading to instances of her saying things like "Go ahead and add that." without ever listing an ingredient. If this happens, just wait for her to list the ingredient again.

Purifying

Once the final ingredient is added to a batch of meth, the meth will appear on a tray from which it can be bagged. Instead of bagging it, the heisters can choose to wait 16-20 seconds for the meth to purify, which increases its value. Once meth purifies, it will make a loud crackling noise and turn blue, after which it must be bagged within 15s or it will burn, which decreases its value.

The purification process will pause while the power is out, which also means that already-purified meth will not get any closer to burning.

Since purification takes a while and the margin for error is a substantial 15s, it is considered rude on higher difficulties to simply stare at the meth and wait for it to finish purifying. It is better to help your team defend against the cops until you hear the crackling noise, after which you will have plenty of time to bag the meth. It only takes a glance to check if the meth is done purifying, and again, you have a full 15s to notice.

Purification adds a noticeable amount of time to the cooking process, which can make a huge difference over multiple bags. For instance, on Overkill difficulty, you can finish Cook Off with 3 bags before the 2nd assault wave starts, but only if you immediately bag all meth instead of letting it purify. If you bag unpure meth fast enough, Shade will actually skip straight to immediately listing the first ingredient for the next batch, saving even more time. Keep this in mind when trying to cook meth fast.

Note that if you are playing in a public lobby, it is best practice to say something like "3 bags & go" in the pre-heist lobby chat to inform other players ahead of time that you intend to speedrun the mission. Some people prefer purifying and cooking for as long as possible, and will get annoyed if you suddenly bag unpure meth and wait at the escape van.

Loud - Exploits

This section contains currently known exploits that are useful in loud, listed roughly from most to least useful. Note that any exploits that are specific to certain heists are instead listed in the respective section for that heist at the end of the guide. For stealth exploits, see the section Stealth - Exploits.

Exploits that might actually be intended gameplay features have also been labelled as such.

Remote Bot Revive

If no living bots can pathfind to a downed player, a bot will be able to revive the player remotely, regardless of how far away the bot is. This can be exploited to get free revives from anywhere on the map by getting a bot stuck in a spot that they cannot leave. To do this, let a bot go into custody and have all players stand in the spot where the bot cannot leave. When the bot respawns on a player, it will be stuck there. An example of this is the bathroom under Mason's office in Touch The Sky: by shooting open the bathroom door inwards, you can create a small area by the medkits next to the bathtub that bots cannot leave because the broken door now blocks their exit.

Vendors

In the main menu you can access the "Vendors" tab, where you can buy various things from vendors using cash or C-Stacks.

Gage: Arms Dealer

Gage's vendor tab is where you will be able to purchase weapons, preset weapons, weapon charms, paint schemes, stickers, and favors.

Preset Weapons are special variants of standard weapons, and come pre-equipped with set modifications, as well as a unique skin. Preset Weapons cannot be modified in any capacity. They can be useful for leveling up weapon levels without owning the standard version, but can be incredibly costly, often requiring tens of millions of dollars or hundreds of C-Stacks.

Weapon charms only need to be purchased once, and can be applied to any weapon an infinite number of times. These all cost C-Stacks, ranging from 20 to 300.

Gage also sells the medic, armor, ammo, and zipline bag favors for $10k apiece, which can be deployed in a heist by selecting them in the pre-heist lobby (see "Favors" in the section Heists - The Basics).

Setaggi: Currency Broker (C-Stacks)

C-Stacks are a special currency you must accumulate over time, and are used to buy inventory slots, some weapon attachments, special cosmetics, weapon presets, and more. You can convert cash into C-Stacks via the vendor Setaggi.

You can buy C-Stacks in bundles of 1, 5, and 10. The exchange rate for any given bundle of Stacks gets worse the more stacks of that bundle you buy. The exchange rate of C-Stacks resets at the end of the timer, which happens at the start of every Monday at 12:00am UTC.

# Bought	1 C-Stack	5 C-Stacks	10 C-Stacks
0	$10k	$45k	$90k
1	$25k	$112.5k	$225k
2	$50k	$225k	$450k
3	$75k	$337.5k	$675k
4	$100k	$450k	$900k
5	$150k	$675k	$1.35m
6	$200k	$900k	$1.8m
7	$300k	$1.35m	$2.7m
8	$600k	$2.7m	$5.4m
9	$800k	$3.6m	$7.2m
10+	$1m	$4.5m	$9m

Loadout - Deployables & Tools

Deployables

You get to bring one deployable per heist, which can restock you and your teammates on supplies like health, ammo, or armor, or provide defense via the sentry turret. Deployable bags will restore supplies similarly to consumables found in a heist, but provide an extra benefit that cannot be obtained from consumables (See "Consumables" in the section Loud - Consumables & Equipment).

• Ammo Bag
  • Comes with 2 charges by default, which can be increased up to 8 with skills.
    
  • Without skills, each charge restores up to 2 throwables and 45% of the player's base max reserve ammo for each weapon.
• Medic Bag
  • Comes with 2 charges by default, which can be increased up to 8 with skills.
    
  • Without skills, each charge restores up to ~35% of the player's maximum health.
    
  • Healing above your maximum health with a Medic Bag will convert 100% of the excess healing done into Adrenaline.
    
  • Contrary to the ingame description, medic bag charges and first aid kits do not restore any downs by default.
• Sentry Turret
  • Automatically targets and shoots any non-civ NPCs within 15m, in an arc of ~110 degrees in front of the sentry.
    
  • Deals 15 damage per shot.
    
  • The sentry is capable of aiming straight up or down, so long as the target is able to be spotted by the sentry and is within 15m.
    
  • The sentry will build up heat each time it shoots, takes damage, or is electrocuted (by a shock mine/Zapper battery), until it eventually reaches max heat.
    
  • At max heat, the sentry will stop functioning.
    
  • Sentries can be picked back up and redeployed at any point, even after it overheats. Doing this will reset the heat back to 0.
    
  • Note that picking up an overheated sentry takes 2.5s, while picking it up before it overheats only takes 1s.
    
  • Unlocks by researching the root skill of the Engineer skill line.
• Armor Bag
  • Comes with 2 charges by default, which can be increased up to 8 with skills.
    
  • Without skills, each charge fully recovers all of the player's recovery armor, then restores up to 1 broken armor chunk.
    
  • Armor bags are one of only 2 ways in the game to recover a broken armor chunk (the other being the Clean Slate skill).
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 2.

Tools

Tools are a separate type of deployable that are centered around stealth gameplay. You have a limited amount per heist, and cannot get more. They can be placed anywhere, and will stick to any surface.

• Microcam
  • You get 2 microcams per heist.
    
  • Once placed, you can tap E to access them through your phone to view their surroundings.
    
  • Viewing microcams on your phone is not a suspicious or illegal action, but placing a microcam is an illegal action.
    
  • Just like looking through CCTV, you can mark guards and ping locations through microcams.
    
  • Taking any damage will force you to stop looking through the microcams.
    
  • Can be used to track particularly annoying guards by placing a cam on their butt, then looking straight up/down and marking the guard through the microcam.
• Infrasonic Mine
  • You get 5 infrasonic mines per heist.
    
  • You can activate all of your placed mines simultaneously by tapping E.
    
  • When activated, silently stuns all NPCs in a 5m radius for 6s, even through walls.
    
  • If in stealth, when a stunned NPC becomes unstunned, civs will attempt to flee, employees will attempt to push a panic button or flee, and guards will radio to put the heist into search mode (or will do nothing if already in search mode). Shut them up fast.
    
  • Best choice for loud gameplay, as they can be used like placeable flashbangs.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 10.
• ECM Jammer
  • You get 1 ECM jammer per heist.
    
  • When activated, lasts for 15s, during which all cameras take 150% longer to detect things, and all guards take 66.6% longer to radio for the alarm or search mode.
    
  • In loud, all combat drones will be destroyed and no more will be able to spawn for the duration of the ECM.
    
  • Civs are unaffected by the ECM, and can still instantly sound the alarm by escaping or pressing a panic button.
    
  • The slowing effects stack with multiple active ECMs.
    
  • ECMs have unlimited range.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 20.
• Motion Sensor
  • You get 2 motion sensors per heist.
    
  • When placed, automatically marks all NPCs in a 5m radius.
    
  • Can only mark 15 NPCs. Once all 15 have been marked, it stops functioning.
    
  • Can mark the same NPC multiple times if they leave the radius and re-enter. This counts multiple times toward the 15 mark limit.
    
  • NPCs that were marked by the motion sensor will stay marked as long as they are within its radius, even after the tool stops functioning.
    
  • Can be used to track particularly annoying guards by placing a sensor on their butt. This is less versatile than a microcam, but will make that guard always stay marked.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 30.

Loadout - Armor Lining & Throwables

Armor Lining

Your armor lining dictates how many armor chunks you have, how many times you can go down before being put into custody, how fast your armor recovers, and how fast you move.

• Light Ballistic Lining
  • 2 Armor chunks
    
  • 3 Downs
    
  • Recovers after 6s (4.8s with Tank Basic).
    
  • You run at ~6.5m/s (100% base movement speed).
    
  • Damage taken to armor reduced by 25%.
• Medium Ballistic Lining
  • 3 Armor chunks
    
  • 3 Downs
    
  • Recovers after 8s (6.4s with Tank Basic).
    
  • You run at ~5.9m/s (~91% base movement speed).
    
  • Damage taken to armor reduced by 25%.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 8.
• Standard Lining
  • 1 Armor chunk
    
  • 4 Downs
    
  • Recovers after 4s (3.2s with Tank Basic).
    
  • You run at ~6.5m/s (100% base movement speed).
    
  • Contrary to popular belief, this armor lining does not make you any faster than normal.
    
  • Damage taken to armor reduced by 25%.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 18.
• Adaptive Armor Lining
  • 2 Armor chunks
    
  • 2 Downs
    
  • Recovers after 6s (4.8s with Tank Basic).
    
  • You run at ~6.5m/s (100% base movement speed).
    
  • Takes no trauma (permanent) damage until chunk breaks. Repairs your current chunk each time it recovers.
    
  • Entire chunk counts as recovery armor.
    
  • Your armor bar appears purple instead of blue when using this lining.
    
  • Damage taken to armor reduced by 5%.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 26.
• Heavy Ballistic Lining
  • 4 Armor chunks
    
  • 2 Downs
    
  • Recovers after 10s (8s with Tank Basic).
    
  • You run at ~5.5m/s (~85% base movement speed).
    
  • Damage taken to armor reduced by 25%.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 34.

Throwables

You get 3 of your selected throwable per heist, and can get more with certain skills or by interacting with ammo bags. All throwables except the throwing knife will cause an explosion loud enough to be heard by every NPC on the map.

• Frag Grenade
  • Explodes 3s after you press G, dealing 100-150 damage with 3.0(?) AP to you and NPCs in an 8m radius.
    
  • Deals 100 damage in an 8m radius, 125 damage within 5m, and 150 damage within 4m.
    
  • Can explode before thrown.
    
  • The explosion can be blocked by Shields or walls.
• Flashbang
  • Explodes 3s after thrown, stunning non-civ NPCs in an 8m radius for 5s.
    
  • NPCs must have LoS to the flashbang to be stunned.
    
  • The explosion can be blocked by Shields.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 7.
• Throwing Knife
  • Throws a silent knife that deals 150 damage with 2.5 AP to a single target.
    
  • Makes a noise upon impact with the environment (See "Suspicious Noises" in the section Stealth - Advanced Mechanics). Can only lure 1 guard per knife.
    
  • Guards must investigate each noise, so throwing multiple knives will distract a guard for longer.
    
  • If the knife survives the impact via the Retriever skill, the guard who investigates will see the knife and radio to put the heist into search mode.
    
  • Using knives as throwable lures is considered a stealth meta, and thus this is the recommended throwable for stealth.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 16.
• Smoke Grenade
  • Explodes 3s after thrown, creating a 5m-radius smoke cloud that lasts for 14s.
    
  • Allies standing in the gas cloud have a ??% chance for shots fired at them to miss.
    
  • Enemies standing in the gas cloud have a ??% chance to miss their shots.
    
  • Good for fighting Dozers, doing dangerous objectives mid-assault, reviving teammates, and helping teammates revive you.
    
  • Unlocks at infamy 27.

Overkill Weapons

Credit for most 1.0.0 weapon stats goes to this reddit post.
Credit for most 1.1.0 stats goes to this reddit post.

Overkill weapons are extremely powerful guns with very limited ammo. They do not have ammo pickup, and cannot get more ammo from ammo bags. The only way to obtain more ammo is to call in another overkill weapon and switch to the new one.

As you complete objectives, sub-objectives, and kill enemies (even in stealth), your "Overkill" bar in the bottom right of your HUD will fill up. It takes 35 kills/objectives to fill the bar. Once full, a sound will play to notify you, and you can press Z to call for Bile (the helicopter pilot) to come by and drop off your loadout's "overkill weapon", which resets your Overkill bar. It takes him 15s to arrive and drop the weapon. Calling for an overkill weapon while in stealth will not break stealth, and the weapon is ignored by NPCs.

Once Bile is called, nobody will be able to call for another overkill weapon until Bile delivers the first one. If you attempt to call in an overkill weapon while Bile is on his way, your overkill bar will remain full, and Shade will inform you that Bile is too busy to drop you a weapon.

There are a few set locations on each heist where Bile can drop an overkill weapon, and he will pick one to deliver to based on which section of the heist you were standing in when you called for the weapon. These locations are usually out in wide open areas, so it can be wise to wait until an assault wave ends before running out to grab your overkill weapon.

Any player can pick up a dropped overkill weapon, regardless of who called it. While holding an overkill weapon, attempting to switch weapons or pressing F will drop the overkill weapon on the ground, after which any teammate can pick it up and continue using it. Dropped overkill weapons retain their ammo pool when dropped.

Marcom Mamba MGL

The Mamba deals massive area damage to you and any enemy caught in the blast. This weapon deals no damage to teammates, and deals 80% reduced self-damage, so it won't completely shred your armor at close range. Despite this, it is still advisable to only use it with Demolitionist skills.

The grenades fired from the Mamba will bounce off surfaces, exploding 4s after being fired. If a grenade hits an NPC directly, it will explode immediately, and since enemies closer to the center of the blast take 4 times as much damage, precision is key. Alternatively, you can equip the skill Overcooked to make grenades explode on impact.

AP: 1.0
RPM: 800
Reload Speed: ~2s / grenade +0.4s per reload

Mag Size: 6
Ammo: 12

Explosion Radius	Damage
1.5m	400.0
4m	100.0

HET-5 Red Fox

The Red Fox is by far the better choice for higher difficulties. It has a thermal scope capable of seeing enemies through walls, making it great for finding Techies. It is capable of shooting through thin walls & Shields, piercing multiple enemies, and deals enough damage to kill everything except a Dozer in just a single bodyshot. It also has the highest AP in the game and does not have damage falloff, so it is just as effective at close range as it is at long range. This weapon is the safest and most reliable way to kill Dozers on the highest difficulties.

AP: 3.0
RPM: 150
Reload Speed: ~3.3s+0.7s

Mag Size: 5+1
Ammo: 15

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10km	200.0		10km	x2.0

Primary Weapons - Assault Rifles

Primary weapons are the bread and butter of your builds, and typically your primary source of damage; I would recommend making a loadout for each type of primary.


Assault Rifles (ARs) usually have middle-of-the-road stats, and thus no glaring weaknesses. This makes them incredibly reliable at dealing with enemies of all types, including large groups, rather quickly. Just aim for the head!

Note: The arrows on the right represent approximate recoil patterns.

CAR-4

AP: 0.92
RPM: 720 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2.35s+0.25s

Mag Size: 30+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 120/300
Ammo Pickup per Box: 3-5

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
30m	30.4		10m	x5.0
50m	25.0		35m	x3.0
100m	16.7		60m	x2.0

Northwest B-9

AP: 0.75
RPM: 750 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2s+0.25s

Mag Size: 30+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 120/300
Ammo Pickup per Box: 4-7

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
25m	28.0		10m	x5.0
45m	24.0		35m	x3.0
100m	14.0		60m	x2.0

KU-59

AP: 0.9
RPM: 600 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2.35s+0.65s

Mag Size: 30+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 120/300
Ammo Pickup per Box: 3-4

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	40.2		20m	x5.0
30m	36.4		40m	x3.0
50m	30.3		60m	x2.0

VF-7S

AP: 1.25
RPM: 550 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2.9s+0.25s

Mag Size: 20+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 80/200
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-4

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
20m	36.4		15m	x5.0
30m	33.3		35m	x3.0
70m	27.0		60m	x2.0
100m	22.2		100m	x1.5

Primary Weapons - Shotguns

All shotguns fire 7 pellets per shot, with each pellet dealing the listed damage of the weapon. It is best to fire as close to a target as you can manage, since this makes more pellets connect, dealing more damage overall. Doing this is known as a "meatshot."

Each pellet is calculated one after another, so if enough pellets hit an enemy to break their armor, the remaining pellets from the same shot can still deal direct damage to their HP.

In exchange for the extreme damage shotguns can deal up close, they have very low AP, slow reloads, and deal poor damage at mid-to-long range.

Reinfield 880

Pump action; Must be "pumped" between each shot.

AP: 0
RPM: 75 (Pump Action)
Reload Speed: ~1.1s / shell +0.5s

Mag Size: 7+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 32/48
Ammo Pickup per Box: 1

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	25.0		15m	x5.0
25m	10.0		25m	x3.0
35m	6.7		100m	x1.0
40m	4.0
100m	2.9

Mosconi 12 Classic

Despite having only 2 shells per "mag", reloading is still faster with 1 shell left in the gun, hence why the reload speed is listed as if it could tactical reload.

AP: 0.5
RPM: 200 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.4s+0.9s

Mag Size: 2
Starting/Max Ammo: 24/36
Ammo Pickup per Box: 1-2

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	50.0		10m	x5.0
20m	32.5		35m	x3.0
30m	12.5		100m	x1.5
40m	4.0
100m	2.0

FSA-12G

(DLC "Syntax Error Weapons Pack")

AP: 0
RPM: 300 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ?s+?s

Mag Size: 10+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 30/50
Ammo Pickup per Box: 1-2

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	20.0		15m	x5.0
25m	8.0		25m	x3.0
35m	5.0		100m	x1.0
50m	3.7
100m	2.6

Primary Weapons - Marksman Rifles

Marksman rifles have a long range for their max damage and max headshot multiplier, as well as high damage, high AP, and access to high magnification scopes. In exchange, they generally have low ammo capacity, magazine size, and reload speeds.

SA-A144

AP: 1.3
RPM: 450 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2.4s+0.25s

Mag Size: 12+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 36/60
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
35m	50.0		20m	x5.0
70m	31.0		40m	x3.0
100m	25.0		60m	x2.0
			100m	x1.5

Reinfield 900S

Bolt Action; Must eject casing between each shot.

AP: 1.3
RPM: 50 (Bolt Action)
Reload Speed: ~2.6s+0.4s

Mag Size: 5+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 25/50
Ammo Pickup per Box: 0-2

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
40m	129.9		40m	x3.0
60m	62.5		100m	x2.0
100m	41.7		150m	x1.5

FIK 22 TLR

(DLC "Syntax Error Weapons Pack")

AP: 1.3
RPM: 900 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ?s+?s

Mag Size: 25+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 75/125
Ammo Pickup per Box: 5-8

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
35m	25.0		20m	x5.0
70m	18.5		40m	x3.0
100m	14.3		60m	x2.0
			100m	x1.5

Primary Weapons - SMGs

SMGs have a high rate of fire, clip size, max ammo, ammo pickup, and chambering speed in exchange for low headshot multipliers and extremely bad spread. They are best fired in bursts in order to frequently reset the spread.

FIK PC9

AP: 0.75
RPM: 860 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.9s+0.15s

Mag Size: 30+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 90/200
Ammo Pickup per Box: 6-9

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	32.5		35m	x2.0
30m	25.0		60m	x1.5
50m	22.0
100m	13.0

Ziv Commando

AP: 0.5
RPM: 1100 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.55s+0.45s

Mag Size: 25+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 125/200
Ammo Pickup per Box: 9-12

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
5m	42.0		35m	x2.0
10m	35.0		60m	x1.5
15m	25.0
30m	16.0
50m	12.0

SG Compact-7

AP: 1.25
RPM: 960 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2s+0.1s

Mag Size: 30+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 80/200
Ammo Pickup per Box: 6-9

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
25m	24.0		35m	x3.0
40m	22.0		60m	x1.5
50m	20.0
100m	14.0

WAR-45

(DLC "Syntax Error Weapons Pack")

AP: 1.25
RPM: 650 (Auto)
Reload Speed: ?s+?s

Mag Size: 25+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 100/175
Ammo Pickup per Box: 5-8

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	35.0		35m	x2.0
25m	30.0		60m	x1.5
45m	25.0
100m	18.5

Secondary Weapons - Pistols

All secondary weapons are sidearms, and are generally weaker than a primary weapon, but are still a reliable source of damage. Secondary weapons can still be fired and reloaded while you are holding a human shield or are downed.


Pistols deal max damage up to a range of 10m, and have x5.0 headshot multipliers up to a range of 10m. Their small magazines and low range are offset by their high headshot multipliers and swift reload speed.

Signature 40

AP: 0
RPM: 450 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.45s+0.75s

Mag Size: 12+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 48/60
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	50.0		10m	x5.0
25m	27.0		15m	x4.0
40m	16.7		35m	x3.0
100m	14.3		60m	x2.0
			100m	x1.5

Stryk 7

AP: 0
RPM: 450 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.4s+0.2s

Mag Size: 17+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 68/85
Ammo Pickup per Box: 4-5

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	44.0		10m	x5.0
20m	25.0		35m	x3.0
40m	14.3		60m	x2.0
100m	12.5		100m	x1.5

SP Model 11

AP: 0.5
RPM: 300 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.70s+0.5s

Mag Size: 10+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 48/60
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	80.0		10m	x5.0
20m	42.6		15m	x4.0
40m	21.5		35m	x3.0
100m	17.0		100m	x2.0

Signature 403

AP: 0
RPM: 375 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~1.35s+0.65s

Mag Size: 17+1
Starting/Max Ammo: 48/60
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
10m	50.0		10m	x5.0
25m	35.0		15m	x4.0
45m	20.0		35m	x3.0
100m	14.3		60m	x2.0

Secondary Weapons - Revolvers

Revolvers deal max damage up to a range of 15m, and have x3.0 headshot multipliers up to a range of 45m. This drastic difference in headshot multiplier range makes the Long Shot skill less important for revolvers, making them much more viable for a hipfire build than pistols.

Revolvers use a revolving cylinder instead of a magazine, thus they are the only gun type (aside from the Mamba) that cannot perform a tactical reload. Revolvers also cannot be silenced.

J&M Castigo 44

AP: 1.0
RPM: 300 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~2.55s

Mag Size: 6
Starting/Max Ammo: 24/36
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	90.0		45m	x3.0
30m	48.0		100m	x1.5
45m	33.3
100m	20.0

Sforza Bison

AP: 1.25
RPM: 400 (Semi-Auto)
Reload Speed: ~3.3s

Mag Size: 6
Starting/Max Ammo: 24/36
Ammo Pickup per Box: 2-3

Range	Damage		Range	Headshot Multiplier
15m	65.0		45m	x3.0
30m	25.0		100m	x1.5
45m	25.0
100m	18.5

Weapon Stats

Recoil, Gunkick, & Spread

Every weapon has what is called a recoil pattern. Every time you fire a shot, your crosshair will be "pushed" in a certain direction, following the pattern for that weapon. This recoil pattern is what the game refers to as "gunkick." Improving gunkick will shrink the size of the recoil pattern.

If you stop firing your weapon, your crosshair will begin to drift back to where it was when you fired the first shot in the volley. If you allow the crosshair to fully return to it's starting position, this will "reset" the recoil pattern, meaning that the next time you fire from that weapon, the recoil pattern starts from the beginning again. If you instead continue shooting before your crosshair gets back to where it started, the recoil pattern will continue from where it left off.

In addition to following a recoil pattern, there are 2 more attributes that make your shots less accurate. First is the one that the game refers to as "Recoil." Each time your crosshair is nudged by the gunkick, it will not be nudged to follow the recoil pattern exactly; There exists some random irregularity to each nudge, which is due to "recoil." Improving recoil with weapon attachments will make your crosshair follow the weapon's recoil pattern more accurately.

The other attribute that impacts your accuracy is referred to as "Spread." Both recoil and gunkick only affect your crosshair, which means they impact where you are aiming. Spread, on the other hand, deals with the accuracy of the shot, or in other words how tightly around your crosshair the cone of possible bullet angles is. We will refer to this cone as "weapon bloom", and it is visualized by your crosshair expanding as the cone gets wider.

The stats like "Overall Spread" listed on weapon attachments do not actually change your weapon bloom. They actually just impact how quickly the weapon bloom expands as you fire shots. Improved spread stats just make your weapon bloom stay tighter for longer, and do not change the maximum or minimum bloom of the weapon.

Note that your weapon's maximum and minimum weapon bloom are decreased when crouched, and increased while moving or jumping. Crouch in place for less spread.

Left - Example of gunkick (a recoil pattern) that goes straight up.
Middle - Example of what the gunkick might look like after applying recoil.
Right - Example of where the bullets might land after applying spread. Note that spread gets worse as you fire for longer.

The white arrow represents the path that your crosshair would follow, while the black dots represent where the bullets land.

Weapon EXP

When you first start playing PAYDAY 3, you will only have access to a single weapon attachment for each weapon you unlock. Upon completing a heist, you are awarded with an amount of "Weapon EXP", which is a separate reward from both Skill EXP and Infamy Points. This weapon EXP is equally rewarded to both of your equipped weapons at the end of the heist. Your weapon EXP is not divided among your equipped weapons; All of the EXP is rewarded to both guns.

Accumulating enough weapon EXP on a weapon will increase the level of that weapon. Each time you level up a weapon, you unlock a new weapon attachment for all copies of that weapon you will own in the future. The amount of EXP needed for each level increases with higher levels, and the attachments are unlocked in a predetermined order for each weapon.

Unlocked attachments must be purchased for each copy of that weapon you own, costing $100k each. The final few attachments you unlock for each weapon will instead cost 50 C-Stacks per purchase, which drastically increases their cost.

Weapon presets come equipped with specific attachments that cannot be changed, but allow the player to use a weapon with attachments they may not have unlocked yet while still earning weapon EXP for that weapon.

Weapon Attachments

Weapon Attachments, AKA weapon mods, can be unlocked by levelling up your weapons. An unlocked weapon attachment is permanently unlocked for all copies of that gun that you own, but you are required to re-purchase them for each copy of the gun you want to equip them on.

Weapon mods list various upsides (denoted with a "+") and downsides (denoted with a "-") for equipping them.

+ is ALWAYS an upside, and - is ALWAYS a downside! So if an attachment lists "+ Recoil," that means it has less recoil, not more of it.

Below is a list of all existing stats for weapon mods:

• Gunkick - Determines the scale of the gun's recoil pattern. Improved gunkick shrinks the size of the pattern.
  
• Vertical/Horizontal Gunkick - Determines the scale of the recoil pattern, but only on the given axis. Given that most recoil patterns are mostly vertical, improved vertical gunkick is usually more valuable than horizontal.
  
• Recoil Recovery Speed - Determines how quickly your crosshair returns to where you were initially aiming when you stop firing.
  
  
• Recoil - Determines how much deviation from the recoil pattern you will experience. Improved recoil makes your shots follow the recoil pattern more accurately.
  
• Vertical/Horizontal Recoil - Determines recoil pattern deviation, but only on the given axis.
  
• Initial Recoil - Further modifies how much deviation you experience from the recoil pattern, but only for your first few shots each time you start firing.
  
• Screen Shake Amplitude - Determines how much your optic scope visually shakes when you fire while ADSing.
  
  
• Spread - Determines how quickly your weapon bloom (AKA the width of your crosshair) grows as you fire.
  
• Hipfire Spread - Determines spread, but only while hipfiring.
  
• Targeting Spread - Determines spread, but only while ADS.
  
• Pellet Accuracy - Determines how tight the spread of your pellets is for each shotgun shot.
• Vertical/Horizontal Spread Radius - Determines pellet accuracy, but only on the given axis.
  
  
• Targeting Speed - Determines how quickly you can go from hipfiring to ADS and vice-versa.
  
• Sprint to Fire Speed - Determines how quickly you can start firing after you stop sprinting.
  
• Swap Speed - Determines how quickly you can switch between primary, secondary, and overkill weapons.
  
• Reload Speed - Determines how quickly the game plays your reload animations.
  
• Cycle Speed - Determines how quickly you "pump" the shotgun after each shot, getting it ready to fire again.
  
  
• Damage Distance - Unconfirmed effects. It does not appear to affect the distance of damage thresholds or the amount of damage done.
  
• Silenced - Makes firing your gun silent.
  
• Magazine Capacity - Determines how many bullets fit into each magazine. Can also impact the weapon's maximum ammo capacity. Varies from weapon to weapon.

Note that the numerical values assigned to these stats in the following sections of the guide are the literal numbers used by the game. Since we don't yet understand the calculations these are used in, we can only use the numbers to compare which mods have greater increases/decreases than others.

Credit for most of the 1.0.0 numerical weapon mod stats goes to this datamined spreadsheet.[docs.google.com]

Attachments - Sights

The mod slot for sights is available on all weapons in the game. The zoom level is listed along with each sight below.

Iron Sights

These sights can only be equipped on shotguns.

Tagged Iron Sight
(1.15x Zoom)
+ 10 Targeting Speed
- 5 Swap Speed

Red Dot Sights

These sights can be equipped on any AR and on the Reinfeld 880. The Mosconi 12 Classic can also equip the Classic RDS & Compact RDS.

Classic RDS
(1.15x Zoom)
+ 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Swap Speed



Compact RDS
(1.15x Zoom)
+ 5 Gunkick
- 5 Targeting Speed



Projection RDS
(1.2x Zoom)
+ 5 Initial Recoil
+ 5 Recoil
- 5 Sprint to Fire Speed


Sheath RDS
(1.15x Zoom)
+ 5 Gunkick
- 5 Swap Speed

Optic Sights

These sights can be equipped on any AR, and all of them except the Tactical Sight can be equipped on marksman rifles.

Viewpoint Sight
(1.3x Zoom)
+ 10 Gunkick
+ 5 Screen Shake
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Swap Speed

Lined Sight
(1.8x Zoom)
+ 5 Screen Shake
+ 5 Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed


Tactical Sight
(2.0x Zoom)
+ 5 Screen Shake
+ 10 Recoil
- 10 Targeting Speed
- 5 Sprint to Fire Speed

Holographic Sights

There is currently only 1 holographic sight in the game, and it is exclusive to the FIK 22 TLR.

Light Holographic Sight
(?.?x Zoom)
+ ? Initial Recoil
+ ? Recoil
- ? Sprint to Fire Speed

Scopes

These sights can only be equipped on marksman rifles. Note that these are the only sights which the game considers "scopes" in the context of the Precision Shot skill.

Fluted Marksman Scope
(5.0x Zoom)
+ 10 Gunkick
+ 5 Recoil
- 10 Swap Speed


Primed Marksman Scope
(6.0x Zoom)
+ 5 Gunkick
+ 10 Recoil
- 10 Targeting Speed

Secondary/SMG Red Dot Sights

These sights can be equipped on any secondary weapon or SMG.

LED RDS
(1.1x Zoom)
+ 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Sprint to Fire Speed



Slate RDS
(1.1x Zoom)
+ 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Swap Speed



Box RDS
(1.15x Zoom)
+ 5 Gunkick
+ 5 Vertical Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed

Attachments - Barrel Extensions

The mod slot for barrel extensions is available on all weapons except the Mosconi 12 Classic. Note that SMGs use the same barrel extensions as secondary weapons, and that revolvers cannot equip silencers.

Primary Extensions

These extensions can be equipped on all primary weapons except for SMGs and shotguns.

Express Muzzle Break
+ 5 Horizontal Gunkick
+ 5 Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed



Hybrid Muzzle Break
+ 5 Vertical Recoil
+ 10 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed



Indent Compensator
+ 15 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Vertical Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed

AR Silencers

These silencers can be equipped on all assault rifles.

Beveled Silencer
(Silent)
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Swap Speed



Piped Silencer
(Silent)
+ 5 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Damage Distance
- 5 Hipfire Spread


Cylindric Silencer
(Silent)
+ 5 Spread
- 5 Damage Distance

Marksman Silencers

These silencers can be equipped on all marksman rifles.

Torque Silencer
(Silent)
- 5 Gunkick
- 5 Swap Speed



Edge Ridged Silencer
(Silent)
- 5 Swap Speed
- 5 Targeting Speed

12G Extensions

These extensions & silencers can be equipped on all shotguns except the Mosconi 12 Classic.

12G Jaw Choke
+ 15 Vertical Spread Radius
- 10 Horizontal Spread Radius




12G Vent Compensator
+ 10 Horizontal Recoil
+ 5 Vertical Gunkick
- 10 Spread



12G Sediment Choke
+ 5 Pellet Accuracy
+ 5 Spread
- 5 Gunkick



12G Obelisk Silencer
(Silent)
+ 5 Recoil
- 5 Damage Distance

Secondary/SMG Extensions

These extensions can be equipped on all secondary weapons & SMGs.

Compact Compensator
+ 10 Vertical Recoil
+ 5 Vertical Gunkick
- 10 Horizontal Recoil



Skeletonized Compensator
+ 15 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Vertical Recoil




Parted Compensator
+ 5 Gunkick
+ 5 Spread
- 10 Targeting Speed

Pistol/SMG Silencers

These silencers can be equipped on all pistols & SMGs.

Snub Silencer
(Silent)
- 5 Gunkick




Obelisk Silencer
(Silent)
+ 5 Spread
- 5 Damage Distance

Attachments - Barrels

The mod slot for barrels is available on all revolvers and on all primary weapons except for SMGs and the Northwest B-9. Note despite many barrels sharing names with each other, they often have different stats for different weapons, so they have been categorized by stat differences, not by name. All barrels look different depending on the gun they are equipped on. Also note that all marksman rifles except the SA-A144 share their barrel selection with revolvers.

AR Barrels

These barrels can only be equipped on the CAR-4 and VF-7S.

CQC Barrel
+ 5 Targeting Speed
+ 10 Gunkick
- 5 Damage Distance
- 5 Recoil


Ranged Barrel
+ 10 Damage Distance
+ 5 Recoil
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Gunkick

KU-59 Barrels

These barrels can only be equipped on the KU-59.

Trad Grip Barrel
+ 10 Swap Speed
+ 10 Gunkick
- 5 Damage Distance
- 5 Spread


Rail Barrel
+ 10 Damage Distance
+ 5 Spread
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Gunkick

Shotgun Barrels

These barrels can only be equipped on shotguns. The Comp Barrel can only be equipped on the Reinfeld 880.

CQC Barrel
+ 5 Reload Speed
+ 10 Recoil Recovery Speed
- 5 Recoil
- 5 Spread


Ranged Barrel
+ 5 Damage Distance
+ 5 Spread
- 10 Gunkick



Comp Barrel
+ 10 Vertical Recoil
- 5 Horizontal Recoil

Revolver/Marksman Barrels

These barrels can only be equipped by revolvers & marksman rifles (except the SA-A144). The Tac Barrel can only be equipped by the J&M Castigo 44.

CQC Barrel
+ 5 Targeting Speed
+ 10 Gunkick
- 5 Damage Distance
- 5 Recoil


Ranged Barrel
+ 10 Damage Distance
+ 5 Recoil
- 10 Targeting Speed
- 5 Gunkick


Tac Barrel
+ 5 Damage Distance
- 5 Gunkick

Attachments - Grips & Vertical Grips

The mod slot for vertical grips is available on all primary weapons except the Reinfeld 880 & Reinfeld 900S.

Vertical Grips

These grips can be equipped on all primary weapons with a vertical grip slot.

Cylinder Grip
+ 10 Hipfire Spread
+ 10 Vertical Recoil
- 10 Swap Speed
- 10 Targeting Speed


Angled Ghost Grip
+ 5 Spread
+ 5 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Vertical Recoil



Stub Grip
+ 5 Hipfire Spread
+ 5 Vertical Recoil
- 5 Horizontal Recoil



Quick Hold Grip
+ 5 Spread
+ 10 Horizontal Recoil
- 5 Vertical Recoil
- 5 Initial Recoil

Grips

The mod slot for grips is available on most primary weapons and on all secondary weapons.

Primary Grips

These grips can be equipped on all primary weapons with a grip slot. They look different on some weapons, but are functionally identical. Note that the Biofit Grip & Tac Grip can also be equipped on some secondaries, and are listed twice because of this.

Biofit Grip
+ 10 Vertical Recoil
+ 5 Vertical Gunkick
- 5 Horizontal Recoil



Tac Grip
+ 5 Recoil
+ 5 Swap Speed
- 5 Hipfire Spread



Perforated Grip
+ 5 Targeting Speed
+ 5 Sprint to Fire Speed
- 5 Gunkick

Secondary Grips

These grips can be equipped on various secondaries. Note that some grips have different names for different weapons, but are functionally identical, and thus have been listed together. Note that the Biofit Grip & Tac Grip have identical stats to those listed in under "Primary Grips."

Biofit Grip / Ribbed Grip
+ 10 Vertical Recoil
+ 5 Vertical Gunkick
- 5 Horizontal Recoil



Tac Grip / Friction Grip
+ 5 Recoil
+ 5 Swap Speed
- 5 Hipfire Spread



Hardwood Grip / Checkered Grip
+ 5 Gunkick
+ 5 Spread
- 5 Vertical Recoil



Grained Grip / Embossed Grip
+ 10 Gunkick
- 5 Targeting Speed

Attachments - Foreends & Stocks

The mod slot for foreends is only available on pump action shotguns.

Foreends

Foreends can only be equipped on pump action shotguns, which currently is just the Reinfeld 880.

Tactical Fore-End
+ 10 Cycle Speed
- 5 Swap Speed




Biofit Fore-End
+ 5 Vertical Recoil
+ 5 Cycle Speed
- 5 Targeting Speed

Stocks

The mod slot for stocks is available on all primary weapons.

General Stocks

These stocks can be equipped on any primary weapon except shotguns and the Reinfeld 900S.

TQ
+ 10 Recoil
+ 10 Gunkick
- 10 Sprint to Fire Speed
- 10 Targeting Speed


HQ
+ 5 Recoil
+ 5 Gunkick
- 5 Spread



Padded Tube
+ 15 Sprint to Fire Speed
+ 10 Swap Speed
- 10 Recoil
- 10 Gunkick


Light Frame
+ 10 Targeting Speed
+ 10 Sprint to Fire Speed
- 10 Hipfire Spread
- 5 Recoil

Shotgun Stocks

These stocks can only be equipped on shotguns. They look different on some weapons, but are functionally identical.

CQC
+ 15 Sprint to Fire Speed
+ 10 Swap Speed
- 10 Recoil
- 10 Gunkick


Padded
+ 5 Recoil
+ 10 Gunkick
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 5 Recoil Recovery Speed


Fortified
+ 10 Recoil
+ 5 Recoil Recovery Speed
- 5 Gunkick
- 5 Sprint to Fire Speed

Bolt Action Stocks

These stocks can only be equipped on bolt action marksman rifles, which currently is just the Reinfeld 900S.

Lightweight
+ 5 Targeting Speed
+ 10 Sprint to Fire Speed
- 5 Recoil
- 10 Hipfire Spread


Hardwood
+ 15 Recoil
+ 10 Spread
- 5 Targeting Speed
- 10 Sprint to Fire Speed

Attachments - Magazines

The mod slot for magazines is available on all weapons except revolvers and (most) shotguns.

There are only 3 types of magazine mods:

Compact Mag
+ 5 Reload Speed

Quick-Pull Mag
+ 15 Reload Speed

Extended Mag
- 10 Reload Speed

Despite there only being 3 types of magazine mods, their effects on your magazine size, ammo capacity, and ammo pickup vary drastically from weapon to weapon. Each set of mods with different stats has been categorized separately below.

Note that all mag mods change reload speed by the amounts listed above, regardless of the weapon. Also note that ammo pickup and max ammo capacity are only only listed for groups of mags where these numbers actually change.

AR Mags

These mods can be equipped on any AR except for the VF-7S.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 20+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 400




Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 30+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300




Extended Mag
Mag Size: 45+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300

VF-7S Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the VF-7S.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 10+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300




Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 20+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200




Extended Mag
Mag Size: 30+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200

FSA-12 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the FSA-12G.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 5+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 75
Ammo Pickup: 1




Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 10+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 50
Ammo Pickup: 1-2




Extended Mag
Mag Size: 15+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 60
Ammo Pickup: 3-4

SA-A144 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the SA-A144.

Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 9+1






Extended Mag
Mag Size: 20+1

R900S Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the Reinfeld 900S.

Extended Mag
Mag Size: 10+1

FIK 22

These mods can only be equipped on the FIK 22 TLR.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 15+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 150
Ammo Pickup: 2-3




Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 25+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 125
Ammo Pickup: 4-7




Extended Mag
Mag Size: 35+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 140
Ammo Pickup: 2-3

FIK PC9 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the FIK PC9.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 20+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300
Ammo Pickup: 7-10



Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 30+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 6-9



Extended Mag
Mag Size: 35+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 7-10

Ziv Commando Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the Ziv Commando.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 20+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300
Ammo Pickup: 9-12



Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 25+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 6-9



Extended Mag
Mag Size: 32+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 9-12

Compact-7 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the SG Compact-7.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 20+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 300
Ammo Pickup: 8-10



Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 30+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 6-9



Extended Mag
Mag Size: 40+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 200
Ammo Pickup: 8-10

W45 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the WAR-45.

Compact Mag
Mag Size: 15+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 225
Ammo Pickup: 5-8




Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 25+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 175
Ammo Pickup: 4-7




Extended Mag
Mag Size: 35+1
Max Ammo Capacity: 210
Ammo Pickup: 5-8

S40 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the Signature 40.

Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 9+1





Extended Mag
Mag Size: 20+1

Stryk 7 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the Stryk 7.

Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 13+1





Extended Mag
Mag Size: 31+1

SPM11 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the SP Model 11.

Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 7+1





Extended Mag
Mag Size: 18+1

S403 Mags

These mods can only be equipped on the Signature 403.

Quick-Pull Mag
Mag Size: 13+1





Extended Mag
Mag Size: 21+1

Skills - The Basics

As of right now (update 1.1.2), no skills are truly considered "mandatory," although some players may consider Steady Hands mandatory due to its compounding effects that get better the more people that equip it.

Many other skills are considered meta, such as Stockpile, Ammo Funnel, and Replenish, but these can be highly dependent on the build that you are running. All skills that are considered "mandatory" or "meta" are noted as such in the following guide sections.

Researching & Unlocking Skills

When you first start playing PAYDAY 3, most skill lines will be completely locked, with the option to "Research" one locked line at a time. Upon completing a heist, you are awarded with an amount of skill exp, which is a separate reward from both weapon exp and infamy points. This skill exp is equally rewarded to the line you are currently researching, as well as every researched line that you have a skill point invested into.

Your skill exp is not divided among each line; All of the exp is rewarded to all of the lines. Therefore, the fastest way to unlock all skills is to put 1 skill point into all researched lines you have not fully unlocked. To speed this up even further, you should research and invest a skill point into the largest skill lines first, such as Manipulator and Engineer, as they take more exp (and thus more time) to fully unlock.

Spending Skill Points

Once a skill line has been researched, you have the option to invest 1 or 2 skill points into the leftmost skill on that line, which we will refer to as the "root skill" for that line. Investing 1 skill point into a root skill gets you the "basic" verison, while investing 2 skill points will get you the "aced" version, which provides additional benefits while still giving you the benefits of the basic version. These root skills share their name with the name of their respective skill line, so if you were to invest 2 skill points into the root skill of the Manipulator line, we would call that "buying Manipulator Aced." Note that only root skills can be aced; All other skills only require 1 skill point.

With the exception of the skill to the far right of each line (which we will call the "mastery skill" for that line), you cannot buy any skill in a line unless you have already bought the basic root skill for that line. Therefore if you only want one specific skill from a given line, you still need to spend 2 skill points to get it, so it can be beneficial to focus your builds into fewer skill lines.

Each line also has a mastery skill, which is unlocked once all other skills in that line have been fully researched/unlocked. Mastery skills usually provide some generic buff related to that skill line that can benefit a wide variety of builds. Buying a mastery skill only costs 1 skill point, and can be purchased without buying the basic root skill for that line.

In the following sections of the guide, each skill line lists the basic and aced root skills first, and lists the mastery skill for that line last. Mastery skills are also labelled as such to minimize confusion.

EDGE, GRIT, and RUSH

Many skills in PAYDAY 3 revolve around three buffs:

• EDGE, which makes you deal 10% extra damage for 20s.
  
• GRIT, which makes you take 10% less damage for 20s.
  
• RUSH, which makes you move 10% faster for 20s.

There are a few ways that skills can interact with these buffs, each of which is listed below:

• If a skill makes you "gain" a buff, and you do not already have that buff, you will be given that buff for the next 20s. If you gain a buff while you already have said buff active, nothing happens.
  
• If a skill makes you "refresh" a buff, and you already have that buff, the duration of that buff will be reset to 20s, extending the effect. If you refresh a buff while you do not have said buff, nothing happens.
  
• If a skill does something "if you have" a buff, that skill will provide some additional benefit so long as you have the buff it requires. If you do not have said buff, the skill in question will not provide its listed benefit(s).
  
• When a skill "consumes" an available buff, if you already have that buff, the buff will immediately end regardless of duration. This will proc whatever skill that consumed the buff. If you consume a buff while you do not have said buff, nothing happens.
  
• When a skill "ends" or says "you lose" a buff, it consumes the buff without providing any additional benefit.

Skills - Medic, Ammo Specialist

Medic

• Basic
  • You revive teammates 20% faster.
    
  • Any medic bag you deploy has 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Extra Charge, Stockpile, and Code Blue.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Aced
  • When you start to revive a teammate, gain GRIT.
    
  • You take 40% less damage while reviving a teammate if you have GRIT.
    
  • Stacks with GRIT & other damage reduction skills.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Medic.
• Steady Hands
  • You and your teammates will heal for 20% more when interacting with a Medic Bag.
    
  • For each crew member who also has this skill equipped, the 20% bonus healing is increased by 5% for all players. This means that having 2 players with this skill would provide a 50% healing bonus for all heisters, and all 4 players having the skill would result in a whopping 140% healing bonus for all heisters.
    
  • This effect does not work on first aid kits.
    
  • Stacks with Triage and Field Surgery.
    
  • Synergizes with teammates who also have this skill equipped.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for all loud gameplay.
    
  • Due to the compounding effects that encourage having all players equip this skill, some players may consider this skill "mandatory" for loud gameplay.
• Extra Charge
  • Medic bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Medic Basic and Stockpile.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Combat Medic
  • If you have GRIT, successfully reviving your teammate will give both you and that teammate damage immunity for 5s.
    
  • Does not stack with the 3s of invincibility someone gets when they are revived normally.
    
  • You also cannot be stunned while this effect is active (unlike Last Man Standing).
    
  • Synergizes well with Medic Aced.
• Code Blue
  • Whenever a teammate is downed, subdued by a Cloaker, or tased by a Zapper, you will gain or refresh RUSH.
    
  • As long as you have RUSH, you revive teammates 30% faster.
    
  • Stacks with Medic Basic.
• Triage
  • Interacting with a medic bag or first aid kit will consume active EDGE, GRIT, and RUSH and heal you for an additional 15% of your max health for each effect consumed (up to a 45% increase).
    
  • You interact 50% faster with medic bags and first aid kits.
    
  • Stacks with Steady Hands and Field Surgery.
• Field Surgery (Mastery)
  • Interacting with any medic bag will restore an additional 10% of your max health and restore 1 "down."
    
  • This effect does not work on first aid kits.
    
  • This skill is the only way to restore downs aside from going into custody.
    
  • Stacks with Steady Hands and Triage.

Ammo Specialist

• Basic
  • Your reserve ammo capacity is increased by 20%.
    
  • Ammo bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
    
  • The reserve ammo increase ignores clip size (any ammo in your clip is not counted as part of your reserve).
    
  • Stacks with Fully Loaded and Stockpile.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Aced
  • Whenever you pick up ammo, if your current weapon's magazine is full, gain EDGE.
    
  • This effect cannot be activated if your ammo reserves are full, since you cannot pick up ammo.
• Scrounger
  • As long as you have EDGE, picking up an ammo drop has a 10% chance of replenishing one of your throwables.
    
  • This effect cannot be activated if your ammo reserves are full, since you cannot pick up ammo.
    
  • This effect cannot be activated if you are full on throwables.
    
  • Synergizes with Replenish.
• Fully Loaded
  • Ammo bags you deploy have 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Ammo Specialist Basic and Stockpile.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Plate Up
  • If you have GRIT, picking up an ammo drop will instantly regenerate your current chunk of recovery armor.
    
  • This effect cannot occur more than once every 2 seconds.
    
  • Synergizes with Replenish and Soft Assets.
• High Grain
  • After interacting with an ammo bag, you deal 20% more damage for 10s.
    
  • The damage increase cannot stack with itself.
    
  • Stacks with EDGE and other damage-increasing skills.
• Mag Throw
  • As long as you have RUSH, any ammo drops you pick up are also given to all crew members within 10m.
    
  • Sharing ammo won't trigger the Mag Throw skill of other players.
    
  • Synergizes with Replenish.
    
  • Does not synergize with Soft Assets.
    
  • Benefits allies with Plate Up, Ammo Funnel, or Scrounger.
• Top Up (Mastery)
  • Interacting with any ammo bag will restore an additional 20% of your max ammo and fully restock your throwables.
    
  • Synergizes with Extra Munitions.

Skills - Mower, Infiltrator

Mower

• Basic
  • Every 35 bullets you shoot, gain EDGE.
    
  • This skill works best with automatic weapons and large magazines.
    
  • The effect can be proced on demand by shooting 34 bullets and waiting to shoot your 35th bullet.
• Aced
  • Whenever you reload a weapon with an empty magazine, refresh EDGE.
    
  • You must fully finish reloading to proc the effect.
• Recoil Handling
  • As long as you have EDGE, your weapon recoil is reduced.
    
  • The amount of recoil reduction varies from weapon to weapon, so no concrete values are known. (unconfirmed)
• Suppressive Fire
  • As long as you have EDGE, every shot you fire that hits an enemy has a ??% chance to stagger them.
• Ammo Funnel
  • As long as you have EDGE, ammo you pick up is directly added to your equipped weapon's magazine.
    
  • If your magazine is full, it's added to your reserve ammo instead.
    
  • This effect still works for weapons without a mag, like the Mosconi 12 Classic shotgun.
    
  • Synergizes with Soft Assets.
    
  • Synergizes extremely well with Replenish.
    
  • Considered a "meta skill" for loud play with most weapons.
• Replenish
  • As long as you have EDGE, you automatically pick up ammo dropped by enemies you have killed.
    
  • This effect works on enemies killed at any range.
    
  • This effect will not work on enemies that don't drop ammo, like Snipers.
    
  • Synergizes with Ammo Funnel, Mag Throw, Plate Up, and Scrounger.
    
  • Considered a "meta skill" for loud play.
• Sprint Loaded (Mastery)
  • You can reload while sprinting.
    
  • Excellent skill for speedrunning.

Infiltrator

• Basic
  • Whenever you successfully pick a lock or kill an enemy with a throwing knife, gain or refresh RUSH.
    
  • Synergizes very well with Quick Fingers and Bagger, as with all three you can lockpick a ton of locks and bag the loot behind them in much less time.
• Aced
  • Whenever a guard begins to detect you, gain RUSH.
    
  • Synergizes with Quick Fingers, Bagger, Walk The Walk, and Social Engineering.
    
  • Considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Quick Fingers
  • As long as you have RUSH, successfully jiggling in a lockpick minigame will immediately finish picking the lock.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Transporter Basic.
    
  • Synergizes very well with Infiltrator Basic, as with both skills you can lockpick an entire wall of lockboxes extremely fast.
    
  • The synergy listed above is excellent both for stealth and loud speedrunning.
    
  • Considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Retriever
  • Your throwing knives won't break on impact with the environment.
    
  • Unbroken knives may be retrieved by getting close, but they can be spotted by guards.
    
  • This skill makes knives practically unusable as stealth lures, but is still useful for loud builds that involve getting knife kills.
• Bagger
  • As long as you have RUSH, you bag loot 50% faster.
    
  • This effect only applies to the first time you bag a piece of loot. After loot has been bagged once, the bag can be picked up again quickly, and this effect is not triggered.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Transporter Basic.
• Blade Bouncer
  • Your throwing knives will ricochet off the environment up to two times.
    
  • The throwing knife will do an additional +200% damage for each time it bounces. This is enough damage to kill any non-Dozer enemy after a single bounce.
    
  • The ricochets allow you to use a single throwing knife as 3 stealth lures, assuming you don't hit the guard(s) you are luring in the process.
• Frugal Thrower (Mastery)
  • Throwables you use have a 20% chance to be replenished after they are destroyed.

Skills - Tank, Sharpshooter

Tank

• Basic
  • Increase the regeneration speed of your recovery armor by 20%.
    
  • Your armor bag has 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Extra Plates and Stockpile.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Aced
  • Whenever one of your armor chunks breaks, gain or refresh GRIT.
    
  • Synergizes with Last Man Standing.
• Hardy
  • When one of your armor chunks breaks, you gain immunity to all damage for 2 seconds.
    
  • You can still be stunned & staggered while the effect is active (unconfirmed).
• Extra Plates
  • Your armor bag has 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Tank Basic and Stockpile.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
• Armor Up
  • Interacting with any armor bag will fully refill your current armor chunk AND repair 1 broken armor chunk.
    
  • Using an armor bag with no armor remaining will only repair 1 broken chunk.
    
  • Using an armor bag just before your current armor chunk breaks will let you recover nearly 2 armor chunks in a single use.
    
  • Since the Adaptive Armor Lining already counts the entire current chunk as recovery armor, this skill provides no additional benefit when equipped with Adaptive Armor Lining.
• Last Man Standing
  • If damage would normally down you, you can instead consume your current GRIT to stay on your feet and become immune to damage for 4s.
    
  • The duration of this effect is increased by 2s for every teammate or bot that is either downed or in custody when the effect procs.
    
  • After this effect consumes your GRIT, you cannot gain GRIT until you heal with a medic bag or first aid kit, or until you are downed.
    
  • You can still be stunned and staggered while invincible.
    
  • Synergizes with Tank Aced.
• Clean Slate (Mastery)
  • If you have no armor, using an Armor Repair Kit restores 1 chunk of armor.
    
  • This skill adds incredible long-term survivability to builds, as it is the only way to get more armor chunks after all armor bags have been depleted. It is highly recommended for long holdouts, such as in Cook-Off, or in heists with many hostages to trade for resources, like Gold & Sharke.

Sharpshooter

• Basic
  • Stand still for 1.5s while ADSing to gain EDGE.
    
  • If you are already ADSing and standing still when you run out of EDGE, you will gain EDGE again after 1.5s of standing still.
    
  • Can be used to mitigate the downside of Gunslinger Basic.
• Aced
  • Landing a headshot while ADS refreshes your EDGE.
• Collateral Control
  • If you destroy an environmental explosive, a Zapper's battery, or a Nader's belt, the explosion will only affect enemies. Both you and allies are immune.
    
  • If allies cause the explosion, you will still be affected by them.
• Long Shot
  • As long as you have EDGE and are ADSing, headshots apply the highest headshot multiplier for that weapon, regardless of distance.
• Precision Shot
  • If you have EDGE and shoot while aiming down a scope, your shot will deal extra damage based on the magnification of your scope, and your shot will also penetrate one additional target.
    
  • This effect only applies to scopes, which can only be equipped by marksman rifles.
    
  • Despite using a scope, this effect does not apply to the HET-5 Red Fox.
• Cutting Shot
  • As long as you have EDGE, all your shots have an additional 0.1 AP.
    
  • This skill has been changed in 1.1.2 to benefit more weapons that previously did not benefit from this. The exact changes are currently unknown.
• Speed Aim (Mastery)
  • Decreases the time it takes for you to ADS by ~40%.
    
  • The ADS time reduction is actually ~20%, but due to the way the game handles ADS animations it ends up being applied twice for a ~40% decrease.

Skills - Escapist, Demolitionist

Escapist

• Basic
  • Sprint uninterrupted for 3s while masked up to gain RUSH.
    
  • If you are already sprinting when you run out of RUSH, you must first stop sprinting before activating the effect again.
    
  • Excellent skill for speedrunning.
• Aced
  • If you have RUSH and slide, your RUSH is consumed, and you gain or refresh EDGE.
    
  • Synergizes with Move & Cover to allow the player to pick which buffs they want at any given time.
• Balanced
  • As long as you have RUSH, any attempt to stun or stagger you will consume RUSH and ignore the stagger.
• Move & Cover
  • If you have EDGE and vault or mantle, your EDGE is consumed, and you gain or refresh GRIT.
    
  • Synergizes with Escapist Aced to allow the player to pick which buffs they want at any given time.
• Slide Tackle
  • If you have GRIT and slide into any non-special enemies, your GRIT is consumed and you will stagger those enemies.
    
  • This effect can stagger groups of enemies at once, as long as you hit them all with the same slide.
• Battering Ram
  • As long as you have EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH, you can sprint through locked doors to breach them.
    
  • This effect only works on doors with locks that can be picked or shot.
    
  • Synergizes with any skill that gains EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH.
• Swift
  • Your base sprint speed is 10% faster while masked up.
    
  • Since this affects your base sprint speed, this effect stacks multiplicatively with RUSH.
    
  • Excellent skill for speedrunning.
• Disengage (Mastery)
  • Nader gas grenades no longer prevent you from sprinting. This effect is always active, even after you use Disengage to free yourself.
    
  • Once per heist, you can press F to free yourself from a Cloaker, Zapper, or shock mine, after which you can't be disabled by them again for 5s.
    
  • Disengage can still be used when "fully tased." (unconfirmed)
    
  • You can opt to save Disengage for later by not pressing F.

Demolitionist

• Demolitionist Basic
  • Explosions caused by your shots or throwables have a 20% larger AoE.
    
  • This includes non-damaging explosions (like from flashbangs), but excludes shock mines and Zapper batteries.
    
  • This includes environmental explosions (unconfirmed) and shooting a Nader's belt (unconfirmed).
    
  • Stacks with Tactician Aced.
• Demolitionist Aced
  • Whenever you cause an explosion, gain or refresh RUSH.
    
  • This effect is proced by any explosion directly caused by you, but only if it can deal damage. This means it excludes flashbang explosions and Zapper batteries.
    
  • The explosion from the Detonation skill does not proc this skill, despite dealing damage.
    
  • The effect also procs from environmental explosions (like fire extinguishers) and shooting a Nader's belt.
    
  • Synergizes with Blowback.
• Cooker
  • Hold a throwable for at least 1s before throwing it to gain GRIT.
    
  • The buff will only be gained when the throwable is actually thrown.
    
  • Synergizes with Retriever to allow the player to gain GRIT on command using throwing knives.
    
  • Synergizes with Blast Shield.
• Shell Shock
  • Non-special enemies damaged by your explosions get a permanent penalty of 10% to accuracy.
    
  • Does not work on Shields.
    
  • This debuff can only be applied once per enemy.
• Blowback
  • As long as you have RUSH, non-special enemies damaged by your explosions lose all armor.
    
  • Affected enemies will take regular damage from the explosion first, then shed any remaining armor if they survive the explosion.
    
  • Does not work on Shields.
    
  • Synergizes with Demolitionist Aced.
• Blast Shield
  • Available GRIT is consumed to negate any self-damage from your explosions.
    
  • Very useful with the Mamba due to its high amount of self-damage.
    
  • Synergizes with Cooker.
    
  • Synergizes extremely well with Enforcer Basic & Overcooked, as getting 2 kills with an explosive at point blank range will first consume GRIT to negate self-damage, then you'll immediately gain more GRIT.
• Overcooked
  • Any throwable or weapon you use that has an explosive component will no longer run on a timer but will immediately explode on impact with the environment or an NPC.
    
  • This includes explosives that do not deal damage, like the smoke grenade and flashbang.
    
  • Synergizes extremely well with Enforcer Basic & Blast Shield, as getting 2 kills with an explosive at point blank range will first consume GRIT to negate self-damage, then you'll immediately gain more GRIT.
• Extra Munitions (Mastery)
  • Your throwable capacity is increased by 2.
    
  • Synergizes with Top Up.

Skills - Enforcer, Manipulator

Enforcer

• Enforcer Basic
  • Whenever you kill 2 enemies within 4s that are within 5m of you, gain GRIT.
    
  • Synergizes extremely well with Blast Shield & Overcooked, as getting 2 kills with an explosive at point blank range will first consume GRIT to negate self-damage, then you'll immediately gain more GRIT.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for loud play on higher difficulties.
• Enforcer Aced
  • If you have GRIT, whenever you kill 1 enemy within 5m of you, gain EDGE.
• Quick Reload
  • As long as you have both GRIT and EDGE, the time it takes for you to reload is decreased by ~18.75%.
    
  • The % reduction to reload duration remains constant across weapons, meaning it has a greater impact on weapons with longer reloads.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for loud play on higher difficulties.
    
  • Synergizes extremely well with Combat Reload.
• Face To Face
  • As long as you have both GRIT and EDGE, you deal an additional 10% damage to targets within 5m of you.
    
  • This buff stacks with EDGE and other damage buff skills.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Reload.
• Solid
  • As long as you have both EDGE and GRIT, you're immune to stagger effects.
    
  • Extremely effective for dealing with Dozers or Shields, as this allows you to get close without getting stunned.
    
  • Note that Dozer kicks will still deal a lot of damage, even if the stun is blocked by this effect.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Reload.
• Combat Reload
  • Whenever you reload a weapon while the magazine still has ammo, refresh EDGE and GRIT.
    
  • Synergizes with Quick Reload, Face To Face, and Solid.
    
  • Synergizes with Ammo Funnel and Replenish due to an odd interaction: If you get a kill with your last shot in the magazine, the gun will first run out of ammo, and then you will get bullets put back into your clip. Since the gun ran out of ammo first, the game treats this as if you have a completely empty clip, and cannot shoot at all unless you do a full reload. Upon completing this full reload, the extra bullets that were added to the clip will count toward procing Combat Reload, refreshing EDGE and GRIT despite this being a full reload.
    
  • The synergy described above will not proc with Finisher, due to the anti-synergy between Finisher and Replenish.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for loud play on higher difficulties.
• Shock & Awe (Mastery)
  • Killing an enemy less than 8m away has a ~20% chance to stagger all non-special enemies within 5m of you.

Manipulator

• Manipulator Basic
  • You tie up and trade hostages 50% faster.
• Manipulator Aced
  • Whenever you trade a hostage, they count as one extra hostage.
    
  • This effect doesn't just apply to negotiations; It also applies to trades between assault waves, meaning hostages will drop 1 extra first aid kit or release 1 extra teammate from custody.
    
  • Stacks with Silver Tongue and Negotiator.
    
  • Synergizes with Master Trader.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for 1 teammate in loud play (1 player per team should have these skills).
• Overbearing
  • Extends your 30m intimidation range by 20% (increased to 36m).
    
  • This only increases the 30m radius for the initial shout, meaning you can shout at civs up to 36m away, and a successful shout will intimidate every civ within 36m of you. It does not increase the 15m radius of passive intimidation around you (see "Intimidation" in the section Loud - Hostage Mechanics).
    
  • Civilians stay down for 50% longer when you intimidate them. This extends both the 5s and 20s intimidation timers to 7.5s and 30s respectively.
    
  • You can now order up to 3 tied hostages to follow you at the same time.
• Silver Tongue
  • Trading employees, guards, or law enforcement counts as trading one extra hostage.
    
  • This effect doesn't just apply to negotiations; It also applies to trades between assault waves, meaning hostages will drop 1 extra first aid kit or release 1 extra teammate from custody.
    
  • Stacks with Manipulator Aced and Negotiator.
    
  • Synergizes with Master Trader and Menacing.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for 1 teammate in loud play (1 player per team should have these skills).
• Negotiator
  • Trading a hostage for a consumable (first aid kit/armor repair kit) now yields one extra consumable of that type.
    
  • Stacks with Silver Tongue and Manipulator Aced.
• Menacing
  • You can shout at law enforcement within 5m to force them to surrender, turning them into a hostage that obeys all the rules of a civilian (including penalties for killing them).
    
  • You must hold them at gunpoint until they fully surrender, which takes 4s. Any damage dealt to them or taking your aim off them interrupts this process.
    
  • You may only have one surrendered enemy as a hostage at any given time. This limit is per player, so each player with the skill may have their own hostage.
    
  • Surrendered guards do NOT count towards this limit, so using this skill to force guards to surrender instead of killing them before the cops arrive can net you more hostages to trade with.
    
  • Synergizes with Silver Tongue.
• Stockholm Syndrome
  • When downed, shouting at any tied down or cowering hostage within ~15m(?) will cause them to stand up and attempt to reach you.
    
  • If the hostage successfully reaches you, they will revive you and return to cowering.
    
  • The same hostage can be used to revive you multiple times in a row.
    
  • You cannot yell at a hostage to help you once you have been fully downed (can no longer shoot your secondary weapon).
    
  • If you yelled at a hostage before you fully went down, they will still attempt to revive you.
• Master Trader (Mastery)
  • Every hostage you trade between assault waves reduces the next player's time spent in custody by 10s, down to a minimum custody time of 10s.
    
  • This effect does not proc from hostages traded during negotiations.
    
  • Time reduction resets after any player is taken into custody.
    
  • This effect does not apply to bots, nor does the reduction reset when they go into custody.
    
  • Synergizes with Manipulator Aced and Silver Tongue.

Skills - Engineer, Gunslinger

Engineer

• Engineer Basic
  • Researching this skill unlocks the "Sentry Turret" deployable.
    
  • Equipping this skill increases the max heat capacity of your sentries by 20%.
    
  • Stacks with Engineer Aced.
• Engineer Aced
  • Increases the max heat capacity of your sentries by 20%.
    
  • Stacks with Engineer Basic.
• AP Turret
  • Increases the AP of your sentries by 1.
• Cooling System
  • Sentries build heat 30% slower from taking damage or electrical explosions.
    
  • The description of this skill mentions "being hacked," but sentries can not be hacked by enemies.
• Detonation
  • When one of your sentries overheats, it will cause an explosion that deals 300/200/100 damage to all NPCs within 2.5/4/8m of the sentry.
    
  • The explosion can be blocked by walls, but not by Shields.
    
  • Does not synergize with any skills from the Demolitionist skill line.
• Spin Cycle
  • Your sentries can now rotate 360 degrees, letting them aim in any direction.
• Dual Sentries
  • You can now deploy 2 sentries.
    
  • Your sentries build heat 50% faster from shooting.
• Targeted Fire (Mastery)
  • Your sentries will prioritize shooting at the enemy you have marked most recently.
    
  • The limited 15m range of the sentry still applies to marked targets.
    
  • If your sentries don't have LoS to any targets you have marked, they will follow their regular targeting behavior.
    
  • Does not synergize with Combat Marking.

Gunslinger

• Gunslinger Basic
  • Switch between your primary, secondary, or overkill weapons to gain EDGE.
    
  • ADSing will end any EDGE you have active.
    
  • Synergizes with Quick Draw.
    
  • Anti-synergy with ADS playstyles. Avoid using this skill unless you are using a hipfire build.
• Gunslinger Aced
  • Performing headshots while hipfiring will refresh EDGE.
• From The Hip
  • If you have EDGE, your hipfire spread is decreased by ~30%.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for hipfire builds in high difficulties.
• Heavy Hipfire
  • If you have EDGE, all hipfire shots will cause hit enemies to stagger.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for hipfire builds in high difficulties.
• Finisher
  • If you have EDGE, the last shot of your magazine will consume EDGE and deal 200% more damage.
    
  • The EDGE is consumed before the shot even connects with the enemy, so this skill has anti-synergies with lots of on-kill skills that require you to have EDGE.
    
  • This effect does not proc on Overkill weapons.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Gunslinger Aced, Quick Reload, Sharpshooter Aced, Precision Shot, Cutting Shot, Mower Aced, Suppressive Fire, Ammo Funnel, and Replenish.
    
  • Due to all the anti-synergies, avoid using this skill unless you made your entire build around it.
• Quick Draw (Mastery)
  • Switch weapons ~10% faster.
    
  • Synergizes with Gunslinger Basic.

Skills - Grifter, Hacker

Grifter

• Basic
  • When unmasked, if you are within 1m of a civilian, gain RUSH.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Aced
  • When you put your mask on, any civilians in a 10m radius that can see you will be automatically intimidated.
    
  • Does not synergize with Overbearing.
• Walk The Walk
  • When unmasked and you have RUSH, cameras won't detect you trespassing in private areas.
    
  • Cameras can still detect you performing an illegal action while the effect is active.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Social Engineering
  • When unmasked and you have RUSH, employees will ignore you performing illegal actions.
    
  • Since trespassing in secure areas counts as an illegal action, this skill also makes employees ignore said trespassing.
    
  • Using this skill is the intended way to complete the Ice Cold challenge.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Open Mic
  • You answer radios 50% faster.
• Slippery (Mastery)
  • After getting cuffed by a guard, you can break free by lockpicking the cuffs.
    
  • Lockpicking your cuffs does not count as an illegal action, and can be done while being watched by guards. The guards will, however, still spot you once you break out of the cuffs.
    
  • You cannot lockpick cuffs from Cloakers.

Hacker

• Basic
  • You can hack cameras to gain access to the CCTV system. This gives you access to all cameras, as if you had accessed the security room's computer.
    
  • Hacking a cam takes 1.5s (0.75s with Speed Hack).
    
  • You gain one "Runtime."
    
  • The additional "Runtime" stacks with Hacker Aced & Scrambler Basic.
    
  • Synergizes with Speed Hack.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Aced
  • You can overload a looped camera to cause an electrical explosion, stunning NPCs in a 5m range and destroying the camera as if you had shot it.
    
  • In stealth, when this stun wears off, NPCs react as if they had been hit with an infrasonic mine.
    
  • The electrical explosion part of this skill is completely useless on heists with indestructible titan cams.
    
  • You must own the skill Secure Loop to use the explosion effect.
    
  • You gain one additional "Runtime".
    
  • The additional "Runtime" stacks with Hacker Basic & Scrambler Basic.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth to get the extra "Runtime," but only if the heist does not have the Cerberus Core modifier.
• Secure Loop
  • After hacking a camera, you can spend one "Runtime" to loop the current camera you are viewing.
    
  • Looped cameras cannot detect you or anything out of the ordinary.
    
  • If the camera is destroyed, you regain your "Runtime."
    
  • If you use another "Runtime" when you have none left, your oldest active "Runtime" is automatically removed.
    
  • Looped cams will emit a blue light instead of red.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Appliance Breach
  • You can activate lures from a distance of up to 10m, as long as you have a clear LoS.
    
  • Useful on a few heists where you remain unmasked, but you can just use throwing knives instead if you are masked up.
• Routed Ping
  • You can spend a second "Runtime" on a looped camera to make the camera automatically mark any guards or law enforcement within 10m that it can see.
    
  • Targets marked by this effect stay marked for 5s after being marked.
    
  • Targets marked by this effect do not count towards your maximum number of marked targets.
    
  • Note that cameras have an extremely narrow FoV (~20 degrees), so enemies will frequently not be marked due to the massive blind spots that cams have.
    
  • This skill requires you to apply 2 "Runtimes" to the same camera, so to use it you must have either Hacker Aced or Scrambler Basic.
    
  • If you attempt to apply Routed Ping to a looped cam when you only have 1 "Runtime," the camera will simply stop looping.
    
  • This skill is significantly more useful in loud if the heist has the Titan Cams security modifier.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Marking, Threat Assessment, and Misdirect.
• Glitch Protocol
  • You can hack a guard's radio to completely distract them for 5s, after which they will resume their previous action.
    
  • You must have LoS to a guard and be within 10m to hack them.
    
  • Hacking a radio takes 2s.
    
  • Using this ability has a cooldown of 60s.
    
  • If you hack a guard while they are escorting a player, the guard will forget about the player and go back to their regular patrolling behavior.
    
  • If you hack a guard who was about to cuff a player, the guard will forget about the player, but the heist will still be put into search mode.
    
  • If you hack a guard who is escorting you, be sure that the escort circle disappears before you run off. If you leave too quickly or the guard walks too far away before the hack is finished, the guard may not stop the escort when you hack him, meaning that he will act as though you ran away when his radio is fixed. To avoid this, simply stay in the circle if the escort circle does not disappear when you hack him.
    
  • Bumping into a guard while they are distracted will cause them to turn and face you when their radio is fixed.
    
  • Hacked guards can still see you perform illegal interactions; Such interactions will still show "(Observed)" to tell you they are not safe.
    
  • Does not synergize with Speed Hack.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth.
• Signal Catch (Mastery)
  • You can answer radios from up to 8m away if you have LoS to the guard's body.

Skills - Tactician, Strategist

Tactician

• Basic
  • Whenever you stun or stagger an enemy, gain EDGE.
    
  • Synergizes with Coup De Grace.
  Aced
  • Your flashbang and smoke grenade AoE is increased by 20%.
    
  • Stacks with Demolitionist Basic.
• Crowd Control
  • Effects of this skill on flashbangs is currently unknown. It does not appear to produce any effect. (?)
    
  • Scared civs will stop moving if they enter a smoke cloud from your smoke grenades. This does not affect a civ if you order them to follow you.
    
  • Does not synergize with Overbearing.
• Coup De Grace
  • If you have EDGE, deal 10% more damage to staggered or stunned enemies.
    
  • Stacks with EDGE & other damage increasing skills.
    
  • Synergizes with Tactitian Basic.
• Discombobulate
  • Enemies affected by your flashbangs deal 40% less damage for the duration of the stun and for 5s after it wears off.
    
  • Enemies affected by your smoke grenades deal 40% less damage while in the smoke and for 5s after they escape the smoke.
    
  • Stacks with GRIT & other damage resistance skills.
• Expose
  • Shots fired at enemies stunned by your flashbangs will completely ignore armor while they are stunned.
    
  • This effect causes all shots to deal full damage directly to the enemy's health, regardless of the shot's AP.
    
  • This effect also applies to shots fired by teammates and sentries.
• Scramble (Mastery)
  • Any stun effects you apply last 20% longer.
    
  • This skill only applies to stuns from your flashbangs and infrasonic mines.

Strategist

• Basic
  • You can mark 1 additional target (2 total).
    
  • Your marks last 20% longer (increased from 15s to 18s).
    
  • Does not extend marks for marked cameras, or marks from Routed Ping or motion sensors.
    
  • Stacks with Strategist Aced.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Marking, Threat Assessment, and Misdirect.
• Aced
  • You can mark 1 additional target (3 total).
    
  • Your marks last 20% longer (increased from 18s to 21s).
    
  • Does not extend marks for marked cameras, or marks from Routed Ping or motion sensors.
    
  • Stacks with Strategist Basic.
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Marking, Threat Assessment, and Misdirect.
• Combat Marking
  • If you have EDGE, deal 20% extra damage against any marked target.
    
  • This effect does not apply to targets marked by bots.
    
  • Stacks with EDGE & other damage increasing skills.
    
  • Synergizes with Routed Ping, Marked For Death, & motion sensors.
• Threat Assessment
  • If you have GRIT, take 10% less damage from any marked target.
    
  • This effect does not apply to targets marked by bots.
    
  • Stacks with GRIT & other damage resistance skills.
    
  • Synergizes with Routed Ping, Marked For Death, & motion sensors.
• Misdirect
  • As long as you have RUSH, shots from any marked target have a 10% chance to deal no damage too you.
    
  • This effect does not apply to targets marked by bots.
    
  • Synergizes with Routed Ping & motion sensors.
• Marked For Death (Mastery)
  • If you are downed, tased, or subdued by an enemy, that enemy and up to 5 other enemies within 5m of you are automatically marked.
    
  • The enemy that downed or disabled you is marked regardless of distance, and even works when being downed by a Nader's gas grenade.
    
  • Does not synergize with Misdirect (since the enemy that tases/subdues you is marked the moment you get disabled, not beforehand).
    
  • Synergizes with Combat Marking and Threat Assessment.

Skills - CQC Specialist, Transporter

CQC Specialist

• Basic
  • Whenever you finish performing a takedown, gain or refresh RUSH.
• Aced
  • Whenever you grab a human shield, gain or refresh GRIT.
    
  • Lets you permanently have GRIT active so long as you have a hostage, since you can gain or refresh GRIT by just shoving them and then immediately grabbing them as a human shield again.
    
  • Synergizes with Pin Puller.
• Soft Assets
  • Shoving a SWAT, Heavy SWAT, Sabotage Specialist, or Hostage Rescue unit you were using as a human shield will give you extra ammo, as if you had picked up an ammo box.
    
  • The shoved SWAT will still drop an ammo box on death.
    
  • Move 5% faster while holding a human shield.
    
  • Movement speed buff stacks with Pin Puller.
    
  • Synergizes with Ammo Funnel and Plate Up.
    
  • Does not synergize with Mag Throw.
• Groundskeeper
  • Perform takedowns 20% faster (decreased from 5s to 4s).
• Pin Puller
  • If you have GRIT, shoving a SWAT, Heavy SWAT, Sabotage Specialist, or Hostage Rescue unit you were using as a human shield will set off their smoke grenade.
    
  • This effect is not triggered by surrendered enemies from the Menacing skill.
    
  • Only one smoke grenade per SWAT can be triggered.
    
  • All skills that affect your thrown smoke grenades also apply to the smoke grenades you set off from this skill.
    
  • Move 5% faster while holding a human shield.
    
  • Movement speed buff stacks with Soft Assets.
• Savage Takedown
  • When you start performing a takedown, all civs within 5m will immediately become intimidated.
    
  • The civs do not need to be observing the takedown to become intimidated, but they do need LoS.
• Pressure Points
  • After you perform a takedown, the resulting body will cause NPCs that see it to go through a lengthy inspection process before the alarm is sounded, giving you a lot of time to react.
    
  • If a civ sees an affected body, they will run over to it to inspect it (with a red "!" above their head). Upon reaching the body, the icon above their head will change to a radio, and they will spend ~10s calling for a guard. This will cause a nearby guard to come inspect the body, after which the civ will resume their previous behavior as if they had never seen the body.
    
  • If a guard sees an affected body (he must actually see it, even if called over by a civ), he will run over to inspect it (with a red "!" above his head). He will then take ~10s to inspect the body, after which he will radio to sound the alarm.
    
  • Cameras will still react the same to these bodies and instantly sound the alarm.
    
  • Once the body is spotted, if the body is moved before the inspection is complete, the NPC will instead react as though they had just seen a regular dead body, so be sure to leave the body until the NPC is safe to eliminate.
    
  • If the body is spotted and inspected by a civ, it can be quickly moved while the civ leaves and the guard is on his way (while neither NPC has a red "!" or radio above them). This will cause the guard to simply return to his patrol at no penalty.
    
  • Picking up or moving the body does not cancel this skill's effects on said body, allowing it to be relocated.
• Cover-Up (Mastery)
  • Performing a takedown on a guard will prevent his radio from ever going off, instead acting as though you had already answered the radio.
    
  • This effect will still reduce your number of remaining radio uses by one, as if you had answered the radio normally.
    
  • Performing a takedown on a guard with this skill when you have no radios left will put the heist into search mode.
    
  • Performing a takedown on the lead guard will only answer his pager once; You must still come back to answer his pager again later.

Transporter

• Basic
  • Whenever you pick up a bag or body, gain or refresh RUSH.
    
  • Whenever you throw a bag or body, you lose RUSH.
    
  • Losing RUSH will make Walk The Walk & Social Engineering less reliable when moving bags unmasked.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Bagger & Catapult.
    
  • Synergizes with Beast of Burden.
• Aced
  • Whenever you pick up a bag or body, gain or refresh GRIT.
    
  • Whenever you throw a bag or body, you lose GRIT.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Catapult.
    
  • Synergizes with Brutal Carry.
• Beast of Burden
  • As long as you have RUSH, carrying objects or bodies doesn't incur a movement speed penalty.
    
  • This effect only affects movement speed; You will still not be able to jump, sprint, or crouch when carrying bodies, and still cannot sprint with heavy loot items.
    
  • Does not remove the movement speed penalty when holding a human shield.
    
  • Synergizes with Transporter Basic & Power Lifter.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" in loud for heists with lots of bags and in solo play.
• Brutal Carry
  • As long as you have GRIT, civs who fully spot you while you are carrying a body will immediately become intimidated.
    
  • Synergizes with Transporter Aced.
• Deep Pockets
  • You start each heist with 2 of your equipped deployable bag instead of 1.
    
  • Your deployables now have 2 less charges (uses) each (with a minimum of 1).
    
  • This effect only works with deployable bags (not sentries).
    
  • Synergizes with all skills that increase the number of charges your deployable bag has. This allows you to increase the number of charges you bring to a heist from 8 to 12 (2 bags with 6 charges each).
    
  • Can be used to quickly complete challenges for deployables.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for loud play on higher difficulties.
• Power Lifter
  • You can carry up to two loot bags at once. This incurs a ~30% movement speed penalty.
    
  • Synergizes with Transporter Basic & Beast of Burden.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" in heists with lots of bags and in solo play.
• Catapult (Mastery)
  • You throw bags 30% further.
    
  • Does not affect thrown bodies.
    
  • Anti-synergy with Transporter Basic and Transporter Aced, as making use of this skill requires procing the negative effects of those other skills.

Skills - Scrambler, Fortitude

Scrambler

• Basic
  • You can hack drones by spending one "Runtime."
    
  • Hacked cam drones stop moving for 7s, during which it cannot detect anything. After 7s, it will continue working as normal and your runtime will be refunded.
    
  • Hacked combat drones will become indestructible for 6s, during which it will fight on your side. After 6s, it will self-destruct and your runtime will be refunded.
    
  • You gain one "Runtime."
    
  • The additional "Runtime" stacks with Hacker Basic & Hacker Aced.
• Aced
  • Whenever you place a tool, gain RUSH.
    
  • Synergizes with Speed Hack, Kinetic Short-Circuit, & Full Recall.
• Speed Hack
  • As long as you have RUSH and an ECM Jammer is active:
    • The interactions for hacking a cam, hacking a QR code phone, and using a QR code are all 50% faster.
      
    • Radios of guards you kill are answered instantly (this functions identically to the radio-answering effect of Cover-Up).
  • These effects can proc from ECMs activated by teammates. (unconfirmed)
    
  • These effects do not stack with multiple active ECMs.
    
  • The radio-answering effect only applies to guards killed by the player who has this skill active. (unconfirmed)
    
  • Does not speed up "stand in the circle" phone hacks.
    
  • Does not synergize with Glitch Protocol (radio hacks are not sped up).
    
  • Synergizes with Hacker Basic.
• Signal Scan
  • While your ECM Jammer is active, all cameras, Snipers, Techies, and the FBI van are marked for you and your crew.
    
  • This effect does not proc from ECMs activated by teammates. (unconfirmed)
• Extra Pockets
  • You start the heist with 50% more of your equipped tool, rounded up (minimum of 1 extra tool).
    
  • Can be used to quickly complete challenges for tools.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth OR if you are using ECM Jammers.
• Kinetic Short-Circuit
  • As long as you have RUSH and an ECM Jammer is active, Guards, First Responders, and SWAT will become stunned for 5s whenever you shoot them.
    
  • This effect can proc from ECMs activated by teammates. (unconfirmed)
    
  • Destroying a Zapper's battery will replenish one of your used ECMs (this does not require RUSH).
    
  • You will not replenish an ECM if you are already full on ECMs, however if you equip Full Recall, you can place your ECMs, get more by shooting batteries, then pick up the ECMs you placed to go above your maximum ECM count.
• Cam Distortion
  • Any ECM Jammers placed by you will passively disable all cams within 0.5m of them.
    
  • This effect ends when you pick up or use the ECM.
    
  • Disabled cams can't be hacked and all active runtimes on them are refunded.
    
  • Extremely useful for countering the effects of the Cerberus Core security modifier.
    
  • WARNING: This skill is currently bugged when used on cams that are not part of a CCTV system with a killable security room guard. These cameras will randomly and without warning re-enable themselves at random intervals. DO NOT use this skill on heists without a security room until this is fixed!
    
  • Synergizes with Extra Pockets & Full Recall.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for stealth when the Cerberus Core modifier is active.
• Full Recall (Mastery)
  • You can interact with tools you have placed to pick them back up.
    
  • Consumable tools can only be picked back up if they haven't been used or triggered.
    
  • Infinitely reusable tools like the micro-cam can always be picked back up, even after being used.
    
  • Synergizes with Scrambler Aced & Cam Distortion.
    
  • Can be used to quickly complete the "Shutterbug" challenges (for placing micro-cams).
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" if you are using ECM Jammers in stealth.

Fortitude

• Basic
  • Increases your base maximum health by 50 (default base health is 100).
    
  • When you have no Adrenaline, if you get Adrenaline or heal to full health, gain or refresh GRIT.
• Aced
  • Increases your maximum number of downs by 1. You also start the heist with this 1 extra down. (unconfirmed)
    
  • Increases your bleedout time by 50% (the amount of time it takes for you to go into custody after being downed).
    
  • Synergizes with Unyielding, Fortitude Aced, and Walking Tall.
• Health Siphon
  • When a crewmate heals using one of your Medic Bags, you are also healed for 40% of the amount that they healed.
    
  • 100% of excess healing is still converted to Adrenaline from this effect.
    
  • Synergizes with teammates that have Steady Hands, Triage, and Field Surgery.
• Unyielding
  • Your maximum health is increased by 15 for each down you have left.
    
  • Each down you lose will reduce your maximum health by 15 until you restore your lost downs.
    
  • Synergizes with Fortitude Aced.
• Supraphysiological
  • Whenever you gain Adrenaline, you gain an additional 10% more Adrenaline for each down you have left. (unconfirmed, the effects of this skill may be bugged)
    
  • Each down you lose will reduce this benefit by 10% until you restore your lost downs.
    
  • Synergizes with Fortitude Aced.
• Walking Tall
  • Adrenaline decays 25% slower for each down you have left.
    
  • Each down you lose will reduce this benefit by 25% until you restore your lost downs.
    
  • If you have any Adrenaline, using a First Aid Kit or Medic Bag (unconfirmed) will pause its decay for 15s.
    
  • Synergizes with Fortitude Aced.
• Pain Asymbolia
  • If you have Adrenaline and at least one buff (EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH), the 10% buffs provided by EDGE/GRIT/RUSH are doubled (increased to 20%).
    
  • If you have Adrenaline and at least one buff (EDGE, GRIT, or RUSH), you take 10% less damage to your Adrenaline.
• Stockpile (Mastery)
  • If you have a deployable bag equipped, it has 2 additional charges.
    
  • Stacks with Tank Basic, Extra Plates, Ammo Specialist Basic, Fully Loaded, Medic Basic, and Extra Charges.
    
  • Synergizes with Deep Pockets.
    
  • This is considered a "meta skill" for all loud builds that have a deployable bag equipped.

Heists - The Basics

Security Modifiers

As you increase the difficulty for a heist, both stealth and loud become more difficult. Stealth difficulty increases via security modifiers and by reducing the amount of radios you can answer before the alarm goes off. The security modifiers used for all heists are randomized every 2 weeks, so the same strategies won't always work on the same heists.

On Very Hard difficulty, the first listed security modifier for that heist is added, and the amount of radios you can answer is reduced from 4 to 3.

On Overkill difficulty, both the first and second security modifiers are added, and the amount of radios you can answer is reduced from 3 to 2.

All security modifiers currently in the game are:

• Titan Cams - All security cameras are indestructable.
  
• Lead Guard - A lead guard spawns into the heist.
  
• Cerberus Core - Devices hacked with a "runtime" (such as a looped camera) will reset back to normal after 5s.

Favors

Favors (AKA preplanning assets) can be selected in the ready-up lobby before starting a heist. Each player can select one favor to "place" on that heist, and each favor can only be selected by one player, thus you cannot bring multiple of the same favor to a heist. Upon starting a new attempt at a heist, each player that placed a favor will lose 1 of that favor. This means that each time you fail or restart, you are losing another favor.

If a player leaves the lobby or runs out of a favor they have deployed, their favor will still remain on the heist for all subsequent attempts until it is completed.

The Zipline Bag, Armor Bag, Medic Bag, and Ammo Bag favors can be purchased from the vendor Gage. All other favors are heist-specific (they can only be used on a specific heist), and must be earned through gameplay. Each of these heist-specifc favors are described in more detail in the heist sections below.

Upon successful completion of a heist, you will be rewarded with 1 random heist-specific favor, shown on the heist completion screen. The favor you receive will never be for the heist you just completed, and will be for a heist of the same category as the one you completed (i.e. Core Heists, Legacy Heists, The Bad Apple, etc). If only 1 heist is available for that category, the favor you receive will be for the heist you just completed.

Enemy Spawning

At the start of a heist, the only special enemies that will spawn are Zappers. As you progress throughout the heist, completing certain objectives will make more types of special enemies start to spawn. However, they do not begin spawning immediately; The special enemies only begin spawning at the start of the next police assault after the objective was completed. Note that this does not apply to Overkill difficulty - on Overkill, specials will start spawning as soon as the objective is completed.

This means, for example, if you complete an objective that enables Bulldozer spawns right at the start of a police assault, you will not actually see any Bulldozers until that assault has ended and the next assault has started.

Note that since many heists allow you to do objectives out of order, it is possible to complete an objective that spawns specials from later in the mission, which will also cause all lesser specials to start spawning at the same time. For example, if you immediately did the objective that spawns Cloakers, then Naders will also start spawning, even though you didn't yet complete the objective to spawn them. This also applies to the final charge - starting the final charge will cause all specials & Heavy SWAT to start spawning immediately.

Killing a Shield, Sniper, or special enemy will start that enemy's "respawn timer," during which that enemy cannot respawn. Only after the timer runs out is that enemy allowed to spawn back into the heist. More powerful enemies like the Dozer have longer respawn timers, while weaker ones can respawn frequently. Note that enemies are not guaranteed to respawn as soon as their respawn timer expires; Other conditions such as the specials spawn cap may delay them from spawning in. Note that in the case of uncommon enemies (Shields & Snipers), each copy of the enemy has a separate respawn timer.

Event Triggers

All heists have a list of objectives that must be completed to finish the heist. Many of these objectives can be done out of order, well before the game tells you to do them, but they still maintain the same triggers, such as spawning Bulldozers or starting the final charge. Therefore it is important to know which objectives can be done when, and what progress can be made without triggering events that will put the crew at risk.

Additionally, PAYDAY 3 uses a fixed-RNG system, so any information that you learn in one attempt will act as permanent progress that carries over to subsequent attempts. This means it can be beneficial to go loud when attempting stealth, such as to learn the code in Touch the Sky, or it can be a good idea to stealth when attempting loud to bypass objectives, such as to learn the keycard location and code in Gold & Sharke. This can sometimes be used to bypass certain event triggers entirely.

The nuances of which objectives should be avoided and which have event triggers are covered in the following sections of the guide on a per-heist basis.

Heists - Infamy Point Rewards

Upon completion of a heist, you will be rewarded with a number of Infamy Points (IP) based on the heist & difficulty, with bonuses for finishing in stealth or securing all bag-able loot. All of these bonuses stack.

Note that stealth bonuses will not be rewarded even if you escape as the alarm starts to sound off. Also note that "All Loot" bonuses are rewarded regardless of the quality of the loot you steal (such as unscanned jewelry, burnt meth, incorrect Uma painting, etc).

Below is a table of these IP rewards for each heist currently in the game. Values for 1.0.2 heists were taken from this reddit post.

Legend: (Total) Completion / Stealth Bonus / All Bags Bonus

Core Heists	Normal	Hard	Very Hard	Overkill
NRFTW	(75) 35 / 15 / 25	(80) 40 / 15 / 25	(130) 70 / 25 / 35	(180) 110 / 30 / 40
Road Rage	(60) 35 / 0 / 25	(65) 40 / 0 / 25	(80) 50 / 0 / 30	(100) 70 / 0 / 30
Dirty Ice	(65) 15 / 15 / 35	(70) 20 / 15 / 35	(100) 25 / 25 / 50	(130) 35 / 30 / 65
Rock The Cradle	(80) 20 / 15 / 45	(85) 25 / 15 / 45	(140) 50 / 25 / 65	(180) 60 / 30 / 90
Under The Surphaze	(105) 25 / 25 / 55	(115) 30 / 30 / 55	(170) 45 / 50 / 75	(240) 65 / 75 / 100
Gold & Sharke	(95) 35 / 20 / 40	(100) 40 / 20 / 40	(160) 80 / 30 / 50	(210) 110 / 35 / 65
99 Boxes	(75) 30 / 15 / 30	(80) 35 / 15 / 30	(130) 60 / 25 / 45	(180) 90 / 30 / 60
Touch The Sky	(75) 20 / 20 / 35	(80) 20 / 25 / 35	(130) 35 / 45 / 50	(180) 45 / 65 / 70
Legacy Heists
Turbid Station	(70) 15 / 20 / 35	(75) 15 / 20 / 40	(130) 15 / 45 / 70	(180) 15 / 65 / 100
Cook Off	(225) 15 / 0 / 210	(245) 20 / 0 / 225	(420) 30 / 0 / 390	(600) 40 / 0 / 560
The Bad Apple
Syntax Error	(65) 15 / 15 / 35	(75) 20 / 20 / 35	(130) 35 / 40 / 55	(180) 45 / 55 / 80

No Rest For The Wicked

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+2 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places a zipline bag next to the roof access staircase behind the bank, which can be used to connect the roof to a nearby building. This can be used as an alternative to the alleyway when transporting bags to the van in loud.
  
• Keycard Location - An extra red keycard is placed in the IT room for you.
  
• Additional Loot Secure Point - Places a green dumpster in the alley behind the bank, which can be used to secure loot in stealth. Useless if you have an unmasked teammate to transport bags.
  
• Van Will Not Leave - The escape van will not leave once the heist goes loud. The final charge will start shortly after securing your first loot bag, and once you secure the minimum required loot, Twitch will stop accepting loot and slowly drive away. At the intersection you will need to lower the bollards for him, after which he will drive to one of his usual locations and begin accepting loot again.
  
• Additional Thermite - Bile drops 3 bags of extra thermite per drop instead of 2 (6 total).

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after igniting the thermite rig.
  
• Cloakers spawn after the thermite has been burning for at least 4:00.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after the thermite is finished.
  
• Final Charge starts after lowering the bollards a 2nd time.
  
  
• Igniting the thermite rig skips negotiations.
  
• Once Shade calls Bile, he drops the thermite rig after 1:30.
  
• Igniting the thermite rig makes Bile drop extra thermite after 35s, then again after another 2:00.
  
• Lowering the final bollard starts makes the escape van arrive after 1:10.
  
• The escape van arriving makes the bollards go back up after 1:40.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~7-15 mins (solo)

• Enter through the front of the bank, and close the shutters on the left wall (closest to the vault). This will help you move bags later.
  
• Lockpick the wooden door on the right side of the lobby to the private area in the back of the back.
  
• Enter the IT room and shut the far door so that the guard in the hallway can't see you. Flip the power switch on the wall if it spawned here.
  
• Find the QR code in one of 4 locations:
  • On a desk in the IT room.
    
  • On the desk in the manager's office (next to the IT room).
    
  • On the table in the conference room (across from the manager's office).
    
  • In the back room with the exit to the parking lot (down the hall).
• Once you have the QR code, check if the guard patrolling the hallway has a red keycard. If he does, grab it before moving on.
  
• Head upstairs and unlock the QR-locked door when the lead guard isn't nearby.
  
• There is 1 guard patrolling the 2nd floor, and you will need to grab the red kc from him if you didn't get it from the guard downstairs.
  
• If you didn't flip the power switch downstairs, flip the switch in the printer room. Follow the bright red wires on the 2nd floor if you can't find it.
  
• Find and enter the room with the red keycard scanner in one of 3 locations:
  • Just outside of the printer room.
    
  • Next to the 2nd floor elevator. Make a right from the printer room, then a left at the end of the hall.
    
  • On the roof. Make your way back to the stairwell and continue up to the roof, which is a secure area with 1 guard, 2 cameras, and occasional visits from the lead guard. You can get to the keycard room by making 3 right turns from the roof access door.
• In the red kc room, hack the computer and confirm it, then hack the controller tablet. Write down the color it displays.
  
• Make your way all the way back down to the first floor and take a left. Get up close to the vault area and loop the camera inside (or wait for it to look away), then open the box on the wall and flip the switch matching the color you saw earlier.
  
• Next, you need to learn the vault code. If you are playing solo, just brute force the code with an online tool.[pd3.gg] This is the preferred option, as it not only lets you complete the heist without masking up, but it is less risky, and this keypad resets faster than in any other heist. Depending on your RNG there can be a civ that walks into the secure area outside the vault (just walk into them for RUSH), or a guard in the lobby who occasionally can see you punching in codes (or both!).
  
• Open the vault and lockpick the door to the inner money room. Quickly disarm as many dyepacks as you can (If you are playing solo, you should be able to disarm 6/8 reliably).
  
• Move the 8 loot bags to the van and escape! Or you can lockpick the boxes for all loot.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, simply go loud after securing all loot in stealth. The van will leave immediately, so you must already be waiting in the escape zone when the alarm sounds to successfully complete the heist. This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~19 mins (2p)

• P1 & P2 bring Power Lifter & Beast of Burden.
  
• P1 brings Manipulator Aced.
  
• P2 brings Quick Fingers.
  
• Deploy a Medic Bag favor.
  
  
• Stealth
  • Get the QR code and scan it to open the 2nd floor.
    
  • Have P1 stand in the lobby and P2 stand on the 2nd floor, then go loud and begin tying down all civs.
• Negotiations
  • P1 begins trading hostages as they tie down civs.
    
  • P2 finishes tying down everyone on the 2nd floor, then waits for the equipment drop.
    
  • P2 grabs the thermite rig and immediately places & ignites it. This will skip negotiations.
• Assault 1
  • The civs P2 tied up on the 2nd floor should prevent gas grenades for this assault.
    
  • Bile will quickly drop extra thermite. P1 uses the Medic Bag favor for Adrenaline to safely grab both bags and brings them to the rig while P2 defends it.
    
  • Defend the 2 fire alarms while adding thermite bags every 20s to speed up the burning.
    
  • Once you finish using both thermite bags, sprinklers won't matter, so hold out until the end of the assault wave.
• Break 1
  • P2 disables the sprinklers if necessary, then grabs a HET-5 to deal with Dozers/FBI van.
    
  • P1 brings the next 2 thermite bags back to the rig, using them to speed up the burning.
• Assault 2
  • The second assault should start just before the thermite finishes burning. If the FBI van spawns at any point, immediately kill it with the HET-5 before doing objectives.
    
  • Jump down and bag the 8 loot bags. Move them to the parking lot door and throw them out into the parking lot.
    
  • If you want all loot, have P2 lockpick while P1 defends the bags. The cops will be focused on P1.
• Break 2
  • P2 moves all loot bags to the alleyway while P1 lowers the bollards.
    
  • P1 grabs another HET-5 on their way back to the alley.
• Assault 3
  • Throw all loot bags out of the alley into the street (saves time later).
    
  • Hold out in the alley with each player guarding either side. Switch positions if a player gets low on armor or needs to reload.
    
  • At this point you should still have at least 2 armor/medic bags left. Use them as needed as you hold out.
• Break 3 / Assault 4
  • P2 moves all bags to the van.
    
  • P1 rewires all circuit boxes except the one closest to the van, then helps P2 move bags.
    
  • Secure all bags, then lower the bollards & escape. Be quick and this should be easy, even if the escape van spawns far away.

Road Rage

Stealth & negotiations are not available in this heist.

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places 2 zipline bags at the top of the scaffolding near where you drill into the van. Can be used to connect the scaffolding to the ground near the van and to the ground in the opposite direction. The zipline to the van can be somewhat useful to transport loot to the safety of the scaffolding while you wait for Bile to pick a side to land on. The other zipline can be useful during the escape.
  
• Additional Secure Point - Places a garbage chute on the north side of the bridge, letting you secure loot immediately without waiting for Bile.
  
• Unlocked Lockboxes - All lockboxes in the truck are unlocked, and can be immediately opened by pressing F.
  
• Stronger Signal - The radius of the circle for escorting the van is increased from 7m to 12m, covering nearly the entire width of the bridge.
  
• Additional Explosives - Explosive barrels, propane tanks, and fire extinguishers (which do not normally spawn on this heist) will now spawn.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after the device hack is started.
  
• Cloakers spawn after you start escorting the truck.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after you finish escorting the truck.
  
• Final Charge starts after securing the minimum required loot bags of rare materials.
  
  
• Arming the EMP device skips the rest of the waiting period before the truck arrives.
  
• Drilling into the bottom of the van takes 30s and jams 0 times.
  
• Picking up a bag of rare elements lets you place the flare (after a short delay).
  
• Lighting the flare makes Shade tell you which side Bile is on after 25s.
  
• Lighting the flare makes Bile arrive after 1:30.

Loud Walkthrough

The heist will automatically go loud when the EMP detonates, and there will be no negotiations. If a civilian escapes before the EMP detonates or you fail to arm the EMP in time, the truck will leave and you will fail the heist.

Since this heist is difficult with just 2 players, it is recommended P1 and P2 follow this walkthrough in a public lobby with at least 1 other random player.

Overkill, ~8 mins (3p), ~7 mins (4p)

• P1 brings Quick Fingers & infrasonic mines.
  
• P2 brings infrasonic mines.
  
  
• "Stealth"
  • P1 grabs the EMP from the box in front of them, then makes a right turn and throws down an infrasonic mine at the enemy spawnpoint next to the van for later in the heist.
    
  • P1 then rushes down to the other end of the heist and places the EMP, then finds the hacking device and throws it on the ground next to the EMP. Do not activate the EMP this early unless you are playing with 3 or 4 players.
    
  • P2 places an infrasonic mine for later in the heist on the left side of the truck that is directly to their left when the heist starts.
    
  • P2 then moves the forklift ahead of them and finds the fuse box to open the fence gate.
    
  • Both players find and place all 4 wheel ramps and tie down all civs. If think you missed a civ, fire an unsilenced gun into the air to alert them.
    
  • Arm the EMP once you are done preparing, or if the timer starts running low (~20s left).
    
  • Arming the EMP will skip the rest of the timer, but it will still take the truck ~30s to reach the EMP. Spend the extra time finishing your preparations.
    
  • When the EMP detonates, have one player near the truck to immediately place the hacking device and start it.
    
  • You should have exactly enough time to finish the hack and start escorting the truck before the assault starts.
• Assault 1
  • All players stay inside the circle at all times to quickly escort the truck; The more players that are close to the truck, the faster it will move. Try to escort the truck as fast as possible to minimize time spent out in the open.
    
  • Both players hide on the truck's left side to take cover from the Snipers as they escort.
    
  • P1 kills enemies in front of the truck while P2 covers the back.
    
  • Use your infrasonic mines if they spawn up ahead to stun the enemies until you get close enough to kill them.
    
  • You should be able to escort the truck all the way to the ramp without too much trouble.
    
  • Once you finish escorting the truck, P1 places the drill and both players split up to camp where they put their infrasonic mines at the start of the heist.
    
  • Most enemies will be spawning from these two spots, so camping both will make the heist significantly safer. Both players should throw down armor/medic bags where they camp, and place infrasonic mines to activate if they get caught reloading. (Note that if you are playing with more than 2 players, at this point you should just permanently have 2 players camping these spots and you will breeze through the rest of the objectives.)
    
  • When the drill is finished, P3 should open the truck doors and being to lockpick all lockboxes. If P3 is instead helping by camping one of the two spawns, P2 should go cover the other spawn while P1 lockpicks the lockboxes.
    
  • P1 bags the first chunk of rare materials that is found so that the flare can be placed ASAP, then they bag the rest of the loot and throw it out of the back of the truck.
    
  • Once the flare can be placed, P2 lights the flare immediately, then resumes camping enemy spawns.
    
  • The first assault wave should end shortly after P2 lights the flare.
• Break 1
  • Once Shade announces on which side of the bridge Bile will arrive, both players quickly move the loot bags to that spot and camp there.
    
  • Ignore the FBI van if it spawns at this point. If you want to know ahead of time whether or not it will spawn, go to the side of the bridge with chimneys and look down the road (outside of the playable area). You should be able to see whether or not the FBI van is on its way.
    
  • Use your remaining armor/medic bags to fully heal up while you wait for Bile to arrive.
• Assault 2
  • Once Bile arrives, throw all loot into the helicopter.
    
  • As soon as the loot is secured, sprint down the bridge to the escape point while ignoring all enemies. Your team should be able to make it there without any trouble. Use a smoke grenade to safely cut the tape blocking your escape.

Dirty Ice

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+3 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Does nothing on this heist.
  
• Distracted Manager - The manager will never leave the store, and instead will be distracted in the kitchen. This asset removes your ability to use blackmail to lure her into the back room, so you must grab her from the kitchen.
  
• Employee Entrance - The side entrance to the lower floor (the one that requires a red kc to open) will be left wide open.
  
• Rooftop Chopper - Instead of the usual location, you can summon the escape chopper on the low roof next door to the jewelry store. This is a much easier and safer place to secure loot than the usual spots, and the chopper will not leave once he arrives at the roof.
  
• Escape Van - When the heist goes loud, the escape van will stay until the assault indicator says "First Response Incoming" (an extra ~20s).

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn in the second assault wave.
  
• Cloakers spawn after securing any amount of loot, including loose jewelry.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after Bile has left the 1st location OR after arriving at the roof.
  
• Final Charge starts shortly after Bile has arrived at the 2nd location.
  
  • Final Charge never starts if using the Rooftop Chopper asset.
  
  
• Standing just outside of the front door ends negotiations.
  
• Entering the store causes the manager to leave after 8/5/4/3 mins (depends on difficulty).
  
• The manager will not leave if you possess the blackmail.
  
• Approaching the manager makes Shade tell you when she is about to leave (1:00 before).
  
• Picking up any bag-able loot opens the escape van or lets you place a flare.
  
• Getting the blackmail from the basement safe AND going near the iris scanner lets you call the manager to lure her into the back.
  
• Drilling into the basement takes 1:00 and jams 1 time.
  
• Scanning 1 bag of jewelry takes 30s.
  
• Lighting the flare at the 1st location makes Bile arrive after 1:50 (1:40 if on the roof).
  
• Once Bile leaves the 1st location, he will arrive at the 2nd location after 1:20.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~7 mins (solo), ~6 mins (2p)

• Enter through the front door and write down the employee of the month ID. It is located on the back side of the pillar behind the manager.
  
• Make your way to the back alleyway with the escape van and mask up. Kill the guard taking a smoke break here & hide his body from view from the civilians walking by on the street.
  
• Climb up the broken van nearby onto the low roof and enter the jewelry store through the only window accessible from this roof.
  
• Wait until nobody is looking and jump inside. Immediately enter the door on your left and scan the QR code on the bathroom sink. This bathroom is a safe spot that no NPCs will enter.
  
• Exit the bathroom and enter the door across the hall into the manager's office. This office is a safe hiding spot except for one guard that will pass through it, whom you already killed (the guard smoking in the alleyway).
  
• Hack the manager's computer and find the "Basement Code" E-Mail. It will tell you that the code is either the employee of the month ID (which you already wrote down), the wifi password (which you can see by poking your head out into the hallway from the manager's office), or in the VIP room (which you will enter soon).
  
• Loop/ECM the cam in the hallway. There is a second guard that will enter this hallway, wait in front of the lunch room, then backtrack the way he came from. Shut the door to the lunch room, then wait for this guard and kill him, hiding his body in the office. At this point the only problematic guard left alive is the lead guard.
  
• Grab the employee in the hall and tie them down in the manager's office to clear the path.
  
• Use the QR code on the door to the VIP room (this will also give your unmasked teammates the ability to enter the VIP area through the front of the store).
  
• Loop/ECM the cam in the VIP area and tie down the civ in there. Hide them behind the countertop with the code (in case the camera stops looping or the lead guard enters the VIP area).
  
• Check the code on the countertop if you need it. At this point you should have the code to the basement (which will allow you to skip straight to the basement on subsequent attempts).
  
• Unlock the door to the alleyway outside. Sneak outside when the lead guard isn't looking, or use a throwing knife to distract him, and stick a motion tracker on him so you always know where he is.
  
• Proceed down the outside stairs to the basement entrance and use the code. When the basement guard isn't looking, grab his red kc. You can loop cams, use throwing knives, & use the audio lure to make this easier.
  
• Sneak your way into the door across from where you entered the basement. Flip the power switch in this room.
  
• Go back outside through the alleyway and go back up to the manager's office, being careful to avoid the lead guard. Re-loop the cams in the hallway and VIP area.
  
• Grab the employee you hid in the office and shove them into the button on the desk so they hold it down. While the button is being held, swipe your red kc on the reader next to the vault in the hallway. Be sure to tie down the employee again.
  
• Open the vault and grab the loot inside, hiding it in the manager's office.
  
• Lockpick & bag all 5 loot bags in the VIP area, moving all of the bags to the manager's office. If the lead guard enters the VIP area while you are doing this, simply hide behind the counter with the tied down employee until he leaves.
  
• Transport the bags through the window you cut open at the beginning of the heist and onto the nearby roof. From here you can safely secure the bags and leave.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, go loud after securing all loot in stealth and escape before the van leaves. This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~6 mins (2p)

• P1 brings Manipulator Aced & Silver Tongue.
  
• P2 brings Quick Fingers & Secure Loop/Cam Distortion.
  
  
• Stealth
  • P2 follows the stealth walkthrough until they unlock the VIP room and learn the basement code.
    
  • P1 enters the back through the VIP room and grabs the blue keycard from the guard. Note the lead guard my have it instead.
    
  • P1 enters the basement, masks up, and kills the cams guard, then the basement guard.
    
  • P1 grabs the red keycard and flips the security switch, then heads to the front of the store and starts tying up civs.
    
  • Once the switch is flipped, P2 lockpicks everything in the VIP room and bags the loot. No loose jewelry is needed.
• Negotiations
  • Immediately when the heist goes loud, P2 lights the flare to call Bile.
    
  • P1 trades all hostages while P2 moves loot bags out to the flare. P1 must stay inside once the police arrive to avoid skipping negotiations.
    
  • Once all hostages are traded, P2 holds down the manager's button while P1 opens the vault. Bag the loot inside.
    
  • Both players finish moving loot to the flare and wait for Bile. If you want all loot, bag the rest of the loot in the front of the store as you wait.
• Assault 1
  • You should escape before the assault even starts.

Rock The Cradle

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+3 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places a zipline bag in the VIP club by the elevator door, which can be used to connect the upper floor to the VIP club via the elevator shaft. Useful for transporting bags to the cage faster in loud.
  
• Crypto Wallet - Delays the deletion of the crypto wallet until the assault indicator says "First Response Incoming" (an extra ~20s).
  
• Additional Secure Point - Up the stairs by the front door, the VIP room on the right will have a vent you can enter with a secure point inside. You must be masked up to throw the bags high enough to secure them. Only useful for the VIP room paintings, and only functions in stealth.
  
• Additional Keycard - An insider at the bar upstairs from the front door will give you a red kc after a short talk. Guards can patrol here, and can easily spot you during this conversation.
  
• Vault Code Access - The code to the vault will be written on the wall inside one of the bathroom stalls in the downstairs VIP club.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after the van arrives with the cage parts.
  
• Cloakers spawn after opening the door to the downstairs VIP Club.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after inputting the correct vault code.
  
• Final Charge starts after securing the crypto wallet OR putting the minimum required loot in the cage.
  
  
• Standing just outside of the front door ends negotiations.
  
• When the alarm sounds, Twitch will arrive in the van with the cage parts after 50s.
  
• Drilling into the VIP Club takes 1:00 and jams 1 time.
  
• Hacking to reactivate the vault's keypad takes 2:45.
  
• After putting the minimum required loot in the cage, Bile will arrive after 1:40.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~6 mins (solo)

• This guide uses one of a few setups to skip the upstairs objectives. This setup can only be done in Overkill due to the entire club becoming a private area.
  
• Immediately touch a nearby civ to gain RUSH and enter through the kitchen on the right. Run down the hall ahead and dodge the 2 cams, then lockpick the door into the office. If quick enough, you get in before the guard enters the hallway for a phone break.
  
• Looking out from the office door into the club, the VIP entrance with 2 guards is on your left. There is a curtain in front of the closest guard, and a cart up against that curtain. Crouch between that cart and curtain so the closest guard spots you.
  
• The guard will slightly walk forward before he tells you to follow him. As soon as he stops walking forward, hack his radio.
  
• Crouch past the hacked guard, grab the other guard's blue kc and turn around to scan it. Crouch walk into the door to enter as soon as it opens. If you got here fast enough, you will be able to enter without being spotted.
  
• Make your way downstairs to the VIP club, then immediately scan your blue keycard on the door on the left (escape room) and the door on your right (electrical room). Enter the electrical room.
  
• Open the vent and walk along the air-duct and walkway hugging the right wall until you reach the balcony on the other side of the room. Mask up to hop onto the balcony and enter the accounting office.
  
• Exit the accounting office into the stairwell, then open and enter the vent on your left. This room will either be the security room, the crypto vault, or the money vault. Feel free to kill the cams guard if you come across the security room.
  • If this room wasn't the crypto vault, proceed out of the door to this room and keep going through the staff hallway. Exit through the door on the other end, then immediately enter the door on your right to the bathroom. Go through the vent and you will be in the next possible location for the crypto vault.
    
  • If you still haven't found the crypto vault, it is located under the escape room. Go back out to the club area through the next door, then make your way up the stairs, using throwing knives to lure guards away. Vault over the railing and onto the air vent. Jump down in the corner of the room and enter the nearby door for safety. The vent in this room leads to the crypto vault. Note that you will need to sneak your way back to the electrical room next, so continue moving counter-clockwise through the staff rooms, then go back into the club area and hug the right wall until you can enter the stairwell under the accounting office.
• Once you find the crypto vault, make note of the writing on the whiteboard, then backtrack to the electrical room. Open the matching panel and flip the switch of the matching color.
  
• Use the vent to get to the accounting office again. Hack the computer and confirm it when it's done.
  
• Make your way back to the crypto vault and grab the crypto wallet.
  
• Make your way to the loot secure point. It will always spawn on the side of the VIP club closest to the money vault.
  
• Make your way to the escape room via the airducts & walkways on the walls.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, bring heavy armor lining, an Armor Bag, & Armor Up to stealth. Go loud after securing the crypto wallet in stealth and hold out until the chopper arrives (you won't need to assemble the cage). This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~11 mins (2p)

• P1 & P2 bring Manipulator Aced & Silver Tongue.
  
• P2 brings Slippery.
  
• Place a Zipline Bag favor.
  
  
• Stealth
  • Both players enter through the kitchen on the right.
    
  • P1 enters through the doorway in the secure hall and has the guard escort them out.
    
  • P2 waits for the guard to FULLY leave the dance room, then enters the club and goes to the VIP entrance.
    
  • P2 gets caught by the guard with the blue kc and grabs it when unobserved during their escort.
    
  • When P1 is done being escorted, P2 runs to the VIP door and scans the code, then waits to get cuffed.
    
  • P1 enters through the kitchen and waits between the front room and the dance room.
    
  • P2 lockpicks their cuffs and makes their way downstairs without getting seen.
    
  • Both players mask up and jump into the nearby crowds to intimidate everyone. Do not bother intimidating guards with Menacing, just shoot them.
• Negotiations
  • P2 finds and starts the keypad override hack, then ties up all civs downstairs.
    
  • P1 intimidates & ties up all civs in the front area & dancefloor. A few of the civs in the back will manage to escape.
    
  • P1 & P2 both trade as fast as the game lets them.
    
  • P2 finishes tying up all civs downstairs and takes a break from trading to place the zipline, check the vault fingerprints, find the code in the accountant's office, and move as much money/coke to the elevator room as they can.
    
  • Once the delay costs 31 hostages, P1 assembles the cage while P2 does the last trade (do not bother trading at 34). Only use the kitchen exit to get the cage so negotiations don't end!
    
  • P2 confirms the keypad hack and enters the vault code while P1 ziplines down to join them.
• Assault 1
  • You need 10 coke/money bags to call Bile. Move the rest of the 10 loot you need from the vault to the elevator room. Keep doing this once the assault starts.
    
  • Once you have all 10 bags, hold out until the assault is almost over (wait ~3-4 min), then zipline the bags up. Be careful of Dozers, as you likely won't have a HET-5 at this point.
• Break 1
  • P2 starts moving all 10 bags into the cage.
    
  • P1 grabs a HET-5 to kill Dozers/FBI vans, then helps move bags.
• Assault 2
  • Finish moving the bags, then shoot out the skylight.
    
  • Deploy your remaining armor/medic bags & hold out in a corner until Bile arrives.
    
  • Escape!

Under The Surphaze

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+2 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places a zipline bag near your spawn, which can be deployed in one of two spots:
  • On the fire escape by the waterfront, connecting it to a dumpster right next to the stealth escape van. Useful in stealth for transporting loot bags to the dumpster (which is a safe spot for loot), then using it to escape at the end. Note that any guard looking out the nearby window can see the bags as they are ziplining, so be careful with when you throw them.
    
  • On the roof side opposite the waterfront to connect the roof to the wooden balcony below. Useless, as there is a roof access staircase right next to it you can use instead.
• Dumpster Secure Point - Moves the stealth loot secure point to a dumpster just over the side of the non-waterfront fire escape. You can reliably toss loot bags in by standing at the edge of the fire escape, looking straight ahead, and throwing the bag. Don't miss your throws, because a guard patrols the outer perimeter.
  
• Additional QR Key - 1 extra phone with a QR code will spawn on the reception desk.
  
• Faster Chopper - Reduces the amount of time it takes for the chopper to arrive from 35s to just 15s.
  
• Open Main Entrance - Effects currently unknown. This favor may be bugged.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after you disable the security bars on either the top or bottom floor.
  
• Cloakers, Dozers, & Heavy SWAT spawn after doing either of the following:
  • Picking up one of the bloody Vicario paintings.
    
  • Picking up the Uma Ladette AND Greg Jud paintings.
• Final Charge starts after picking up ALL of the following:
  • The Uma Ladette painting
    
  • The Greg Jud painting
    
  • The first of the two bloody Vicario paintings
  
  
• Picking up any non-Uma bag-able loot item will allow you to place the flare.
  
• Placing the flare makes Bile arrive after 35s (15s with favor).

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~24 mins (solo), ~11 mins (2p)

• Bring the Zipline Bag favor.
  
• Pick up the zipline bag and go to the vent system on the waterfront side of the building. Mask up and quickly climb up the vent and onto the fire escape balcony. Place the zipline bag.
  
• Use the roof to access each of the 3 hallways around the perimeter of the 2nd floor. Locate the security room, then loop/ECM the nearby cams and lockpick your way inside. Scan the QR code and kill the guard to disable cams. Save the rest of your radios for killing guards in case you get spotted.
  
• Continue using the roof to find the manager's office.
  
• Lockpick your way in, scan the QR code, then open the hidden panel on the wall behind the desk, crack the safe, and pick up the USB.
  
• Hack the computer & write down the exhibit numbers. If the manager walks into the office while you are there, simply tie him down, as he is the only one that enters this room.
  
• Go out to the central area on the 2nd floor and check the center-facing walls for a black tablet device. Interact with this device to start the hacking objective, which you can work on as you break into the exhibits.
  
• You will need to break into 4 exhibits: E1, both Vicario exhibits, & either of the Uma exhibits (you are allowed to steal the incorrect Uma painting). First, you should break into each of these exhibits on the 2nd floor, which can be done by entering through vents or windows on the roof (note that E6 is significantly harder than the other exhibits, and I recommend using an extra QR code to enter it from the hallway-facing entrance instead of the roof). Once inside an exhibit, dodge the lasers, motion sensors, and floor alarms as you platform your way to the power switch on the wall. Flipping this switch will disable all lasers and sensors for that exhibit. This will take practice, so I recommend solo stealthing this heist several times to refine this skill.
  
• Finish standing in the circles to complete the hack to lift the security bars on the 2nd floor. During this objective you are usually forced to stay out in the open to make progress, making you more likely to get caught. Try to always complete the safest circle available, as the next circle cannot spawn where a circle already exists, so keeping the safer areas clear of circles will lead to a higher chance of easier circle placements.
  
• Bag the 2nd floor paintings required to complete the heist. Note that you don't need to scan the Uma painting to steal it.
  
• Throw the loot onto the zipline from earlier to drop them into a safe dumpster where you can retrieve them later.
  
• Next, make your way downstairs and use your QR code to enter room E1, which will not have any lasers. If one of the other required exhibits is also downstairs, use your other QR code to enter that one and disable the security there.
  
• Locate the wall tablet on the 1st floor to begin the next hack. This can be located under either of the center staircases, behind the bar (room behind front desk), or on a wall behind the counter across from the front desk.
  
• Interact with the tablet and stand in the circles to complete the hack. Note that the lead guard patrols the 1st floor, so be extra careful not to get spotted by him. You can use the vent shortcuts to the stairwells as hiding spots, as guards will not enter the stairwells in their regular patrols. Heavy use of throwing knives is recommended.
  
• When you finish the hack, move the required paintings up one of the stairwells and onto the roof, then zipline them down to the dumpster.
  
• Ride the zipline to follow the bags, then move the bags from the dumpster to the van and escape.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, go loud after securing all loot in stealth and escape before the van leaves. You can also call Bile to escape (he arrives within 35s). This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~10 mins (2p)

• P1 brings Manipulator Aced, Silver Tongue, & Menacing.
  
• P2 brings Menacing, Quick Fingers, & Escapist Basic.
  
  
• Stealth
  • Following the stealth walkthrough, P2 intimidates the cams guard via Menacing & gets the QR code, then raids the manager's office for the E-mail info, USB drive, and QR code.
    
  • Once cams are down, P1 enters the top floor & begins the upper floor hack to remove the security bars.
    
  • P2 finds the server room & break room on the 2nd floor for 2 more QR codes.
    
  • As long as P2 finishes everything in the manager's office & P1 does most of the hack, you will be good to go loud if you get caught. Once either player is spotted, P1 immediately runs outside to the waterfront and intimidates as much of the civ crowd as they can before the alarm.
• Negotiations
  • P1 ties down all civs they intimidated and starts to trade them.
    
  • P2 finishes the upstairs hack while forcing nearby guards to surrender. Once the police arrive, P2 quickly ties down the rest of the surrendering guards.
    
  • After finishing the first hack, P2 opens one of the Uma exhibits, bags random loot to enable the flare, then bags the Uma painting, drops it in the hall, and starts the downstairs hack.
    
  • P1 finishes tying up civs, grabs the Uma painting, drops the painting at the flare, lights it, then goes back to trading.
    
  • When P1 is done trading, they find any missing QR codes (you should have 3 now), then help P2 with the hack.
• Assault 1
  • Immediately split up and bag the 3 required loot, starting with the 1st floor. You should be able to secure it all and escape quickly enough for this to be an easy win.

Gold & Sharke

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+2 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places a zipline bag on the roof, right next to where it can be deployed. Used to connect the second floor of the bank to the roof through the skylight. Useful for safely transporting bags to the roof in loud, since cops will not spawn on the roof to steal your bags until you head up there yourself.
  
• Elevator Access - Opens the elevator shaft in the secure room outside of the vault, which lets you transport bags to the parking garage in stealth more quickly and safely. Once you throw all bags into the shaft, jump in the shaft to open the door on top of the elevator, throw all the bags down against the wall closest to the van (so the guard can't see them), then proceed with moving the bags.
  
• Cafe Celebration - On the left side of the second floor (facing away from the vault) is a cafeteria. This asset consolidates almost all employees on the second floor to the cafeteria for a party.
  
• Teller Door - Opens one of the two QR-locked doorways by the teller desk, allowing for easier access to the HR department for stealthing.
  
• Thermal Lance Parts - Instead of waiting for Bile to deliver the thermal lance parts, you can find them sitting next to the lockers that contain the oxygen tanks.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after you gain access to the 2nd floor.
  
• Cloakers spawn after you gain access to the room outside the vault.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after you gain access to the vault (don't need to open it).
  
• Final Charge starts shortly after securing the minimum required cash bags.
  
  
• Standing just outside of the front door ends negotiations.
  
• Once the alarm sounds, Shade will suggest drilling the gate after 0:30.
  
• Drilling the gate takes 1:00 and jams 1 time.
  
• When halfway done hacking the keypad, Shade will call Bile and he will drop the thermal lance parts after 1:00.
  
• After lighting the flare on the roof, Bile arrives after 2:10.

Exploits

• You can place a microcam underneath Reese Brown's office door to see inside. This will allow you to know if his office has the red kc, since the correct office is always the one with the employee in it. You can use this along with checking the front window to skip the HR hack entirely.
  
• You can deploy and use the thermal lance while remaining in stealth by bringing the Thermal Lance Parts favor. The deploy spot for the lance is invisible, but you can still deploy it. The lance does not make any noise and cannot be detected by guards, and you can throw the bags through the lasers without triggering the alarm. Note that you cannot interact with the lance unless masked up.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~25 mins (solo), ~16 mins (solo with favor), ~14 mins (2p)

• Bring the Elevator Access favor (optional) and microcams.
  
• Look in the right-most window from outside the bank. If you see a civ in that room, it is the office with the red kc, so you can skip straight to opening Liam Ackerman's office.
  
• Enter the bank and get the QR code from the right side of the lobby.
  
• Touch a civ to get RUSH, then enter the QR-locked door to the left of the teller desk.
  
• Make a left and lockpick into the HR room.
  
• Hack the computer in HR and get the QR code while you wait.
  
• Use your QR code to enter the office matching the name on the computer.
  • Liam Ackerman's office is the one in the lobby you checked at the start of the heist.
    
  • Reese Brown's office is in the far corner of the lobby at the back of the bank, near the garage access door.
    
  • Erik Yaeger's office is on the other side of the tellers from HR. Ignore guards & cams and run past the tellers, take a right, and unlock the double doors. Then let yourself get escorted out and re-enter through the doors you unlocked. Erik's office will be on your right.
• Enter the office and immediately walk into the civ inside the room to get RUSH. This will let you search for the red kc without him spotting you.
  
• Go back to the lobby and use the red kc to unlock the big gate to the second floor.
  
• Go up the stairs and make your way to opposite side of the 2nd floor. Find and enter the server room, then start the hack.
  
• While the hack is running, look around the 2nd floor for the manager (white guy in a dark suit with glasses & blonde hair). Grab the blue keycard from him if he has it. If he doesn't have it, it is in the room in the far right corner of the second floor (the one with the stationary guard outside it). Distract the guard with a radio hack to get into the room, then have him escort you out when you leave.
  
• Once the hack stops, go to the new waypoint and hack the computer.
  
• Wait until this hack is done, confirm it, then go back to the server room and resume the first hack.
  
• Once the hack finally finishes, confirm it and write down the correct code for use in subsequent attempts.
  
• Input the code and enter the vault room. Head to the right and hide behind the pillar until the guard on the floor above can't see you, then access the laser control tablet.
  
• Turn around and open the first switch box. Place a microcam on the wall above the box, then flip the correct switch.
  
• Exit the secure vault area and look through your microcam. Zoom in all the way so that you can see which color the next switch is. Search the 2nd floor for the remaining switch boxes and flip the colored switches that match, checking your microcam each time for the next color. There are 4 boxes on the 2nd floor, so you can skip one if it spawns in a bad spot.
  
• Go back to the vault room and interact with the tablet again to disable the lasers.
  
• Leave the vault room and head to the opposite side of the 2nd floor. Use your blue keycard to enter the manager's office and hack his computer.
  
• Confirm the hack and make your way back to the vault to scan the blue keycard within 60s. If you fail to make it back in time you just need to hack the manager's computer to try again. Using the audio lure in the cafe can make this a lot easier.
  
• Mask up and kill the security room guard. Then kill the guard patrolling the vault area above you.
  
• Open the vault and bag the server, all 5 big money piles, and 3 small money piles. Grab all loose cash.
  
• If you used the elevator favor, just throw your bags down the elevator shaft in the vault area, jump down after them, and transport them to the nearby van to escape. Be careful of the two guards patrolling down here, and use throwing knives to lure them. You can even kill one of them, which will only put the other guard into search mode.
  
• If you didn't bring the favor, unmasked teammates can safely transport the loot. If solo, bring the bags up to the roof. Kill the only guard on the roof to put the heist into search mode.
  
• Hugging the right side of the roof, find the two wooden planks flat on the ground. This is where the invisible wall ends. Throw your bags over the side and they will land directly in front of the parking garage.
  
• Make your way back to the lobby and take a left turn at the gate. Make another left and lockpick the door to the stairwell that leads to the parking garage.
  
• Transport the bags you threw off the roof into the van and escape, using throwing knives to distract guards if necessary.

Gold & Sharke (cont.)

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, go loud after securing all loot in stealth and escape before the van leaves. This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

~16-21 mins (2p)

• P1 brings Manipulator Aced & Silver Tongue.
  
• P2 brings Social Engineering & Disengage.
  
• Place a Zipline Bag & Armor Bag favor.
  
  
• Stealth
  • P1 should spend their time finding the stashed oxygen tanks, which can spawn in any bathroom or room with lockers. Once they find it, they should help P2 with unmasked stealth in any way they can (split up for objectives, distract guards, etc.)
    
  • P2 follows the stealth walkthrough all the way until they have the code to the vault area. Write down the code, then on subsequent attempts P2 can just grab the red keycard and use the code to skip straight to the vault area.
    
  • This stealth segment should be easily doable since both players remain unmasked, but if P2 is not capable of pulling this off without a full stealth build, consider having them bring a stealth build, then leave the game and rejoin with a loud build once they learn the code.
    
  • Once the vault area is open and P1 has an oxygen tank, P1 goes to the front of the lobby and masks up to start intimidating and tying up civs and guards. All fleeing NPCs from the 2nd floor will also need to flee through the front door, so P1 can single-handedly manage all hostages in the bank.
    
  • P2 runs past the guards up the roof access staircase on the right, unlocking the double red doors on their way up.
• Negotiations
  • P1 begins trading as they tie up hostages. Try to keep a few guards alive in order to maximize the number of hostages.
    
  • P2 deploys the zipline bag, ziplines back down, and goes to grab an oxygen tank.
    
  • P2 goes back to the lobby and helps tie down civs until Bile arrives with the lance parts.
    
  • If Bile drops the lance on the roof
    • P2 ziplines up to the roof and sends all 3 parts down the zipline, then ziplines down and moves them all to the vault.
      
    • P2 bolts down the drill and ignites it.
      
    • P2 replaces the 1st oxygen tank while P1 trades for time.
      
    • P1 replaces the 2nd oxygen tank just as negotiations end.
  • If Bile drops the lance in the street
    • Bile will seemingly never drop the lance in the street when following this strategy. The reason for this is unconfirmed, but it is likely caused by deploying the zipline favor or the fact that the vault area has already been opened. If you follow this walkthrough and Bile does drop the lance in the street, please leave a comment letting us know and we will do some further testing.
• Assault 1
  • Hold out until the vault door opens. Be sure to call an overkill weapon before the vault door opens.
    
  • Once the vault is open, P1 enters the vault and bags 1 small pile of money and the 1 large pile of money underneath it, then lockpicks all 3 gates. P1 then holds out until P2 gets back.
    
  • P2 runs past the SWAT wave and out onto the 2nd floor, using the Armor Bag favor to recover their lost armor.
    
  • P2 ziplines up to the roof, grabs the HET-5, immediately kills the 2 Snipers, then quickly lights the flare and ziplines back down with the HET-5. P2 uses Disengage if they get disabled while far from the team.
    
  • P2 drops the HET-5 in the room where the Armor Bag favor was, then takes the double red doors they unlocked earlier for a safer route back to the vault.
    
  • Once P2 gets back, both players bag the rest of the minimum required loot (2 more small money piles, the remaining 4 large money piles, the server, and all loose cash). If both players are running Power Lifter and Beast of Burden, you can just bag all loot.
    
  • Begin throwing the loot out of the vault room until the assault ends.
• Break 1
  • If P2 didn't get a HET-5 from the roof, they must get one now, so P2 grabs some loot to bring with them, then runs to get a HET-5 and drop it in the room with the Armor Bag favor.
    
  • Both players work together to move the loot bags from the vault and up the zipline.
    
  • You should finish ziplining all bags up just as the next assault starts. If you don't finish in time, try to get them all up the zipline as soon as you can.
• Assault 2
  • If Bile arrived near the top of the zipline, immediately zipline up to the roof and throw down all of your remaining armor/medic bags. You should have enough resources to brute force your way into securing all loot and escaping with ease.
    
  • If Bile arrived at the far location on the roof, stay on the 2nd floor and camp in the room with the HET-5, using it to deal with Dozers. If you get gassed, just run past the zipline and camp in the other identical room. If the FBI van spawns, you can shoot it down from the front-facing windows on the 2nd floor. Feel free to use all remaining armor/medic bags to survive this assault.
    
  • Note that it is also possible to brute force your way to securing all loot at the far location during the 2nd Assault, but this requires extreme coordination and is far too difficult for most players. It is much safer to simply wait out this assault.
• Break 2
  • Zipline up to the roof and move all loot bags to the helicopter. You should be able to escape before the next assault arrives.

99 Boxes

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+1 per delay)

The FBI van cannot spawn on this heist.

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places the zipline bag needed to access the storage yard right next to where it needs to be placed.
  
• Prototype Bags - Extends the amount of time you have to secure the degradable devices from 25s to 40s per stage.
  
• Opened Container - Opens the interior and exterior doors for a random lootable storage container in the storage yard. Only has a 2/5 chance of opening a locked container, and is functionally useless otherwise.
  
• Additional Explosives - 100% more explosive barrels, propane tanks, and fire extinguishers spawn in the heist.
  
• Thermite Drop - Bile will drop the thermite in the middle of the storage yard instead of out in the parking lot.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after interacting with the computer once the hack has finished.
  
• Cloakers spawn after opening the exterior door to the 1st crate holding a device.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after opening the exterior door to the 2nd crate with a device.
  
• Final Charge starts after opening the interior door to the 2nd crate holding a device.
  
  
• Standing in front of the left guard booth skips negotiations.
  
• Approaching a locked container in loud calls Bile to drop thermite (1:15).
  
• Bagging the 1st device lets you open/call thermite for the 2nd locked container.
  
• Thermite burns through after 1:00.
  
• Closing the truck doors after securing both devices in loud makes you able to place the road spikes. Note that the road spikes can be picked up at any time, even before the heist goes loud.

Exploits

• You can secure bags through the outside walls of the truck. Press your face into the corner where the truck meets the wall, jump, and throw the bag straight ahead. This works on both sides of the truck. You can also close the truck doors from the outside by crouching in these corners. It may take a bit of practice to find the right angle.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~15-19 mins (solo), ~?? mins (2p)

• Bring a Zipline Bag.
  
• Stick a motion sensor or microcam on the lead guard as soon as you see him. This will help at the end of the heist.
  
• Go to the right entrance and hack the guard's phone for a QR code. If you get caught, just let him escort you out while you finish the hack.
  
• Continue past the guard and turn left around the corner. Proceed until you pass the warehouse's backdoor.
  
• Find the guard patrolling this area with a phone on his belt and hack his phone.
  
• If you didn't get escorted, go through the back door, take the stairs on your left, and lockpick the door. Otherwise enter the warehouse through the 2nd floor entrance on the left side.
  
• Loop/ECM the cam and lockpick the door across from it. If you can't hack the computer here, go across the catwalk to the other side of building, then loop/ECM the cam and lockpick the first door on your left. If you get caught by the 2nd floor guard, hack his radio at a good moment & slip past him.
  
• Keep track of the 2nd floor guard. Start the hack the moment he stops at a new spot that can't see the hack, and you should be able to confirm it before he moves again.
  
• Go downstairs and loop/ECM cams watching the marked box. Open it and grab the coolant.
  
• Open the doors to the truck and place the coolant, then exit through the empty container into the public parking lot.
  
• Enter through the side closest to the storage yard. This will cause the unmasked bots to wait on that side of the parking lot, which will help with moving bags later.
  
• Make your way to the zipline bag, grab it, and place it. If it is by the east yard, you will need to climb up one of the nearby trucks to reach it.
  
• Place the zipline bag, mask up, and zip into the yard.
  
• West Yard
  • There are 3 guards and 2 civs. 1 guard will always stay near the front - Kill off the other 2 and hide their bodies at the back of the yard.
    
  • Optionally, stick a motion sensor on the front guard. This will give you complete freedom to move around the back of the storage yard; Just loop/ECM cams and tie down civs as needed.
• East Yard
  • There are 4 guards and 2 civs. The yard is divided roughly into 4 quadrants, one for each corner. Each guard patrols around the perimeter of a different quadrant. All guards patrol counterclockwise except for the one in the back-left quadrant, who patrols clockwise.
    
  • Determine which 2 guards you want to kill based off which crates you must unlock, and hide the bodies away from nearby quadrants. Do not put the heist into search mode or the surviving guard will find the bodies.
• Open both QR-locked crates and complete the hacks. After the 1st hack, bag the 1st device, as this will let you open the second crate. Use throwing knives for objectives near the surviving guard(s).
  
• Hide both bags at the front of the storage yard, on the side by the public parking lot.
  
• When the coast is clear, throw both bags over the fence and jump down.
  
• Quickly toss a bag to a bot and grab the other one.
  
• Exit into the parking lot and secure the loot bags via the loot truck exploit. Keep an eye out for the lead guard you marked at the beginning.
  
• Enter the warehouse via the empty shipping container next to the escape truck. Note that the lead guard's patrol uses this shortcut.
  
• Sneak over to the truck doors, shut them, then slip back out the way you came and escape.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, go loud after opening the interior doors to the 2nd container in stealth. This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~13 mins (2p)

• P1 brings Manipulator Aced, Silver Tongue, & Menacing.
  
• P2 brings Menacing.
  
• Place a Zipline Bag favor.
  
  
• Stealth
  • P2 enters on the left side and goes up to the 2nd floor to do the computer hack.
    
  • P1 gets the QR code from the guard at the right entrance, then enters the building to find and place the nitrogen.
    
  • P2 deploys the zipline, masks up, and ziplines into the storage yard, while P1 masks up in the front parking lot and grabs the road spikes.
    
  • P2 finds and opens the first locked container with the QR code, then starts the hack. Running in the yard is OK as long as you use the QR code before the alarm sounds.
    
  • Both players tie up as many civs and guards as they can before the heist goes loud.
• Negotiations
  • NPCs must escape through the back of the yard or the front parking lot. As soon as the alarm sounds, P1 runs to the back of the yard and P2 runs to the parking lot. Civs will flee towards you!
    
  • Tie up all hostages and guards.
    
  • P1 starts trading while P2 completes the hack.
    
  • When P2 finishes the hack, P1 takes a break from trading to stand in front of the 2nd locked container while P2 grabs the device. This will call Bile as soon as the device is picked up.
    
  • P1 finishes trading while P2 secures the device, then waits for Bile to drop the thermite.
    
  • Negotiations should end as P2 is coming back with the thermite.
• Assault 1
  • Ignite the thermite & pick a spot near the container to hold out.
    
  • When the thermite finishes, start the interior hack. Only stand in circles if it is safe to do so while you hold out.
• Break 1
  • Both players quickly finish the hack.
    
  • P1 runs to the parking lot to deploy the road spikes while P2 grabs the device, secures it, and shuts the truck doors.
    
  • Escape!

Touch The Sky

Negotiations Timer: 1:00
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+1 per delay)

The FBI van cannot spawn on this heist.

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places the zipline bag at the vent entrance up the stairs at the start of the heist. Can be placed in Mason's bedroom to connect it to the balcony where Bile lands the helicopter at the end of the heist. Useful for transporting jewelry bags from the vault to the helicopter. Note that placing the zipline will break the window, so avoid doing this in stealth.
  
• Additional Secure Point - The downstairs supply closet now has an open vent where players can secure loot in stealth (or loud, due to a bug).
  
• Window Cleaning Platform - The stealth entry, exit, and loot secure point is now a window cleaning platform hanging off of the short end of the balcony. Players must mask up at the start of the heist to climb off of the platform. Note that you can still secure loot and escape here in loud due to a bug.
  
• Hidden Thermite - Instead of Bile delivering thermite, this favor places a bag of thermite at the vent entrance up the stairs at the start of the heist. Can be used to burn into the filing room for the red kc at any time (even in stealth, due to a bug).
  
• Vomiting Agent - Places 4 vials of poison in a box right in front of you at the start of the heist.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after starting the bedroom hack.
  
• Cloakers spawn after Shade calls Bile for thermite OR using the red keycard.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after entering the panic room in Mason's office.
  
• Final Charge starts after placing the escape flare.
  
  
• Once Shade calls Bile, he will deliver the thermite after 1:00.
  
• The thermite burns through after 1:00.
  
• Drilling the panic room takes 3:00 and jams 0 times.
  
• Decrypting the SSD takes 1:00.
  
• After lighting the flare, Bile arrives after 1:00.

Exploits

• You can secure loot via the Additional Secure Point or Window Cleaning Platform favors in loud. The secure points are invisible, but will still work. Securing the decrypted SSD via the Window Cleaning Platform will also allow you to immediately escape via the helicopter without ever calling the helicopter.
  
• You can place and use the thermite from the Hidden Thermite favor while remaining in stealth. The thermite makes no noise and is completely ignored by NPCs.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~15-18 mins (solo), ~10 mins (2p)

• If not solo, follow the loud walkthrough until you get the red kc, go loud for the codes, restart, and get the red kc again.
  
• If solo:
  • Head up the stairs, mask up, and enter the vent. Drop down on the right and go straight. This puts you at the vent exit near Mason's office.
    
  • Drop down and grab the blue kc from the guard by the vent. If he isn't there, make a right and hide behind the art statue until you see the blue kc guard waiting by the railing overlooking Mason's guests.
    
  • Immediately enter the double doors to the center room, then go left to the 2nd set of double doors by a bathroom. This area just outside the bathroom is safe from guards.
    
  • Open the double doors and loop/ECM the cam to your left. Check if the QR-locked filing room spawned to your left (past the cam).
    
  • Start the hack to open the master bedroom.
    
  • ~2-4 mins into the heist, the lead guard will walk up the stairs by the bedroom and wait by the double doors. Open these doors INWARD, and be hiding in the safe area behind the doors when he gets there.
    
  • Hack his radio, start his phone hack, and stick a motion sensor on him if you want. Bump into him so he gets distracted once the hack wears off, then go back into the safe area and shut the doors.
    
  • Wait in safety until the phone hack is done, staying on the other side of the wall.
    
  • At this point you must go loud to learn the vault codes. If the filing room spawned on the 1st floor, kill the cams guard first. Run to the filing room and scan the QR code before the heist goes loud. Grab the red kc, use Mason to open the panic room, write down the codes, and restart.
    
  • Once you get to this part and already know the codes, you must get into the filing room quietly. If it spawned downstairs:
    • Enter the security room and kill the guard.
      
    • There are 2 guards (& the lead guard) who patrol the downstairs hallway with the QR-locked room. Watch from the stairway until you see the 2 guards - they will stand in the entrance room against opposite walls, facing each other.
      
    • Throw knives to distract them, then go left and quickly hide the 2 civs in the nearby closet.
• Finish the bedroom hack. Tie up the upstairs civ and hide them in the bathroom if you need to.
  
• Enter the bedroom, find the hidden switch, and punch in the code to open the vault. Crack the safe and grab the SSD. Note the lead guard will sometimes visit the bedroom.
  
• Go to Mason's office and decrypt the SSD. Make sure the lead guard isn't nearby before starting it, otherwise he might enter and see the hack.
  
• Take the decrypted SSD and head to the open area above the front door.
  
• If you did not kill cams, loop the cam out front if you can.
  
• Remotely activate the lure by the front door (or throw a knife at it). Once the guard out front has moved, drop down and escape.

Loud Walkthrough

For easy loud completions, go loud after securing the SSD. This walkthrough is for a fully loud approach.

Overkill, ~9 mins (2p)

• P1 brings Manipulator Aced, Silver Tongue, & Menacing.
  
• P2 brings Secure Loop & microcams. If the heist has Cerberus Core, bring Cam Distortion & ECMs instead.
  
• Bring a Zipline Bag favor if you plan to secure all loot.
  
  
• Stealth
  • P2 loops/ECMs the cam at the start of the heist, then masks up and kills the guard. This lets P1 enter through the front door while unmasked.
    
  • P2 grabs the Zipline Bag (if you brought one), enters through the vents, and starts working on the bedroom hack.
    
  • P1 finds the lead guard & hacks his phone, then gets escorted out by him to get the QR code.
    
  • P1 uses the QR code to unlock the door to the filing room and grab the red kc. If it is on the 2nd floor, P2 unlocks it instead.
    
  • The player with the red kc opens Mason's office.
    
  • P2 works on the bedroom hack & P1 makes guards surrender until the heist goes loud.
• Negotiations
  • As soon as the heist goes loud, P1 ties down all civs in the downstairs meeting, then continues to make guards surrender.
    
  • P2 grabs Mason (black, bald man), walks him over to the panic room to open it, ties him up again, and places a microcam with LoS to the whiteboard (this lets you skip typing all the codes in chat).
    
  • Once P1 ties up all NPCs, they complete the bedroom hack before going back to trading. P2 helps with the hack once done with Mason.
    
  • Once the bedroom is open, P2 finds the hidden switch, checks their microcam for the codes, punches in the code to open the vault, and opens the safe with the SSD. If you brought a Zipline, deploy it now.
    
  • P2 brings the SSD to the computer and begins decrypting it.
    
  • P1 & P2 spend the rest of negotiations transporting loot bags (if they are going for all loot).
    
  • Negotiations should end during the decryption.
• Assault 1
  • This should be your only assault wave.
    
  • Camp at the computer until the SSD is decrypted, then work your way outside and light the escape flare.
    
  • Pick a spot to hold out for 1 minute until Bile arrives (such as the downstairs bathroom), then quickly secure the SSD and escape. Feel free to use your armor/medic bags liberally while you hold out. If you are securing all loot, you will need to defend it from cops while you wait.

Turbid Station

Loud & negotiations are not available in this heist.

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Places a zipline to connect the top of a train car to the street with the van at the start of the heist. Does not need to be deployed; It is already deployed when the heist starts. Extremely useful for transporting loot if the van is your secure point.
  
• More Lures - More audio lures will spawn in the heist.
  
• Longer Extraction - Extends the countdown after the alarm sounds by 30s.
  
• Longer Remote Door Timer - Extends the timer to reach the remote-controlled door from 1:00 to 2:00.
  
• Fewer Drones - Lowers the amount of drones in the heist from 6 to 3.

Important Triggers

• The hacks to open QUANTZ trains each take 10s.
  
• The hack to open the remote door takes 15s.
  
• After confirming the hack to open the remote door, it will shut again after 60s.
  
• If you enter the remote door before the 60s are over, the door will stay open permanently.
  
• Killing the QUANTZ employee (white shirt civ, downstairs) will cause Shade to offer an alternative way to open the remote door: you can wifi hack it (by standing in circles).

Stealth Walkthrough

Sounding the alarm will result in failure after a 45/40/35/30s countdown (depends on difficulty). Finishing the heist during this countdown will not count as a stealth completion (and due to a bug, will result in a $0 payout).

Overkill, ~6-12 mins (solo), ~5-8 mins (2p)

• Bring an ECM if the heist has Cerberus Core.
  
• At the very start of the heist, turn around. If the van leaves in the first 10 seconds, you will know that you are securing loot in the boat at the waterfront.
  
• Enter the train yard. If you come across a keycard, SSD, or the employee with the QR code, feel free to grab them to save time later. Only hack the QR code if no guards are nearby.
  
• Find a train with a QUANTZ logo, hack the panel on the side of the train, and enter. Be careful not to hack panels while guards have LoS.
  
• Repeat the last step for each of the 4 QUANTZ trains until you have found both trains that contain a satellite prototype. Shade will let you know if it's the wrong train when you enter.
  
• Each QUANTZ train requires you to open a locked door with a different method to access the loot. Of the following 4 objectives, do the 2 that are required to access the 2 prototypes:
  
• QR Code
  • Always do this objective 1st, since it is incredibly easy while unmasked.
    
  • Find and follow the only employee in the train yard. Once he is in an area where no guards are looking, hack his phone for the QR code. He won't care so long as you are unmasked.
• Remote-Controlled Door
  • Always do this objective 2nd, since it is the most difficult one with the highest chance of failure.
    
  • Get to the downstairs area via the door at the waterfront, the stairs the start of the heist, or either of the holes you can drop down into from the train yard.
    
  • This objective requires you to mask up, so if you need the SSD or keycard, search the downstairs area for them first.
    
  • Find which of the 2 sets of double doors leads to the hallway with an iris scanner.
    
  • Enter and unlock the doors to both of the central basement rooms.
    
  • Find the QUANTZ employee (with the white shirt and glasses) and watch him until he enters one of the central rooms. Follow him in, mask up, and tie him up.
    
  • Wait in this room until a guard enters. Kill him and hide his body in this room; The other guard won't enter this room.
    
  • Wait for each of the 3 other civs to enter and tie them up in this room too. Optionally, you can instead grab them as they pass by the doors, but this comes with a risk of getting caught.
    
  • Throw down your ECM and wait for the other guard to go to the far end of the downstairs area.
    
  • Tell the QUANTZ employee to follow you. DO NOT grab him to walk him over, as this is too slow.
    
  • Activate your ECM and run over to the hallway with the iris scanner.
    
  • There will always be a cam above the scanner and some tall object to hide behind, so shut the double doors, grab the civ, and hide from the cam before your EMP runs out.
    
  • Wait for the cam to turn away, walk the civ over and scan his iris, then grab him again and tie him up below the camera, making sure he can't be seen from the room you just opened.
    
  • Sneak by the guard and hack the computer. Be careful of him seeing the hack, and keep in mind that he can see the hack through the back of the computer monitor.
    
  • Confirm the hack and quickly make your way back to the train with the remote-controlled door. This timer is very unforgiving if playing solo, so throw knives or even sprint in secure areas if necessary. If you run out of time, you will need to go back and do the hack again.
• SSD
  • The SSD is harder to find than the kc, so it is recommended you look for it before the kc.
    
  • The SSD is found on the shelf underneath a laptop that you can find somewhere on the heist. This is the laptop used to access this heist's CCTV, since there is no security room.
    
  • Check the downstairs areas for the laptop first, as you can do this easily if you haven't yet masked up. If you don't find it downstairs, check both the far left and the far right ends of the train yard. It can also spawn in the very middle of the train yard.
• Red Keycard
  • The red kc is the easiest of the 4 objectives, and should be prioritized last.
    
  • The red kc spawns next to a speaker that is loudly playing the PAYDAY 2 song "On The Road." If at any point during the heist you hear a song playing, find the source and grab a kc.
    
  • You will likely come across the red kc as you complete the previous objectives. If you still have not found it, search both inner rooms downstairs, then check between each row of trains in the train yard.
• Use the equipment you gathered to open the door(s) to the 2 prototypes, bag them, and bring them back to the loot secure point.
  
• Escape!

Cook Off

Stealth & negotiations are not available in this heist.

Favors

• Zipline Bag - A zipline bag spawns against the fence in the street, straight ahead from where you spawn, and can be placed to connect the street to the roof right outside of the upstairs window. This is very useful for transporting bags to the van, especially if the meth lab spawns upstairs.
  
• Faster Supply Drop - Reduces the amount of time it takes bile to deliver a bag of ingredients from 1:30 to 35s.
  
• More Hostages - The amount of civs on the map you can use as hostages is increased from 2 to 6.
  
• Permanent Escape Van - Twitch will never leave once he first arrives.
  
• Longer Purity Window - Effects currently unknown. This favor may be bugged.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn in the 1st assault wave.
  
• Cloakers spawn in the 2nd assault wave.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn in the 3rd assault wave.
  
• Final Charge starts after you finish cooking your 10th bag of meth.
  
  
• This heist will automatically go loud after 1:30.
  
• Adding the wrong ingredient will explode the meth lab, rendering it unusable. This deals damage to nearby players.
  
• After the meth lab explodes, players have 7:00 to escape with whatever loot they can before the heist ends in failure. If they didn't cook at least 3 bags, the heist will instantly fail.
  
• Meth becomes pure after cooking for 16-20s.
  
• Pure meth becomes burnt after another 15s.
  
• You can place a flare to call Bile as soon as all ingredients on the map have been picked up. This means you can signal Bile sooner with more players to hold ingredients.
  
• When you light a flare, Bile arrives to drop additional ingredients after 1:30.
  
• After bagging the 3rd bag of meth, twitch will arrive after 15s.
  
• Once twitch arrives with the van, he will leave after 1:15.
  
• Each time Twitch leaves, he will come back after 1:30.

Loud Walkthrough

This heist will automatically go loud after 1:30.

Overkill, ~6 mins (3p), ~6 mins (4p)

• Deploy a Zipline Bag favor (optional).
  
• P1 & P2 bring infrasonic mines.
  
  
• "Stealth"
  • P1 grabs the zipline bag from the road and deploys it while P2 finds the power box.
    
  • P1 & P2 both throw down an infrasonic mine on the power box.
    
  • P1 & P2 both grab wooden boards & a set of ingredients from the outside sheds.
    
  • P1 & P2 find the meth lab (it can be on the 1st floor, 2nd floor, or basement) and board up windows according to the following setups. They then both run out and find the remaining 2 boards before the assault wave starts. Note that sometimes only 3 boards will spawn in total.
    
  • Upstairs Meth Lab - Board up the 2 windows at the back of the room (near the scaffold entrance) and 1 or 2 of the windows facing the front lawn. Don't board up any windows near the stairs, as a lot of bullets will be flying in that area and they will break quickly.
    
  • 1st Floor Meth Lab - Board up the window closest to the bathroom and the 2 or 3 windows closest to the kitchen counter. These will all break quickly, so it is recommended you leave as soon as possible if the meth lab spawns here.
    
  • Basement Meth Lab - Board up all of the tiny windows except the one by the ramp leading down to the garage. Cops can slide through the tiny windows to the basement (except the one you left open), but once you board them up they will never get destroyed, making the basement the safest location for long-term cooking.
• Assault 1
  • P1 & P2 board up the remaining windows as listed above, then each cover a different entrance to the lab. If you are in the 1st floor meth lab, this means you will leave the stairs mostly unguarded.
    
  • Rotate between guarding & cooking, being sure to add ingredients as fast as possible (See the section Loud - How to Cook Meth). DO NOT wait for the meth to purify unless you are cooking more than 3 bags.
    
  • If the sabotage squad spawns at any point in the assault, the player with the most armor left should head out to a spot where they have LoS to the power box and kill the sabotage specialists before they flip the switch. Take turns using your infrasonic mines to delay them if they are about to pull the switch.
    
  • If they manage to flip the switch, the player trying to kill them should use smoke grenades/flashbangs and rush over to turn the power back on ASAP, then quickly get back inside.
    
  • Grab the 3rd set of ingredients from inside the meth lab and cook the 3rd bag of meth. The assault wave should end as you finish your 3rd meth batch, unless you waited for purification.
• Break 1
  • Finish cooking your 3rd bag of meth.
    
  • Run out to the road with your 3 bags (or zipline if the lab was on the 2nd floor) and wait for twitch to arrive with the van.
    
  • You should be able to secure the loot and escape before the assault starts.
    
  • If you want to cook more, run or zipline back to the house as soon as you secure the 3 bags. Good luck with your cooking!

Syntax Error

(DLC "Syntax Error Heist")

Negotiations Timer: 0:30
Hostages per Delay: 1 (+3 per delay)

Favors

• Zipline Bag - Spawns a zipline bag in the basement elevator with the explosives. Can be deployed in 1 of 2 locations, depending on if the heist is loud:
  • If in stealth, it can be deployed in the elevator where it spawns to connect it to the out-of-service elevator entrance on the 1st floor. This is right next to a door that leads straight to the van, so this spot is very useful for securing bags in stealth.
    
  • If in loud, it can be deployed in the support center to connect it to the AI control room. This is very useful for transporting bags in loud, since the control room is where you blow open the wall to the park and escape. Note that if you are ziplining TO the control room, let the zipline finish and you will automatically jump into the control room.
• QR Code Access - An extra phone with a QR code is placed on the counter by the metal detector at the beginning of the heist.
  
• Scrambled Drones - The cam drones in the basement can now only detect motion; If you stand still they cannot see you.
  
• Faster Escape Helicopter - The loud objective to "clear the park" takes ??s instead of 1:30.
  
• Security Laser Glitch - All server room lasers will now turn on & off in regular intervals. Fairly useless.

Important Triggers

• Naders spawn after inputting the basement code/finishing the keypad hack.
  
• Cloakers & Techies spawn after disabling the first cooling unit OR decrypting 1 drone server.
  
• Dozers & Heavy SWAT spawn after decrypting all 3 drone servers.
  
• Final Charge starts after blowing open the wall to the park outside.
  
  
• Basement cams are on a separate CCTV system from the cams guard upstairs.
  
• Disabling the metal detector causes the guard to inspect it for a bit.
  
• Hacking the basement door keypad takes 1:30 and gets disrupted 2 times.
  
• Shutting down SINS takes 2:00 and gets interrupted by cooling unit objectives 2 times.
  
• Disabling a cooling unit takes 1:00.
  
• Each cooling unit you disable opens 1 server room.
  
• Confirming the SINS shutdown opens all server rooms.
  
• Decrypting a server takes 30s.
  
• Decrypted "bonus servers" must be removed before the next decryption can start.
  
• Decrypting the 2nd drone server in stealth will cause a civ to exit from the elevator next to the cooling system. He will patrol near the zipline elevator.
  
• Exiting the cooling system room while carrying the decrypted drone data will immediately cause a guard to exit the elevator in front of you in an attempt to ambush the player.
  
• Lighting the flare will start the objective to "clear the park" after 15s.
  
• To clear the park, at least 1 player must be in the grassy area near the flare for 1:30.
  
• After clearing the park, Bile arrives after ~10s.

Stealth Walkthrough

Overkill, ~11-13 mins (solo), ? mins (2p)

• Bring a Zipline Bag.
  
• Lockpick the door next to the security room and use the vent to get to the stairs.
  
• Go upstairs and make your way to the office with the computer at the end of the hall. Disabling the metal detector & finding the QR code are optional.
  
• Close the blinds & door to the office, then find & write down the code. It is either on the computer or in the safe.
  
• Go back into the hall, turn left, & enter the closet down the hall. Use the vent to get past the metal detector, enter the code, and go downstairs.
  
• Go all the way down to the big room on floor L-2 and turn right.
  
• When you reach the stairs to the cooling system, grab the red kc from the red toolbox up against the right wall. If it is not there, go left to the support center and grab it from the red toolbox there.
  
• Go up the stairs to the cooling system.
  
• Hack the computer and flip through the logs to find the 3 with the word "Drone" in their title. Write down the rooms listed in these logs.
  
• If you need Room B, do that now. Go back down the stairs & enter room B via the vent. Grab both servers, flip the switch, exit toward the support center, and deposit both servers.
  
• Get to the AI control room in one of two ways:
  • Go to the support center, enter the vent, drop down between server rooms D & E when the cam isn't looking, loop/ECM the cam, and slip past the guards to get to the right entrance.
    
  • From where you first entered floor L-2, take a left toward the zipline elevator, go through the glass door at the end of the room, and take another left to get to the left entrance. The glass door might be out of service, blocking this path.
• If you run into the lead guard in the control room, stick a motion detector on him to make things easier. He is the only guard who enters the control room.
  
• Hide the civ by the elevator upstairs and grab the cable ladder.
  
• Plan your route based on which rooms you need.
  • Room A - Must be unlocked, and can be easily accessed via the left entrance to the control room (the same entrance used for the "safe option"). If you also need room C or D, consider grabbing the 2 bags from A and bringing them with you to C/D, since C & D both have easy access to the support center.
    
  • Room C - Drop into the floor vent in the control room for easy access to room C. The support center is easy to reach from C, but getting back to the control room can be an issue, so do room C last.
    
  • Rooms D & E - Both can be accessed easily via the vent to the right of the control room stairs. Use the cable ladder to get to D. If both are needed, consider unlocking D and dropping into E, then doing both rooms in one trip. The support center is easy to reach from room D.
• Decrypt all 3 drone servers & hide bonus servers up the ledge in the nearby vent. Grab the decrypted drone server when done.
  
• Go upstairs to the cooling system. Be careful; When you walk out of the cooling room with the drone server, a guard will exit the elevator and look straight at you!
  
• Sneak over to the zipline elevator, deploy the zipline, and ride it up.
  
• Open the door to the road, loop/ECM the cam above, & escape before civs raise the alarm.

Loud Walkthrough

Overkill, ~10 mins (2p)

• P1 & P2 bring Beast of Burden & Power Lifter.
  
• Bring a Zipline Bag favor.
  
  
• Stealth
  • Follow the stealth walkthrough and get into the basement.
    
  • P2 gets the red kc, opens the cooling system room, and makes their way to the control room.
    
  • P1 hacks the cooling room computer to learn what server rooms are needed. Ignore all other rooms.
    
  • P2 unlocks the 1 of the 3 server rooms based on what makes the next step easiest.
    
  • P1 & P2 both use vents to drop into the 2 remaining locked server rooms, each bagging the 2 servers and flipping the laser switch. The player closest to the unlocked room enters it, drops their bags, & bags the last 2 servers.
    
  • Both players try to get as much decryption done as they can before they get caught.
• Negotiations
  • P1 trades the civ at the support center for 15 extra seconds and babysits the decryption until it is complete.
    
  • P2 grabs the explosives & zipline, deploys the zipline, and waits in the control room.
• Assault 1
  • P1 grabs the heavy server & ziplines up to the control room as P2 places the explosives.
    
  • P2 rushes out to the park & lights the flare while P1 carries the heavy server.
    
  • You only need to survive for 1:30 in the park before you can escape. This is easily doable since you have enough armor/medic bags left to brute force your way to victory. You will need to deal with 1 Dozer, so try to call a HET-5 ASAP to make it easier.

[KetchupWarthog]

Here you go!
https://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/18i5duj/datamined_stats_of_all_weapons_syntax_error/

There have been some changes since though (can see :
Update 1.1.1 - Reinfield 900S AP is now 2, 0-40m damage 160, 41-60m 77.61, , 61-100m 51.3
Update 1.1.2 - Ziv Commando changes (you've made)
- Cutting Shot is now flat 0.5 AP increase
- Precision Shot is multiplier of scope damage

See this link too about the recent changes
https://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/1brbnk2/cutting_shot_20_what_better_scaling_actually_means/

[KarmicChaos]

Do you think you could provide a link to the datamine you are talking about so I can compare values myself?

[KetchupWarthog]

yep, I'll update here if I find anything on my end too. Thanks for your work on the guide!

[KarmicChaos]

After testing a couple of them to confirm it was legit, I originally took the damage and headshot mults at face value from the original datamine, so I never actually double checked all of them. These could've been shadow changes (since they seem to be minor tweaks), or the original datamine could've been wrong. Either way, I'll test these soon and make updates according to anything I find.

[KetchupWarthog]

Sure! It's datamined from 4 months ago so I can't say it's up-to-date either, but from what I compared so far:

VF-7S: 2nd falloff of 33.3 at 40m not 30m
Reinfield 880: 4th falloff of 4.0 at 50m not 40m
Mosconi 12: 5th falloff damage 2.9 not 2.0
SA-A144: 1st falloff of 50 at 30m not 35m
FIK PC9: 4th falloff damage 13.5 not 13
SG Compact-7: headshot multiplier 2x not 3x
Stryk 7: headshot multiplier table identical to all other pistols
SP Model 11: 2nd falloff of 42.6 at 25m not 20m, 3rd falloff of 21.5 at 45m not 40m

I haven't tested all of in-game so treat with grain of salt, but b4 1.1.2 alot of my results align with this version. Hope this helps!

[KarmicChaos]

What are the discrepancies? I hadn't updated the guide in a while, and am now updating it for the new update, so if there's something that's still wrong, let me know.

[KetchupWarthog]

Hey just a quick check, are the gun stats updated? I see some discrepancies even with datamined values from before the big 1.1.2 update

[i am god]

The gunkick arrows are pretty great, but would it be possible to add example arrows that shows the effects of weapon mods? +5, +10, +20 isn't very indicative of how noticeably the mods affect gunkick and recoil. Obviously not asking this to be done for every weapon but adding a few arrows in the examples in the weapon stats section would be useful (assuming this guide is still being updated)

[KarmicChaos]

Use ctrl + F to find what you need in the guide. What you're looking for is under "Weapon Attachments" in the section Weapon Stats. Spread is not the same as accuracy.

[TARE104KA]

Question, does normal "spread" stat affect pellets spread on shotguns same as "pellet spread" or "pellet accuracy" stat?