I thank the following people for their contributions:

• blinya has provided XP and drama events of many heists, as well as Biker heist notes.
  
• RandomKenny has provided Goat Simulator heist notes.
  
• Nameless has provided heist notes.

You can also contribute in this group: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/pd2mech

Most of the data was obtained by using the Lua hook created by Harfatus in combination with the decrypted and decompiled Lua of update 27.1, made available by v00d00. Further Lua decompiles for the next few updates were provided by gir489 and 90e as well as 420munk. YaPh1l has my thanks for maintaining decompiled Lua from update 66 to 152. TdlQ has since taken over with decompiled LuaJIT. Zwagoth's bundle extractor was used to take a look at the mission files (but I have written my own extractor in the meantime). In addition to the aforementioned people, I also want to thank KarateF22 for the fruitful discussions.

These are some terms that I will use rather often:

• "Cool" refers to the state of person or camera during stealth when he/it has no exclamation mark.
  
• Once the person or camera has an exclamation mark or alarm goes off, there is no going back: The subject can never become cool again. I refer to this state as "uncool". Dead or broken subjects are not included.
  
• "Gangsters" usually includes Nightclub mobsters and Big Oil bikers. They all have the same AI and similar stats anyway.
  
• "City SWAT" are GenSec Elites and Murkywater soldiers.

Difficulties:

• N: Normal
  
• H: Hard
  
• VH: Very Hard
  
• OK: Overkill
  
• MH: Mayhem
  
• DW: Deathwish
  
• OD: One Down

Combining difficulties:

• OK+DW means Overkill and Deathwish.
  
• MH+ means Mayhem and above, i.e. MH+DW+OD.
  
• "4/5/6 guards on N/H+VH/OK+" means 4 guards on Normal difficulty, 5 on Hard and Very Hard, 6 on Overkill and above.
  
• "2/3 guards on N/-" means 3 guards on any difficulty other than Normal. So N/- is the same as N/H+. "2/3/4 on -/OK/-" means 2 on N+H+VH, 3 on OK and 4 on MH+.

The comments may also answer some further questions. While not nice to look at, all comments can be shown on a single page for quick searches: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/comment/PublishedFile_Public/render/76561198019011641/267214370?count=3000

2017-08-29: Added Heat Street, Green Bridge and Scarface Mansion.
2017-08-28: More info about the detection queue in Stealth - Detection Basics.
2017-08-27: Added Stockholm Syndrome description. Bots and converts have *0.5 priority. The
SWAT turret does not consider priority skills. Silent sentry alert radius 25 m -> 0.1 m.
2017-07-31: Added section about bots.
2017-06-18: Added content to Counterfeit and Panic Room. Flamethrower alert range reduced from 300 m to 0 m.
2017-06-16: Added section for beginners.
2017-05-26: Perk decks, skills, melee table updated.
2017-03-23: Body Expertise now works with the M308 without autofire mod.
2017-01-02: Ammo pickup updated.
2016-11-19: OD Berserker tables added.
2016-11-18: Throwing knives delay between releasing button and the knife being thrown reduced from 0.4 s to 0.1 s. This was the one advantage of the throwing axes (they have 0.15 s), so there is no point ever bringing those, thanks. Community 000 shotgun ammo never lowers ammo pickup anymore. Weapon spread is calculated differently; it used to be 2 random numbers from a uniform distribution, one between 0° to 360° and the other between 0 and the max spread angle. Now the game takes one between 0° to 360°, and a random point from a square (bounded by the max spread angle). The x is then multiplied by the sin of that angle, and y by the cos.
2016-11-14: Added link to new enemy damage tables.
2016-11-09: Added link to new breakpoint tables.
2016-09-23: Unseen Strike now additionally deactivates after 6 s or 18 s.
2016-08-12: Placing sentries now multiplies current total ammo of both weapons by 0.7 to 0.8 depending on skills. Sentry rotation speed bonus *2.5 -> *1.5. AP sentry damage 75 -> 30. Moving spread has been removed. Stance values are now that simple that I've removed mention of the term entirely. Shotguns are roughly twice as accurate. Hip fire has slightly more spread than before. ADS has about 2.7 times as much spread as before. Percentage accuracy skills make it easier to max out accuracy entirely, avoiding the lower accuracy issue. Weapons with 84 accuracy (including index bonuses) can now reach 100 with a single +20% bonus, but weapons with low accuracy will be less accurate than before.
2016-07-17: Corrected the melee section; draw time is not applied on the first attack only, but rather it depends on whether animation duration (yet another hidden stat) is less than the expire time.
2016-06-30: ECM jamming duration is now +25% instead of *1.25. Trigger Happy does not trigger on any damage anymore, but only bullet damage by player; Desperado still triggers on that though. Weapon spread is FUBAR; I get 0 ADS spread on a 32 accuracy Steakout (it would actually be -0.92 if it was not clamped). There is no point in discussing accuracy and skills at the moment with such a ridiculous system.
2016-06-23: Frenzy received damage applies to armor too. Revive health is not lowered anymore. Marksman aced now reduces accuracy with single-shot pistols and shotguns too. Aggressive Reload aced, Saw Massacre, Painkillers don't do exactly what the changelog says.
2016-06-19: Updated the skill and perk deck sections, as well as the sections before that. Other changed things: Dynamite and grenade range 10 m -> 5 m, damage 300 -> 600, exponent 0.5 -> 0.1. Community grenade: 10 m range, 600 damage, 0.1 exponent, but those values are never used and it defaults to normal grenade. Molotov burn duration 20 s -> 15 s. Incendiary grenade duration 6 s -> 25 s. Simultaneous assault enemies on DW: New 50% diff value is old 100% diff, new 100% diff is *9/7. Intimidate aura 7 m -> 10 m; odd, because the game never acknowledges this aura. Ex-pres does not get ballistic vest dodge bonuses. Yakuza activates at 100% hp. Muscle regen 3.5% -> 3%. Grinder regen duration 6 s -> 4 s. Plenty of dodge changes. Ammo pickup amount 3%-4% -> 1%-3.5%. Dragon's Breath dot chance 50% -> 100%. Ammo pickup penalty for shotgun ammo types removed except free 000 for Loco and Sweeper. Bulldozer headshot multiplier *0.6. Non-DW Shield pistol damage *2. Fixed some critical hit info; fire can always crit, even dot.
2016-05-01: Apparently explosive and fire damage against the SWAT turret shield is not synchronized at all. A client can locally break the shield with HE and then destroy the turret with bullets, whereas the shield is still up for anybody else and thus never repairs (the host decides).
2016-04-02: Blackdozer damage multiplied by 0.6. DW Reinfeld accuracy at 10 m distance reduced from 500% to 80%.
2016-03-11: Aimed-at reason to shoot at close range has been changed so that enemies shoot regardless of where you are looking. Muscle regeneration reduced from 4% to 3.5%. Gambler personal health regeneration now boosted for each player with more health than Gambler. Hitman armor loss of -20% removed. Hitman regenerates armor 5 s after armor breaking. Burglar crouched movement speed multiplier increased by +0.1. Armorer becomes immune to most types of damage for 2 s after armor breaking. Crew Chief multiplies received damage by 0.92 for the crew (0.84 for himself at less than 50% health).
2015-12-6: Ammo pickups increased from 2%-3% to 3%-4%. Added Ex-President perk deck. Stance values are further simplified, so there are only two values for each weapon. All shotguns fire 12 pellets and have the same falloff range from 10 m to 30 m. Underdog, Overkill, Berserker, Trigger Happy finally work while tased.
2015-10-23: SWAT turret uses tear gas instead of flashbangs. Turret HP is about 50%, shield HP is about 70% of the previous values. Shield damage clamp increased from 750 to 3500. Turret damage clamp introduced: 42000. Weak spot bullet damage multiplier decreased from 200x to 100x.
2015-10-22: Added experience for the two new heists. Added moving spread info.
2015-10-18: SWAT turret flashbang range reduced from 8 m to 3 m. More detailed damage breakpoint tables in Weapon Stats - Breakpoints and Shots to Kill. Weapon stat examples have been moved to remarks.
2015-10-16: Adjusted Weapon Stats - Basic Concepts. There's a correspondence between old and new stability and accuracy. New stability = old stability * 4. New accuracy = old accuracy * 5. 100 new accuracy is 20 old accuracy, i.e. no spread at all. Stance values are very simplified with a few exceptions. Ammo pickup range is now 2%-3% instead of 2%-5% with fewer exceptions. HE round ammo pickup multiplier is now usually 1 instead of 0.3/0.5. Shotguns fire 12 pellets except Joceline (6) and Predator (5). Updated melee table and removed the outdated right half of the breakpoint table. LMGs and minigun do not slow down the user (but minigun mods still speed up).
2015-10-7: Added Winters. Removed "False Base Stats" section (Para default stock still improves recoil, but the inventory does show the effect).
2015-9-14: Added Golden Grin Casino. Added Chivalry Weapon data. Restructured Hurt Animations. Rephrased fire dot and poison dot and damage types. Added damage of throwables. Added Appendix - Cloakers and Bulldozers to fill the gaps that I've wanted to mention somewhere.
2015-8-28: Updated XP values. Added Yakuza deck and weapon. Hitman regeneration multiplier 0.6->0.55. Burglar priority 0.85->0.8. Sniper scopes (zoom +6 or more) have special handling so the sweet spot moves around with the reticle.
2015-8-20: Updated perk deck info and Underdog range (18 m instead of 8 m).
2015-8-14: New detection ranges of body bags (19 m instead of 25 m), other bags (18 m instead of 40 m), drills (22 m if silenced, else 23 m, instead of 40 m) and uncool enemies (39 m instead of 40 m).
2015-8-8: Big Oil engines 3, 4 and 10 are never correct anymore.
2015-8-2: Added a section for Berserker to the appendix.
2015-7-18: Rogue and Grinder do not grant bonuses when not selected anymore. Ghost penetration skills now require silencers. Diamond Store door only has a 75% chance on OK+DW (VH remains at 100%). Added poison and weapon info. Added some more Combat Medic aced and Berserker remarks.
2015-6-27: Added Grinder deck. Added Golden Grin experience. Added Buzzer info to Hurt Animations. Selecting Grinder deck and then another deck except Muscle increases health. New shotgun mechanics.
2015-6-26: Open safe on Rats day 2 is no alarm trigger anymore. Leadership works as expected.
2015-6-24: Updated heist XP values. Alesso heist does not cause infinite assaults anymore and never sets diff to 1. Added a section about weapon and damage types to advanced weapon stats.
2015-6-1: Added Alesso heist info. Adjusted my builds a bit.
2015-5-28: Leadership has no effect if the player is suppressed (any enemy fired a single round in direction of the player as priority target in the past 20 s).
2015-5-26: Client detection point obeys same rules as host.
2015-5-23: Slug and HE shotguns can now suppress cool enemies. Added Matever stats (implicitly, as it uses default values for zoom, spread, recoil and alert range) and Alesso melee weapons. Fire dot damage is 10 again and the chance to dot is lower.
2015-5-21: Open safe on Rats day 2 is alarm trigger.
2015-5-20: Selecting Rogue deck and then another deck increases weapon swap speed.
2015-5-9: New experience system. Molotov alert range from 100 m to 15 m. Cloakers not stunned by explosives anymore. Flamethrower mods change the damage. Completely silent drills require FOV. Big Oil day 1 has alarm on explosion alerts. Fire dot duration lowered from 10 s to 3 s. Dot damage is, instead of 10, either 5 or 20 depending on weapon. Explosives (except tripmines) do not damage Bulldozers via armor pieces anymore. Shadow Raid painting in cage upstairs cannot be taken anymore without opening the cage first. Framing Frame day 3: Pre-vault room is uncool trigger, vault location cannot be determined from bedroom alone, red sofa cameras finally work.
2015-5-1: Added Western pack weapon data and reverted ammo pickup mechanics. Gambler perk deck now applies the 0.5 multiplier for shared ammo pickups.
2015-4-17: Removed false base stats: Akimbo Chimano Custom magazine. Partner in Crime basic acts as a 0.6 multiplier instead of 0.4.
2015-4-14: Multiplied enemy Reinfeld damage by 5/7.
2015-4-10: Underdog can be activated by corpses if client.
2015-4-3: Added fire to Hurt Animations. Added fire mechanics to Weapon Stats - Advanced Concepts. Added alert range, spread, recoil of BBQ weapons.
2015-3-26: Fixed melee DPS formula. Added Hoxton Revenge. Updated melee table with BBQ weapons. Client HE rounds cause 100 m alerts. Akimbo Chimano Custom default magazine has been further improved so in addition to the better concealment it offers a greater capacity as well.
2015-3-22: False base stats: Akimbo Chimano Custom magazine.
2015-3-21: Saw alert range.
2015-3-20: Fixed the explanation of the Heat system.
2015-3-19: Car Shop and SWAT turret added. Added akimbo pistol data and adjusted saw info. Changed some of my builds as the meta keeps shifting towards dodge builds.
2015-3-15: Bonnie weapons and perk deck added.
2015-3-11: Hotline Miami 2 content added.
2015-3-7: Added experience info to the appendix.
2015-3-6: Added minigun and RPG.
2015-2-4: Added the Bomb heists.
2015-2-3: Restructured some stealth sections.
2015-1-26: Added Infiltrator perk deck info and weapons. Added new section "Weapon Stats - Melee Weapons". Added a table with damage breakpoints to Weapon Stats - Remarks. Update 41 or 42 changed Nine Lives aced to work with melee and explosion damage.
2015-1-22: Diamond Heist DW now has cameras. Damage reduction skills do not suffer from floating point number issues anymore.
2014-12-24: Added the Diamond heist.
2014-12-20: Update 49 removed the hidden 20% suppression bonus of the Muscle deck.
2014-12-17: Added Burglar perk deck info and Queen's Wrath.
2014-12-6: Host kills without noise reduction skill make noise like clients. Detection range and rate while interacting are not reduced anymore. Footstep alerts removed. Added Thompson data.
2014-11-22: Added weapon data from the Gage Historical Pack (spread, recoil, alert range, FOV, ammo pickup). Added ammo pickup rates for the Hotline Miami submachine guns as well.
2014-10-31: Crimefest. There are no skills to improve the odds when dominating anymore (Dominator aced description is outdated).
2014-10-18: Restructured Domination section.
2014-10-15: Description of Underdog fixed. Enemies need to target the player in question and not just be close. Changed Detection Basics as client heads do not always use the first person camera.
2014-10-11: Added some remarks about Build and Sustain in the section on police tasks. Added strategy for day 2 of Hotline Miami.
2014-10-8: Added the section "Police Tasks and Assault Waves". Framing Frame ambush condition corrected. Additional info for the escape chances for Framing Frame day 1 and Rats day 2. Merged some entries in the Weapon Stats - Remarks and added some more (common knowledge). Removed Ghost T4 from the Techforcer build. Changed the info in Weapon Stats - Remarks about recoil when semi-automatic vs fully-automatic.
2014-10-5: Hotline Miami update changed the aimed-at condition for enemies to shoot. They are more likely to shoot at short range.
2014-10-4: Spawns of enemies and cameras for most stealthable heists added for all difficulties. Fixed the chances regarding the Helium engines on Big Oil (Bayesian inference).
2014-10-1: Hotline Miami content added. Spread and recoil of the weapons, hitpoints and damage of the enemies. Some first notes on the heist.
2014-9-19: Added the behavior of uncool enemies in Stealth - Alerts.
2014-9-18: Removed mention of scope sway and explained parallax errors instead in the zoom part in the Weapon Stats section. More detail in the Steath - Alarm section.
2014-9-15: Added a screenshot on Shadow Raid. Escape chances for all heists.
2014-9-14: Added some percentages to the Big Bank. GenSec sends cops only if civiilans are killed. Spawn chances for Train heist.
2014-9-12: Custom shotgun ammo explained in the Weapon Stats section.
2014-9-8: More detail on Hurt Animations and Target Priority and Appendix - Shoot on Hurt.
2014-9-5: Gage Assault weapons included in the Weapon Stats section and the ammo pickup calculations. Added a section in the Weapon Stats section about explosives.
2014-9-3: Changed stealth remark; melee against civilians intimidates them for the full amount. 2.5 seconds cooldown (during which they die instead). Added alarm trigger on Firestarter day 2: C4 on inner server room door.
2014-8-31: More details on weapon zoom and mouse sensitivity in the Weapon Stats section.
2014-8-30: Enemy weapon damage in the appendix.
2014-8-25: Armor stats section added.
2014-8-22: Easier walkthrough for the train heist. More info about the investigation of drills and cameras in the stealth remarks.
2014-8-21: False base stats of weapons explained in the Weapon Stats section.
2014-8-17: Walkthrough for the Train heist.
2014-8-2: Footstep alerts apply to host only.
2014-7-28: Corrected the false claim that shaped charges benefit from skills speeding up placement.
2014-7-24: Target priority section added. Arresting explained in the stealth remarks.
2014-7-22: Damage granularity added to appendix.
2014-7-21: Suppression explained in detail in the Weapon Stats section.
2014-7-18: Stealth remarks about visibility when carrying bags and when interacting.

The important buttons are on the left:

• The basics: Tutorial missions
  
• Safe house: Offers a defense heist once per day, or press "Let the crew handle it" to actually access it. It's rather annoying to always have to click away that heist before you can access the safe house. The safe house itself has many cosmetic upgrades, but is irrelevant for actual gameplay. It also has the side-jobs menu, which is a good way to get items.
  
• Offshore payday: Gamble offshore money for card drops. Not recommended for beginners.
  
• Contract broker: If you want to host a game, you can either click on the randomly appearing icons on the screen, or you can use the contract broker like everyone else. It costs money to buy these heists, but your payout is usually greater.
  
• Crime spree: Start a crime spree, which is initially roughly equal to Overkill difficulty. If you lose a heist, the spree ends (pray that you get no bugs). At high crime spree levels, enemy health and damage reaches ridiculously high values. When a crime spree ends, you get all kinds of rewards.

Weapon mods can be earned in several ways:

• Card drops:
  
  • You earn one card at the end of a heist, which may contain weapon mods or masks.
    
  • The offshore payday drops cards, but is expensive.
    
  • Crime sprees have cards when they end.
• Achievements or Gage packages
  
• Buy them with continental coins (cannot buy boosts)
  
• Side-job rewards. Side-jobs are shown in the safehouse. After finishing a side-job, you must go back to this side-jobs screen and click on your rewards.

Weapon mods cannot be lost. If you have the same weapon mod twice in the inventory (not attached to any weapon), you will not get it through card drops or side-job rewards anymore (exception: if you have 2 of all weapon mods, you get a random one).

Attaching weapon mods costs money, which is a bit painful at very low levels; you will have lots of cash later on.

Continental coins are earned through side-jobs, finishing heists and crime sprees. They can be used for cosmetic safehouse upgrades, to start crime sprees, buy weapon mods, and to buy crew boosts and abilities for bots. These bot boosts are only relevant if you host a game with less than 4 human players. If you want a certain weapon mod, continental coins are your best option.

Left-click on a skill to acquire it. Right-click on a skill to remove it at no cost. Skills be can changed in the lobby screen, but not in the loadout screen.

You can only benefit from one perk deck at the same time. Perks cannot be removed. The game gives enough perk points to buy all perks of all decks eventually. A good deck for beginners is Muscle.

The name of your current skill+perk set is shown at the top right in the skills screen; it can be renamed by clicking on the name. Press S to show all skill+perk sets. The confusing part is that when you select another skill+perk set, you automatically select another perk deck as well (the choice is stored together with your skills), even though there is no feedback about this in the skills screen.

After you have selected a new skill+perk set, buy your skills and then remember to also change your perk deck afterwards.

A build is the combination of all the icons shown in the main inventory; i.e. character, mask, weapons, armor, skills+perk set. The build name is shown at the bottom of the screen and can be changed. You can change builds by clicking on the arrows; it is a good idea to have at least one build for stealth and one for loud heists. Builds can be changed not only in the lobby screen, but also in the loadout screen (i.e. in between days of a heist).
After you have selected a new build, adjust all icons to your choice.

Beware about the skill+perk set: The skill+perk sets are shared for all builds. Similar to how you can have many weapons in your inventory which all builds can access, you can have many skill+perk sets. However, the maximum number of skill+perk sets is the same as the maximum number of builds. The sensible choice is to have 1 skill+perk set for each build. In the end, your first skill+perk set should be selected in your first build, your second skill+perk set should be selected in your second build, and so on.

The icons in the main inventory can also be changed with the mouse wheel. Beware about the skill+perk set: When you scroll around the skills, you change your skill+perk set, so the perk deck is automatically changed as well. Scrolling on the perk deck on the other hand does not change your skill+perk set.

Life would be easier if skill+perk sets did not exist at all, and each build just had its skills and perks assigned to it.

In summary, to make a new build:

• At the bottom of the main inventory screen, click on the arrow.
  
• Choose character, mask, weapons, armor.
  
• Select the skill+perk set that corresponds to the build; e.g. if this is your 5th build, select the 5th skill+perk set.
  
• Choose your skills.
  
• Choose your perk deck.

Mandatory skills:

• Duck and Cover basic
  
• Parkour basic

Mobility is mandatory for both loud and stealth.

Useful stealth skills:

• Anything from the Covert Ops subtree in Ghost
  
• High Value Target aced
  
• Inner Pockets aced
  
• Optical Illusions aced
  
• Jack of all Trades aced

There are many other skills that can be picked. Stealth builds are not really hard to make; bring better drills if the heist needs drills, bring more cable ties if there are many civilians, and so on.

Useful loud skills:

• Resilience aced
  
• Bullseye basic (because apart from snipers, enemy attacks cannot damage your health as long as you have any amount of armor left)
  
• 2 ammo bags (preferably aced) or aced medic bags. The team should have at least 1 person with ammo and 1 person with meds. With this as a base, there is no harm in bringing even more meds+ammo or other deployables. Maybe make a copy of your build without ammo bags but with more tripmines/C4, and switch builds whenever your team already has enough ammo.
  
• Iron Man aced if you don't have a dodge perk deck. Competent players do not wear the Combined Tactical Vest (CTV) armor; it is either ICTV or ballistic vests or suit.
  
• There are some cheap skills that boost stability and accuracy, like Steady Grip and Stable Shot.
  
• The Professional and Specialized Killing boost stability, accuracy and damage of silenced weapons further than anything reachable with loud weapons.
  
• Builds with meds should also get Inspire aced.
  
• Surefire basic is essential for the M308.
  
• I am rather fond of reloading and shooting while sprinting, i.e. Parkour aced and Lock N' Load basic.

Useful loud skills on high difficulties (Mayhem and higher):

• Nine Lives aced (absolutely mandatory on OD difficulty)
  
• Swan Song aced
  
• Converted enemies, i.e. Confident aced, Joker (at least basic), Partners in Crime aced
  
• Berserker aced, because you have 10% health after being revived, so you do *1.8 damage.

You can give names to your weapons by clicking on the name in the top right corner.

For assault rifles, SMGs and pistols: Weapons with high damage are usually better than those with low damage. They have more accuracy, usually better stability too (and already suffer less from low sbatility because you need less shots to kill) and the ammo reserves and ammo pickups from enemies are disproportionally large. It used to be different a long time ago, where low damage weapons were the most ammo efficient, but even this one advantage now belongs to high-damage weapons. The only exception are some low damage SMGs, but they only feel roughly equal (in terms of ammo efficiency) to the high damage SMGs, not superior.

Stealth weapons:

• Akimbo Chimano 88 because of 30 concealment. You are not meant to actually use them, but rely on your secondary weapon.
  
• Any strong secondary pistol with a silencer, e.g. Deagle. Remember to keep the concealment up.
  
• The Judge with a silencer can send enemies flying if you kill them from less than 5 m away.

This is not to say that these akimbo Chimanos are the absolutely best primary for stealth. With enough DLCs and weapon mods, there are better options.

Loud weapons:

• LMGs deal lots of damage. KSP, KSP 58 and Buzzsaw have better stats overall. The Buzzsaw has the highest ammo pickup of all weapons and the KSPs are not far behind.
  
• The Locomotive shotgun is very solid all around, and can be used almost like a primary weapon. I have more kills with it than any other weapon (note, it is not that good on OD, and I got these kills before that existed; it is fine up to DW).
  
• IZHMA works great with critical hits.
  
• Dragon's Breath does not depend on the base weapon damage, so it is best paired with low-damage shotguns. Use crits.
  
• The Judge is a great backup weapon. It has a low ammo pickup and a high rate of fire. If you use your primary most of the time and pick up enemy ammo drops, you can occasionally switch to your Judge to get out of a tricky situation. The Judge is very powerful during Swan Song because you cannot run out of ammo.
  
• The Krinkov (and SMGs with similar damage) is a bit similar to the Judge. It shoots really fast and does not pick up much ammo, so it works great if you use your primary weapon most of the time.

There are many other weapons, especially with DLC, e.g. the China Puff grenade launcher. Even without DLC, you can put 000 ammo on shotguns. This increases damage and has no other effect, so do not ever use shotguns without any custom ammo.


Stealth is not fair. Some heists spawn guards when you do not expect it. You can either fail a heist very often and learn about all the ways that the game tries to screw you over, or you can read the stealth sections and the heist notes in this guide. You will still fail often, but probably not as much. Detection is handled by the host only, and client positions are not always correct, so if you are not the host, a guard might see you for a moment even when are already behind cover. On a related note, there is a crew bonus for bots which increases your interaction speed. The bonus is greater when there are fewer human players. Due to this, I do not recommend stealth in public games; the fewer people, the better.

Stealth usually spawns more guards on higher difficulties, but MH+DW+OD are usually treated the same. So if you consider stealthing MH, just go for OD instead.


Enemy health and damage is given in the appendix. This shows how enemy health scales with difficulty:

• On N+H+VH+OK, enemy health effectively is the same if you only hit the head. The health for body shots is much greater on OK however. The enemy damage is also increased and more special enemies spawn on OK.
  
• MH+DW are almost identical apart from Bulldozers appearing in pairs and the deadly saiga shotgun of the black Bulldozer on DW. Enemy damage is much greater than on lower difficulties and common enemies (when hit in the head) have effectively 4 times as much health.
  
• OD enemies have 50% more health than MH+DW, and the common enemies carry DMRs with 225 damage at any range.

On the other hand, as seen in the experience appendix, OK earns 11 times as much experience as N. The much harder DW earns 14 times as much as N. And the even harder OD earns 15 times as much. The sweet spot for challenge vs experience is clearly OK. I do not recommend lower difficulties because there are no good players to learn from. I do not recommend higher difficulties for beginners because they require good builds.

Of course, more details on the various mechanics of the game are found throughout the guide (I highly recommend the section Deployables and Equipment). But in my opinion, the key to success for beginners is to play on OK difficulty.


The guide is ordered to be read from top to bottom. Sections can may refer to things explained in previous sections. In particular, hurt animations are relevant for stealth and various weapons and skills, so they come very early. If you just want the most relevant bits, I suggest the sections from Domination to Builds, because many ingame descriptions for skills and perks are inaccurate, and because domination is never explained.

Stealthers should additionally read all Stealth sections. The two sections More Detection... and Decision to Shoot are based on the previous stealth sections, but are relevant for both loud and stealth and therefore not specifically marked; I recommend reading them too.

Loud players will be interested in all the other sections, in particular the weapon stats to optimize their damage output.

When an enemy takes damage or is otherwise affected, the game calculates the reaction (animation) he is supposed to show. There are several reactions possible:

• Light hurt: An animation is shown only if the enemy isn't busy already; he flinches very slightly, virtually unnoticeable.
  
• Moderate hurt: The enemy staggers for 0.9 to 2.5 seconds before regaining composure.
  
• Heavy hurt: The enemy usually falls to the ground or at least goes on his knees and takes between 0.9 to 4.8 seconds to get up again.
  
• Explode hurt: The enemy is thrown into the air, falls on the ground and takes between 2.7 to 6.1 seconds to start fighting again. Shields are stunned for 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
  
• Fire hurt: The enemy is set on fire for 4.3 seconds. This reaction itself does not deal damage over time however. The fire reaction is not calculated like the other reactions and thus explained together with fire weapons in Weapon Stats - Advanced Concepts.
  
• Poison hurt: The enemy is vomiting for as long as the poison lasts. The details are found in Weapon Stats - Advanced Concepts.
  
• Tased hurt: The enemy is stunned for 3.2, 3.4, 3.7 or 3.9 seconds (25% chance each). Charging the Buzzer has no effect. The Buzzer knockdown value is never used by the game.
  
• ECM feedback: The enemy is incapacitated while feedback is active.
  
• Counter-tased: Achieved by interacting while being tased while owning Shockproof aced
  
• Shield knockback: Achieved by melee or successful ranged attack against a Shield while owning Shock and Awe aced.
  
• Concussion: Concussion grenades stun enemies for 3 s in a 15 m radius. Enemies additionally are half as accurate for 5 s after the stun animation is over.
  
• Death

The death reaction is always shown when an enemy dies. If an enemy is affected by hurt other than light hurt, his current action is interrupted.

Even though panicking enemies are also incapacitated during their animation, panic is not hurt and the following paragraphs do not apply.


Certain enemies are immune to certain types of hurt, so they do not show the expected reaction, but even immune enemies do take damage as expected. A list of immunities is found in "Appendix - Enemy Health and Weapons". The info below assumes that the enemy is not immune.


When attacked by bullets, melee or explosions, enemies look at the fraction damage/currentHitpoints, with currentHitpoints being the current hitpoints of the enemy before the damage is applied, to decide which of the following tables to pick, which in turn define the chances for each type of reaction.

Bullets:

• If fraction < 0.3: 20% no reaction, 70% light hurt, 5% moderate hurt, 5% heavy hurt
  
• If 0.3 <= fraction < 0.6: 40% light hurt, 40% moderate hurt, 20% heavy hurt
  
• If 0.6 <= fraction < 0.9: 20% light hurt, 20% moderate hurt, 60% heavy hurt
  
• If fraction >= 0.9: 100% heavy hurt

Explosions vs Shields and MH+ City SWATs:

• 100% explode hurt

Explosions vs anyone else who is not immune:

• If fraction < 0.2: 60% no reaction, 40% heavy hurt
  
• If 0.2 <= fraction < 0.5: 60% heavy hurt, 40% explode hurt
  
• If fraction >= 0.5: 20% heavy hurt, 80% explode hurt

Melee:

• If fraction < 0.3: 30% no reaction, 70% light hurt
  
• If 0.3 <= fraction < 0.8: 100% light hurt
  
• If 0.8 <= fraction < 0.9: 60% light hurt, 20% moderate hurt, 20% heavy hurt
  
• If fraction >= 0.9: 100% heavy hurt

Melee weapons do not use their actual damage value for the calculation of the fraction, but the knockdown value seen in the inventory. Martial Arts basic delivers a 1.5 multiplier to this value, making it easier to reach the stronger animations. In this manner, the fraction may even exceed 1 (technically, the game clamps it at 1 though), yet the enemy survives the attack and plays the heavy hurt animation unless he is one of the exceptions mentioned above. As indicated by the melee table, if the knockdown doesn't reach at least 80% of the remaining hitpoints, the enemy only shows light reactions or none at all. To reliably utilize the knockdown of a weapon, it is mandatory to have a knockdown value of at least 90% of the remaining hitpoints. Things would've been easier to comprehend if the last fraction requirement was fraction >= 1.0. You might want to divide your knockdown by 0.9 to obtain the maximum allowed current enemy hitpoints to have a 100% heavy hurt chance. Thus the bat with 240 knockdown can reliably cause heavy hurt when the current enemy hitpoints are less than 267.


Fire hurt:

• Fire weapons have a chance to dot enemies. If the enemies are not immune, then doted enemies show the actual lengthy fire hurt animation described above.
  
• Some enemies do not show an actual animation but are still hurt for a moment. Charging Cloakers can be stopped with fire weapons.

The remaining reactions are achieved by using the corresponding weapons and skills, e.g. Buzzer to tase, fire weapons for fire hurt, and so on.


If the reaction is tased, counter-tased, moderate hurt, heavy hurt or death and the victim has been uncool for 3 seconds and has a weapon which has not been dropped, he additionally has a 10% chance (100% when tased or counter-tased) to accidentally fire his gun, potentially harming other enemies and killing civilians close by. Enemies affected by the explosion reaction do not fire, though they will still play the death reaction when dying. Single-fire weapons shoot only 0.2 to 0.4 seconds after the reaction, whereas auto-fire weapons have no delay. The victim will not fire if he has dropped his weapon, which happens when he is affected by forced ragdoll, which in turn always happens after roughly 0.3 to 0.8 seconds after the death reaction. Basically, when an enemy is killed in a single hit, there is a small chance that he drops his weapon before using his single-fire weapon. Additionally, when enemies die due to a shotgun blast from less than 5 m away or explosions (so they experience some sort of physics push and thus ragdoll), they drop their weapons instantly (instead of the 0.3-0.8 seconds) so that not even auto-fire weapons get a shot off. Enemies do not drop their weapon before death: If the enemies don't die with a single explosion or shotgun attack, there is the risk that they show moderate or heavy hurt and thus shoot. Shotguns with slug ammo do not cause a physics push. Shotguns with HE rounds also lose their original 5 m physics push but gain a push due to the explosion instead. While ordinary bullets do slightly push bodies while they are dropping to the floor, this does not count as a forced ragdoll and does not prevent enemies from firing their gun upon death.

Example 1:
It is day 1 of Big Oil and a biker has been uncool for 3 seconds. Your submachine gun only deals 35% damage of his total hitpoints with each hit. What is the chance that he fires his gun due to hurt?

• The first fraction is 35%/100%, so on the first hit there is a 40% chance for moderate hurt and 20% chance for heavy hurt, which means a 6% chance to shoot. The second hit has the fraction 35%/65% = 0.54, which means another 6% chance to shoot. The third shot ends in death, which means another 10% chance. The chance for the biker not to shoot is 0.94*0.94*0.9 = 79.5%, so there is a 20.5% chance that he will shoot due to hurt.

Example 2:
Using a weapon with 150 knockdown but only 30 damage against an enemy with 240 hitpoints, what are the reactions each time?

• The first fraction is 150/240 = 0.625, so the enemy has a 100% chance for light hurt. The enemy then takes 30 damage. The second fraction is 150/210 = 0.76, so the chance is still 100% for light hurt. The next fraction is 150/180 = 0.83, so there is a 20% chance for moderate hurt and a 20% chance for heavy hurt. For the attacks after that, the knockdown now exceeds the enemy hitpoints, so he will always show heavy hurt on subsequent hits.

Example 3:
Using an M1014 with HE rounds (assume that it deals constant 35 damage including damage falloff and a 0.8 damage multiplier for explosives) against a Murkywater soldier who has been uncool for 3 seconds, compare the results on Normal (80 hitpoints) and Mayhem difficulty (480 hitpoints).

• The Normal Murkywater has a fraction of 35/80 = 0.4375 on the first hit and thus has a 60% heavy hurt chance, meaning a 6% chance to shoot due to hurt. The fraction is 35/45 = 0.78 on the second hit, which is a 20% heavy hurt chance, meaning a 2% chance to shoot. The Murkywater dies on the third hit and drops his weapon instantly, so there is no chance to shoot. The chance for the Murkywater not to shoot is 0.94*0.98 = 92.1%, so there is a 7.9% chance for him to shoot due to hurt. The Mayhem Murkywater has a 0% chance to shoot as he never shows anything but the explode reaction. However, as HE rounds make explosion noise on impact, this example only serves to illustrate the mechanics but does not have any actual application.

A reaction usually does not have just one possible animation; instead, there are different animations depending on the direction of the attack and whether the person was stationary or moving and hit above or below the center of mass (center of the chest) and on the enemy type. Finally, usually there are several animation variations even if the attack direction, etc. are the same, so the game randomly picks one variation.

For the direction of the attack, "front" shall mean that the attacker (center of the explosion or the player himself) is located in front of the enemy, facing him. Similarly, "left" means that the attacker is located to the left of the enemy, and so on. Every direction covers an angle of 90°. In the following lists, I present the minimum and maximum durations of the different animations, as well as the arithmetic mean.

Explode hurt animations of Shields (only 2 explode reactions for each direction, hence "or"):

• Front: 1.6 or 1.7 seconds, mean 1.7 seconds
  
• Back: 1.9 or 2.5 seconds, mean 2.2 seconds
  
• Left: 1.7 or 2.0 seconds, mean 1.8 seconds
  
• Right: 1.5 or 1.8 seconds, mean 1.7 seconds

Explode hurt animations of the other enemies (many variations, hence "to"):

• Front: 3.2 to 4.6 seconds, mean 4.1 seconds
  
• Back: 3.5 to 6.1 seconds, mean 4.5 seconds
  
• Left: 2.7 to 4.1 seconds, mean 3.4 seconds
  
• Right: 3.2 to 4.4 seconds, mean 3.7 seconds

Moderate hurt animations when hit above center of mass:

• Front: 1.1 to 2.5 seconds, mean 1.7 seconds
  
• Back: 0.9 or 1.1 seconds, mean 1.0 seconds
  
• Left: 1.0 to 2.0 seconds, mean 1.4 seconds
  
• Right: 1.1 to 1.6 seconds, mean 1.3 seconds

Moderate hurt animations when hit below center of mass:

• 1.3 seconds

Heavy hurt animations when running:

• 1.2 to 4.7 seconds, mean 2.8 seconds

Heavy hurt animations when hit above center of mass:

• Front: 1.5 to 4.8 seconds, mean 3.1 seconds
  
• Back: 0.9 to 2.8 seconds, mean 2.1 seconds
  
• Left: 1.8 to 3.1 seconds, mean 2.6 seconds
  
• Right: 1.0 to 3.4 seconds, mean 2.7 seconds

Heavy hurt animations when hit below center of mass:

• Front: 2.0 to 3.3 seconds, mean 2.7 seconds
  
• Back: 1.9 or 3.1 seconds, mean 2.5 seconds
  
• Left: 1.5 or 3.0 seconds, mean 2.2 seconds
  
• Right: 2.3 or 3.0 seconds, mean 2.8 seconds

It follows that explosions cause the longest explode hurt animations when detonating in the back of the enemy (except against Bulldozers). Heavy hurt, on average, lasts over 3 seconds when hitting the enemy above the center of mass from the front. If you intend to go on a killing spree with melee weapons, engage enemies from the front and aim above their center of mass to knock them down for the longest possible duration.

The different types of bags can be classified into 4 categories (with several more subcategories that are essentially the same):

• Light (e.g. coke, paintings): 100% movement speed. Can sprint while carrying and throw far.
  
• Medium (e.g. money, drill): 100% movement speed. Can't sprint, but can throw as far as light bags.
  
• Heavy (e.g. weapons, gold, body bag): 75% movement speed. Can't sprint and can throw only a short distance.
  
• Very heavy (e.g. artifact): 37.5% movement speed. Basically just drops to the ground when thrown.

When throwing bags, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Picking up a bag takes a moment.
  
• After throwing a bag, there's a cooldown of 1.2-1.5 seconds before you can pick up another bag.
  
• In really laggy rounds it might take several seconds before a bag you want to throw is actually thrown.

If the game is laggy, it is usually a better idea to carry things directly instead of throwing.

I personally use the following guidelines to decide whether to carry the bags or to throw them:

• As you can sprint while carrying light bags, you don't gain too much throwing them around. Keep them on your back if you are lazy and stamina is not an issue. Otherwise mix sprinting and throwing.
  
• With Transporter basic, medium bags always benefit from throwing them around, sprinting after them and picking them up again. The speed gain is minimal in the suit, but very noticeable when wearing heavy armor. Too much lag may make throwing not viable however.
  
• Throwing heavy bags doesn't speed up your progress, but (if you manage the cooldown of picking up bags correctly) also doesn't slow you down. Keep them on your back to save yourself the hassle of repeatedly picking up bags.
  
• There is no benefit to throwing (or rather, dropping) very heavy bags. Carry them on your back.

Sometimes it is necessary to keep a large bunch of bags together to keep the cops off of them. Keep the aforementioned rules in mind while moving the bags from one point to another. If there are no cops involved, there is no point dropping weapon bags after carrying them halfway. Move them to the van and be done with it. To avoid the issue of several players attempting to grab the same bag which potentially slows down the heist, consider moving your share of bags only. E.g. if there are 8 bags of cash on day 2 of Framing Frame, focus on 2 bags and move them to the van as fast as possible. Afterwards help with the remaining 6 bags, which the other 3 players in whatever inefficient manner have carried only halfway to the van. Note that if both bags are at initially at the same spot, then if you picked up the first and threw it towards your destination without yourself moving at all, you will now need to wait more than a second before you can pick up the next bag. If instead you moved a couple of steps towards your destination before throwing the first bag, you could use that second to walk back towards the next bag, fully utilizing the time caused by the interaction cooldown. Another efficient way to carry 2 (or more) medium bags is to have one bag in front of the other. Pick up one bag and throw it past the other one, then move up to the other (during the interaction cooldown) and throw it past the first one.

If you carry a bag while escaping, you will get the full amount of money for it. Bain's commentary afterwards will not reflect this. However, merely throwing bags into the escape zone on the other hand (without any "loot secured" message) does not count.

XP rewards and achievements that require players to secure a certain amount of loot do not count bags carried into the escape. Essentially, if you worry about gaining experience or achievements, carrying bags into the escape has some severe disadvantages. If you care about money only, carrying bags directly may often save a second or two depending on the circumstances.

Bags are not affected by your personal momentum when thrown. Regardless, you can slightly increase your throwing range by jumping before throwing.

You can shout at the following things:

• Uncool civilians (range: 10 m)
  
• Uncool non-special enemies (range: 10 m)
  
• Crew members (unrestricted range to merely call them; 9 m range for Inspire)

You can also highlight/mark the following things:

• Cameras during stealth (range: 20 m)
  
• SWAT turrets (range: 20 m)
  
• Special enemies and cool enemies (range: 30 m)

Interaction requires clear line of sight to a the target except when targeting crew members. More precisely, there must be no obstacles between the location of the first-person camera and a single point associated with the target. If your target is a security camera, the interaction point is the camera lens. Otherwise, the interaction point is located 30 cm above the head point, which itself is located at the back of the neck. Thus the interaction point is actually located some cm above the top of the head. If you have clear line of sight to this point, the shout/mark will succeed.

The Crew Chief perk deck and Confident basic are multipliers for the range to highlight enemies and to shout at civilians and enemies. With both skills, your range to highlight becomes 30 * 1.25 * 1.5 = 56.25 meters and your intimidation range becomes 18.75 meters. Cameras and SWAT turrets are not affected, so their range remains at 20 m. Inspire also remains at 9 m.

Long range interactions have a cooldown of 1.5 seconds before they can be used again. Inspire basic has a cooldown of 3.5 seconds. If you shout at a teammate every 2 seconds, only every other shout speeds him up. Your voice will indicate whether you have called him or inspired him.

Enemies in stealth are highlighted for 13.5 seconds. Special enemies and cameras are highlighted for 4.5 seconds. SWAT turrets are highlighted for 9 seconds. High Value Target aced doubles the durations to 27 s, 9 s and 18 s respectively.

High Value Target basic changes the color of highlighted enemies from pink (no damage bonus) to red (damage bonus).

If you shout at an unintimidated civilian, he will randomly be given a maximum intimidation time between 60 and 120 seconds. His current intimidation time is filled up by repeatedly shouting at him (until it reaches the maximum intimidation time). If the current intimidation time reaches 0, the civilian will lose his intimidated state and flee. It often takes several shouts to get a civilian to drop on the ground. If a civilian was moving at the time of the shout, he will merely stop.

Even if your shout does not make the civilian drop on the ground, the intimidation time will build up normally. You can just leave him standing there with his hands raised for 1-2 minutes and he will not call the cops or flee. Shouting a single time at a civilian (or shooting a single time in hearing range with Stockholm Syndrome basic) intimidates him, no matter the animation. Intimidation and dropping to the ground are two different things.

Make sure to distinguish between civilians lying on the ground and crouching civilians. Crouching civilians are extremely dangerous and will try to call the police as soon as possible.

Shouting at a civilian once will at most add 60 seconds to the time (90 seconds with Forced Friendship basic). The civilian you are looking at directly will gain the full 60/90 seconds, whereas the other civilians in intimidation range may get less depending on distance and angle. Forced Friendship does not change the maximum intimidation time however: A civilian you shout at may have a maximum intimidation time of just 60 s and the addition of 90 s due to a shout is capped at 60 s. There is no way around this limit, so to be prepared for the worst case scenario, always assume that civilians are intimidated for at most 60 s.

The intimidation system is extremely wonky (refer to the appendix for more details). If there is a group of civilians, some close, some far away, it is a bad idea to target the close ones. Your best bet is to either target the civilian furthest away or aim at the crowd without looking at anyone in particular. Civilians hiding behind counters or furniture are not affected at all as line of sight is required.

For most stats, the game has one table for each stat defining all possible values. The same table is used for all weapons. Most tables are just straightforward sequences of numbers, e.g. damage is just {1,2,3,...,n}, so these stats behave as though there aren't any tables at all.

Zoom and threat do use more complicated tables. To illustrate the table behavior, consider the threat table:
0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 31, 34, 37, 43

Let's take the Crosskill pistol with 10 threat. Attaching the Punisher Compensator (+10 threat) gives a new threat value of 20. When additionally attaching the Vented Slide (+2 threat), the new threat value is 24.

The reason is as follows: Weapon mods show the effect that they would have if the weapon had no other mods attached. To correctly deduce the expected effect, one needs to check for each mod how much further to the right (or left) the new threat value is found. The Punisher Compensator moves from 10 to 20. The relevant part of the table is 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20. The new threat value is found 5 to the right of the old one. I refer to this as an index shift of +5. The Vented Slide has an index shift of +2. The total index shift is the sum of the individual shifts, i.e. +7. The threat after attaching both mods is given by going 7 to the right from 10 in the threat table, i.e. 24.

This example was somewhat contrived; many weapons have no stat table issues at all. For some stats, I will not explicitly mention how mods act on the base weapon stats. They work exactly as described by the game.

Damage

The damage shown by the inventory is the damage of the weapon given permanent bonuses. These bonuses are commonly additives or percentage point based. The damage may be further increased by situational skills, which act as multipliers.

Damage applied to enemies has granularity, so the actual damage dealt is a multiple of 1/512 of the total enemy hitpoints. The weapon damage is rounded upwards to the higher granule, and thus slightly increased depending on the weapon damage and hitpoints of the enemy. Put simply, weapon damage roughly goes in steps of 0.2% of the enemy hitpoints. Dealing 0.25% damage against a Bulldozer would round the damage up to slightly less than 0.4%. Take a weapon with 38*1.05 = 39.9 damage against an enemy who dies after taking 80 damage to the head (considering the 25% headshot damage bonus). Without granularity, he would survive the second hit. With granularity, take the product 39.9/80 * 512 = 255.36 to obtain the granule, then round it up to 256. Taking granularity into account, each hit deals 256/512 damage, and 2 hits deal 512/512 damage, killing the enemy.

Damage of throwables:

• Ace of Spades: 40
  
• Shuriken: 100
  
• Javelin: 3250
  
• Throwing axe/knife: 1100

The throwing knife is better than the throwing axe in virtually every respect. Compared to the throwing knife, the javelin has a longer delay to throw and between throws, but travels faster and has more damage.

Zoom

The field of view (FOV) table in degrees is 63, 60, 55, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20. As usual, mods add or subtract from the index of the gun by the same amount, so attaching the same sight to different weapons will give you a different zoom if the weapons differed without mods. The table is used only when using the sights; hip fire always uses 65. The FOV is modified by the FOV slider in the game: The hip FOV is multiplied by 1 (slider minimum) to 1.4 (slider maximum), whereas the FOV when using sights is multiplied by 1 to 1.2. As the impact of the FOV slider is much smaller when using the sights, targets can still be accurately acquired even with the slider at its maximum.

Most weapons have a default FOV of 55. Exceptions are:

• FOV 63: Sniper rifles, Chimano 88, Chimano Custom, STRYK, Interceptor, Swedish K, SpecOps, KSP, KSP58, MG42, Saw, Blaster, Cobra, Uzi, Patchett, Thompson, Queen's Wrath, Lion's Roar, Minigun, akimbo Chimano Custom, akimbo Chimano 88, akimbo Interceptor
  
• FOV 60: RPK
  
• FOV 50: AMR-16
  
• FOV 45: Peacemaker, bows

Weapon attachments add to the FOV index as follows:

• FOV index +0: Iron sights, Raven Flip-Up Sight
  
• FOV index +1: Marksman Sight, bipod
  
• FOV index +2: Surgeon Sight
  
• FOV index +3: See More Sight, Speculator Sight, Holographic Sight, Compact Holosight, Professional, Combat Sight, Pistol Red Dot Sight, Nagant iron sight
  
• FOV index +4: Solar Sight, Trigonom Sight, Military Red Dot, Milspec Scope, Reconnaissance Sight
  
• FOV index +5: Acough Optic Scope, JP36 Original Sight
  
• FOV index +6: Default sniper scope
  
• FOV index +7: Broomstick Barrel Sight
  
• FOV index +10: Theia, Box Buddy Sight, A5 Scope

Some index shifts (e.g. Theia) exceed the FOV table; this results in an FOV of 20° as the game clamps the index. Rifleman aced adds +2 to the index. Thus the AMR-16 with a Solar sight and Rifleman aced has the same zoom as the Theia scope.

The grenade launcher has an FOV of 55 with the standard sight and 63 with the flip-up sight. Similarly, the angled sniper sights force the FOV to 63.

Theia and Box Buddy Sight automatically mark special enemies by aiming at them, similar to High Value Target aced; but the latter has a range of only 40 m whereas the sights have 200 m. Does not work through glass.

Merely attaching the bipod increases the FOX index by +1 as seen in the list above. When the bipod is actually deployed however, the FOV is forced to 50 (and then multiplied by the hip FOV slider).

The FOV value (including the slider) corresponds to the horizontal FOV of a 4:3 aspect ratio. The vertical FOV remains the same regardless of aspect ratio. As a result, for aspect ratios greater than 4:3, the horizontal FOV is greater than the FOV+slider value.

Apart from the FOV index shift, most sights only differ in how much of your screen they block, so there are in fact good and bad sights. For index +3 (the average weapon sight) I recommend the See More sight or the Speculator sight. For index +4, the Solar sight is arguably the best.

The tricky part with weapon zoom is that the game by default uses the same sensitivity even when you are zoomed in. If you had to move your mouse 5 cm to make a full 360° turn without the sight, then it takes the same 5 cm with the sight. If for example you saw a target on the right edge of your screen, you would need to move the mouse less when using the sights. Most other games normalize the sensitivity to a lower value with the sights, which is much more intuitive. There is an option in the game to normalize the value which I highly recommend.

The game implements breathing, which moves (translation, not rotation) your camera up and down, left and right, along an infinity symbol. This breathing is purely visual and does not affect any mechanics of the game, be it spotting guards or being detected or firing a gun, which all use the camera location of the player if there wasn't breathing (the location at the center of the infinity symbol).

This breathing is easily seen when not using the sights at all: If it wasn't there, the weapon would not move at all (as in fact, it does not). This creates a parallax error. Whenever you are at the center of the infinity symbol, bullets hit the center of your screen and your camera is lined up correctly with the sights. Otherwise, your camera is slightly off; bullets will still hit the exactly the same spot as before, but this spot will not be exactly at the center of your screen anymore. When looking through the sights, the game reduces the absolute camera movement due to breathing, when compared to looking from the hip. However, the magnitude is independent of zoom/FOV. Thus the stronger the zoom, the more pronounced the breathing becomes. The laser pointer is attached to the gun itself, so it is not affected by breathing and correctly shows where the bullets will land at all times. with a constant offset depending on the position of the laser pointer relative to the camera at the center of the infinity symbol (not the barrel! The projectiles are fired from your camera and the barrel of the gun has no actual purpose).

Breathing is most noticeable at short range. Recall that if you are at the center of the infinity symbol, the bullets always go towards the center of the screen regardless of range. Otherwise, the angle from the center of the screen to the bullet impact becomes greater the closer you are to your target. At reasonably long ranges, the deviation due to breathing has barely any effect; you don't see people in the distance shaking up and down very much due to your breathing. Now, the annoying part is, the one thing that is always very close to you and thus affected the most are your weapon sights. While it makes sense for iron sights to be affected by this (though due to their low zoom, the effect is negligible), the remaining weapon sights suffer from a rather poor implementation. The reticle you see appears to be a texture placed just a short distance behind the scope itself, with the distance from the camera to the reticle being maybe 50 cm. Basically, the distance of the reticle to your camera defines the distance where the parallax error is fully compensated (which is rather easy to illustrate; if your gun was aimed at an enemy and the reticle distance was just about the distance to the enemy, you would see the reticle being moved by breathing in the same manner as the enemy). In reality, even the simplest reflex sight would just send a collimated beam into your eye, which corresponds to a dot infinitely far away, while other sights may have parallax compensation at a fixed distance. The correct implementation would've been to move the reticle texture not 50 cm away, but 50 m (or maybe a bit less for non-sniper sights), and then force it to be rendered in front of anything else.

Sniper scopes (FOV index +6 and more without Rifleman aced) have special handling so that bullets land wherever the reticle is pointed at. In contrast, all other sights have a sweet spot (center of the infinity symbol) that does not change while the reticle keeps moving around.

Right after entering bleedout or being affected by melee, bullets do not go anywhere near the center of screen. If you have a laser, it will show you where your gun is actually aimed. The sights also correctly show you where your bullets land.

Suppression

The suppression value is defined as threat+2. The threat table is:
0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 31, 34, 37, 43

The maximum suppression is 45 at a threat of 43 and the minimum is 2 at a threat of 0.

Threat does not affect Domination, Stockholm Syndrome basic or shouting at civilians. High threat also does not give you higher priority as a target compared to your crew. Its sole purpose is to suppress enemies. When suppressed, enemies first lower their head a bit. They become less accurate and fire less often. When further suppressed, they abandon their objective to get to cover.

Suppression is built up by either damaging the enemy, which instantly suppresses the enemy for the maximum amount, or by shooting in the direction of the enemy. In the latter case, the suppression is at most increased by the suppression value of the weapon. The actual increase varies depending on the angle as described in the appendix, but the general rule is that the further away from the enemy you aim (while still staying below the maximum allowed angle which depends on the distance), the greater the suppression amount. Clear line of sight is not required to suppress. Enemies hiding behind furniture or cars are suppressed just as easily as those in plain sight. In fact, you may hide behind cover yourself when shooting. You can sit behind a desk and keep shooting against it and you will suppress enemies 20 meters away if they are within the allowed angle. Some walls however do block suppression (some, not all, completely solid walls with no windows at all).

In the following, "building up suppression" will solely refer to the action of hitting the enemy directly or firing in his direction. (Effects like an actual reaction of the enemy shall not be included in this definition. A fully suppressed enemy shall still be able to build up suppression.)

When an enemy builds up suppression for the first time, he gets a few variables:

• The current suppression, which is increased by the suppression amount every time he builds up suppression. More weapon threat equals faster buildup of this value.
  
• The duration until the suppression wears off completely and all suppression variables are deleted. It is randomly chosen in an interval depending on the enemy type.
  
  • Easy enemies: 10-15 seconds
    
  • Hard-defensive enemies: 5-10 seconds
    
  • Hard-aggressive enemies: 5-8 seconds
• The threshold that the current suppression must exceed to make the enemy lower his head. Randomly chosen like the duration.
  
  • Easy enemies: 0-20
    
  • Hard-defensive enemies: 0-20
    
  • Hard-aggressive enemies: 20-50
• The threshold that the current suppression must exceed to make the enemy abandon his objective.
  
  • Easy enemies: 30-50
    
  • Hard-defensive enemies: 50-60
    
  • Hard-aggressive enemies: 50-60

Easy enemies are: Guard, cop, sniper, gangster
Hard-defensive enemies are: FBI, FBI SWAT, City SWAT, Hector without armor
Hard-aggressive enemies are: SWAT, Heavy SWAT, FBI Heavy SWAT

GenSec and special enemies other than snipers cannot be suppressed.


The thresholds and duration remain the same until the duration runs out. Whenever the enemy builds up suppression, the duration will be reset. E.g. if an enemy builds up suppression every 4 seconds, his suppressed state will never vanish, as the duration is at least 5 seconds for any enemy type.

The current suppression value does not decrease with time. It can only be increased (by building up suppression) and once it reaches the maximum value (the abandon-threshold), it remains constant. The only way for it to disappear is by letting the duration expire.

After the duration runs out, the enemy has a 50% resistance to suppression for the next 30 seconds, i.e. his current suppression builds up at half the speed. Enemies hit directly will still be fully suppressed with a single hit.

The first threshold makes enemies lower their head slightly, occasionally blocking line of sight, which may be good or bad depending on your situation (snipers love to duck out of sight for the next 10-15 seconds just to pop up in the worst moment). They may also dive for cover. It has three other, not so visible effects:

• Delay between shots (if single-fire) or bursts (if auto-fire) of enemies is multiplied by 1.5.
  
• Aim delay of enemies when acquiring target is multiplied by 1.5. This aim delay is often really small though and may in fact be 0 for certain enemies.
  
• Enemy chance to hit is multiplied by 0.5. The original chance to hit never exceeds 1, so this truly cuts their chance to hit in half. Projectiles will still fly past you and reset your armor regeneration.

The second threshold makes enemies abandon their objective and then proceed to find cover, which can be anything as long as it blocks line of sight to you. Only rarely does an enemy take a position which allows him to shoot at you. Finding cover may take about 5 seconds or even longer. The enemies in cover will keep sitting there until the suppression wears off. They will fire if they have line of sight. If you run into a group of suppressed enemies in cover, they will seek cover elsewhere.

As an example of suppression, assume you want to make a Tan lower his head. Upon shooting in his direction, he gets a duration of 7.1 and a threshold (for lowering his head) of 38. Your weapon has 24 threat, which means 26 suppression. Let's say that your don't hit closely, but don't stray too far either, so the suppression amount is half of your suppression value, i.e. 13. It thus takes 3 shots to make the Tan lower his head. As long as you shoot at him every 7 seconds, he will remain in his suppressed state. As the maximum value for the abandon-threshold (and thus the maximum value for the current suppression) is 60, he will additionally abandon his objective on the first or second hit after the initial three.

Shotguns can suppress cool enemies during stealth. Such enemies do not become uncool.

The saw, and projectile weapons do not use the threat stat at all. Damaging an enemy causes full suppression as usual, but firing in the general direction has no effect.

Concealment and Alert Radius

These are explained in the stealth section. Alert radius is completely independent of the threat of a weapon. Adding a suppressor reduces both threat and alert radius, but an M308 with a suppressor may have 10 threat and an alert radius of 1 m, while a Gruber without suppressor may have 4 threat and the usual alert radius of 45 m. Hearing an alert turns people instantly uncool during stealth. When going loud, you have higher priority as a target if your alerts are heard.

Spread

The base spread (in degrees) is given by 2*(1-accuracy/100).

That is, the accuracy value is actually interpreted as a percentage. The accuracy table is 0, 4, 8, ..., 100, which corresponds to spread values of 2, 1.92, 1.84, ..., 0. Put another way, 0 accuracy is 2 spread, 100 accuracy is 0 spread, and everything in between is linearly interpolated.

It follows that a weapon with 50 accuracy has half the spread as a weapon with 0 accuracy. A weapon with 75 accuracy has half the spread as a weapon with 50 accuracy, and so on.

The accuracy value from above is not just the value shown in the inventory; it includes situational skills as well.

The game calculates the sum of the addends (+x accuracy bonuses), and the multiplier (2 - 1/skills) where skills = 1 + ...

• +0.2 if Marksman aced
  
• +0.4 if Far Away basic
  
• +0.2 if Fire Control aced
  
• +0.1, +0.19, +0.271 or 0.3439 if Desperado

The accuracy is then (accuracy + addends + 4)*multiplier -4, rounded up to the nearest valid accuracy value, i.e. multiple of 4 between 0 and 100. The 4 is due to the table indexing. An equivalent calculation is (accuracy index + addend indexes) * multiplier.

The most common values for that multiplier:

• 20% accuracy bonus: 7/6 = 1.167
  
• 34.39% accuracy bonus: 1.256
  
• 40% accuracy bonus: 9/7 = 1.286

The effect of these bonuses for each accuracy value (the 0% column shows the original accuracy):

The base spread is then multiplied by one of the following values (take the first thing that matches):

• Crossbow: *3.1
  
• Crouching while stationary, or using bipod: *2.2
  
• Else: *4

Finally, if using weapon sights: *0.8

E.g. you have a pistol with 60 accuracy before skills. If you have Marksman aced and the pistol is set to single-shot and you are using the sights, the accuracy becomes 64*7/6 -4 = 70.7, rounded to 72. Thus base spread = 0.56. The stance is most likely a *4 multiplier, and then there is a final *0.8 due to sights. => 0.56*4*0.8 = 1.792°


The actual trajectory is calculated from the spread value as follows: The spread is multiplied by π/180°. The game randomly draws three numbers from uniform distributions: The angle between 0° to 360°, and x and y from the interval [0, spread] each. x is then multiplied by the sin of that angle, and y by the cos. Both x and y are measured in m. The position of the ideal trajectory after traveling 1 m is then shifted by x and y, and that defines the new trajectory (which still originates from the player camera).

So the spread value in radians is actually never used as directly as an angle but instead is the maximum allowed deviation in m from the ideal trajectory, when looking a wall perpendicular to the ideal trajectory which is 1 m away from you. Only for small angles, we have a=sin(a) and the spread value is the maximum angle that the actual trajectory may deviate from the ideal trajectory. E.g. sin(1°) = π/180° = 0.017, which with a circle radius of 1 m means a deviation of up to 1.7 cm, as seen below.

Histogram of absolute frequency vs the distance (in cm) from the ideal trajectory from a wall that is 1 m away, using a weapon with 1° spread. 10^7 samples.


So if you try to use your weapon beyond its abilities (low accuracy SMG), your chance of hitting that sniper far away is really low. On the other hand, very inaccurate shots are also somewhat unlikely.

2D histogram of the same data, but with x and y treated separately. Relative frequency vs the x and y offset from the ideal trajectory.


So there is a cross structure that dominates where your bullets land.

Recoil

The base recoil (in degrees) is given by 0.5 + 2.5*(1-stability/100).

Like accuracy, the stability value is actually interpreted as a percentage. The stability table is 0, 4, 8, ..., 100, which corresponds to recoil values of 3, 2.9, 2.8, ..., 0.5. Put another way, 0 stability is 3 recoil, 100 stability is 0.5 recoil, and everything in between is linearly interpolated.

The base recoil acts as a multiplier for the actual recoil values of the weapons, which are not shown in the inventory. Those values determine the lower and upper bounds of the vertical and horizontal recoil; basically defining the recoil pattern of the gun. The values are as follows (the first two values specify the vertical bounds, the remaining two the horizontal bounds, positive numbers mean up or right respectively, whereas negative numbers mean down or left):

• CMP, Mark 10, Swedish K: -1.2 / 1.2, -1 / 1
  
• Jacket's Piece: -0.6 / 1.2, -1 / 1
  
• Thompson: 0.3 / 1.5, -1.2 / 1.2
  
• Micro Uzi: -0.1 / 0.6, -1.2 / 1.2
  
• Queen's Wrath: 0.8 / 1.1, -1.2 / 1.2
  
• Crossbows, Kross Vertex: -0.2 / 0.4, -1 / 1
  
• Remaining assault rifles and submachine guns: 0.6 / 0.8, -1 / 1
  
• Non-Akimbo Pistols: 1.2 / 1.8, -0.5 / 0.5
  
• Akimbo Chimano Compact: 1.4 / 1.2, -0.5 / 0.5
  
• Akimbo Deagle: 1 / 0.9, -0.3 / 0.4
  
• Akimbo Bernetti: 1.5 / 1.2, -0.3 / 0.3
  
• Remaining akimbo pistols: 1.6 / 1.3, -0.3 / 0.3
  
• Predator: 1.8 / 1.5, -0.5 / 0.8
  
• Peacemaker, Mosconi, Joceline and Judge: 2.9 / 3, -0.5 / 0.5
  
• Remaining shotguns when not using the sights: 1.9 / 2, -0.2 / 0.2
  
• Remaining shotguns when using the sights: 1.5 / 1.7, -0.2 / 0.2
  
• Brenner: -0.2 / 0.8, -0.8 / 1
  
• Remaining LMGs: -0.2 / 0.8, -1 / 1.4
  
• R93: 3 / 3.8, -0.1 / 0.1
  
• Thanatos: 3 / 3.8, -0.5 / 0.5
  
• Remaining sniper rifles: 3 / 4.8, -0.3 / 0.3
  
• Minigun: -0.1 / 0.2, -0.3 / 0.4

The Locomotive does not get the reduced recoil when using the sights. Recoil is removed entirely when using a bipod.

As an example for the final recoil pattern, take a pistol with 100 base stability. The base recoil becomes 0.5 and the actual recoil has the values 0.6 / 0.9, -0.25 / 0.25.

Weapon types and damage types

Damage bonuses are applied at two different points (which usually occur within the same frame, i.e. the same moment of ingame time):

• When attacking, certain bonuses may be granted only for certain weapon types.
  
• When an enemy receives the attack, certain bonuses may be granted only for certain damage types.

Weapon type bonuses are calculated upon firing the weapon. Damage type bonuses are calculated upon impact on the target.

Weapon types
Weapons can be classified into projectile weapons (e.g. grenades, grenade launcher, RPG, bow, crossbow), melee weapons and raycast weapons (anything else). Skills affecting accuracy or stability work as expected; damage works as follows.

Raycast weapons are affected by:

• Constant damage skills that are also shown in the inventory.
  
• Situational skills, e.g. Underdog basic, Overkill, Berserker, Trigger Happy.

Melee weapons are affected by Berserker, damage stack (Infiltrator deck), Bloodthirst and Pumping Iron.

Projectile weapons are not affected by any damage increasing skills at this point; except crossbows which are affected by the situational raycast skills.

Projectile weapons and the saw do not cause suppression except by damaging enemies directly.

Damage types
When a human enemy is attacked, the following effects apply. An attack has exactly one damage type. Fire damage is anything with a chance to deal fire damage over time, as well as fire damage over time itself. Poison dot is the damage over time induced by poisoned weapons, which themselves usually deal bullet or melee damage. Explosion damage is easy to identify by checking for enemy explosion reactions. Melee damage is any attack that is performed with the melee button. All other attacks, including arrows and thrown projectiles, deal bullet damage.
* Any fire damage including dots can cause critical hits. Some damage does not show the critical hit indicator though.

• Non-players (bots, minions, sentries) benefit from High Value Target and the headshot damage multiplier, though not the 1.25 perk deck multiplier.
  
• Damage types not affected by body armor effectively penetrate the armor regardless of skills.
  
• Only bullets deal extra damage when hitting the head, yet fire weapons may trigger Bullseye.
  
• The SWAT Turret has its own set of rules when receiving damage. There is a damage multiplier of 7 when using explosive damage and a multiplier of 100 when hitting the weak spot with bullets, but the perk deck multiplier does not apply. Critical hits can occur only for bullets and explosives, but not fire.

Shotguns

These guns fire 12 pellets at once with the spread applied to each pellet individually. Hitting an enemy with several shotgun pellets does the same damage as a hit with one pellet. If both the head and body were hit, it counts as a headshot and the body hit is ignored. Lower shotgun accuracy increases your chance of hitting several enemies at once (or hitting one enemy at all) at the cost of potentially missing headshots. Slugs and HE rounds always benefit from higher accuracy as they don't fire pellets anymore.

From a technical point of view, the game chooses one pellet out of all hitting pellets as the base of its damage calculations. Critical hits or armor penetration happens only after this pellet is chosen, so an armored enemy hit in the chest by 12 pellets is just as likely to be subject to critical hits or armor penetration as if he was hit by 1 pellet.

People killed by a shotgun will be sent flying backwards. The physics push has its maximum effect at ranges of 2.5 m and less, and then linearly decreases to 50% of its value at a range of 5 m. If you kill someone more than 5 m away, there is no push at all. The push does not depend on features of the weapon like damage. The push has applications in stealth. Shotguns with slugs or HE rounds lose this feature.

Shotgun damage drops off over distance. It is constant up to a minimum range, then linearly decreases to 0 at the maximum range. The projectiles continue to exist past the maximum range, the limit being 200 m (which applies to all guns, shotgun or not), but will usually not harm people anymore. All ammo types including default ammo can destroy glass and cameras at any range.

Projectiles hitting people or the SWAT turret past the maximum range disappear without causing any harm. They still cause impact alerts however. Firing a silenced slug round at the chest of a cool guard past the maximum range does not do anything. Firing at his head makes him hear the impact alert and turn uncool.

HE rounds obey the rules for explosives (explained later in this chapter) and thus always deal at least 10 damage at any range. However, such a round has to impact on the environment or shields to benefit from the 10-damage rule because it simply disappears upon impact on enemies past the maximum range.

The relevant distance for damage falloff is recalculated after every penetration. E.g. an enemy 100 m away does not take any damage by slug rounds. However, if he is covered by a shield or standing behind a thin wall, he will take full damage because his new calculated distance is just the distance between him and the obstacle.

If several Dragon's Breath rounds impact on a shield, the game calculates the mean trajectory out of all pellets that hit the shield and then finds the pellet that deviates the least from the mean. Only this pellet penetrates whereas the rest disappears.

The minimum range / maximum range (in m) for the default shotgun ammo is 20 / 50. Thus shotguns with default ammo deal 100% damage up to 20 m, 50% at 35 m, 0% at 50 m.

Custom ammo except 000 modifies the minimum range and the falloff range (the difference between maximum and minimum range). The minimum range becomes 40 m and the maximum ranges are as follows:

• Slug/Dragon Breath: 74.5 m
  
• Flechette: 91 m
  
• HE: 115 m

Critical hits

To get critical hits, you must get the corresponding skills. Critical hits are usually indicated by a different hit marker (unless hit markers are disabled entirely), except for certain fire damage. Against Bulldozers, the damage dealt is multiplied by 5. Against the SWAT turret, the damage is multiplied by 4. Otherwise, the damage dealt is multiplied by the headshot damage multiplier (perk deck bonus not included). Take for example an M308 with 160 damage against a armored common enemy on OD difficulty with 1440 hitpoints and a headshot multiplier of 3, and assume that the player has the 1.25 headshot bonus. A critical hit on the body, if the body armor was pierced or he was hit in the back, deals 160 * 3 = 480 damage. A critical hit on the head deals 160 * 3 * 3 * 1.25 = 1800 damage, easily killing the enemy with a single hit.

Critical hits are evaluated after the favorite pellet of a shotgun blast is selected (that is if several pellets hit the same enemy). If you have a 30% chance and hit 12 enemies with 12 pellets, the game evaluates a 30% chance for each of the enemies, so it is likely to get a few critical hits. If you hit one enemy with 12 pellets, you have a plain 30% critical hit chance.

Panic

To make enemies panic, you must get the corresponding skills or perks. Regardless of how a panic chance is induced, the base chance is multiplied by 0.7 against hard-defensive and hard-aggressive enemies. Enemies that cannot be suppressed never show panic. To emphasize this rather important point: Using a gun with the Muscle deck causes a 20% panic chance against guards, snipers, gangsters and cops. These enemy types are never part of assault, recon or reinforce groups, so the map has to be specifically scripted to spawn them. The remaining enemies have a 14% panic chance, provided they can be suppressed at all.

Panicking enemies become fully suppressed and additionally show an animation lasting 2.6, 3.2, 3.4 or 4.3 seconds similar to hurt animations. However, the animation is not shown if the enemy is already showing a dodge, hurt or panic animation. Thus in contrast to hurt animations, it is not possible to continuously stun an enemy with panic: There are always small gaps between each panic animation.

Bulldozer Armor

Bulldozers have armor on their back, chest, stomach, neck, throat and their visors. The outer visor has 150 hitpoints, the inner visor has 160 hitpoints and the remaining armor pieces have 80 hitpoints each, regardless of difficulty. A Bulldozer cannot take headshot damage before both visors are destroyed. The second visor can only take damage after the first visor is destroyed.

When Bulldozer armor is hit by a bullet, the Bulldozer himself takes ordinary body hit damage (curiously, the armor does not reduce the damage at all apart from the visors protecting against headshots). In addition, a separate function is called to decrease the armor health. The armor damage is not affected by damage type bonuses.

While the body hit damage is subject to the ordinary 512-granularity, armor damage is given by ceiling(damage * 16.384) / 16.384, which actually imposes much stricter requirements than the 512-granularity. Consider a gun with 47*1.05 = 49.35 damage against fired at the visors of a OD Bulldozer (18000 hitpoints). The damage to Bulldozer armor is 49.38 per hit, so each visor requires 4 hits. The Bulldozer himself takes 49.35*512 / 18000 = 1.4 granules of damage, rounded up to 2 granules, which means 70.3125 damage. After both visors are destroyed with 8 hits total, the Bulldozer can finally take headshot damage (having taken 8*70.3125 = 562.5 damage already).

One shotgun blast can only damage one piece of Bulldozer armor. More importantly, pellets hitting visors do not have higher priority because the visors themselves are not counted as part of the head. Assuming that out of 6 pellets hitting a Bulldozer at all, 2 hit the visor, 3 hit other pieces of armor and 1 hits the Bulldozer directly without any armor, there is a 33.3% chance that the visor takes damage, a 50% chance that some other piece takes damage and a 16.7% chance that the Bulldozer takes damage without any damage to armor pieces.

Weapon Penetration

The game has two different concepts of penetration, the penetration of body armor (advertised as enemy armor penetration) and a more general penetration of objects and enemies.

Penetration of body armor:
Usually, the front armor of armored enemies fully absorbs player damage so that not even a hit marker appears. With the right skills or equipment, the player has a chance to penetrate. If penetration succeeds, the front armor is ignored and the enemy takes the usual body hit damage.

By default, the player cannot penetrate armor. This chance can be increased as follows:

• Rogue perk deck: 25% chance
  
• Grinder perk deck: 30% chance
  
• Surefire aced, sniper rifle, 5/7 AP, slug, flechette or Dragon's Breath rounds: 100% chance

The armor penetration skills are not used anywhere else by the game. In particular, Bulldozers are not affected in any way. If an armored enemy is hit by several shotgun pellets, the game first chooses one pellet before calculating the penetration chance.

Throwables can never penetrate.

Penetration of objects and enemies:
In contrast to armor penetration, this type of penetration enables a single projectile to impact several times, dealing damage each time.

When a bullet impacts somewhere and the combination of weapon and target is capable of penetration, the game spawns a new projectile 0.0125 seconds later and removes the old one. The new projectile spawns 40 cm (5 cm against shields) behind the point of impact and, if sniper rifle, is then affected by spread once again (so while a sniper rifle fired from the hip may still hit an enemy close by, the additional spread makes it almost impossible to hit two enemies in a line). Penetrating shotgun rounds are not affected by additional spread. The new projectile has some data from the old one and in particular remembers what kind of obstacle it has passed through already.

In the following table, "penetration depth" is the distance that the new projectile spawns behind the point of impact. "Maximum number of penetrations" is the number that a projectile and its subsequent spawns can pass through an obstacle of this type. Once this number has reached, the projectile simply disappears upon impact on such an obstacle again. "Wall" refers to any static obstacle in the game, be it a wooden chair or a concrete wall.

Notes:

• If a projectile has passed through a wall, all subsequent spawns check that there is no obstacle from the spawn position to 5 cm in the opposite direction of the trajectory. If there is an obstacle, the projectile vanishes. It follows that the actual penetration depth for walls is actually 35 cm. It follows that projectiles that have passed through a wall cannot penetrate shields anymore.
  
• Any wall or obstacle can be penetrated by capable weapons, as long as it is thinner than 35 cm.
  
• Glass usually becomes damaged on the first hit, but the bullet still hits people or objects behind.
  
• A Thanatos hit on the outer Bulldozer visor breaks this visor, but does not affect the second visor and does not benefit from headshot damage either.
  
• The indestructible glass found on some cars counts as a wall, so while sniper rifles can penetrate a window causing a new projectile to spawn inside the car, the new projectile will hit another window or the frame on the way out and vanish.
  
• As a consequence of the projectile spawn delay, firing a loud weapon at a cool enemy behind an obstacle alerts him first before the new projectile hits him.
  
• Enemy weapons do not penetrate.
  
• AP sentry guns vs Shields use their own penetration concept without projectile respawns. There is no damage reduction.

Explosives

General mechanics of explosives:

• They do not benefit from headshots.
  
• Apart from granularity, High Value Target is the only damage type bonus that is always applied. Crits are always possible if the weapon is not grenade-based (grenade, grenade launcher, RPG). The host can get crits even with grenade-based weapons.
  
• Enemies can take damage in three places: The center of the head, center of the chest and a point at the bottom of their feet. The part that is closest to the explosion is used (to calculate damage falloff for example), the other parts are discarded. The point at the bottom of the feet is not always available as it may be below the ground and thus protected from explosions (I daresay it can be hit about 50% of the time). It doesn't really matter where the enemy is hit: The average distance from the explosion to the enemy is about 40 cm after a direct impact of a HE round whether hitting the head or chest (as it detonates before reaching the center of his head/chest). Distance to a Shield is about 70 cm when the round explodes on the shield. If the feet are available, the distance may be just 5 cm.
  
• Trip mines may damage Bulldozers several times. The explosion deals full damage to the Bulldozer for each piece of armor in the explosion radius plus its original damage (which hits either head, chest or feet). Due to that, Bulldozers take 7 times as much damage when their armor is still intact (the second visor can take damage only after the first one is broken). The armor pieces (except for the visors) have only 80 hitpoints however, after which they simply fall off. Thus Bulldozers take much less damage from trip mines after their armor is broken.
  
• Explosives damage destructible objects in the environment like planks and glass through any obstacle without any requirement whatsoever. Against people however, trip mines require line of sight from the center of the explosion to the person. The remaining explosives may also work if they do not have line of sight: They additionally send forth 6 splinters north/south/east/west/above/below the explosion with the distance of each splinter to the center being the explosion range (unless the splinter is blocked by obstacles in which case it will stop at the obstacle). If there is line of sight from a single splinter to one of the three points that a person can take damage from, the person will take damage. The splinters are not used for the explosion damage falloff however: Only the distance from the explosion center to the damaged point of the person is used.
  
• Explosives deal at least 10 damage to anyone in the explosion radius. Bulldozer armor itself however may take less damage (if the damage is less than 1.25, the armor takes no damage at all).
  
• Some enemies have a resistance or weakness to explosions, so the damage is multiplied by the following numbers:
  
  • Shield: 0.8
    
  • FBI Heavy SWAT: 0.9
    
  • Bulldozer: 1.1
    
  • Phalanx: 6
  This happens after the 10 damage rule, so Shields would take only 8 damage.
  
• Explosives are finally subject to the 512-granularity, so OD Shields take at least 8.4375 damage from explosives. The granularity does not apply to the pieces of Bulldozer armor.

Trip mines deal 1000 base damage in their explosion radius. There is no damage reduction with distance. The base explosion radius is 3 m. Bulldozers take variable damage depending on how much of their armor is intact. In the best case, they take damage 7 times due to their armor pieces.

The remaining explosives (explosive rounds, grenade launchers, RPG and hand grenades) do have damage falloff. The general formula for the falloff multiplier is

• (1-distance/explosionRadius)^exponent

with distance being the distance from the center of the explosion to the chest of the enemy (and in the case of Bulldozers, to each piece of armor as well), explosionRadius and exponent being defined by each type of explosive. The explosionRadius is the distance at which the explosive does no damage anymore. A greater exponent means quicker damage falloff within the radius (after all, an exponent of 0 means full damage up to the radius). The falloff multiplier is then multiplied by the damage of the explosive and explosion resistance to obtain the final damage. The relevant stats of the explosives are as follows:
In contrast to hand grenades, dynamite cannot be shot in mid-air by enemies.

In addition to the calculations above, if a shotgun HE round directly impacts on a Bulldozer visor (or any other piece of Bulldozer armor), the visor itself will take full weapon damage (but the Bulldozer himself does not take extra damage). As the visor still takes ordinary explosion damage, a single hit will deal twice the damage to the visor; though the explosion damage is lower than the full damage as the explosion is still a few cm from the point defining the position of the visor.

Fire

Apart from granularity, crits are the only damage type bonus.

Damage over time

• When an enemy takes damage by any fire weapon, the game evaluates the chance that the enemy additionally receives damage over time (dot).
  
• The chance is 100% for Dragon's Breath ammo, 75% for flamethrower and 35% for anything else. Enemies must be less than 30 m away from the attacker (player).
  
• If the chance evaluates successfully, the enemy will be doted and, if he is not immune and the last fire hurt animation (if any) has started more than 1 seconds ago, will show a fire hurt animation.
  
• The dot is dealt in discrete steps of damage every 0.5 seconds for some duration. The usual 512-granularity applies. There is a grace period of 1 s before the first damage is dealt. The values are:
  
  • Flamethrower: 1.6 s duration, 300 damage per tick.
    
  • Dragon's Breath: 3.1 s duration, 100 damage per tick.
    
  • Thrown incendiary grenade: 2.1 s duration, 250 damage per tick.
    
  • Else: 6 s duration, 150 damage per tick.
• The reason for 1.6 s and 3.1 s instead of 1.5 s and 3 s has to do with the frames per second. Dot damage is dealt in a frame if the previous dot damage was at least 0.5 s ago, and that frame usually occurs a few ms after the 0.5 s run out exactly. So choosing 3.1 s ensures that the final dot at 3.0 s is applied. Molotovs do not apply a dot at 6.0 s.
  An enemy that is doted by Dragon's Breath thus takes 500 damage (100 damage at 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 s after being doted). An enemy doted by the thrown incendiary grenade takes 750 damage. An enemy doted by a molotov takes 1500 damage.
  
• Doted enemies that are doted again recalculate the time until the dot wears off and apply a new grace period of 1 s.

Thrown incendiary grenade

• Does 30 damage on detonation in 5 m radius and then dots all affected enemies with 2.1 s duration and 250 damage per tick.

Molotov, launched incendiary grenades, trip mines

• These weapons behave the same except for the duration which is 15 s for the molotov, 6 s for the launched incendiary grenade (3 s for Arbiter) and 10 s or 20 s for trip mines.
  
• Upon impact, create 7 flames on the ground (1 in center and 6 around with a distance of 1.5 m from the center). The central flame has a damaging radius of 112.5 cm whereas the other flames have 75 cm. Every 0.5 s, the flames deal 10 damage to any enemy inside. The usual 512-granularity applies. Due to the particular flame setup, the central flame overlaps a bit with the ones around it. If the enemy happens to stand in the overlap, he will take damage twice. Any enemy that has taken flame damage additionally has a chance to take damage over time.
  
• The dot grace period and 35% dot create a rather interesting situation. Consider these alternative scenarios:
  
  • If the dot chance had been 0% instead, no dots would be possible. This greatly lowers the damage output.
    
  • If the dot chance had been 100%, enemies standing in the flames would repeatedly update their grace period, and take dot damage only after leaving the flames.
  Because the chance is 35%, enemies standing in flames are doted only occasionally. So the grace period may run out and they take dot damage inside the fire (until the next dot chance succeeds).

Dragon's Breath ammo

• Fire damage, so it makes no difference whether you hit the head or body.
  
• Body armor and shields are always penetrated.

Flamethrower

• The flamethrower is based on a shotgun firing 12 Dragon's Breath projectiles. There are some differences however:
  
  • Enemies standing behind one another (or behind shields) are all affected.
    
  • Does not activate the Overkill skill and does not benefit from Overkill basic (it is not a shotgun after all).
    
  • Maximum range to damage/suppress enemies is 10 m.

Poison

Enemies affected by poisoned weapons are affected by damage over time similar to fire damage. In contrast to fire dot which relies on luck, poison dot is always applied (even when hitting body armor which may absorb the attack itself but does not prevent the dot).

The dot is dealt in discrete steps of 250 damage every 0.5 seconds for 6 seconds (1 s if melee). The usual 512-granularity applies. The first damage is dealt after 0.5 s. The final damage is dealt after 5.5 s (0.5 s for melee) due to the issues explained in the fire dot section. Enemies that are doted once thus take 2750 poison damage (250 if melee).

Doted enemies that are doted again will update their dot info if this increases the time until the dot runs out. They recalculate the time until the dot wears off and apply a grace period of 0.25 s. They do not reset the interval duration of 0.5 s. The grace period is only ever used when repeatedly doting an enemy. After all, if an enemy is doted just once, the damage interval of 0.5 s is the lower bound for the first dot damage.

To illustrate the grace period, consider 5 poisoned melee attacks occuring in 0.4 s intervals. I have chosen 0.4 s despite the repeat expire time of 0.3 s for the Kunai because it matches my personal attack rate, which I have measured; even with macros the time between individual attacks was about 0.35 s, and manually starting a new attack at exactly the right time is virtually impossible.

Time: Damage type

• 0.0: Melee (next dot possible at 0.5 s limited by dot interval)
  
• 0.4: Melee (next dot possible at 0.65 s limited by grace period)
  
• 0.65: Dot
  
• 0.8: Melee (next dot possible at 1.15 limited by dot interval)
  
• 1.15: Dot
  
• 1.2: Melee (next dot possible at 1.65 limited by dot interval)
  
• 1.6: Melee (next dot possible at 1.85 limited by grace period)
  
• 1.85: Dot
  
• 2.35: Dot

Most enemies have chance to show a poison hurt animation. The chance is 100% for shuriken, 70% for poisoned melee, 50% else. This chance is evaluated when the enemy is damaged by a poisoned weapon, but the hurt animation only starts when the enemy takes the first poison damage. Once an enemy shows the poison animation, he will be stuck in this state until the poison wears off. Damaging an enemy with a poisoned weapon while he is affected by poison dot evaluates the animation chance again and applies the animation if successful. If the chance fails however but he was previously showing the animation already, this animation is not aborted; the system always works in your favor.

Ammo

Ammo is usually replenished either by using an ammo bag or picking up enemy ammo drops. Getting out of custody or joining a game also gives full ammo.

Ammo drops are picked up if at least one weapon is not at maximum ammo and supports ammo pickups. The ammo drops will then independently replenish ammo for both guns, so you get more out of an ammo drop if both your primary and your secondary gun are below their maximum ammo level.

There cannot be more than 20 ammo drops on the map. Causing another ammo drop to spawn makes the oldest one disappear. In a simplified scenario with 4 players who are fighting equally well, every player has an effective buffer of just 5 kills before he must pick up ammo drops, or else some ammo is lost.

Ammo pickup + equip times spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15sW5ujghwxsph0xo89vTZbnS_aD7DbKU3CmAFtRBuUI This assumes a full perk deck. FL means Fully Loaded aced. The time to switch weapons is the unequip time of the current weapon plus the equip time of the new weapon. Gambler works as stated in the section on perk decks.

The rest of the ammo drop section explains the mechanics used to obtain the values in the spreadsheet. It can be ignored unless you want to make your own calculations. The values are outdated, so take care (apart from the exceptions mentioned below, each weapon is assigned to one of three ammo pickup ranges; but only one range is 1% to 3.5%).


By default, the game picks a floating point number between 1% and 3.5% of your maximum default ammo capacity for each gun, ignoring ammo capacity modifiers due to skills and weapon mods (e.g. Fully Loaded basic, Akimbo skill extra ammo, custom ammo types, assault and DMR kits), and then rounds it to the nearest integer, which becomes the number of rounds picked up.

Some sniper rifles deviate from this rule and yield less ammunition. The Thanatos in particular gives back ammo in a range between 0.05 and 0.65, which means that you have a 25% chance to get 1 bullet and get no bullets at all otherwise.

The ammo pickup bonuses multiply the values of the pickup range, i.e. Fully Loaded aced multiplies the values of the range by 1.75, whereas the perk deck bonus multiplies it by 1.35 (apart from the different magnitude, these two have the same effect, so the same concepts apply). E.g. the Thanatos with the 35% bonus has a new range of 0.05*1.35 to 0.65*1.35, which means a 47% chance to yield 1 bullet. With the 75% bonus, the chance becomes 61%.

Ammo pickup ranges of weapons which do not use the default 1%-3.5% of max ammo range:

• Saw, RPG, bows, crossbows do not gain any ammo. Ammo drops are not picked up when carrying these weapons (unless your other weapon can pick up ammo).
  
• Some weapons pretend that their maximum ammo count for the calculation of the 1%-3.5% range is different than their actual maximum ammo count.
  
  • Flamethrower: 90
    
  • Minigun: 90
• Other weapons just define fixed values for the amount of ammo picked up:
  
  • The Rattlesnake yields exactly 1 round (as both minimum and maximum). With Fully Loaded aced, it always yields 1.75 rounds, rounded to 2.
    
  • The Thanatos and the grenade launchers yield between 0.05 and 0.65 rounds.
    
  • Nagant, Platypus and R93 yield between 0.7 and 1 rounds. With Fully Loaded aced, they have a 48% chance to yield 2 rounds instead of 1. Without the skill, they gain the same amount of ammo from enemy drops as the Rattlesnake.

Certain shotgun ammo and DMR kits do not benefit from ammo pickup bonuses. They also define their own multipliers for the minimum and maximum amount of ammo picked up. In contrast to ammo pickup bonuses which offer a multiplier greater than 1 for both minimum and maximum amount, these multipliers do not exceed 1.

• DMR kit: 0.5 multiplier, except for AMR-16 which has 0.8.

Keep in mind that only the default ammo capacity is used to determine the ammo pickup. While a primary shotgun with custom ammo may lose some of its ammo capacity, the ammo pickup ignores this.

Recoil Buildup and Recovery

The recoil amount specified by the weapon is the angle in degrees to rotate the player camera. This rotation is not instantaneous, but happens at a rate of 40 degrees per second, evaluated independently for vertical and horizontal recoil. Take a hypothetical weapon with 40 recoil upwards and 40 recoil to the right per shot, fired once. It takes 1 second until the player camera is rotated by the full amount specified by the weapon.

Recoil (vertical or horizontal) starts to decrease if both of these two conditions are satisfied:

• The camera has reached the full amount of recoil for the respective axis.
  
• There may be a delay before the recoil decreases.

The delay depends on the weapon and, curiously, horizontal recoil only. Once the horizontal recoil reaches its full amount, the delay timer starts. When the timer reaches 0, the recoil may settle.

• If the weapon without any mods is set to semi-auto by default: No delay. Recoil starts to settle immediately after horizontal recoil reaches maximum (if the weapon is set to full-auto, the left mouse button is additionally required to be released).
  
• If the weapon without any mods is full-auto by default and currently set to semi-auto: Delay is 2*(rate of fire)^-1. (Recoil starts to settle only after this delay after horizontal recoil reaches maximum.)
  
• The weapon without any mods is full-auto by default and currently set to full-auto: Delay is 1*(rate of fire)^-1. This delay is counted down only when both the horizontal recoil reaches its maximum and the left mouse button is released.

Thus vertical recoil requires that both horizontal and vertical recoil have reached their full amount before it can decrease due to the way the delay is set up. Another consequence is that full-auto weapons do not decrease recoil during long bursts, which makes it easier to keep the sights on the target. Weapons that are set to semi-auto by default like the M308 however do decrease the recoil during the burst, resulting in different gun behavior. The increased delay before recoil settles for weapons switched to semi-auto may have its advantages as you may quickly follow up with additional shots without worrying about settling recoil. On the other hand, weapons that are semi-auto by default have rapid recoil recovery so you can usually stop worrying about recoil at altogether.

Recoil decrease depends on the time delta dt between current and last frame. Every frame, the vertical recoil amount is multiplied by (1 - 9 dt) and the horizontal recoil amount is multiplied by (1 - 5 dt). I suppose if one were to play the game with 5 frames per second, recoil would completely vanish from one frame to the next. At 60 frames per second, this exponential decay can be stated as follows:

• verticalAmount = verticalAmount_0 * exp(-9.75 t)
  
• horizontalAmount = horizontalAmount_0 * exp(-5.22 t)

with the time t given in seconds and the _0 suffix specifying the full recoil amount when the recoil starts settling.

Take the Locomotive and consider the recoil between shots. The rate of fire is 160 shots per minute, meaning 0.375 seconds between shots. The horizontal recoil is not particularly interesting as it is insignificant. With 4 stability, the maximum vertical recoil amount after one shot is 2 * 2.9 = 5.8 (2 due to the inherent recoil multiplier of the weapon, 2.9 due to 4 stability). It takes 5.8/40 = 0.145 seconds until the player camera shows the full vertical recoil and the recoil can settle. The vertical recoil settles to exp(-9.75 * (0.375-0.145)) = 10.6% of its original value before the Locomotive can be fired again, which is 0.62 degrees.

General mechanics of melee weapons:

• Hitting the head always does the same amount of damage as hitting the body.
  
• Hitting body armor deals full damage.
  
• The usual 512-granularity applies.
  
• Bulldozer armor pieces do not take damage.

Weapon butt and the Mosin bayonet instantly deal damage upon pressing the melee button. They can attack every 0.6 seconds.

The remaining melee weapons have hidden stats:

• Expire time: The time between releasing the melee button and the moment that your gun can be fired again.
  
• Repeat expire time: The time between releasing the melee button and the moment that you can start a new melee attack.
  
• Damage delay: The time between releasing the melee button and the moment that an enemy takes damage. The weapon does not charge up anymore during this delay.
  
• Draw time: After pressing the melee button, this time is basically spent to switch to the melee weapon. It does not count towards the charge time. Releasing the melee button before this time runs out makes the game pretend that you kept the button pressed until the time runs out and then performs a completely uncharged attack. If you press the melee button (after the repeat expire time has run out) while showing a melee animation, the draw time is not applied.
  
• Animation duration: Is relevant only for draw time. As a result of the previous stat, if animation duration < repeat expire time, the draw time is applied on every attack, because no matter how fast you click, the animation runs out before you can strike again. Larger values are better.

The general formula for melee damage per second (DPS) is

• (minDamage + (maxDamage-minDamage) * chargeTime/maxChargeTime) / (repeatExpireTime + chargeTime + drawTime)

with minDamage being the damage of a completely uncharged attack, maxDamage being the damage of a fully charged attack, chargeTime being the duration that the player decides to charge up each melee attack, maxChargeTime being the time after which the weapon is fully charged (referred to as "charge time" in the table below). drawTime is applied only if the animation duration < repeatExpireTime, else it is 0.

If you consider this formula as a function of chargeTime, it follows that it is monotonic and thus reaches its maximum value either for fully charged or fully uncharged attacks depending on the weapon.

Notable weapons:

• The weapon butt and bayonet are the only weapons with instant damage and, assuming a single melee attack, have the shortest delay until the guns can be fired again.
  
• Buzzer and Electrical Brass Knuckles are useful for domination and against Cloakers. The Buzzer has a shorter delay until dealing damage, but the knuckles have faster repeat attacks.
  
• The Katana and Ice Pick are heavy hitters. The Katana has the greatest range and fast repeat attacks. The Ice Pick has slightly less range, but a shorter draw time and very quick expire time.
  
  • If you face a single weak enemy with the Katana, it takes 0.25 s to kill him (draw time + damage delay) and you cannot use your guns for 1.15 s (draw time + expire time). With the Ice Pick, it takes 0.2 s to kill him and you cannot use your guns for 0.7 s.
    
  • For double attacks, the Katana takes 0.75 s to damage twice (draw + repeat expire + damage delay) and you cannot use your guns for 1.65 s (draw + repeat expire + expire). The Ice Pick takes 0.9 s to damage twice (draw + repeat expire + draw + damage delay) and you cannot use your guns for 1.4 s (draw + repeat expire + draw + expire).
    
  • So the Katana is good for melee killing sprees, whereas the Ice Pick is better for 1-2 attacks (and on par for 3 attacks, 2.15 s vs 2.1 s of being unable to use guns) before using your guns again.

Melee weapon stats table. I have divided knockdown by 0.9 to obtain the maximum enemy health that is guaranteed to cause a heavy hurt animation (refer to the Hurt Animations section). Knockdown is not given because it has no purpose in the game (enemies surrender easily when they have taken any amount of damage, which incapacitates them for longer than hurt animations). If a weapon has several animation durations, I specify them all; they are equally likely to occur. The game sometimes defines repeat expire times that are greater than expire times; such weapons behave as though the repeat expire time was equal to the expire time, so I clamp the value. For the DPS values, I checked both uncharged and charged attacks and picked the one that resulted in a greater value. The DPS in the table is achieved by uncharged attacks unless specified otherwise (indicated by "(charged)"). If a weapon has different animation durations, I average the DPS over all of them.

If you have the same mod twice in your inventory (but not attached to a weapon), it will not be dropped from cards anymore.

Arms cannot be hit. Legs can be hit.

You gain more accuracy if you crouch and stay still, compared to using the weapon sights. Of course, you get the most accuracy by doing both simultaneously.

There are two different strategies regarding the choice of the secondary weapon. You can bring a secondary with high damage per second and then stick mostly to a primary with high ammo efficiency, turning the secondary into a backup weapon to get you out of difficult situations and deal with specials quickly. Alternatively, you can also bring an ammo efficient secondary to complement the primary, then switch between the two weapons to make the most out of ammo drops.

Grenade explosions are notorious for damaging things through walls though, so beware. Throwing a grenade into the kitchen on day 1 of Rats might destroy the planks in the back room on the upper floor. Throwing a grenade around the area of the main entrance on day 2 of Big Oil might destroy the computer in the basement showing the pressure.

Tactical reloads, i.e. reloading a weapon that is not completely empty, usually decrease the reload time by a formidable amount. Consider large magazines, where the difference between having fired 59 bullets and having fired 60 bullets is quite small. Such magazines usually still offer a reload time reduction of a full second when tactically reloading compared to empty reloads, increasing your effective rate of fire over a long time span.
The average time between each bullet taking reloads into account is given by

• Empty reload: ((N - 1)/rateOfFire + emptyReloadTime)/N
  
• Tactical reload with 1 bullet left: ((N - 2)/rateOfFire + tacticalReloadTime)/(N-1)

with N being the maximum number of bullets in the magazine. Even sniper rifles benefit from tactical reloads. The Thanatos (3.96 s for tactical reload, else 5.23 s) has an average time of 2.115 seconds between shots when employing tactical reloads, otherwise 2.246 seconds (without Kilmer; the results remain the same qualitatively even with Kilmer). In practice, after firing all Thanatos rounds with each way of reloading, I haven't been able to see any significant difference in speed between the two, so the difference is probably smaller than the one given above (due to things like discrete time steps I suppose). This being said, having one spare round while reloading is useful if you are surprised by an enemy. Just start sprinting or use the default melee to abort your reload and shoot him.


Example calculations:

Using the suppressor on the Thanatos reduces the damage from 2900 to 2820. If the player had the 5% perk deck bonus and Silent Killer aced, the unsuppressed damage would be 2900*1.05 = 3045 whereas the suppressed damage would be 2400*(1+ 0.3 + 0.05) = 3807. The suppressed weapon has an advantage in terms of damage (and its alerts are not heard). Only the Bulldozer can survive a hit of either setup however, so the question is whether the improved damage reduces the number of hits required.

Number of hits required to kill against OD Bulldozers (always assuming the 5% perk deck bonus), for a few different setups:

• Unsilenced : 3045 damage. 6 hits to kill.
  
• Unsilenced + High Value Target aced: 3045 * 1.15 * 1.5 = 5253 damage. 4 hits to kill.
  
• Unsilenced + 80% Berserker: 3045 * 1.8 = 5481 damage. 4 hits to kill.
  
• Unsilenced + 80% Berserker + High Value Target aced: 3045 * 1.8 * 1.15 * 1.5 = 9455 damage. 2 hits to kill.
  
• Silenced + Silent Killer aced: 2820 * (1+0.05+0.3) = 3807 damage. 5 hits.
  
• Silenced + Silent Killer aced + High Value Target aced: 2820 * (1+0.05+0.3) * 1.15 * 1.5 = 6567 damage. 3 hits.
  
• Silenced + Silent Killer aced + 80% Berserker: 2820 * (1+0.05+0.3) * 1.8 = 6853 damage. 3 hits.
  
• Silenced + Silent Killer aced + 80% Berserker + High Value Target aced: 2820 * (1+0.05+0.3) * 1.8 * 1.15 * 1.5 = 11820 damage. 2 hits.

Silent Killer helps when you bring High Value Target aced but no Berserker, though Underdog basic would offer the same bonus.

This example uses outdated values for damage, health and falloff, but the method remains correct.

The Mosconi with HE rounds has a base damage of 158. Together with the 5% perk deck bonus and 15% shotgun damage bonus, the damage becomes 189.6. Add 80% Berserker aced for 189.6*1.8 = 341.28 damage. The projectile hits the shield of a Deathwish Shield far away. There are two things to consider.

• Shotgun damage falloff: Even HE shotguns deal less damage depending on the distance from the projectile to the point of impact.
  
• Explosion damage falloff: Enemies take less damage if they are not at the center of the explosion.

Let's calculate the maximum distance to the shield that offers a kill with a single hit.

• Shotgun damage falloff goes from 20 to 70.
  
• The distance from the impact at the shield to the center of mass is usually about 70 cm, so the damage is multiplied by (1-70/200)^0.5 = 0.806.
  
• The Shield has an explosion damage multiplier of 0.8.
  
• The shield itself does not decrease the damage any further because the explosion simply goes around it.
  
• The Shield has 160 hitpoints.
  
• Due to granularity, dealing just slightly more than 511/512 damage is sufficient to kill.

The shotgun falloff multiplier should stay greater than 160/(341.28*0.806*512/511*0.8) = 0.73 to ensure a kill with a single hit. The Mosconi in this scenario can kill up to a distance of 20 + (1-0.73) * (70 m - 20 m) = 33.5 m, which exceeds the effective range of the weapon as it has only 52 base accuracy.

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=796195988

Armor

The armor value shown in the inventory actually checks out even with skill modifiers included. For reference, a player without any health boosts has 230 hitpoints, whereas a player with the Muscle perk deck has 414. Likewise, with the Anarchist perk deck, Partner in Crime aced and a converted enemy, ICTV and a Crew Chief teammate as well as 10 or more hostages, the maximum armor value is (170 + 230*1.2*(0.5+0.1+0.3+0.02*10)) * (1+0.05+0.3) = 639. But the inventory will never tell you because some bonuses are situational. Damage from enemy bullets depends on the distance to the player and the difficulty. Here are some examples to get an idea of the damage:

• The most common enemy on OD deals 225 damage per shot.
  
• DW+ gangsters deal 67.5 damage.
  
• The JP36 used by some GenSec Elites does 90/60/45/37.5/30 damage at a range less than 1/5/10/20/else meters.
  
• The Bulldozer Reinfeld on OD does 630/560/490/70/28 damage at a range less than 1/5/10/20/else meters.
  
• DW+ snipers deal 240 damage at any range. They deal variable (less) damage on lower difficulties.
  
• The knife attack preferred by most law enforcers deals 150 damage (regardless of difficulty).

The remaining damage of the bullet causing the armor level to drop to 0 does not carry over onto health damage. A player with 20 armor hit by a Bulldozer for 400 damage does not take any health damage. Snipers are the only exception, so the same player would take 220 health damage if hit by a sniper round instead.

Taking damage has a cooldown or grace period of 0.45 seconds (0.35 on MH+). Upon being hit and taking damage, the game remembers the damage and subsequent attacks during this cooldown are completely ignored if they do not exceed the previous damage. Thus when facing a homogeneous group of enemies with identical weapons, most of their hits will be ignored entirely. If an attack does more damage than that however, it will strike with full force: When hit for 90 damage first and then 60 damage 0.1 seconds later, the total damage received is 90. In the reverse order, the damage is 150. If your aced Underdog is just about to run out, you may be damaged twice by the same enemy who would have damaged you just once otherwise. When fighting a group that uses many different weapons, you may have bad luck and lose your entire armor and half your health in no time at all.

Successful dodges also start the damage cooldown, using the damage of the attack as the value to compare. The remarkable part is that the dodge is calculated even while the cooldown may still be in effect, so all dodges within the cooldown time window are considered. Against a homogeneous group of enemies with identical weapons, there's a point where more gunfire actually benefits you. When receiving a gunshot every 0.05 seconds, you have 9 opportunities (7 on MH+) to dodge within the cooldown. If any dodge succeeds, the cooldown starts anew, giving you another 9 chances. However, dodges are only calculated if the enemies would have hit otherwise (missing shots or attacks during the cooldown do not count).

Technically, if the projectile was not dodged, the game remembers not the damage of the projectile itself, but the damage that the player has received, calculated by taking the difference of his armor and health before and after being hit. In particular, the attack breaking the armor of the player usually deals less damage than it could (as it does not harm the player's health unless it was a sniper round) and only this reduced damage is remembered. Subsequent attacks that exceed this reduced damage (from the same enemy for example) can damage the player's health without cooldown. An Enforcer with 221 armor but no damage reduction skills attacked by a black Bulldozer on Deathwish difficulty at a range less than 5 m (damage at least 225) will lose his entire armor on the first hit and then become protected against attacks dealing 221 damage or less. The next Bulldozer attack 0.14 seconds later will deal full damage to the player health.

Armor Regeneration

The various armor regeneration skills all do the same thing: They all reduce the time until the armor regenerates. The default regeneration time is 3 seconds (1.75 in offline mode), which is multiplied by each skill. A user with Resilience basic and Shock and Awe basic thus has a regeneration time of 0.85 * 0.75 * 3 s = 1.9125 s. The Yakuza deck offers a multiplier of 0.4 at 0 health, so together with the 0.9 multiplier from the Armorer deck, the minimum regeneration time is 0.6885 s. Armor regeneration itself is instantaneous despite the armor bar seemingly filling up. This can be checked in the game: If you take damage while the armor bar is filling up, your new armor level will suddenly jump to the correct level. E.g. you had no armor left, the animation of the armor regeneration starts playing, but you were hit after it had regenerated just some of your armor. Your new armor level will then instantly show the correct level, i.e. 100% armor minus the damage you have just taken.

When enemies shoot in your general direction or melee you (whether they miss or hit or you dodge), the armor regeneration delay is not only reset, but also blocked from running down for 1 second. In effect, when shot at or meleed, the regeneration takes 1 second longer than the times stated above (provided you take cover instantly). Only when taking damage by other means (falling, grenades) does the armor regeneration use the proper delay. For the regeneration to be blocked, you are required to be the current target of the enemy (i.e. standing next to a teammate who is shot at will not count against you) and the projectile should be less than 60 cm from your head at one point. This includes gunshot impacts on the cover you are hiding behind. There's an exception when projectiles fly past you and hit something, somewhere: In that case there is no distance requirement (so enemies may shoot wherever they want and still block your regeneration). Thus standing on a hill helps slightly against blocked armor regeneration. The enemies are fairly good shots though, so the effect is negligible.

Assuming that Resilient basic, Shock and Awe basic and the Armorer deck crew bonus are given, the total regeneration time is 1 s + 0.85 * 0.75 * 0.9 * 3 s = 2.7 s. The person with the Armorer deck himself has a total regeneration time of 1 s + 0.85 * 0.75 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 3 s = 2.5 s instead.

Speed

The inventory value is the speed in dm/s while walking (considering universal bonuses, i.e. perk deck and Parkour basic). This value is actually the product of the default walking speed (which is 35) and a speed multiplier depending on the armor.

The deck bonus multiplies the impact of armor on this speed multiplier by 0.75, and the bot bonus by 0.5. If the original speed multiplier is >=1, the bonuses do nothing at all.

Speed multipliers (from suit to ICTV):

• Original values: 1.05, 1.025, 1, 0.95, 0.75, 0.65, 0.575
  
• Perk deck: 1.05, 1.025, 1, 0.9625, 0.8125, 0.7375, 0.68125
  
• Perk deck and bot bonus: 1.05, 1.025, 1, 0.98125, 0.90625, 0.86875, 0.840625

The value shown in the inventory is this multiplier times 35. When sprinting or moving from a crouched position or when using the sights, the multiplier remains the same but a different speed is used as the base.

In contrast to Parkour basic and the deck bonus, which apply at all times, the other movement bonuses are not shown in the inventory. Even though the inventory value is based on the walking speed, it does not consider the +0.25 bonus to walking speed that is granted as a baseline skill.

Either way, all speed bonuses are directly added to the speed multipliers, so heavy armor users benefit a lot. A person with ICTV and has a walking speed multiplier of 0.6125+0.25 = 0.93125, and thus a walking speed of 0.93125*35 = 32.6 dm/s.

With Duck and Cover basic, the sprinting speed multiplier also becomes 0.93125, which is a 37% speed improvement over someone without the skill. With Parkour basic added too, the multiplier reaches 1.03125, which is comparable to the suit without movement skills. With the bot bonus, the multiplier is 1.190625 which is fairly competitive with the ballistic vest at 1.35.

Base movement speeds:

• Walking: 35 dm/s (used as the base by the inventory)
  
• Sprinting: 57.5 dm/s
  
• Crouching: 22.5 dm/s
  
• Weapon sight: 18.5 dm/s
  
• Climbing: 20 dm/s

Stamina

The maximum stamina of the player. By default, players use 2 points of stamina per second and have a regeneration rate of 3 per second. Divide the stamina value in the inventory by 2 to get the number of seconds that you can sprint.

When a player stops sprinting (by starting to jump or crouching or walk), he is still counted as sprinting for 0.4 seconds: He still gains the dodge bonus and still loses stamina during this interval and cannot shoot; however, he can aim, reload and melee (and even start sprinting again, so the sprint is never truly stopped). After a jump, it takes about 0.7 to 0.9 seconds before one can jump again, so the Sprinter dodge bonus is active about half of the time. During the 0.4 seconds interval, one can even perform sprint jumps in any direction. Sprint forwards and stop the sprint, then walk in the desired direction and jump within 0.4 seconds. Another advantage of jumping is that you may start reloading early and shoot enemies while in mid-air. I daresay that I start most of my reloads with a sprint jump.

Sprint jumps drain 2 points of stamina when the player has been sprinting for at least 0.4 seconds, otherwise there is no stamina loss. The stamina sprint jump penalty can thus be avoided by jumping right after starting to sprint. This applies every time after landing from a jump, so by jumping repeatedly while never touching the ground for more than 0.4 seconds, the sprint jump penalty can be avoided altogether. In fact, while the player is still counted as sprinting for the first 0.4 seconds after jumping and loses stamina at the ordinary rate, he does not lose any stamina at all during the second phase of the jump. Due to this, the total stamina usage when repeatedly sprint jumping is lower than when only sprinting. Finally, jumping does not slow down the player, making sprint jumps the superior choice in many situations. Conveniently, one can just keep the sprint button pressed during all these jumps (as jumping itself stops sprinting and sprinting can only start again after landing).

Jumping while walking appears to slightly increases the overall speed, as the game assigns a jumping velocity of 1.2 times the walking speed for some reason; the actual benefit is smaller than 20% however.

Dodge

The dodge value is the chance in percent to take no damage at all when hit. Armor regeneration is reset however. The skill bonuses are additive, so the basic 5% chance of a suit becomes 5%+45% = 50% with the Rogue perk deck, which can be further increased by 10% with Sneaky Bastard and 5% with the bot bonus. While sprinting with Duck and Cover aced, another 10% are added for a 75% chance to take no damage at all. Melee attacks are dodged just like bullets, however the player is always pushed back despite not taking damage.

There are some advantages to having a build focused on a high dodge value:

• Many enemy attacks deal that much damage that a stronger armor with a lower dodge value could withstand just as many hits. A plain ICTV without perk decks and damage resistance breaks from a single hit from a black Bulldozer at a range of less than 5 meters, just like the suit. A dodge build has a massive advantage when fighting Bulldozers due to the chance to not take any damage at all and become immune to virtually all attacks for a moment.
  
• The evaluation of damage cooldown makes it favors suit users in very intense situations.

There are some downsides to a dodge build:

• Extremely vulnerable to snipers.
  
• The chance to dodge depends on your stance. To benefit the most, you need to sprint, whereas armor builds always perform the same. If you need to carry bags, you won't be sprinting all the time unless they are light bags. Medium bags can be thrown to benefit from sprinting, but leave you slightly exposed when picking them up. Heavy and very heavy bags cannot benefit from sprinting. This being said, the suit somewhat makes up for that by moving faster and the damage cooldown favors suit users.
  
• After being downed once, you may have just 10% health on MH+ and get downed time after time if you don't have cover.
  
• Luck based. You may get damaged or downed despite taking cover as soon as possible.

All things considered, dodge builds are a bit more forgiving in regards to single mistakes, but over time they require health deployables at a much faster rate.

Steadiness

This defines the screen shake upon taking damage when being hit. The formula for the magnitude of the shake is given by 11/steadiness, so 11 steadiness (the suit) corresponds to 100% shake whereas 22 steadiness (ICTV) corresponds to 50% shake. There is also shake when enemy bullets missed you (while you were the target) or when you dodged bullets; but these shakes are not affected by steadiness. Therefore this stat is pointless.

Alerts are noise and instantly turn people in hearing range uncool. In the context of this game, alerts mean that neither the orientation of the head nor obstacles make any difference and that the person becomes uncool instantly without becoming suspicious first.

Cool human observers become alerted by the following:

• Glass breaking (range: 12 m)
  
• ECM feedback (range: 100 m)
  
• Gunshots (range: 25 m when enemies shoot, usually 45 m with player weapons)
  
• Gunshot impacts (range: 1/4 of the gunshot noise)
  
• Grenade/Flashbang/HE round explosions (range: 100 m)
  
• Trip mine explosions (range: 50 m)
  
• Trip mine fire (range: 150 m, happens every 0.5 s while burning).
  
• Molotov or incendiary grenade fire (range: 15 m, happens every 0.5 s while burning)
  
• Taking fall health damage (range: 2.5 m). Currently only lethal falls apply.
  
• Civilian screams upon becoming uncool and at various other times (range: 2 m)
  
• Civilian or enemy screams when experiencing moderate or heavy hurt or death (range: 0.25 m). Even handcuffed guards scream. Non-lethal melee attacks against civilians cause no scream.

Unless you shoot in the sky, every gunshot ends with a gunshot impact. The noise origin is the impact location. Technically, gunshot impact alerts are of the same type as gunshot alerts. As a result, gunshot impacts can be used together with Stockholm Syndrome basic to intimidate civilians.

When your gun has issued a gunshot alert (i.e. you have fired your gun), subsequent gunshot alerts by the gun are blocked for 1.5 seconds, unless the origin of the alert differs by more than 5 m. Whether you fire your CAR-4 once or 15 times within 1.5 seconds to control civilians with Stockholm Syndrome, they both issue just a single gunshot alert. There is a separate but pretty much identical block for gunshot impact alerts, where the 5 m rule has a greater effect.

All player weapons have an alert range of 45 m with the following exceptions: Brenner, KSP, KSP58, MG42, R93, Thompson, Queen's Wrath, Lion's Roar, minigun, Lebensauger have an alert range of 40 m. The Thanatos has a range of 35 m. The flamethrower has a range of 300 m. The saw also causes gunshot and gunshot impact alerts and has an alert range of 35 m when not using up the blade (2 m if silenced), else 75 m (8.5 m if silenced). The grenade launchers and RPG do not cause gunshot alerts (but the grenades themselves do cause alerts when they explode).

All weapons with an alert range of 45 m have their alert range reduced to 1 m when silenced (thus their gunshot impacts have a mere 0.25 m range). Weapons with an alert range of 40 m or less (except saw) have their alert range reduced to 0 when silenced.

Uncool civilians cannot hear anything but gunshots (and gunshot impacts) caused by the players. Stockholm Syndrome basic fully intimidates civilians when hearing a single gunshot alert. When hearing too many gunshots of players without Stockholm Syndrome basic in quick succession, untied civilians will stand up no matter their intimidation level (only Confident basic blocks this). This being said, due to the 1.5 seconds cooldown it is virtually impossible for a single player to make a civilian freak out and flee.

Uncool enemies cannot hear anything but gunshots (and gunshot impacts) caused by the players. Technically, they were supposed to listen to explosions and glass breaking caused by the players as well. However, the function used by HE rounds, hand grenades and the grenade launchers explicitly claim that the cause of the noise is the group of civilians and enemies, but not the players. As a result, any alerts caused by that function are ignored by uncool enemies. Breaking glass also does not work correctly and is ignored by enemies. Thus enemies behave like civilians in that regard and will react to gunshots only (and maybe trip mines). Enemies prefer to target players whose alerts have been heard and may also decide to shoot due to alerts. Refer to the Target Priority section for more details.

When you are too close to observers (i.e. enemies, civilians or cameras), they get a question mark above their head and your detection meter appears, giving you an idea of how much longer it takes until you are detected. When observers see other suspicious things, there will be no detection meter shown (as it does not directly involve you), but the detection mechanics remain exactly the same. Not only is the detection progress of each observer independent from one another, but each individual observer also keeps separate track of the detection progress of each suspicious object. If your detection meter shows 90% detection before you manage to get out of sight, and the observer just at that moment starts noticing another suspicious thing, he will have a separate detection progress for the other thing, starting at 0%.

Detection requires objects to be in range. Both observers as well as some objects have a detection range specified. The game then picks the smaller number, which becomes the maximum distance from which the observer can see the object. E.g. corpses have a detection range of 25 meters, whereas the range of cameras is only 15 meters. As a result, if a corpse is more than 15 meters away, the camera won't see a thing.

The detection delay, i.e. the time until an object is fully detected (turning the observer into an uncool state marked with an exclamation mark) depends on three things.

• The minimum and maximum delay of the observer. These are just constants for each observer type.
  
• A minimum delay multiplier for each suspicious object type. When players are involved, there is an additional multiplier depending on the concealment.
  
• The distance-and-angle modifier of the object in respect to the observer. To obtain it, calculate the fractions distance/maximumDistance and angle/maximumAngle respectively, with maximumDistance being the smaller number of the two detection ranges of observer and object, and maximumAngle being half the field of view. Both fractions are in the range 0 to 1, as they need to be for the observer to detect anything in the first place. The fractions are weighted and added together, i.e. 0.75 * distance/maximumDistance + 0.25 * angle/maximumAngle for human observers (cameras use weights of 0.85 and 0.15 instead). The final result therefore is another number between 0 and 1 and becomes the distance-and-angle modifier. 0 means that the suspicious object is directly in front of the observer whereas 1 means that the object is as far away from the observer as possible while still in detection range and also just barely within the field of view.

Apply the minimum delay multipliers to the minimum delay to obtain the modified minimum delay. The final detection delay is a linear function between the modified minimum delay and the maximum delay, with the distance-and-angle modifier being the parameter.

If the suspicious object is right in front of the observer, the distance-and-angle modifier is 0 and the detection delay is given by the modified minimum delay. If the suspicious object is barely seen by the observer, the distance-and-angle modifier is 1 and the detection delay is the maximum delay.

There are some technical details because the game runs in discrete frames:

• Detection is changed only when the detection function is called. Each human observer usually calls his detection function every 2 s. Cameras call their detection function every 0.1 s.
  
• The moment that an object comes into range and field of view of a human observer, he will call the detection function every 0.1 s. In the moment itself however, the detection progress is still at 0 and not even a question mark is shown. The interval stays at 0.1 s until the question mark is lost (or if the question mark was not shown yet and the object leaves the range or field of view before any detection progess).
  
• The detection progress is increased by the time delta since the previous detection function call multiplied by the detection rate. (That's just the effect of discretization; given an infinite frame rate, the detection progress increases with the detection rate as expected.)
  
• That the detection progress is still at 0 in the frame when the object comes in range and field of view is crucial, because otherwise the time delta would be 2 s against human observers, i.e. instant detection.

To put it another way, human observers basically open their eyes for a moment every 2 s and are blind for the rest of the time. Only if they spot something interesting they will check every 0.1 s.

The intervals between function calls are lower bounds; the actual interval is greater depending on frame rate and number of NPCs. The game has a queue of detection processes for human observers but manages only 1 per frame. Only cameras don't use the queue at all.

Assume a frame rate of 30 frames per second and 30 human observers on the map. In the first frame of the game, all observers put their detection function in the queue to be called in 2 s. Right after 0:02, the first detection function is called and enters the queue again to be called right after 0:04. The last detection function is called around 0:03 and enters the queue to be called around 0:05.

Now imagine a that the player is in front of the first human observer at 0:02. The observer becomes aware of the player but stays without question mark yet. The detection function is queued to be called in 100 ms. The queue is still full of overdue function calls however. The queue will process these detection calls first. Around 0:03, the calls are processed and the queue finally processes the detection function of the first observer. The time delta is 1 s, so the detection will jump from nothing to about 70% or so. The next detection is queued to be called in 100 ms. Because the other detection function calls are overdue only around 0:04, the detection proceeds normally in 100 ms intervals until 0:04.

In practice the function calls are spread a bit more evenly over the queue, but of course that does not really solve the problem of the queue being swamped. If it is any consolation, the effect of the swamped queue is less feedback for the player, but the actual time until detection is greater or equal to the time with an empty queue.

But even without a swamped queue the 2 s delay between function calls has silly effects. With the right timing you can essentially run into a guard and then escape. With the wrong timing the guard instantly starts detection progress. And there is no way to know the right timing.



Cameras are the most limited observers. Their stats are usually as follows (there are map-specific exceptions):

• Field of view: 60 degrees
  
• Detection range: 15 meters
  
• Minimum and maximum detection delays: 2 and 3 seconds
  
• Detection recovery (from 100% detection to 0%): 3 seconds

Civilians can see a bit further with a much greater field of view and have their minimum detection delay drastically lowered:

• Field of view: 120 degrees if distance is 8.5 meters or more. Linearly increases to 360 degrees at 1.5 meters and less.
  
• Detection range: 20 meters
  
• Minimum and maximum detection delays: 0.2 and 3 seconds
  
• Detection recovery: 8 seconds

Enemies can see much farther and have a lower maximum detection delay:

• Field of view: Same as civilians
  
• Detection range: 40 meters
  
• Minimum and maximum detection delays: 0.2 and 2 seconds
  
• Detection recovery: 8 seconds

To keep the list of objects tidy, I denote the detection range of the object by "range" and the minimum detection delay multiplier by "multiplier". If an entry has no range specified, the detection range solely depends on the observer (thus tied civilians can be seen from 40 m away). If the multiplier is not specified, assume a value of 1. Most objects also have an uncover range, denoted by "uncover". If human observers are less than that distance away from the object, they will become instantly uncool if the angle is less than 55 degrees (i.e. they have an effective field of view of 110 degrees for this). This range is fairly short for most objects, usually 1-3 meters, so the observers are almost guaranteed to spot the objects anyway. I only mention the more extreme cases. While going through the list, keep in mind that a high multiplier means more time until detection.

All observers can detect any of the following:

• A body bag (range: 19 m; uncover: 5 m)
  
• A corpse/dominated enemy (range: 25 m; multiplier: 0.05)
  
• An uncool or tied civilian (multiplier: 0.05 if civilian observer, else 1)
  
• An uncool enemy (range: 39 m; multiplier: 0.2 if civilian observer, else 0.5)
  
• A placed drill (range: 22 m if silent, else 23 m). If the drill is not silent, it does detected even outside the field of view. Think it is safe to place a drill because the camera is turned the other way? It will still see it. Guards will detect such drills from up to 23 m away within just 2 s even if their heads are turned the other way. The only protection are walls to block the view.
  
• A masked-up criminal:
  
  • Standing criminal vs civilians: Range: 20 m, multiplier: 1.5, uncover: 5.5 m
    
  • Crouching criminal vs civilians: Range: 15 m, multiplier: 3
    
  • Standing criminal vs non-civilians: Range: 20 m, multiplier: 2
    
  • Crouching criminal vs non-civilians: Range: 12 m, multiplier: 2
• Map-specific things (e.g. a hacked computer or the open basement door on Big Oil)

All non-civilians (in particular, gangsters) additionally detect:

• Damaged/broken glass (uncover: 5 m)
  
• Criminals in casing mode (uncover: 1.5 m, regardless of angle; range and multiplier do not apply as casing mode uses a different system altogether)

Law enforcers and cameras additionally detect any of the following:

• Any bag that can be carried (range: 18 m)
  
• A broken camera (range: 12 m)

Almost all map-specific things are detected by law enforcers and cameras only. The only exception I know of are the windows in the back on Jewelry Store, which are detected by civilians when damaged or broken.


Detection requires clear line of sight between two points. The point of the observer to see things shall be called observer point. The point of things that are detected shall be called detection point. The relevant points are located as follows:

• Security camera: The observer point located at the end of the horizontally protruding arm. The detection point (i.e. of a broken camera) is located in the center of the base of the camera mount (extremely close to the wall). These both differ from the interaction point to highlight cameras, which is the right at the lens.
  
• Human observers: Both observer and detection point use the head point, at the back of the neck. This differs from the interaction point, which is 30 cm above it.
  
• Criminals: All points are placed at the location of the first-person camera.
  
• Drills: The detection point is at the end of the drill, far away from the door/safe.

Other suspicious items like broken glass and bags always use the center of the object.

Objects may be detected even if the line of sight is blocked, provided the thing blocking the detection point is the object itself. This mostly applies to static objects as bags or corpses do not count as obstacles.

On some maps there are invisible walls blocking the detection of some objects. The open basement door on Big Oil actually has a detection range of 40 m, but cannot be seen from more than a few meters away due to such an invisible wall.

Casing mode is completely separate from the detection mechanics, yet works in a similar manner and is called suspicion. In contrast to detection, people do realize that you are there. Enemies will turn their heads or even their bodies towards you while you are in suspicion range (though the applications for that in the game are arguably limited). The important part is that the uncover range of 1.5 meters works even if you are behind enemies, so you must keep your distance. Suspicion builds up faster when playing on MH+, whereas ordinary detection is not affected by difficulty at all.

Other objects than glass are fine to damage: Nobody cares if the computer screen he is looking at is just shot or if a few pictures on the wall happen to crack and fall down.

A player has tied down a civilian in a far corner of the map. Just as he is about to move on, leaving the civilian in a place he deemed safe, a guard 30 meters away starts to become suspicious. Assume that the head of the civilian is just barely in his field of view, so the angle modifier is 1. The distance modifier is 30/40 = 0.75, yielding a distance-and-angle modifier of 0.25*1 + 0.75*0.75 = 0.8125. The minimum detection delay multiplier is 1, so the modified minimum detection delay equals its unmodified value of 0.2 seconds, while the maximum detection delay also remains at 2 seconds. The detection delay is thus 0.2 + (2-0.2) * 0.8125 = 1.66 seconds. The player realizes there is a camera looking at the guard, so he decides to kill the civilian to avoid detection. The corpse has a detection range of 25 meters and the guard does not see a thing.

Assume that the player did not kill the civilian, turning the guard in front of the camera uncool. Let us calculate in reverse what the distance-and-angle modifier needs to be in order for the detection delay of the camera to exceed 2 seconds, which is the time to place an ECM to save the heist. The camera has detection delays of 2 and 3 seconds, but the minimum is multiplied by 0.5 against uncool guards, yielding just 1 second. With the detection delays being 1 and 3 seconds, the distance-and-angle modifier needs to be at least 0.5 to grant the necessary 2 seconds, which implies a distance of about 7.5 meters (with small fluctuations allowed due to the angle). If the guard becomes uncool when his distance to the camera is less than that, there is not even time to place an ECM, so the camera either needs to be destroyed quickly or the player has to have started with ECM placement already.

Assume that the player has decided to shoot the uncool guard before dealing with the camera. The camera detection delays become 0.1 and 3 seconds. The distance-and-angle modifier has to be roughly 2/3 = 0.67 to provide enough time for an ECM, which means that the camera will be uncool before the ECM is placed for distances up to 10 meters. Shooting an uncool guard before taking care of the camera therefore not only steals from you a split second to aim that you could've used to start placing the ECM, but also accelerates the detection progress.

A low detection risk affects your visibility in two ways:

• It decreases the distance you can be detected from.
  
• It increases the time until you are detected.

Detection risk is determined by your total concealment, i.e. the sum of the concealment values of your primary and secondary weapon as well as your armor and melee weapon. The beginner setup, i.e. AMCAR + Chimano (standard suppressor) + suit + weapon butt, has a detection risk of 17. While 3 is the minimum and thus the goal for most stealth heists with more than 4 guards, you may want to go slightly higher depending on your preferred weapons.

Detection risk is not used directly for calculations in the game. Instead, there is a table connecting the total concealment and detection risk to a concealment modifier. This concealment modifier acts as an additional multiplier for the modified minimum detection delay. Additionally, the distance you can be detected from is divided by the square root of the concealment modifier. The possible values are as follows:

Values not specified in the table are not possible: Improving the total concealment past 119 has no effect.

The last column in the table acts as the distance multiplier: A person with 35 detection risk has a multiplier of 1, so human observers can see him from exactly 20 m away when standing. A person with 75 detection risk has a 1.826 distance multiplier, which means a distance of 1.826 * 20 m = 36.52 m instead.

There is an exception in casing mode (as it as a separate system altogether): The concealment modifier cannot decrease your suspicion range, only increase it, i.e. having detection risk 3 or 35 makes no difference to the distance you can be seen from in casing mode.

The detection range is modified after picking the smaller of the two detection ranges of observer and object. Human observers can see a standing player with 3 detection risk from 0.803 * 20 m = 16 m away, whereas cameras can see such a player only from 0.803 * 15 m = 12 m away. Another interesting range is the minimum distance when crouched vs guards, which becomes 0.803 * 12 m = 9.6 m. Due to the range being that low, it is hard to estimate whether it is safe to drop a bag on the ground or place a drill without anyone noticing (hint: probably not).

When the concealment modifier is greater than 0.75 (i.e. better detection risk than 49), cameras take longer to spot a player the closer he is. With detection risk 3, the modified minimum detection delay becomes 2*2*1.55 = 6.2 seconds, whereas the maximum delay is stuck at 3 seconds. If you are extremely close to a camera, it will take more than twice as long to detect you. If you approached a camera from far away in a crouched manner, if you stand up the moment you start being detected, the distance modifier will instantly drop from 1 to just 0.8, which buys you about 0.6 more seconds. This case is the only time when the minimum delay exceeds the maximum delay. In all other cases, the maximum delay becomes the absolute hard cap on the time until something is spotted. If a guard starts noticing something, he will become uncool in less than 2 seconds regardless of the type of the object.

The detection meter starting at your current detection risk value misrepresents the underlying mechanics a bit. The actual detection progress is a number between 0% and 100%, calculated as described above. The detection meter is merely mapped onto the more limited range of values between your current detection risk and 100% to obtain what you see with the HUD.

Some remarks on visibility, most of which might be obvious from the previous sections, but which deserve mention nevertheless:

• Carrying bags has no effect on your detection.
  
• Crouching reduces the distance you can be seen from.
  
• Civilians can see crouched criminals from farther away than guards or cameras.
  
• People have a field of view of 120°, but can see behind their backs if you are close enough.
  
• People will turn their head sometimes and their field of view will change accordingly.
  
• If an observer cannot see the head of a tied-up person or corpse, he will not become uncool. Similarly, you can stand behind a lampshade and a guard won't notice a thing.
  
• On a related note, being hit by projectiles also requires that there are no obstacles between your head and the enemy. If you hide behind a lampshade and cannot see the enemy anymore, he cannot harm you.
  
• You can mark an enemy only if you have line of sight to the point 30 cm above his head. This makes things a bit asymmetrical, as enemies may not see you hiding behind low cover, yet you are able to spot them. On the other hand, if you are going downstairs, an enemy may start noticing you, yet you will be unable to highlight him.
  
• Lasers and flashlights are invisible to everyone but the players.

The previous sections were primarily concerned with the detection behavior of cool observers during stealth. However, this detection system applies all times, albeit with tweaked values.

Before going deeper into detection outside of cool+stealth situations, there a few things to note:

• Outside of stealth, people are always uncool. Due to that, there are basically 3 tiers of detection:
  
  • cool+stealth
    
  • uncool+stealth
    
  • uncool+loud
• Outside of cool+stealth situations, the detection of cameras and civilians can be ignored. (Cameras cause alarm 7 seconds after becoming uncool, and cameras do not detect anything once alarm has gone off. Uncool civilians are only concerned with fleeing or being intimidated and ignore everything they see.)
  
• After detecting one or several objects, enemies will focus their attention on one of the detected objects and act depending on the object type and circumstances.

The purpose of this section is to explain the detection stats of uncool enemies during stealth and loud situations, as well as the behavior of uncool enemies when dealing with various objects.

Uncool enemies have greatly enhanced perception:

• Field of view: 240 degrees
  
• Detection range: 100 m
  
• Minimum and maximum detection delays: 0

Thus enemies instantly detect players and have a wider field of view. During stealth, the detection range against players is still limited by the players themselves, so the increase does not matter much at this point (they may now see loot bags from 100 m away, which is of no consequence as they are already uncool anyway).

Snipers use different delays. The minimum and maximum detection delays are 0.5 s and 1 s respectively.

During loud situations, the players themselves have their detection values tweaked. Player detection after alarm goes off (end of whisper mode):

• Detection range: 100 m
  
• Minimum detection delay multiplier: 2 if crouching, else 1.

Player concealment still modifies the actual detection range. Players with detection risk 3 can be seen from 80 m away, whereas players with detection risk 75 can be seen from 180 m away. The multiplier for the minimum detection delay applies to snipers only as the other enemies detect players instantly anyway.


Every enemy keeps a list of detected objects. Objects are added to the list when detected by the enemy and, except for players, are removed if they are not visible to the enemy for a few seconds. Out of these objects, the enemy picks one and focuses his attention on it (his actual reaction depends on the type of object). The terms explained in detail:

Detected:

• The object detection progress has reached 100%. The object remains in the detected state until the enemy removes it from his list.

Visible:

• Visibility is similar to detection, with the visibility range being 1.2 times the detection range against that object. There is no visibility progress however: An object is either visible or not. Visibility is only checked for objects in the list of detected objects.
  
• Put another way, an object is visible if all of these 4 conditions are satisfied:
  
  • The enemy has detected the object, i.e. the object is in the list of detected objects.
    
  • Clear line of sight between enemy and object.
    
  • The object is within the field of view of the enemy.
    
  • Distance enemy-object is less than 1.2 times the detection range against that object.
• I will use "invisible" to refer to the state of not being visible to the enemy in question.
  
• If an object becomes invisible, the enemy will remember its last known position. If he decides to focus on the object despite being out of sight, he will use this position.
  
• Most object types are removed after just 1 second of being invisible. Corpses are the upper limit and take 6 seconds.
  
• Players are not forgotten merely by waiting for a few seconds out of sight: Players cannot be forgotten during assaults. Outside of assaults (and during stealth), after becoming invisible to the enemy, you need to move 7 m from your last known position to be removed from his list.

Nearly-visible:

• This check exists for (detected) players only.
  
• The player is in the field of view of the enemy with clear line of sight, less than 20 m away and the vertical distance is less than 3 m.
  
• Being nearly-visible is effectively the same as being visible. The enemy will know your precise location, may attack you or seek cover from you, and your last known position is constantly updated so you cannot make him forget about you either.

Shouting at an enemy or alerting him or damaging him adds you to his list of detected objects (and updates your last known position if you were already in the list).

If you get out of the visible range without breaking line of sight, you are still visible to the enemy. He will know your location at all times even if you have moved across the map with several walls between you and him. The only way to change this is to get into the visible range again, then break line of sight. This usually works in your favor however, as enemies may decide to aim at you through walls instead of using their phones.


Every enemy assigns a priority to every object (in particular, criminals) in his list of detected objects. The object with the lowest priority becomes the focus of his attention, his priority target. Depending on the object type of his priority target, he will show different reactions. The other detected objects are ignored (though he may change his priority target at any time).

Both criminals and other objects like loot bags use the same priority system. During loud situations, the game adds so much to the priority of other objects that they are in a completely different league, so that criminals and sentries are always the preferred target regardless of circumstances. During stealth, there may be rare situations when enemies focus on objects other than (detected) criminals if the criminals are not visible.

If an object is either reviving or not visible to the enemy, assign a priority value of 7 and skip the following steps until the priority addition due to reactions. Otherwise, start with a base priority depending on distance between enemy and object:

• If distance < 5 m: Base priority 2
  
• If 5 m <= distance < 15 m: Base priority 4
  
• If distance >= 15 m : Base priority 6

From this base priority, subtract the following:

• If the enemy was personally damaged by the object in the last 5 seconds, subtract 2.
  
• If the enemy was not personally damaged by the object , but has heard an alert of the object in the last 3.5 seconds, subtract 1 instead. Bot weapons do not cause alerts.
  
• If the enemy had focused on the object already, but for less than 4 seconds, subtract 3 (thus enemies tend to stick to one target for 4 seconds at least).

Objects additionally add to the priority depending on the reaction that they cause. The relevant reactions and their effects on the priority are:

• Scared, add 16.
  
• Aim-at, add 15.
  
• Arrest, add 14.
  
• Shoot, add 12.
  
• Combat, add nothing.

Objects other than criminals can only cause the scared or aim-at reaction. During loud, the enemy reaction towards players is virtually always "combat".

If the priority value is less than 1, set it to 1. Pick the object with the lowest priority as the target. If several objects have the same priority, choose the one with the smallest distance.

The game takes the product of all priority-altering skills (e.g. *0.85 for the Rogue perk, *1.15 for the Muscle perk, *1000 for the Kingpin injector) and multiplies the damage-time and alert-time by this product, and divides distance by it. This modified distance is used both to calculate your priority and when you are tied with other players. For example, take a player with Optical Illusions and the Rogue perk, so the multiplier is 0.65*0.85 = 0.5525. The damage-time becomes 5*0.5525 = 2.7625 seconds, the alert-time becomes 1.93375 seconds and the effective distance becomes 1/0.5525 = 1.81 times as much. E.g. if the player is farther than 8.2875 m away, he is already assigned the base priority 6 (whereas players without any skills have priority 4 up to 15 m).

Bots and converts have a *0.5 priority multiplier. That is even lower than Rogue with Optical Illusions at 0.85*0.65 = 0.5525.

The SWAT turret has its own priority system and ignores all priority skills, but not the *0.5 for bots and converts.


Enemy reactions depend on the object type and the actual circumstances. After the alarm, an enemy basically ignores objects other than criminals completely. One of the criminals becomes his priority target whom he will attack whereas the others are ignored (unless they become the new priority target).

During stealth however, enemies can show 2 different reactions against objects other than players:

• Scared: The enemy will walk towards the object. Once his distance to the object is about 3 m, he will start calling the police.
  
• Aim-at: The enemy will aim at the object. However, enemies capable of arresting will call the police immediately. Enemies not capable of arresting are stuck aiming at the object.

Exhaustive list of scary objects:

• Corpse
  
• Dominated enemy
  
• Uncool person
  
• Drill
  
• Loot bag

The remaining objects (other than criminals) cause the aim-at reaction instead.

Exhaustive list of enemies capable of arresting:

• Guard
  
• Cop
  
• GenSec
  
• GenSec Elite/Murkywater

Enemies playing an idle animation detecting a scary object become stuck playing their animation. They can neither move nor call the police. They get unstuck if their priority target causes a reaction other than a scary one. The Nightclub bouncer is a good example for this. Shoot a civilian in front of him while staying hidden. He will become uncool but remain in his pose. Once he detects you he will immediately snap out of the animation and attack.

Against players, the enemy reaction depends on the circumstances (e.g. distance to the player, whether the player is visible). The reaction is always stronger than "scared" however, i.e. it is either aim-at, arrest, shoot or combat.


During stealth, uncool enemies can use two different logic systems:

• Attack logic: Attack the priority target. The enemy will aim at the target and may shoot if he has a reason. Against players, he will simultaneously try to seek cover.
  
• Investigate logic: Call the police or investigate scary object or arrest player.

In loud situations, enemies are stuck with the attack logic (unless they want to arrest a player, which is rather rare). Due to that, most of the following points apply to stealth situations only.

Enemies that have just turned uncool start with the attack logic. Afterwards, the logic transitions obey the following rules:

• Transition attack->investigate if:
  
  • Enemy cannot arrest and object reaction is scary or less (no detected object at all).
    
  • Enemy can arrest and object is not a player who is visible and less than 15 m away.
  
  
• Transition investigate->attack if:
  
  • Object is a player who is visible and less than 15 m away.

For example, if there is no player around, a guard who has detected something starts with the attack logic but makes a transition in the same split second to the investigate logic.

During stealth, keeping enemies in the attack mode is essential to prevent alarm for a simple reason:

• Enemies obeying the attack logic cannot use their phones.

As long as you are dancing around an enemy, he simply cannot call the police. If you don't give him a reason to shoot, he will not even fire but just aim at you while trying to find cover (which in turn breaks line of sight and causes the transition attack->investigate if the enemy is capable of arresting).

Due to the transition rules, the enemy can somewhat reliably be forced to enter the attack logic if you get close to him with clear line of sight. However, if an enemy is already calling the police and does not react to you immediately, it may be necessary to take him out.

Enemies not capable of arresting can snap out of the attack logic only if they have no priority target at all or their reaction is only scary. Thus breaking a window or throwing a body bag in front of a gangster or FBI agent causes him to continually aim at it without ever calling the police.

Regardless of the current enemy logic, an enemy capable of arresting will attempt to arrest a player in the following situation:

• No aggressive action of that player has been reported in the last 60 seconds. An aggressive action is reported when any enemy hears an alert of the player or the player damages any enemy without instantly killing him (killing with a single hit causes no report).
  
• The player is visible and less than 20 m from the enemy considering the arrest.
  
• If an arrest had been previously attempted, there is a cooldown of 4 minutes before a player becomes arrestable again (cooldown starts the moment the previous arrest fails).

During loud, the first condition is changed to include aggressive actions of all players. If a single player in the crew has had his aggressive action reported in the past 60 seconds, no enemy will arrest anybody.

Once an enemy decides to arrest you, he will change to the investigate logic. Only one enemy will actually move to handcuff you. If other enemies detect the person trying to arrest you, they will move closer (the uncool person is a scary object after all). While someone is attempting to arrest you, your reaction is changed to "arrest" for the person who attempting the arrest, and "aim-at" for anybody else (so they may find juicier priority targets and even if they pick you, they will never shoot you).

If the enemy attempting to arrest you cannot find any path to you (Framing Frame roof), he will just stay where he is. Other people may notice the person trying to arrest you and move closer. Curiously, once standing next to the motionless person attempting the arrest, they will usually not call the police. The game only allows one person with the investigate logic at the same navigation segment (whatever that is), so the person attempting the arrest blocks others close-by from using the investigate logic.

The only way to exit the state of being arrested and thus make the enemies start attacking or investigating is by one of the following:

• Being handcuffed.
  
• Killing the person trying to arrest you.
  
• Moving more than 1.7 m from your original location.
  
• Causing an aggressive action to be reported.

The last condition may look intimidating, but is reduced to nothing if you have a silenced weapon capable of killing with a single hit. With such a weapon, you may shoot all other guards except the one attempting to arrest you and nobody will care. As long as you don't move or kill the person trying to arrest you, you can remain in the state of being arrested until you are finally handcuffed. If there is no path to your location, the guard trying to arrest you will not move at all, so you can stay in this state indefinitely. Provided you haven't opened any doors, you can bind several guards to the same location by sitting on top of a glass roof (when standing on the large sculptures in the gallery however, they will simply walk through the air and arrest you anyway). They will neither move, call the police or shoot at you, provided you stay still and don't kill the one guard who has seen you first and is technically still attempting to handcuff you. Granted, the uncool enemies usually cascade out of sight, so this strategy will fail unless you keep track of all enemies.

Having an arrest cooldown makes enemies react unfavorably when you enter bleedout. If you have no cooldown or the cooldown has worn off, enemies never fire at you during your first 0.6 seconds of bleedout and then will start firing if aggressive actions have been reported after these 0.6 seconds. If your cooldown is still active, enemies will fire at you at all times during bleedout.

Having an arrest cooldown during stealth changes the reaction of enemies from "combat" to "shoot" during stealth (it remains at "combat" during loud).


Remarks:

• The priority calculations presented are only true for enemies using the attack logic. The investigate logic ignores player skills and uses tweaked values (priority increases slower with distance).
  
• Snipers need more than a second to detect players with a low detection risk. Once spotted however, they will know about you at all times until the assault ends and you move 7 m behind cover.
  
• If you are spotted by a guard right at the start but kill him a split second later, you have wasted the arrest and need to wait 4 minutes before you can be arrested again.
  
• As long as you are in the state of being arrested, enemies never shoot at you. You can stop the arrest only by one of the 4 options stated above.
  
• Alerting enemies adds you to their list of detected objects. Using the saw with Stockholm Syndrome outside of the Nightclub intimidates all civilians and causes all enemies to enter the attack logic with you as their priority target. As their reaction against you is "combat", they will ignore everything but you. You can stand around for minutes without moving and the enemies will be stuck with the attack logic, not capable of using their phones. If you use the saw every 6 meters, they will update your last known location, enabling you to move again without making them forget about you. The entire club can be secured this way (provided there are no cameras).
  
• The order of the items in the list has an influence on the priority target. While trying to figure out the ideal priority target, the enemy starts with the first object in the list and compares it to the second. If the second item causes a weaker reaction than the first one, he will discard it. If on the other hand it has an equal or stronger reaction, he will compute the priority value to compare. From a practical point of view, the order of items in Lua tables is virtually random, so in identical situations enemies may behave differently. If you run next to a gallery guard so he notices you, throw a painting next to him and then break line of sight, there is a essentially a 50% chance that you are the first item in the table, making him ignore the painting because its reaction is weaker, and a 50% chance that the painting becomes his new priority target because your priority due to being invisible is that high.
  
• During stealth, enemies capable of arresting use their phone when you are farther than 15 m away. If your detection risk is too low so they can't see you (due to the nearly-visible check, this is only a problem if the vertical distance exceeds 3 m), they will ignore you as well, though shouting will get their attention.

Once an enemy has decided to focus on you, he will make a few checks whether or not to actually shoot at you.

Players who are in the process of being arrested are never shot at. Other than that, regardless of the other reasons given below (which have some odd exceptions), an enemy will always shoot if has the "engage" attitude and you are in close/far range of his weapon while he is moving/stationary. Close range usually is 10 m; some of the regular enemies on OD have 20 m. Far range is 50-60 m. The attitude depends on the current strategy of the enemy squad and whether or not you are in an assault. If he has a different attitude he will aim at you instead.

If the enemy hasn't decided to shoot at this point, he will shoot if one of the following conditions is satisfied:

• The time of his last suppression buildup is less than 2.1 seconds/7 seconds ago when he is moving/stationary. Does not apply to special enemies and GenSec who cannot be suppressed. It does not matter who suppressed him, nor does the suppression amount make any difference.
  
• You are in close range of his weapon.
  
• You are not in close range of his weapon and have damaged (but not killed) or alerted any enemy in the last 2 seconds. Killing an enemy with a single hit (using a silenced sniper rifle for example) does not count. If you are within close weapon range, this condition is ignored.

Priority changing skills do not help against the decision to shoot. if all players do have the same skills and perks, the priorities might shift a bit, but once a player has become the target, he will be shot at with full force (if the enemy has decided to shoot that is).

There are two more points about suppression and the decision to shoot. The suppression information is deleted when the suppression wears off. If the suppressed state of the enemy is set to last only 6 seconds, then the enemy does not know about any suppression buildup in the seventh second and ignores this reason. The second point works in the opposite direction: As long as the enemy has suppression information, he will ignore the other two reasons. A moving, suppressed enemy without the "engage" attitude will shoot back in the first 2.1 seconds after the suppression buildup. After that, he will decide against shooting until the suppression either wears off or more suppression builds up.

There is one other condition that also causes enemies to shoot, which differs from the others as the enemy will not hit the player: If a criminal was visible to an enemy at one point, and then becomes neither visible nor nearly-visible, the enemy will shoot at the last known position 2/3 seconds (when running/stationary) after the last time the player was fully visible. Basically, enemies will shoot at you after taking cover (even if they have no other reason to fire). During stealth, this condition has no effect most of the time, because any enemy capable of arresting criminals will use his phone immediately after losing line of sight without firing a single shot. Gangsters and FBIs however cannot arrest players and thus may fire during stealth even without other reasons. The time when the player was fully visible is not updated when the player walks out of the visible range despite the enemy knowing the precise location of the player at all times. Thus to avoid enemies shooting, walk out of visibility range without breaking line of sight, then wait 2-3 seconds.

During stealth, breaking line of sight while an enemy capable of arresting has decided to shoot makes him never call the function that stops the order to fire. If the player gets into his line of sight again, he will never stop firing until the player gives him a reason to fire and then removes that reason while staying in line of sight (say, by aiming at him for a split second). This has some odd effects, as the enemy will shoot at any civilian, enemy or corpse if he doesn't see any player (without dealing damage to anyone however).

During stealth, enemies capable of arresting don't aim at you when you are farther than 15 m. If your detection risk is too low so they can't see you (due to the nearly-visible check, this is only a problem if the vertical distance exceeds 3 m), they will ignore you as well, though shouting will get their attention.

After the alarm, the grenade launcher (explosion) alerts are not heard by enemies, effectively turning it into a silenced weapon. What's more, it does not cause suppression (except against those enemies taking damage), so it is in fact even better than silenced weapons at depriving enemies of reasons to shoot at you.

The cheapest way to travel quickly in stealth is to sprint, then jump and crouch. While in mid-air, you will move as quickly as though you were sprinting, but to guards you appear to be in a crouched position. As a practical application, imagine that you are out in the open in heavy armor on day 2 of Big Oil and a guard comes in your direction. Standing will get you spotted. Crouching will slow you down so much that the guard will eventually close in and spot you even when crouched. The only escape is to perform crouch jumps. This strategy is just as powerful in close quarters when actually sneaking, not only to escape from guards but also to travel anywhere.

Shooting glass once damages it. It breaks if you shoot it once more. There are some exceptions however. As civilians do not care about damaged glass (they only care about the noise when breaking it), you may shoot cameras or guards through windows with a single shot if other cameras and guards are taken care of already.

When a camera is uncool, alarm will go off. You may break the camera, you may kill the camera operator (who in fact remains cool despite the uncool camera), you may place an ECM, it does not matter: There will be alarm 7 seconds after the camera has become uncool.

Phone calls have a critical point a certain time after the phone icon is shown. If there is no ECM active at that point (and the person was not stopped by other means before that), the alarm goes off. For enemies, the critical point happens 2.6 seconds after the phone icon is visible. Civilians reach the point after 3.6 seconds when crouching and 4.2 seconds when standing. I am not sure what causes them to stand or crouch.

If you have decent detection risk, cameras take that long to spot you that they can be ignored completely when it comes to your own detection. Go wherever you want and just be quick about it. Second thoughts while you are within view are the only thing that gets you spotted.

Cool enemies die with a single hit of any weapon. Uncool enemies have their regular hitpoints. Both shooting and melee work, but explosions don't. A melee hit against a civilian, whether cool or uncool, intimidates him for the maximum amount if he had not been attacked by melee in the past 2.5 seconds already, otherwise he dies. The relevant hitpoints of enemies encountered during stealth are as follows:

• Guards/Cops: 40/10.67 hitpoints
  
• Gangsters and Murkywater: 720/192 hitpoints on OD.

The first number is the health when hitting the body only, the second number is the health when hitting the head only (assuming *1.25 perk deck bonus).

The physics is not fully synchronized, so the heads of people or bags might appear in a different position for the host and clients.

Interactions are not checked against by the host. If a bag is at a different place for the client, he can pick it up right where he sees it. If a pager appears to be at an unreachable position for the host, a client might be able to answer regardless. If a civilian is within shouting range for a client, the shout will succeed even if the distance between client and civilian seems much greater for the host.

The host calculates the detection progress of all observers. When a head appears in a safe position for a client, it might be in plain view for the host and thus all observers. When the host throws a painting on the roof but it appears to be inside the gallery for everyone else, guards won't see it in the gallery and the host can take his time to reach the roof and retrieve it. Let's take a closer look at this situation and consider the other 3 cases as well. Assume that either the host or the client is inside the gallery, whereas the other player is on the roof. Furthermore, when a painting appears on the roof for one player, it shall appear inside the gallery for the other (as this mismatch is the subject of the investigation):

• Host is inside. Painting is on roof (for the observers). => Neither host nor client have immediate access to the painting anymore. Guards do not notice the painting, so it is safe and the host can pick it up later without risk.
  
• Client is inside. Painting is on roof. => Both host and client have access to the painting. Guards do not notice the painting. Possible race against the client who will try to pick it up again too.
  
• Host is inside. Painting is not on the roof. => Both host and client have access to the painting. Guards notice the painting. Possible race against the host who will try to pick it up again too.
  
• Client is inside. Painting is not on the roof. => Neither host nor client have immediate access to the painting anymore. Guards notice the painting. Bad end.

Now, these results certainly do not apply to every situation (not to mention that most of the time host and client are synchronized), but in this very case there is a clear advantage when the host is inside the gallery. This being said, in my personal experience, while clients are not fully synchronized with the host, the game does appear synchronized rather well among the clients. Having one client to catch paintings and one client to throw them usually works without issues.

You can use shotguns to shoot enemies into whatever direction you want, optionally by dominating them beforehand. Most of the time you still need to bag the person anyway, but other people won't notice the corpse as easily so you can answer the pager without trouble. This doesn't seem to be properly synchronized between host and clients however. When I am host and shoot people in this manner, they always appear to go down on the spot for all clients.

Non-shotguns can push enemies too, but only if they are stationary and playing an idle animation (e.g. smoking a cigarette). Otherwise, there is a certain death animation played depending on whether the enemy was hit above his center of mass (center of his chest) or below and whether he is standing or crouched or running. It also depends on the direction of the attack. There are just 4 different directions, front, rear, left, right, each covering 90°. For some configurations, there are many different animations possible, whereas others have just 1. Enemies hit from the front, left or right usually show similar animations, though attacks from the left and right may push the enemy slightly in the opposite direction (at times however, the enemy reaction doesn't appear any different from a frontal hit).

• Enemies hit above the center of mass from the front, left, right fall on their back.
  
• Enemies hit above the center of mass from the rear fall forwards on their face.
  
• Enemies hit below the center of mass from the front, left, right are swept off their feet and fall on their face.
  
• Enemies hit below the center of mass from the back make a dramatic turn and then collapse on the spot.

Corpses can be moved with bullets by a small amount as long as they haven't become fully stationary. The push of each bullet helps keeping the corpse in a non-stationary state, so the magazine capacity of the weapon becomes the limit. When two or more enemies are lined up one behind another, the enemy in front may keep absorbing bullets even after his death (for the second until he drops on the ground) before the other enemy can be hit. Rather annoying at the potential coke deal on day 1 of Big Oil.

Tied civilians can be moved close to walls to make their head stick inside the wall. As long as their head point is inside the wall, they will be invisible. There are 2 different animations for tied civilians lying on the ground however, chosen at random, and they both require you to position the civilians in different ways before lying them down, so this will try your patience.

While guards seem to be synchronized fairly well, patrolling civilians may be at vastly different locations for client and server. While this has no further consequences for the server, clients suffer from civilians detecting them from seemingly across the map. What actually happens is that the civilian is rather close, but the client has outdated information. As shouting is calculated by the client, but detection is calculated by the server, the client cannot even shout down the civilian at this point. However, patrolling civilians who have spotted a criminal will stop in their tracks. If the client simply waits for a few seconds, he will obtain the correct position data of the civilian (which is constant as the civilian has stopped). The game likes to interpolate the civilian position, so to the client is appears that the civilian keeps moving despite having spotted the player. This is not the case: The civilian is actually moving towards his true position and will then stop. If the civilian was within shouting range, it may look rather intimidating that he keeps moving after being shouted at. Once again, the civilian has actually stopped moving already, but the location was outdated and is just being updated to where the civilian actually is. Extrapolation seems to be an issue as well. If you shout down a patrolling civilian, he may keep moving forward, only to moonwalk back to his original place. Anyway, if you ever happen to be spotted from across the map, keep in mind that the true (server) location of the person spotting you is in fact within your detection range.

When an enemy has been uncool for a 3 seconds, he has a 10% chance to fire his gun upon receiving moderate or heavy hurt or being killed. The chance to shoot upon being killed can be removed by using a shotgun at a range of less than 5 m or explosives. It does not matter whether you hit him in the head or body. A handcuffed guard however does not shoot.

Killing a civilian instantly deducts the specified amount of cash from your spending account. Your offshore account is not touched.

Sometimes uncool civilians are behind a corner outside of the map. Use grenades to deal with them.

Finishing a level in stealth guarantees that there is no escape level.

On the loadout screen, there is a small Pac-Man ghost next to each day that can grant a stealth bonus. Some levels without this icon can still be stealthed, but it will be hard to do so.

Your current number of secured loot bags and body bags can be seen by pressing the Tab key.

On most levels with more than 4 guards, damaging glass or cameras usually means that there will be alarm eventually. One player is forced to guard the location for the reminder of the heist and kill all guards that spot the damage. Once you run out of pagers, it's game over. Take a second to aim so this does not happen. Submachine guns are not recommended for such levels.

Nobody cares about open doors, even if they were shot open. There are map-specific exceptions, e.g. the basement door on Big Oil. Lockpicked windows are fine too, as long as they are not damaged or broken.

It usually takes 4 shots at the lock to open doors. This is the fastest way to open doors and occasionally the only way without getting spotted by a camera (Firestarter day 2, Framing Frame day 3). There is no "bullet" interaction icon, so it takes some trial-and-error to discover the types of doors that can be shot open.

Dominating a guard in stealth (provided you have the skill) is done by shouting at him immediately after he becomes uncool.

Gangsters do not care about broken cameras or loot bags.

ECM feedback alerts all people in a 100 m radius. It is a combat skill, not a stealth skill.

On some levels, a new guard will spawn 145/120/120/80/45 seconds (depending on difficulty, where 45 s is for MH+) after 4 enemies are not cool, i.e. either uncool or dead (as dead people certainly are not cool). Bain will announce reinforcements 25 seconds after the fourth person is not cool, which leaves you just 20 seconds until the spawn on MH+. The cops on day 2 of Election Day count as well, whereas the FBIs on day 2 of Firestarter do not count towards this number. The new guard will check out random locations and despawn after visiting enough. On day 2 of Election Day only, the despawning guard starts a new 145/120/120/80/45 s spawn timer, forming a loop of spawns and despawns. On the other maps, he leaves forever.

Patrolling enemies are assigned a list of special objectives, which are basically waypoints to path to. This list is usually shared by several or all of the enemies and defines the function of the enemy. For example, the Diamond heist has one list containing only waypoints in front of the building, which essentially defines the guards assigned to this list to be the outside guards.

Every enemy randomly picks one of the objectives in the list that is not already selected by him or another enemy, proceeds to move to the waypoint, spends some time there (the objective specifies the duration) and then gets a new objective. The selection is purely random, even the distance to his current position does not matter at all. The new objective is explicitly defined by the old one; usually it just refers back to the same list, which causes a random objective to be picked again to complete the loop. Some heists alternate between two lists; they start with an objective from list 1 (path to a place) and follow up with an objective from list 2 (show an animation), which leads them back to list 1 again. (Technically an enemy may also be assigned to a completely different objective without any loop.)

When players open doors, the waypoints generally do not change, but the actual paths of the enemies may. This is because the enemies are only given the target location, but choose their path freely and consider doors that have been opened. Passing twice through the same location on the way to a waypoint is not allowed however (put another way, dead ends are forbidden): When pathing to a new waypoint, guards outside the Diamond museum may not go inside because there is just a single entrance. If there was a second entrance and the doors were open, they would probably occasionally path through the building (despite all of their waypoints being located outside).

Due to the randomness when choosing an objective, enemies may walk back and forth between two waypoints. (This statement does not contradict the previous statement about avoiding dead ends, which was about the path from the current location to a waypoint, whereas this statement refers to several waypoints; after each waypoint, the enemy forgets about his previous path and may choose a completely new one.)

There is a small time overlap between the moment that an enemy selects a new waypoint (and makes it unavailable for other enemies to path to) and the moment that an enemy makes his current waypoint available. Thus an enemy may occasionally block both his current and future waypoint at the same time. Apart from this, all waypoints are considered available.

Drill and camera investigations are special objectives overwriting the current one. When a camera is broken, one guard is randomly chosen from all available guards to go to the camera to investigate (he is shown receiving a phone call). Available guards are usually any cool guard who is not a camera operator and who is not investigating a camera already. More precisely, every camera refers back to a list of guards that share a waypoint list. On the Diamond heist, the cameras outside are investigated by the guards that patrol in front of the building. The cameras inside on the other hand are investigated by the main patrol. As camera investigations work a per-map basis, the system is somewhat arbitrary: The stationary guards on Shadow Raid (e.g. the one by the gate) are not available for camera investigations, whereas the possible stationary guard on day 2 of Big Oil is.

A guard is not counted as investigating right away after the camera was destroyed. It takes 3 seconds before he obtains that status. If you destroy several cameras in quick succession and the guard is randomly selected several times, he will investigate the first broken camera and ignore the rest. Killing the guard right after breaking the camera (or when he is on his way to investigate) does not transfer the investigation to another guard. Other enemy types (Murkywater, FBI, cops) never investigate broken cameras. Killing the camera operator on Trustee bank disables camera investigations, so guards do not receive a phone call when a camera is broken after he is dead. On all other maps, investigations are not affected by the status of the camera operator. Framing Frame (day 1) and Ukrainian Job have camera investigations disabled at all times regardless of the camera operator. Four Stores has odd pathing: The guard in the china store will start waving at a non-existent camera in the back room of the store if cameras in other stores are broken.

If a loud drill is placed, one cool enemy in hearing range will investigate in a similar manner as guards investigating cameras. (After alarm has gone off, enemies are never cool and thus never investigate, so the noise level of the drill makes no difference anymore.) The selection is not random however: The game keeps a table of all enemies and just picks the first one in hearing range (technically, the last one for whatever reason). Once that enemy is taken care of, the next person in the table who is in hearing range will go, There are never 2 enemies investigating the same drill at the same time. Enemies love to take the scenic route to a drill (or camera), so it may take a minute or three until they arrive. The function that checks whether there are any drills worth investigating is called once every 2 seconds, so it may take up to 2 seconds after placing a drill before anybody is assigned the objective to investigate.

Enemy reactions when faced with new things to investigate while currently investigating:

• Guards investigating cameras are never chosen to investigate other cameras once the 3 seconds have passed. There are two reasons a camera may not be investigated at all: 1) Several cameras were destroyed within 3 seconds and the same guard was selected several times 2) There is nobody available to investigate.
  
• Guards investigating drills can still be chosen to investigate cameras. Upon receiving the call however, they quickly put down their phone and keep going towards the drill, so in effect the broken camera goes unnoticed.
  
• Guards investigating cameras are never chosen to investigate drills.
  
• Enemies investigating drills can be chosen to investigate other drills. If a drill is placed in hearing range while a guard is already on his way to investigate a drill, he will usually abandon the old drill and move to the new one only. He still seems to be assigned to the old drill in some way though, as no other guard will go to investigate the old drill even when they are in hearing range.

If an enemy fails to complete his objective (because he cannot path to it or because the objective disappeared), he loses his objective and becomes stationary until the end of the heist, unless given a new objective by the players (drill or camera investigation).

Camera investigations may occasionally end with the guard just waving at the camera without becoming uncool, so the guard may successfully complete the objective and return to his original patrol. Drill investigations on the other hand can never be completed successfully, so enemies either become uncool and abandon their objective, or they become stationary.

Examples of stationary guards due to failed objectives:

• Stationary due to unreachable waypoints: Shadow Raid has 29 waypoints for the patrolling soldiers. 2 of the waypoints are on the balcony. If both balcony doors are closed, any soldier selecting a balcony waypoint becomes stationary. As he loses his objective due to failure, the balcony objective becomes available again, so other soldiers may select this waypoint as well.
  
• Stationary due to unreachable cameras: Big Bank has certain cameras in the public area which are assigned to the guards in the vault area. Breaking such a camera makes a vault area guard try to investigate, only to realize that he cannot reach the camera. He becomes stationary right after. This works even when the timelock door is open.
  
• Stationary due to unreachable drills: Big Bank has several spots. Placing a drill on the rooftop gets guards in the public area stuck. Placing a drill on the safe in the manager's office gets guards in the vault area stuck. This is because any guard deciding to investigate the drill noise (loud drill required) realizes that he cannot reach the drill and becomes stationary.
  
• Stationary due to disappearing objective: Any guard investigating a loud drill becomes stationary if the drill disappears (after finishing or using an ECM/keycard/lockpick to open the locked object) or is upgraded to be completely silent (partial noise reduction has no effect on guards who are already investigating). As the function that checks for drill noise is called only once every 2 seconds, you need to wait 2 seconds after placing a drill before using a keycard (ECMs may be used right away as they take some time to place) to guarantee that a guard in hearing range becomes stationary.

A stationary enemy will start moving again if chosen to investigate either a drill or camera. However, if an enemy failed due to having no clear path to a drill, he becomes unavailable for drill investigations for 6 seconds. Because of that, a single loud drill out of reach can turn 3 guards stationary: Those guards take turns investigating, instantly failing and being unavailable for 6 seconds. As guards often keep walking along their original path for a few seconds after hearing a drill and deciding to investigate, they might leave the hearing range again before becoming stationary. In this manner, one drill may turn more than 3 guards stationary.

When a guard is sent to investigate a broken camera, he will sometimes not become uncool but just wave at it. It is not chance however that decides this. The camera is not detected due to its detection point (which is extremely close to the wall) being blocked by either the wall itself or an invisible wall close to it. The guard does not know that the camera is broken as he can't even see it.

If looked at from the wrong angle however, other parts of the camera may be right in front of the detection point and the guard will detect it anyway. I'm fairly certain that the broken camera itself does not block anything, but the protruding arm of the mount seems to block the view when looked at from certain angles, which in turn makes the camera detectable again. If guards have to look upwards by more than about 5° or if they are approaching the camera from the side, they never seem to notice anything (provided the detection point is hidden). As cameras are usually placed above your heads, it follows that the closer a guard is, the less his chance to see it. Due to the maximum detection range being just 12 m, guards are often unable to reach the required angle. Therefore, if a camera in a certain location on a certain level is not detected by guards, there is a very good chance it won't be detected the next time you play the level.

There are 4 different ways alarm can be raised:

• An uncool person (enemy or civilian) calls the police.
  
• A camera is uncool.
  
• A pager is left unanswered or answered unsuccessfully.
  
• Map-specific triggers. Usually motion sensors (lasers) or alarm buttons.

Basic ECMs disable the first two triggers as long as they are active. With the ECM pager skill, alarm is raised only by map-specific triggers.

There are some ways to figure out if alarm has been raised:

• All exclamation marks suddenly disappear simultaneously despite the enemies still being alive.
  
• A text message appears on the screen. Some map-specific alarm triggers do not show any message at all or are otherwise incorrect.
  
• The music changes.
  
• Bots (if any) start behaving differently.

If you are not directly involved in stealthing, the most reliable method of figuring out if there has been alarm is paying attention to the music, as there is not always an alarm message and disappearing exclamation marks might be due deaths. Conversely, as long as you can see a single exclamation mark, you are still in stealth as no alarm has been raised yet.

There are two different states that the game keeps track of. The first one is called whisper mode, which is the time in a heist during which you can only whisper and do things like spotting cameras and answering pagers and which shows exclamation and question marks. Whisper mode can be ended on a per-map basis, but usually it is disabled the instant alarm goes off. The second state is called "enemy weapons hot", and always starts 2 seconds after alarm goes off regardless of map. This state is required for the police assaults to begin and causes the music to change.

Escapes work on a per-map basis, but are usually enabled the moment alarm goes off.

When all players are in the escape zone, the game immediately evaluates whether there is an escape or not. The heist ends two seconds later, during which your character says something.

The stealth bonus is granted if the heist ends while in whisper mode.

The crew can answer 4 pagers successfully. Failing to answer a pager in time or fully answering a 5th pager (which never succeeds) instantly raises alarm. Usually, if you kill a guard, you are expected to answer the pager.

While there is alarm when a pager is not answered successfully, if several people start answering the same pager, they may stop answering as long as at least one person is still answering. As a practical example, assume that the person answering the pager needs to place an ECM right now. By having someone else take over, he is not bound to the pager anymore and can place the ECM and save the heist. Pager juggling refers to people constantly taking turns answering the same pager.

Depending on the ECMs carried by your crew there are situations where it is acceptable to kill guards without intention to answer their pagers successfully:

• If your crew has no ECMs left and used up all 4 pagers, you can delay the alarm by juggling the pager. This strategy does not help if you are required to be at the escape point before the alarm goes off, i.e. day 3 of Framing Frame.
  
• The crew has enough pager-blocking ECMs to finish the heist. If you can finish the heist while the ECMs are still active, you may kill guards without worrying about the pagers. In fact, killing every single enemy delays the alarm by an additional ~10 s due to the pager operator waiting for a response. However, if your crew has a mixture of blocking ECMs and non-blocking ECMs, it is usually better to play it safe and assume that all ECMs are non-pager blocking to delay the alarm for as long as possible.

Assuming that the crew has at least one basic ECM which does not block pagers, there is an important rule:

Do not kill or dominate any guards if the number of uncool guards is greater than the number of available pagers (it only binds you to his pager and doesn't help with the objectives).

Corollary: If you have answered 4 pagers, you may not kill or dominate any more guards.

Instead of killing the guards, start chaining ECMs so the guards cannot call the cops. Just run past the guards and work on the stealth objectives. Alerting everyone makes no difference at this point. Smash glass if it speeds up your progress.

Violation of this rule renders basic ECMs useless. The entire point of ECMs is to buy you more time, but as pagers go through anyway, you might as well have not placed an ECM in the first place.

Remarks:
There is an enormous difference between heists with 4 guards or less and those with more than 4. In the former case you end up controlling the entire map and then usually wait for the drill and escape van, whereas in the latter case you have to be on edge until the heist is over. Only Go Bank spices up things by constantly giving you phone calls. Big Bank takes it one step further and divides the level into a control section first and a proper stealth section afterwards.

Never disconnect from a pager call once you have started answering (pager juggling being the exception). If detected by someone else, hope that either a teammate helps you out or that you can finish the pager and take care of the problem yourself.

In the end, it makes no difference who answers the pager. If you must shoot several guards so their loud gunfire does not alert everyone else, so be it. The players with the safest paths to the dead guards must then proceed to answer the pagers. This usually means that the killer himself should answer at least one pager when one or more guards were killed.

It is possible to answer 2 pagers alone if the two guards are close to each other. There is alarm if a pager is unanswered for 12 s, but it only takes 10 s (9 s with Burglar perk) to fully answer one. Pagers go off after a random amount of time between 2 and 4 s after a guard dies, so if you kill a second guard only after the first pager has gone off, you will have a time window of 4-6 s to answer the second pager. Explicitly holding your fire is not an option most of the time however: If a guard has spotted you, you do need to kill him as soon as possible or his gunshots will alert the rest. In the worst case scenario, the pager that you want to answer first has a delay of 4 s, whereas the pager you intended to answer next has a delay of 2 s. In this case there is no time window at all and you won't make it. Regardless, if you see a teammate next to 2 pagers awaiting answers, it is high time that you move to him and help him out, if only to bag the corpse.

Exclamation marks are no free pass: Uncool guards are usually not much of a threat while ECMs are active. Unless you have a good reason to kill that guard (e.g. his gunfire might alert the others), hold your fire. Recklessly shooting 3 guards while your teammates are running to the escape (covered by basic ECMs) makes it your responsibility to answer all 3 pagers (in other words, you just screwed up the entire heist). If you are ECM rushing a bank and everyone is uncool anyway, you should first kill one guard and answer his pager before shooting the next, or go for two pagers at the same time if you are confident that you can answer both.

If everyone in the crew has pager blocking ECMs, the best course of action is to kill all enemies. This gives you a grace period of about 10 s while the pager operator is waiting for replies before the alarm finally goes off. Leave no survivors: A single enemy alive might call the police the very instant the ECMs run out, well before the pager operator would have raised the alarm.

ECMs globally disable phones and cameras. Uncool people will still attempt to call the cops, but there will be no alarm. Cameras will not see anything for the duration of the ECM, but still cause alarm if they became uncool before the ECM was placed. ECMs without upgrades last 20 seconds and take 2 seconds to place. If you avoid the map-specific alarm triggers and do not kill or dominate guards, basic ECMs can in effect provide total immunity to the alarm. Having the ECM pager-block upgrade makes things even simpler as even pagers are delayed for the duration of the ECM.

The ECM pager-block upgrade does not delay pagers awaiting an answer already, but blocks pagers from going off after that. If you can see the yellow outline already, then placing an ECM will not affect the pager at all. Without ECM, the pager goes off 2-4 seconds after killing or dominating the guard. While the ECM is active, the game repeatedly applies delays of 2-4 seconds for as long as the ECM works. Once the ECM runs out, the pager may go off instantly (the delay finishes exactly by the time the ECM runs out) or take up to 4 seconds (the delay happens to be started right before the ECM runs out and lasts 4 seconds).

Non-pager-blocking ECMs can be used to answer pagers in front of cameras. Imagine that you are spotted by a guard who is in the field of view of a camera, but not too close to it, so there is enough time to place an ECM. Shooting the camera is a bad idea as it costs you 2 pagers and forces you to guard the spot. A better reaction is to place an ECM immediately, then kill the guard. If your ECM blocks pagers, the pager will start right when the camera becomes activated again. To deal with the situation, either somebody else has to place a non-blocking ECM just before the other one expires or the camera must be looped.

A very powerful strategy involving ECMs is called ECM chaining. By placing another ECM just when the previous one is about to expire, the alarm immunity can be continuously extended:

• On heists with 4 guards or less, full map control awaits at the end of the chain. Alerting everyone on the map during the chain is acceptable (they will be dealt with eventually) and in fact common practice.
  
• On heists with more than 4 guards, once an ECM chain is initiated, the only goal is working on the stealth objectives as quickly as possible. Run past guards and smash glass if it means faster progress with stealth objectives. Do not kill or dominate guards unless you know that all ECMs in the chain will block pagers.

Thus ECM chaining is characterized by swift, loud action while the people on the map cannot do a thing about it.

ECM chaining can be used as a last resort if the number of uncool guards exceeds the number of available pagers. It can however also be used as an aggressive means if the crew knows beforehand that the total duration of their ECMs is enough to cover a critical section of a level (or even all of it). Technically, such an ECM rush obeys the same rules as last-resort ECM chaining and differs only in that it is planned beforehand.

In the best case scenario the crew consists of 4 ghosts bringing 8 pagers lasting 30 s each. These 4 minutes of alarm immunity are enough to ECM rush the majority of stealth heists.

Chaining ECMs requires some coordination in the team or every user to some means of displaying the current ECM time left. In the latter case you may disregard this section.

Before the level starts (if you want to chain ECMs that is), agree with your crew on the order in which the players place their ECMs. Players with 2 ECMs shall place both of their ECMs one after another. In the game, if you deliberately decide to ECM rush, the order is exactly obeyed. If you are surprised however and merely want to use the ECMs as a last resort, usually one person makes the call to start the ECM chain. This person then uses his ECM(s) before the usual order continues. To communicate the time to place the next ECM to the next person in the chain, simply state the time (as shown by the ingame clock) when your ECM expires. The next person then starts placing the next ECM 2-3 seconds before this time to compensate for the ECM placement time of 2 seconds. As ECMs don't even last a minute, it is not necessary to state the minutes, but merely the seconds of the ingame clock.

An alternate procedure is to agree upon the exact moments when each player shall place his ECM. If everybody has maxed ECMs, have the host announce that he will place his first ECM at e.g. 0:15, so that his second ECM will be placed at 0:45. The next player needs to place his ECMs at 1:15 and 1:45, and so on. "Lobby order" refers to the order in which the players are seen in the loadout screen, so "loadout order" would be more fitting.

ECMs also start flashing during the last 8 seconds of their duration. If you do not follow the protocol, but do witness an ECM that starts flashing, wait 5 more seconds before placing another ECM to maximize the ECM coverage.

Watching the cameras is usually not only perfectly safe, but also covers much more of a level than manual spotting. The downside is that guards may hide in blind spots, so manual spotting is still highly useful. Every person to sneak increases the odds of being spotted. Every person to watch cameras or otherwise spot enemies from a safe position decreases them, as the sneaking players will be able to do a better job at avoiding the now marked guards. However, if the objective is to carry lots and lots of bags (Framing Frame day 3), it is usually safer to help carrying to lower the number of required trips and decrease the risk of being spotted in this way. Of course, if you are staying back as plan B, you might as well make yourself useful by watching cameras.

When using cameras, as soon as the head of a guard shows up on the screen, he will be automatically marked. Just as with manual spotting, that mark disappears after 13.5 seconds (27 with skill). Keeping a camera focused on a guard will continually spot him. I.e. when spotting a guard and sticking with the same camera for 5 seconds, then switching to another, the guard will remain spotted for 18.5 seconds in total. In contrast to manual highlighting, clear line of sight to the head point of enemies itself is required. Enemies who are currently in view of your camera (and thus being continually highlighted) are marked by a white square. This square in fact marks the location of the head point.

Zooming out of the camera (pressing S) increases your field of view but decreases the range that guards can be spotted, whereas zooming in does the opposite. Even when zoomed out however, the range is sufficient for virtually any situation, so there's no reason to stick with the default zoom or zoom in. Keep zooming out. The FOV slider in the options has no effect on the FOV when watching cameras.

As you often have to work with 6 cameras or more, there is not much time to appreciate the view. With randomized cameras it is simply impossible to keep track of where your team is to provide localized coverage. Instead, make full sweeps to catch as many guards as you can. The highlighting of guards happens instantly, so you can switch through all cameras in a split second and will highlight all of them. A full camera cycle may not last longer than the aforementioned 13.5 seconds to keep all guards marked, so either switch cameras every 2 seconds or make a full cycle every so often. If you stick to one camera for 20 seconds, you are not doing your job (with one exception: If there's a stationary guard standing in front of the objective, your team probably doesn't need you to mark the guards anywhere else, so you may stick to the camera overlooking the guard). I admit, watching cameras is extremely boring and exhausting if done correctly.

The cameras you are looking through are local for your client. Two people may watch the same camera and turn it in opposite directions. It makes no difference to the rotation of the physical camera that spots players. Heck, even your local cameras reset their rotation and zoom every time you switch to another camera.

The crew can dominate up to 4+x enemies, where x is the number of players who are not in custody. With a full crew, any player can dominate up to 8 enemies all alone, after which nobody in the team will be able to dominate anyone anymore (unless the hostages are freed or die).

Converted enemies count towards the number of dominated enemies, so a team with 8 converted enemies cannot dominate anyone. Such enemies are also used for hostage trades: They proceed to handcuff themselves as soon as a trade is available. However, they do not extend the Anticipation phase like dominated non-converted enemies or civilian hostages do. Most hostage bonuses (health, stamina, health regeneration) apply only to the person who converted the enemy.

During stealth, enemies handcuff themselves if domination succeeds. Otherwise, enemies merely raise their hands, making it necessary to shout at them two more times to handcuff them. The enemy will stop being intimidated if he is not within the intimidation range of at least a single player turned no more than 102° away from him with a clear line of sight. In the second phase of domination, the enemy will also stop being intimidated after a delay of 6-30 s depending on the enemy type.

Enemies who have raised their hands but are not handcuffed yet count as hostages already:

• Both handcuffed enemies and enemies with raised hands count against the maximum number of enemies that may be dominated. It is not possible to have more enemies raise their hands than there are team members with the skill.
  
• Enemies with raised hands are available hostages for a trade already: If a trade is possible, Bain will highlight them and they proceed to handcuff themselves without requiring player interaction and can then be traded.
  
• Enemies with raised hands may extend the Anticipation phase and apply hostage bonuses.

To find the hostage for a trade, the game randomly chooses one of the criminals not in custody and then finds the closest civilian or dominated, non-converted enemy. Civilians have their distance to the criminal multiplied by 1/sqrt(2), so they are slightly preferred. If there is no hostage at all, the game picks one of the converted enemies instead.

Enemies resist domination unless they have a reason. Even if an enemy does have a reason, domination is a game of chance and the random number generator may decide that the enemy resists anyway. The resist chance is the product of the following things:

• Pants-down: During stealth, shout at the enemy less than 1.5 s after he became uncool.
  
  • *0 (guaranteed domination)
• Health: Enemy health below 100%.
  
  • *0.1
• Weapon-down: The enemy is showing a hurt animation or reloading. Suppressed enemies diving to cover and panicking enemies are not in the weapon-down state. If the weapon is empty, apply the same multiplier once more (and this usually coincides with reloading, so apply the multiplier twice in that case).
  
  • *0.5

If none of these reasons is given, the enemy resists. If any reason is given, the chance is not evaluated immediately, but rather there are more multipliers that further lower the chance:

• Player is close: The enemy is more likely to surrender the closer you are. This factor applies if the distance is less than 10 m. Similar to the health reason, the multiplier is a linear function:
  
  • *1.0 at 10 m, *0.8 at 3 m and below.
• Enemy is flanked: Distance to player is greater than 2.5 m and angle between enemy head orientation and the line between the enemy and criminal is greater than 120°; i.e. you must stand behind the enemy.
  
  • *0.95
• Enemy weapons are cold: Alarm has not gone off yet.
  
  • *0.89
• Enemy is unaware of player: The enemy has detected you less than 1 s ago, i.e. you have been in his list of detected objects for less than 1 s.
  
  • *0.9
• Isolated: The enemy has spawned as part of a group (recon or assault) but nobody else from the group is close by (less than 8.5 m away). Guard patrols during stealth are not part of any group.
  
  • *0.92
• Surrender window: If an enemy has withstood a domination attempt, he gets a few more variables, called surrender window. You have 5-9 s (the specific time is randomly determined) during which he becomes more and more susceptible to being dominated with every shout.
  
  • (1 - 0.05) multiplier after the first failed domination attempt (which created the surrender window in the first place). For the second failed domination attempt after that, subtract not 0.05, but 0.05^0.93. Technically, on the Nth failed domination attempt, the multiplier becomes (1 - 0.05^(0.93^(N-1)) ).

The resulting chance is evaluated to decide whether the enemy resists or not.

But there is one more catch: When the surrender window expires, there is an expiration window of 5-10 s, during which the enemy never surrenders. Furthermore, any further attempt made during this expiration window shifts it further in time. If someone entered the expiration window, you can keep shouting at him for minutes and he will never surrender. To avoid being locked in the expiration window, do not shout at the enemy for 10 s.

You cannot dominate special enemies or gangsters.

The weapons and armor you carry have no influence on domination.

Skills do not improve the odds.

If the maximum number of enemies is dominated, no surrender and expiration windows are created.

If an enemy surrenders during a hurt animation, he will finish the animation before raising his hands or handcuffing himself. During stealth, Bain will mention your hostage while the hurt animation still plays.

During stealth, the pants-down modifier does all the work. Shout at an enemy right after he has spotted you (or become uncool in any other way) and you will succeed. Do not shout before he has become uncool or you will merely mark him, and the 1.5 s cooldown will make you miss the time window unless you keep spamming the interaction key.

If the pants-down modifier is not an option, there are only 2 reasons for an enemy to consider surrendering:

• He is damaged (and potentially hurt).
  
• He is reloading (due to being out of ammo).

Conversely, an enemy will never surrender outside of stealth if he is at full health and not reloading.

On the first failed domination attempt, the game determines the duration of the surrender and expiration windows. Let's say that they are 7 and 8 s respectively. Now, assuming that the first domination attempt was made at 0:00 (i.e. 0 seconds into the game), you have 7 s to dominate the enemy before the expiration window starts (with the cooldown being 1.5 s, this means 4 additional attempts). If you don't do anything, the expiration window will disappear at 0:15. If you shout at the enemy at 0:12 however. the expiration window will be shifted, lasting until 0:20. If you keep shouting at the enemy, he will never surrender. He may have 1% health left and be surrounded by four players who keep shouting at him: He will not surrender during the expiration window.

When you convert enemies to fight for you, they are fully healed. So feel free to damage them to dominate.

A small ammo bag contains 400% ammo, a large bag 600%. Completely refilling the ammo for either the primary or the secondary weapon requires 100%. To illustrate this, assume that you have used up all ammo from your primary and have just 30 rounds left in your secondary from a maximum of 90 rounds. Using an ammo bag will refill both weapons and use up 167% of the ammo bag. If the ammo bag does not contain enough ammo, the secondary is rearmed before the primary. Total ammo bonuses (like Fully Loaded basic) increase the total ammo you can get out of an ammo bag, because refilling a weapon completely still requires just 100%. If you have a strong primary and a weak secondary, you should try to bring your secondary to full ammo before using an ammo bag. Spraying your two Kobus 90 magazines at enemies far away is arguably the fastest way to waste ammo bags. Ideally then, to fully utilize ammo bags, you should keep alternating between primary and secondary but try to keep your secondary in equilibrium with the enemy ammo drops, so the ammo bag only has to replenish the primary.


The medic bag does not only fully heal you, but it also resets the number of times you can go into bleedout before going into custody. After going into bleedout three times your screen will turn black and white. The next time you would enter bleedout, you instantly go into custody. To use a medic bag to its fullest, heal only after the screen turns black and white. At this point however, healing has the highest priority. Cloaker kicks and Taser attacks incapacitate you directly and do not count as bleedouts. However, most of the time you are not tased, but shot by other enemies. The number of charges of a medic bag can be seen most easily by the number of blood bags on the right side of the bag. The number of blood bags is reduced by one each time you heal.


First aid kits heal the user by 100%, but unlike medic bags they do not reset the number of downs.


The jamming function is activated upon placement and blocks cameras, phones and possibly pagers. While active, SWAT turrets will fight for you. Refer to the stealth sections for more details.

ECM feedback is activated by interacting with a placed ECM. The feedback duration is completely independent of the jamming duration. You can place the ECM during stealth and return to it after the alarm to turn it on. It stuns everyone except civilians, Cloakers and some boss enemies in a 25 m radius if there is line of sight from the ECM to the enemy. The ECM also sends out splinters similar to explosives, stunning the enemy if there is line of sight from a single splinter to the enemy and he is less than 12.5 m away from the ECM. The duration is randomly between 15-20 s, which is then further multiplied by duration skills.


By default, sentry guns have 100 ammo and deal 30 damage per hit. Damage bonuses:

• No weapon type bonuses.
  
• Headshot bonus (but not the perk deck multiplier).
  
• High Value Target basic and aced.
  
• 512-granularity.

In contrast to enemies, who define accuracy percentages and ask the random number generator whether they hit or miss, sentries work similar to players. They fire at the heads of enemies and hit or miss due to the inherent spread of 5 degrees (2.5 with the skill). If enemy projectiles hit the shield of the sentry gun, no damage is taken at all.

To be able to place a sentry, both weapons need to have more than 20% of their maximum ammo. Placing a sentry without skills multiplies your current total ammo by 0.7, rounded down. So sentries take less ammo if your current total ammo is low.

Picking up a sentry gun gives back ammo: If the sentry has not fired yet, you get back exactly the ammo that you have used to place it. If the sentry is empty, you get nothing. In between, the amount is linearly interpolated.


Deposit boxes open after taking 37.5 damage by a saw. The efficiency boost of Portable Saw aced is a plain multiplier of 1.4 to the saw damage regarding objects that can be sawed open; with one damage-increasing mod the saw damage becomes 26 * 1.05 * 1.4 = 38.22, which is sufficient to open boxes with one hit. Alternatively, even small amounts of Berserker are enough to reach this target.

Apart from that, there is just one skill that goes with the saw: Fully Loaded basic increases the efficiency when using ammo bags.

The saw can only be reloaded by completely using up the blade. If your blade is almost used up and you are only waiting for the vault to open to get to the deposit boxes, you can intentionally use up the blade, then grab ammo, then reload. The reverse order, grabbing ammo first, does not work as well: With Fully Loaded you have 2.5 saw blades to work with (usually 375 ammo, but it's a pain to deal in these units). If you used up the first blade by 70%, your ammo count will be at 1.8 blades. If you grab ammo first, you will have 2.5 blades again. By using up the remaining 0.3 blades to reload, you thus end up with 2.2 blades. If you grab ammo after using up the blade, you get the full 2.5 blades instead. It might not seem like much, but you don't want to reload your saw blade only to end up with 20% of a saw blade.

The saw is a fully automatic weapon firing at 400 RPM. It does not hit the center of the screen, but it hits to the right where the saw blade is. Each time you shoot and hit something, it randomly uses 6-15 ammo (though if your current saw blade has just 1 ammo left and you use it up, the negative ammo does not carry over to the next saw blade). Where to aim when using the saw: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1120480782

When sawing, do not pick up the loot right away. It's not your job. Pick it up after sawing if it hasn't been taken by anybody else.

If you are unsure about whether any player in the team has a saw right now, the ammo count is a good indicator; if somebody has just just 1 or 2 bullets in his weapon according to the HUD, he most likely has a saw.


The current drill upgrades can be seen on the display. White means basic, gold means aced (though the auto-restart only gets a white icon). Upgrading drills takes 10 seconds (regardless of skills), whereas placing one takes just 3, so don't race against the Technicians in your team if you don't have the upgrades. Instead, wait a few seconds to give someone with the skills time to place the drills. Repairing a drill takes 10 seconds without and 7.5 seconds with the skill. Curiously, repairing also upgrades the drill.

If someone manages to finish placing a slow drill before the Technician starts placing his drill, the drill will finish faster compared to not placing a drill at all, assuming the Technician upgrades as soon as he reaches the drill. Of course, if there are several drills, this statement will not be true anymore. Placing slow drills and then having someone upgrade them also drains more manpower from the team.

Whether a drill auto-restarts or not is decided when placing or upgrading it. There is a 10%, 20% or 30% chance that the drill becomes an auto-restarter and always restarts 5-20 seconds after jamming. Otherwise the drill does not benefit at all. Auto-restarters may jam several times, but will always fix themselves until they are finished. Upgrading or repairing a drill calculates the chance only if the auto-restart icon is not shown already (which itself does not indicate whether the drill is an auto-restarter or not). Thus you always have exactly one chance for the drill to be an auto-restarter. If it is not, it will never be. Players with a 10% or 20% chance should not place drills (or upgrade if the icon is not shown yet) if there is someone else with a greater chance.

By default, drills jam between 1 to 3 times until completion. The actual number of jams is randomly decided upon placing the drill and usually does not depend on the type of the drill or the type of safe/door. Doors/safes that do change how often a drill jams:

• The doors on Hoxton Breakout day 2 force the drill to jam only once.
  
• Some drills of the Bomb heists do not jam at all.
  
• And others.

Drills may additionally be jammed by enemies. Auto-restarters will fix themselves even in that case. Each jam (jams caused by enemies excluded) is given a random progress interval upon placement of the drill, defined as (50% to 90%)/totalJams with totalJams being 1 to 3. While the drill is running, the progress interval of the first jam will start running down and cause the jam once it reaches 0. Upon fixing the drill, the next interval will start running down. In numbers for each case:

• If the drill was set to jam only once, this one jam will thus appear anywhere between 50% and 90% total drill progress.
  
• If the drill was set to jam twice, each jam has a random interval between 25% and 45%. The first jam will occur between 25% and 45%. The second jam will occur 25% to 45% after the first jam occurred.
  
• If the drill was set to jam thrice, each jam has a random interval between 16.7% and 30%.

A drill never breaks down before 16.7% progress or after 90% progress. The last jam of a drill always occurs between 50%-90% progress. If a drill breaks down for the first time after at least 50% progress, it will not jam again. If it breaks down for the first time after 30%-45% progress, it will jam once more. If it breaks down for the first time after 16.7%-25% progress, it will jam two more times.

The noise of drills has a range of 25 meters, causing an enemy within range to come and investigate during stealth. The range is cut in half if there is an obstacle between the head of the enemy and the drill, which usually is the case as enemies spot the drill really fast once they see it (making the noise redundant). Therefore, in your average heist, the noise of the drill has an effective range of 12.5 meters. The noise remains the same whether the drill is jammed or not. Having a silent drill is not always useful, as you actually might want to lure guards. Then again, surely there is a single person in the team without drill skills if you do need a drill that makes noise. If an enemy was investigating a drill when it was upgraded to become completely silent, he will lose his objective and become stationary (e.g. on Big Bank, start a loud drill on the safe when a guard is in the canteen, then make it silent right after to turn that guard stationary, one cake less to worry about; then again, without silent drills, one can take out both guards in the public area, start a drill without auto-restart and let it turn at least 3 guards in the vault area stationary).

Silent drills need to be in the field of view to be detected.


Upon picking up an ammo drop, you have a 20% chance to gain a cable tie (up to 9).

Before an assault wave starts, the game checks whether your team has at least one hostage, be it a dominated enemy or a tied civilian. Converted enemies do not count. If you have a hostage, the Anticipation phase lasts 30 seconds longer (10 seconds on Deathwish), delaying the actual assault. Having more than one hostage makes no difference anywhere other than having more hostages to trade. The hostage check is performed at the start of the Anticipation phase, which would last 30 seconds without hostages, so taking a hostage moments before the assault indicator appears does not delay the wave anymore.

The skill descriptions use two different formats:

• 2 bullet points: The first bullet point refers to the basic skill, the second bullet point refers to the aced skill.
  
• More than 2 bullet points: Basic and aced are separated by whitespace.

Essentially, I have cut out the whitespace for the common case that a skill has just a single effect each for basic and aced. It may happen that basic has 2 effects, so it looks like the other format. You need to look at a skill description in its entirety (and count the bullet points) to be sure which format you are dealing with. It is not a perfect solution but I have found it the most visually appealing.

Example of the first format:

• Basic effect
  
• Aced effect

Example of the second format:

• Basic effect 1
  
• Basic effect 2
  
  
• Aced effect

The effects are roughly structured as *condition*:*effect*. When omitted, the subject for both of condition and effect is you, the player. For example, "Silenced weapon: +15% damage" is short for "When you are using a silenced weapon, you do +15% damage."

Hostage bonuses consider all hostages (tied civilians and dominated enemies) and, unless noted otherwise, your personal converted enemy. Converted enemies of your teammates do not count.

Crew bonuses inform everybody in the team (including the person with the skill) to locally apply the bonus. This happens upon joining the game; there is no further synchronization. Identical (crew) bonuses do not stack, because a given bonus can only be on or off. I mark crew skills by starting the description with "Crew.". The subject of the bonus remains "you", e.g.

• Crew. If at least one hostage: *0.92 received damage

means

• Every player in the lobby owns the following bonus: "If you have at least one hostage, your received damage is multiplied by 0.92."

So if player A has brought this bonus, and there are no hostages except a converted enemy from player B, then player B will receive less damage whereas player A will not.

I may occasionally write -> to compare effects without and with the skill. This assumes no other skills, unless they are required to reach that skill. E.g. 6 s -> 3 s revive interaction time means that without any skills it takes 6 s to revive someone, but 3 s with the skill (Inspire basic).

Different bonuses do stack in three different ways:

• Additive. The bonus is directly added to the original value. E.g. +1 damage or +10 damage.
  
• Percentage points. The bonus is added to a multiplier initialized to 1. When all bonuses have been added, the multiplier acts on the original value. E.g. +2% damage or +22% damage.
  
• Multiplicative: The original value is multiplied by the bonus. E.g. *1.03 damage or *1.33 damage.

The game usually applies the bonuses in the order above, so that a weapon with 24 base damage would end up with (24+1+10)*(1+0.02+0.22)*1.03*1.33 = 59.45 damage. The nomenclature does not leave much room for interpretation: % is a percentage point bonus, * is a multiplicative bonus, neither is an additive bonus. Exceptions are dodge, critical hit chance and armor penetration chance, which are additive bonuses where the natural units are percentages.

Received damage:

• Has the opposite order: First take the product of multiplicative bonuses, then subtract from the result.
  
• For players: When receiving melee damage, universal received damage multipliers (anything except Martial Arts) are applied twice.
  
• For players: Received damage bonuses are only applied to bullets, melee, explosion and fire, but not fall damage and map-specific killzones (fire or gas; dealing 5 or 7.5 damage in 0.25 s intervals).
  
• For converts: Received damage bonuses are applied to virtually everything, i.e. bullets, explosions, melee, poison and fire.

Events:

• Headshot events include all hits in the head, not only the killing shots.
  
• Killshot events, named after the Lua function, occur when you personally kill an enemy. The following things are (or are not) capable of triggering killshot events:
  
  • Allowed: Weapons, trip mines, grenades and molotovs if not thrown from bleedout, other throwables
    
  • Not allowed: Sentry, converted enemies, bots
  The bleedout condition is rather silly because Messiah is based on killshots.

Skills and perks with cooldowns usually trigger even if the player does not gain anything. E.g. if you hit an enemy in the head while owning Bullseye, the cooldown starts even if your armor was already full. Only the health regeneration bonuses every 5 s are smarter and stay on standby when you are at full health; once you take damage, you are instantly healed.

Sometimes the aced version of a skill only changes some numbers of the basic version. In that case, I will write "Override:" and state the numbers that shall be replaced only.

The various speeds and rates define the progress per time. Often, the inverse quantity is of greater interest. E.g. *1.5 reload speed means *0.67 time to reload.

Akimbo pistols/SMGs are affected by akimbo bonuses and pistol/SMG bonuses.

Terms:

• ♥♥♥: First Aid Kit
  
• ADS: Aiming down sights. The opposite of firing from the hip. When you press the right mouse button and your FOV changes, you are treated as aiming down the sights, even for LMGs and akimbo weapons. There is no delay: The instant you start pressing or releasing the right mouse button, your stance changes to ADS or hip-fire respectively.

Even with no points invested, players benefit from certain skills. Some of these skills are worth mentioning because they affect other calculations. The relevant skills are:

• When walking: +0.25 speed multiplier
  
• When crouching: +0.1 speed multiplier
  
• Street Sweeper: +15% reload speed
  
• Fall damage is 25% armor, no health (unless lethal)
  
• Dominate enemies
  
• 240 s ECM feedback recharge time. Counted upon feedback end.

E.g. due the 15% reload bonus, other reload speed bonuses have a smaller effect on the Street Sweeper.

Perk deck bonuses common to all decks:

• +5% damage with raycast weapons
  
• On headshot with bullet damage: *1.25 damage
  
• *1.35 ammo pickup
  
• Armor has increased movement speed, see Armor Stats section.
  
• Medic bag interaction time: 3.5 s -> 2.8 s
  
• +1 concealment
  
• +0.45 experience multiplier
  
• Unlocked armor bag

• During a revive interaction: *0.7 received damage
  
• After reviving another player: *0.7 received damage for 5 s
  
• After being revived: *0.7 received damage for 5 s
  
  
• After reviving another player: He gets *1.3 revive health.

• After reviving another player: He gets *0.7 received damage for 5 s.
  
• Override: *0.2 received damage

• ♥♥♥ deploy time: 1 s -> 0.5 s
  
• Medic bag deploy time: 2 s -> 1 s
  
  
• Players using your ♥♥♥ or medic bag get *0.9 received damage for 120 s. This includes automatic ♥♥♥ heals from Uppers aced.

• Number of FAKs: 4 -> 11
  
  
• Number of FAKs: 11 -> 14
  
• Your FAKs are automatically used to heal a player who would enter bleedout otherwise (5 m radius). Every player has a separate 20 s cooldown to be healed automatically. If a player has the Swan Song skill, the ♥♥♥ will be used and Swan Song not entered. FAKs are not used when players exit Swan Song.

• Number of medic bags: 1 -> 2
  
• Medic bag charges: 2 -> 4

• Revive interaction time: 6 s -> 3 s
  
• On shouting at a player within 9 m distance: He gets +0.2 movement speed multiplier and +20% reload speed for 10 s. 3.5 s cooldown.
  
  
• Instantly revive over up to 9 m distance by interaction. 20 s cooldown.

• Number of cable ties: 2 -> 6
  
• Cable tie interaction time: 2 s -> 0.5 s
  
• *1.5 intimidation time when shouting at civilians
  
  
• Crew. -0.5 received bullet and melee damage per hostage (max 8 hostages; does not include converted enemies)

• *1.5 range when using the interaction key to mark or dominate enemies or intimidate civilians
  
• Intimidation aura: 10 m radius
  
  
• You can have 2 converted enemies (needs Joker).

• You can convert enemies. 1 enemy limit unless Confident aced.
  
• Converts deal 65% damage.
  
  
• Time to convert: 1.5 s -> 0.525
  
• Override: Converts deal 100% damage.

• Civilians are intimidated by alerts.
  
  
• Civilians tied by you do not set a path to flee when untied. The effect is lost if the untied civilian is then tied by someone without the skill. You must be the last to tie. With this effect, civilians can always be intimidated by alerts.
  
• If in custody and not whisper mode and there is at least one non-converted hostage: Can trade yourself out of custody by pressing jump (trade happens automatically when everyone is in custody). Only once per map. If there is a hostage selected for a trade already, this hostage is used, else the hostage closest to where the player went into custody is chosen. If either the AI trades a player or the Stockholm skill is used, Stockholm (for all players) is blocked until a traded NPC disappears from the map. After the trade, no players can be selected for ordinary trades for 10 s. (So outside of assaults, you might steal a hostage from a trade for another player and additionally block trades for 10 s. Avoid this skill during assault breaks.)
  
• The game-over screen does not show outside of whisper mode if there is at least one non-converted hostage and the game has registered a player with the skill who has gone into bleedout and not yet used it. Players are unregistered only when using the skill, so if someone with the skill enters bleedout and just leaves, the game-over screen cannot show.

• If you have a converted enemy: +0.1 movement speed multiplier
  
• Converts get *0.55 received damage.
  
  
• If you have a converted enemy: +30% health
  
• Override: *0.01 received damage

• If you have at least one hostage or local convert: Regenerate 1.5% health every 5 s.
  
• Override: 4.5% health

• +8 stability
  
• While not moving: +16 accuracy

• +100% ADS speed
  
• Unhindered movement speed when ADS.
  
  
• SMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle, pistol or LMG: +2 zoom index
  
• SMG, assault rifle or sniper rifle, while moving: +16 accuracy

• SMG, assault rifle or sniper rifle in single-shot mode: +8 accuracy
  
• Single-shot mode while ADS: +20% accuracy

• SMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle: +15% reload speed
  
• On killing headshot with SMG, assault rifle or sniper rifle in single-shot mode: +100% reload speed for 4 s

• On 3 headshots in less than 6 s when you have equipped SMG, assault rifle or sniper rifle in single-shot mode: +1 ammo for your current weapon. Does not add to magazine. The skill is reset (time window and headshot information deleted) in the following events: 1) Switching to invalid weapon type or auto-fire. 2) 6 s have passed. 3) The ammo is added. The skill is not reset on missing. Because of 3), you can get more than 1 ammo in 6 s; e.g. if you have 18 headshots in 5 s, you get 6 ammo, because after getting the ammo from 3 headshots all information is reset.
  
• Override: 2 headshots

• On hitting an enemy with a sniper rifle: Deal x damage to all enemies (except those already hit) and civilians in 1 m radius around the bullet trajectory. x is the damage that the enemy has taken, multiplied by *0.2 if headshot kill (medic revives count too), else *0.2. If the bullet penetrated several enemies, x is the greatest damage. Enemies cannot take more damage than they have health, except when healed by medic (they can take infinite damage then).
  
• Override: *1.0 if headshot kill

• When targeted by 3 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *1.15 damage with raycast weapons and crossbows for 7 s
  
• When targeted by 3 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.9 received damage for 7 s

• Shotgun: +15% reload speed
  
  
• Shotgun: +35% reload speed
  
• Shotgun: +125% ADS speed

• Shotgun: +8 stability
  
• Shotgun: +5% damage
  
  
• Shotgun: +10% damage

• Shotgun, ADS: +40% accuracy
  
  
• Shotgun, ADS: *1.5 minimum and maximum range, that is:
  
  Minimum range
  Maximum range
  Normal / 000
  20 m -> 30 m
  50 m -> 75 m
  Slug / Dragon's Breath
  40 m -> 60 m
  74.5 m -> 111.75 m
  Flechette
  40 m -> 60 m
  91 m -> 136.5 m
  HE
  40 m -> 60 m
  115 m -> 172.5 m

• Shotgun: Hip-fire while sprinting. Redundant with Lock N' Load skill.
  
  
• Shotgun with detachable magazine (IZHMA, Steakout, Goliath): +15 magazine size
  
• Shotgun without detachable magazine, fired from the hip: +35% rate of fire

• When killing an enemy with shotgun or saw: Shotguns and saw deal *1.75 damage for 20 s.
  
  
• *1.8 weapon swap speed
  
• Override: Instead of just saw and shotguns, all raycast weapons and crossbows deal extra damage.

• *0.85 armor regeneration time
  
• Flashbang degradation rate: *2.5. The flashbang effect degrades at a constant rate. A single flashbang does not completely fill out your flashbang value. The threshold at which your screen is white is below the maximum.

• While interacting: *0.5 received damage
  
• Ballistic vests: +20 armor

• Throw bags 50% further.
  
• When carrying bags: Your speed is multiplied by 1.01^floor(armor/10), where armor includes only additive bonuses (i.e. no Armorer or Iron Man basic). The skill cannot make you faster than when not carrying anything. So light and medium bags are not affected by the skill at all. Anarchist is an additive armor bonus, so it offers the greatest potential speed.

• Crew. *0.75 armor regeneration time
  
• Can knock back Shields when hitting the shield. Bullet weapons (except throwables) have a 20% chance at 0 damage, 60% chance at 2000+ damage. Melee has 100%.

• On headshot with bullet or fire: Regenerate 5 armor. Cooldown 2 s.
  
• Override: 25 armor instead.

• +30% armor
  
• Unlocks ICTV.

• Ammo drop pickup range: 2 m -> 3 m
  
• On every 6th killshot: The killed enemy leaves 2 ammo drops instead of 1.

• Your ammo bags let players shoot without using ammo for up to 5 s. Scales linearly with the amount of ammo taken, i.e. 200% = 5 s.
  
• Override: 20 s maximum instead of 5 s.

• Unlocks saw as secondary weapon.
  
  
• Saw: *1.5 total ammo capacity
  
• Saw: *1.4 damage versus static on-map objects like locks

• Number of ammo bags: 1 -> 2
  
• Ammo bag capacity: 400% -> 600%

• Saw: Use less ammo when hitting enemies. By default, the saw needs 1-10 ammo (randomly chosen), plus 15 against enemies or 5 against static objects. The skill lowers the 15 to 7, so the average cost against enemies is lowered from 15+5.5 to 7+5.5.
  
  
• Saw: Attacks penetrate everything; you have only 1 m range though.
  
• Upon killshot (except with melee) while saw equipped: Fully suppress and evaluate 50% chance for panic in enemies in 10 m radius around you.

• *1.25 total ammo capacity
  
  
• *1.75 ammo pickup. Overrides the *1.35 perk deck bonus.
  
• On picking up ammo drop: 5% chance for throwable; multiplied by *1.01 on fail; reset on success.

• Remaining ammo after deploying sentry: 70% -> 75%
  
• Sentry guns gain protective shield.

• Sentry spread: 5° -> 2.5°
  
  
• Sentry ammo: 100 -> 150
  
• Sentry: *1.5 rotation speed

• Remaining ammo after deploying sentry: 75% -> 80%
  
• Sentry health: 400 -> 1000

• Unlocks silent sentry. Alert range reduced from 25 m to 0.1 m. It has identical stats apart from that.
  
• Toggle AP (armor piercing) rounds. Delay between shots is 0.525 instead of 0.15. 75 damage instead of 30. Penetrate shields (without damage loss), but not body armor. Ammo consumption is unchanged, so you get more damage out of AP sentries.

• *0.5 deploy time
  
• Medic bag interaction time: 2.8 s -> 1.4 s
  
• Ammo bag interaction time: 3.5 s -> 1.75 s
  
  
• Equip secondary deployable. You only get half as many items (rounded up). So having the upgrade for a second ammo or medic bag does not make any difference for the secondary deployable. Because this skill is located in the sentry tree, the common choice for the secondary deployable is the silent sentry.

• Number of sentry guns: 1 -> 2
  
• Number of sentry guns: 2 -> 4

• *0.75 repair interaction time for drills and saws (usually 10 s -> 7.5 s)
  
• Silent drills.
  
• Trip mine deploy time: 2 s -> 1.6 s
  
  
• +10% drill autorestart chance

• Trip mine explosion radius: 3 m -> 3.9 m
  
  
• Trip mine explosion damage: 1000 -> 1500
  
• Trip mine explosion radius: 3.9 m -> 5.85 m

• *0.85 drill timer
  
• Override: *0.7 drill timer

• Number of shaped charges: 3 -> 4
  
• Number of trip mines: 3 -> 7
  
  
• Number of shaped charges: 4 -> 6
  
• Number of trip mines: 7 -> 14

• +20% drill autorestart chance
  
• Restart broken drill with melee. 50% chance. You only have one chance per time the drill is broken.

• Trip mines have fire like molotovs for 10 s. Diameter 4.5 m (same as other fire effects).
  
  
• Trip mine fire diameter: 4.5 m -> 6.75 m
  
• Trip mine fire duration: 10 s -> 20 s

• +8 accuracy
  
• +16 stability

• 5% chance to force heavy hurt on enemies except Bulldozers, phalanx and biker boss with bullet damage (except throwables).
  
• Override: 20% chance

• When firing from the hip: +12 accuracy. LMG bipods are affected.
  
• If moving: +20% accuracy

• Hipfire while sprinting.
  
• On every other killshot: If your equipped weapon is a bow, flamethrower or a weapon set to full-auto, activate. While active, wait for a weapon switch or reload event. On weapon switch, deactivate. On reload: Let effective mag = magazine size minus (if applicable) 15 if Surefire basic (even for akimbo SMGs). If effective mag <=20: Use reload multiplier 2.0. Otherwise, use reload multiplier 2.0*0.99^(effective mag - 20), but at least 1.4. The reload multiplier is actually percentage-point-based in the end, so subtract 1 from the result and then add it to other reload speed bonuses. So the skill acts as a reload speed bonus ranging from +40% (effective mag 56 or greater) to +100% (effective mag 20 or less).

• SMG, LMG, assault rifle: +15 magazine size. Akimbo SMGs get 30.
  
• 100% chance to pierce body armor.

• SMG, LMG, assault rifle set to full-auto, or special weapons (bow, minigun, saw; but not crossbow): Bodyshot bullet damage multiplied by (1 + 0.3*(headshot multiplier-1)). Only bullet damage is affected. The perk deck headshot bonus is not used here. No effect against Bulldozers.
  
• Override: 0.9 instead of 0.3.

• Casing mode: You can mark enemies and cameras.
  
• Casing mode: Enemy and camera detection rate against you *0.75.
  
  
• Casing mode: Can pick up items.
  
• 30% more value to instant cash that you pick up.

• Body bags: 1 -> 2
  
• Maximum body bags: 1 -> 3
  
  
• Number of body bag deployables: 1 -> 2

• After not doing anything for 3.5 s in stealth except looking around, instantly interacting and changing stance: Automatically mark civilians and enemies in 10 m radius.
  
  
• Access to all insider assets.
  
• -75% civilian cleaning costs

• Loop a camera to disable it for 25 s.
  
  
• *0.5 lockpick time
  
• Can lockpick hard locks, i.e. safes.

• *1.25 ECM feedback duration
  
• +25% ECM jamming duration
  
  
• Open doors with ECMs.

• Number of ECMs: 1 -> 2
  
  
• *1.25 ECM feedback duration
  
• +25% ECM jamming duration
  
• ECM jamming delays pagers.

• After sprinting: Stamina regeneration starts after 0.75 s instead of 1 s.
  
• *1.25 stamina regeneration rate
  
• When sprinting: +0.25 speed multiplier
  
  
• When sprinting: +10% dodge

• +0.1 speed multiplier
  
• When climbing: +0.2 speed multiplier
  
  
• Sprint in all directions.
  
• Reload while sprinting.

• +2 concealment
  
• Ballistic vests: +4 concealment

• Upon armor breaking: First bullet hit (except throwables) on every enemy except Bulldozer, phalanx and biker boss causes enemy to show heavy hurt. Effect ends upon armor regeneration.
  
• The basic effect persists for 6 s after regeneration.

• When tased: Evaluate 30% chance to force heavy hurt on the Taser every second, stopping the tase. A tase needs slightly longer than 10 seconds to incapacitate you, so you usually have 10 chances; the chance to be incapacitated is then 0.7^10 = 3%.
  
• When tased: You can free yourself by pressing the interaction button (no target needed) within 2 s.

• +1% dodge for every 3 points of detection risk below 35. Up to 10%.
  
• Override: +1% dodge for every 1 point.

• As long as you have 0 armor and your armor regeneration is stuck in the 1 s constant regeneration time interval: *1.3 movement speed for 5 s
  
• Override: As long as you have 0 armor and your armor regeneration is stuck in the 1 s constant regeneration time interval: *1.3 movement speed for 5 s for the entire crew

• *0.65 priority
  
  
• +1 concealment for each silenced weapon
  
• Concealment penalty of silencers reduced by 2. (Silencers with a concealment penalty of 2 or less will not change your concealment anymore.)

• Silenced weapon: +8 stability and +100% ADS speed
  
• Silenced weapon: +12 accuracy

• +3% crit chance for every 3 points of detection risk below 35. Up to 30%.
  
• Override: +3% chance for every 1 point.

• When you mark enemies in any way: Enemies get red contours instead of pink. Red enemies receive *1.15 bullet, explosion and melee damage.
  
  
• You, your sentries, converts and (if host) bots get *1.5 bullet damage against red enemies, when the distance between attacker and target is greater than 10 m. No effect against SWAT turret.
  
• *2 mark duration (also applies to trip mines)
  
• Mark by aiming at special enemies when ADS. Same as Theia scope, except 40 m range limit. Does not work through glass.
  
• *20 highlight range

• As soon as 4 s have passed since your last received valid bullet or explosion damage (or start of heist): +35% crit chance for 6 s. valid means received damage while the +35% bonus is not active.
  
• Override: 18 s instead of 6 s.

• Pistol: *1.5 swap speed
  
• Pistol: +8 accuracy

• Pistol (except revolvers): +10 magazine size for akimbo, else +5
  
• Pistol: +50% rate of fire

• Akimbo: +8 stability
  
  
• Akimbo: +8 stability
  
• Akimbo: +25% total ammo capacity (+50% if Hitman perk deck)

• Pistol: +5 damage
  
• Pistol: +10 damage

• When you deal pistol damage to an enemy: Create 10 s frame with +10% accuracy. When the event occurs a second/third/else time during the frame, replace the effect with +19%/+27.1%/+34.39% instead. The frames cannot be refreshed or stacked on top of each other, so there is a short downtime between frames. Switching to a non-pistol immediately removes the frame.
  
• Pistol: +50% reload speed

• Similar mechanic as Desperado, except that the frame is 2 s, with a 2.2 damage multiplier per stack. Stacks up to 1 times.
  
• Override: Frame duration 4 s instead of 2 s.

• Bleedout health: 100 -> 150. Other health bonuses do not affect bleedout health.
  
• You go into custody on your fifth down instead of fourth.

• After being revived: +100% reload speed and *2.0 weapon swap speed for 10 s
  
• After being revived: *1.3 movement speed for 10 s

• After being revived: *0.7 received damage for 10 s
  
• *1.4 health after being revived.

• Upon being downed by bullet, melee or non-map-specific explosion damage: Enter Swan Song for 3 s.
  
• Swan Song: *0.4 movement speed. You are invincible against anything but lethal falls and incapacitation though Cloakers or Tasers. Disable automatic Uppers until revived. When the Swan Song duration runs out, enter bleedout.
  
  
• Override: 6 s duration
  
• Weapons except saw do not consume ammo during Swan Song. You must have at least 1 ammo in your magazine to be able to shoot.

• Upon being downed by bullet, melee or non-map-specific explosion damage or exiting Swan Song: 15% chance to get revived after a second.
  
• Override: 45% chance

• In bleedout, on killshot: You can press jump to revive yourself as long as you do not enter fatal mode (fatal happens after losing all bleedout health). 1 charge.
  
• Charge replenished on using doctor bag.

• *0.5 received melee damage
  
• *1.5 melee knockdown

• Every non-melee killshot increases your melee damage by 100%. Up to *16 damage (after 15 killshots) possible. Reset on killing enemy with melee.
  
• On killing enemy with melee: +50% reload speed for 10 s

• Against non-specials: +100% melee damage
  
• Against specials: +100% melee damage

• Charging melee weapon knocks down enemies meleeing you.
  
• Cloaker special attacks can also be countered.

• Melee and saw: Damage bonus linearly scaling from *1.0 at 50% HP to *3.5 at 0 HP.
  
• Raycast weapon (except saw) or crossbow: Damage bonus linearly scaling from *1.0 at 50% HP to *2.0 at 0 HP.

• Current health cannot exceed 30% of maximum health.
  
• *0.25 magnitude of healing effects (FAKs only heal 25% health). Revive health remains unchanged.
  
• *0.9 received damage
  
  
• Override: Full healing effects
  
• Override: *0.75 received damage

Compilation of the perk decks and their effects. Bonuses common to all decks are not shown.

Crew Chief:

• *1.25 range when using the interaction key to mark or dominate enemies or intimidate civilians
  
• +10% health
  
• +5% armor
  
• If you have Underdog basic, when targeted by 1 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.92 received damage
  
• Crew. +50% stamina
  
• Crew. +10% health
  
• Crew. +5% armor
  
• Crew. *0.92 received damage, except for the Crew Chief himself below 50% health, who gets *0.84
  
• Crew. +6% health per hostage (max 4 hostages)
  
• Crew. +12% stamina per hostage (max 4 hostages)
  
• Crew. If at least one hostage: *0.92 received damage

Muscle:

• +80% health (+184 hitpoints)
  
• *1.15 priority
  
• Can cause panic. Every shot that builds up suppression (i.e. angle between the line player-enemy and the projectile trajectory is small enough) has a 20% base chance to cause panic. Attaching a silencer removes the chance.
  
• 3% health regeneration every 5 seconds

Armorer:

• +35% armor (i.e. +59.5 armor for ICTV users)
  
• *0.9 armor regeneration time
  
• Crew. *0.9 armor regeneration time
  
• Upon armor breaking through any attack except fall damage: Completely ignore melee, bullet, fire, explosion damage for 2 s. The attack breaking the armor deals health damage as expected (snipers, fire, explosion). Fires on the map do not deal fire damage, but killzone damage (same as tear gas). Cooldown 15 s.

Rogue:

• +45% dodge
  
• *0.85 priority
  
• *1.8 weapon swap speed
  
• 25% armor piercing chance

Hitman:

• *0.55 armor regeneration time
  
• Akimbo: +8 stability
  
• Akimbo: +50% total ammo capacity
  
• Upon armor breaking through any attack except fall damage: Start a 1.5 s timer (if not already running). When the timer runs out, fully regenerate armor.

Crook:

• +15% dodge
  
• Ballistic vests: +25% dodge
  
• Ballistic vests: +65% armor
  
• *0.9 armor regeneration time

Burglar:

• +30% dodge
  
• Corpse bagging time: 2 s -> 1.6 s
  
• Pager interaction time: 10 s -> 9 s
  
• When stationary while crouching: *0.8 priority
  
• *0.8 lockpick duration (no effect on safes)
  
• When stationary (checked 1 second after being shot): *0.8 armor regeneration time
  
• Crouching: +0.1 movement speed multiplier

Infiltrator:

• When targeted by 1 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.76 received damage
  
• When targeted by 3 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.88 received damage
  
• Upon hitting enemy or civilian with melee: Add +1000% melee damage to a stack, which can go up to *11 after 1 hit (duration 7 s). When hitting somebody, the 7 s time window is also updated, so the stack runs out of time 7 s after the last successful attack. Not hitting anybody deletes the stack.
  
• Upon hitting enemy with melee: 20% health regeneration. Cooldown: 10 s

Sociopath:

• +20% armor
  
• When targeted by 1 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.92 received damage
  
• When targeted by 3 or more enemies in 18 m range (max 10 m vertical): *0.88 received damage
  
• On killshot: Regenerate 30 armor. If the distance between player and killed enemy is less than 18 m, regenerate another 30 armor and additionally evaluate a 75% panic chance for each enemy in a 9 m radius around the player. If the kill was due to melee, regenerate 10% health. Cooldown: 1 s (for the entire ability)
  
• Upon hitting enemy or civilian with melee: Add +1000% melee damage to a stack, which can go up to *11 after 1 hit (duration 1 s). When hitting somebody, the 1 s time window is also updated, so the stack runs out of time 1 s after the last successful attack. Not hitting anybody deletes the stack.

Gambler:

• +40% health
  
• Upon picking up an ammo drop: Cause every teammate to gain ammo as though he had just personally picked up an ammo drop, except that the final ammo pickup for each weapon is divided by 2 and rounded down; the teammate also cannot get cable ties or grenades. Cooldown: 5 seconds.
  
• Upon picking up an ammo drop: Teammates regenerate 16, 17, 18, 19 or 20 hitpoints. The Gambler himself regenerates twice as much, further multiplied by 1+0.2*n, where n is the number of players in the team with a greater fraction of health left than the Gambler. Bots always count as having a greater health fraction. Cooldown: 3 s

Grinder:

• +40% health
  
• 30% armor piercing chance
  
• Upon damaging an enemy (allowed: personal attacks, sentries, trip mines, throwables, fire, poison, fire dot. Not allowed: Converts, bots) while wearing suit or light ballistic vest: Regenerate 4 hitpoints every 0.3 s for a total of 70 hitpoints, with the first regeneration occurring after 0.3 s. Cooldown: 1.5 second. Can be stacked independently.

Yakuza (magnitude of the effects scales linearly with health):

• Movement speed: *1.0 at 100% health, *1.2 at 0% health
  
• Armor regeneration time: *1.0 at 100% health, *0.4 at 0% health

Ex-President:

• +15% dodge
  
• +40% health
  
• Upon enemy death: If armor is not empty, add 12 to a health storage, up to a maximum of 210 / 202.5 / 187.5 / 180 / 157.5 / 142.5 / 60 (for suit / ... / ICTV).
  
• Upon regeneration of armor from empty armor: Heal the user by the amount of stored health (while obeying the maximum player health) and then set the health storage to 0.
  
• On killshot: If armor is not full, add 19.6 / 18.9 / 17.5 / 16.8 / 14.7 / 13.3 / 5.6 (for suit / ... / ICTV) to the armor regeneration speed until armor is recovered. The default regeneration speed is 1; as in 1 second per second. (E.g. enemies keep shooting at you, so the armor is blocked, but you have killed one enemy during this time. Once the enemies stop shooting, the regeneration time of 3 s, which is reduced by skills, is then effectively divided by the speed above, so suit users without skills have an effective regeneration time of 3/(1+19.6) = 0.15 s, plus the 1 s that is always added when enemies shoot in your direction.)

Maniac:

• Upon damaging an enemy (same conditions as Grinder): Add damage to a buffer. Excess damage from kills is not added.
  
• Every 4 seconds: Add up to 240 of the buffer to stacks and reset the buffer. Stacks cannot exceed 600.
  
• Every 8 seconds: Multiply stacks by 0.4, then subtract 40. Stacks cannot go below 0.
  
• All players get -(stacks/25) received bullet and melee damage, where stacks are the greatest number of stacks that anybody in the team has. Players with the deck themselves subtract 2 times the amount, i.e. 2*stacks/25.
  
• Note: The two timers are based on cooldowns and not synchronized to each other. They check for every frame whether the cooldown, e.g. 4 or 8 seconds, has passed. If the first frame after 4 seconds occurs at 4.05 s, then the 4 s timer could at the earliest occur again at 8.05 s. If there happens to be a frame at 8.01 s, only the 8 s timer will trigger, with the 4 s timer coming shortly after. If both timers happen to activate on exactly the same moment, the stacks can temporarily go above 600, and the stack reduction acts on the stacks before the buffer addition. After all is done, the stacks are then capped at 600 again.

Anarchist:

• Armor regeneration time bonuses have no effect on this perk deck.
  
• Disable the full, instant armor regeneration after waiting for a few seconds.
  
• Every 2/3/4/5/6/7/10 s (for suit/light vest/...): Regenerate 10/15/20/25/35/45/85 armor. So on average, lighter armors regenerate 5 armor per second with short intervals, whereas heavy armors regenerate more on average but with longer intervals.
  
• Invincibility bonus from the Armorer perk deck.
  
• -50% health
  
• +x armor, where x = (1.2 * health). Typically, this means 230*0.5*1.2 = +138 armor. Health bonuses help a lot, e.g. with Partners in Crime aced, you have 230*0.8*1.2 = +220.8 armor instead.
  
• On damaging an enemy (similar conditions as Grinder, but sentries forbidden): Regenerate 30 armor. 1.5 s cooldown.
  
• Disable triggering Second Wind. You can still benefit from others.
  
• Anarchists are treated as having regeneration at all times, so Dire Need basic only lasts a single frame (i.e. usually 1/60 s), and Dire Need aced adjusts accordingly.

Biker:

• (This perk deck uses a different cooldown condition. Normally, a skill cannot trigger while the cooldown is active. For this deck however, a skill cannot trigger if there are 4 active cooldowns.)
  
• Upon enemy death, if there are less than 4 cooldowns of this perk running already: Regenerate 5 armor, plus 1 for each full 10% of health missing; regenerate 5 health, plus 1 for each full 10% of armor missing. Cooldown: 4 s minus 0.1 s for each point of extra regeneration.

Kingpin:

• +80% health
  
• Unlocks injector throwable. The injector duration is 6 s when activated.
  
• While the injector is active: You are healed by 75% (100% if you have less than 50% health) of the received damage. This happens after all received damage modifiers, but before you actually lose armor and health. The received damage is not lowered by the healing. The health amount is not affected by the current or maximum armor (when an attack breaks the player armor, excess damage is usually discarded except from snipers, but the healing happens before any of these calculations so this excess damage is also converted to health).
  
• Injector cooldown: 30 s, starting when the skill is activated. The cooldown can be reduced:
  
  • -1 s for each killshot
    
  • -1 s for each 50 points of excess injector healing. E.g. you have 200 hp (414 max) and receive 300 damage; 214 damage is converted to health, leaving 86 excess health, so the cooldown is reduced by 1 s. The other 36 excess health is used when you get another 14 excess health from future attacks. (After the healing you receive the actual 300 damage which most likely breaks your armor or reduces your hp to 114).

Sicario:

• +15% dodge
  
• On dodge: Fully regenerate armor.
  
• On received bullet damage: +20% temporary dodge. 4 s cooldown. This temporary dodge is just added to the normal dodge.
  
• On dodge: Temporary dodge = 0%
  
• Unlocks smoke grenade throwable. 4 m radius, 10 s duration, 15 m alert radius, 60 s cooldown. The cooldown is reduced by 1 s for each killshot.
  
• Enemies in the smoke are half as accurate.
  
• Players in the smoke are affected in several ways:
  
  • The smoke owner gets +15% dodge and twice the temporary dodge.
    
  • Other players get +10% dodge.
    
  • (This effect can be stacked when several players have smoke grenades.)
• Additionally, players in the smoke are half as likely to be hit, i.e. new dodge = 1-(1-dodge)*0.5. The idea is that 1-dodge is the chance to be hit, and the final 1- converts this back to dodge. This calculation happens after all the other dodge calculations. The negative dodge of heavy armor is plugged into the formula, so those people will have less than 50% dodge.

Stoic:

• Maximum health is increased by the maximum armor amount. Maximum armor set to 0.
  
• 75% of received damage is delayed, so only 25% is received instantly.
  
• Delayed damage is dealt over 12 s in intervals of 1 s. (Received damage modifiers do not apply here because they were applied in the previous step.)
  
• Unlocks hip flask throwable. 10 s cooldown.
  
• On killshot: Hip flask cooldown decreased by 2 s if less than 35% health, else 1 s.
  
• After 4 s since the last non-delayed damage, or when using the hip flask: Heal by 50% of the remaining delayed damage. Remove all delayed damage.

Combat Medic aced multiplies the hitpoints of other players that you revive by *1.3, usually from 40% to 52% on Overkill and below, and from 10% to 13% on MH+. If your patients have berserker bonuses, this skill decreases their effects. With 10% hitpoints, Berserker users have 80% extra damage. Having 13% hitpoints reduces the damage boost to 74%. The default hitpoints are 230, so that 10% are 23 and 13% are 29.9. Because enemies usually deal damage in round numbers, like multiples of 10, this extra health will only rarely help survive another hit on low difficulties (basically 30 damage attack vs an Underdog aced user). The extra damage bonus on the other hand is much more useful. Health regeneration builds will make up for the small difference in just a few seconds anyway; ♥♥♥ users will fully heal themselves. The remaining builds are most likely running Berserker, and those will be affected by reduced damage output. Do not get this skill.

Both Inspire basic and aced have the same range of 9 m, with no way to increase. Inspire basic has a 3.5 s cooldown. It increases not only the movement speed, but also the reload speed by 20%. Reload speed is the inverse of the time to reload, so an inspired player with 50% faster shotgun reload has his time to reload multiplied by (1 + 0.2 + 0.5)^-1 = 0.59.

The increased zoom from Rifleman aced is not always beneficial. You might want a wide field of view while gaining the accuracy bonus from using the weapon sights. Truth to be told however, you might as well fire from the hip with a laser if you want a wide field of view. Still, I wouldn't get this skill as the default zoom of good optics is already sufficient. The limit is the breathing effect and not the zoom.

Domination (making enemies surrender) is the only way to bring back team members from custody when there are no civilians left.

Confident basic adds an intimidation aura around you which helps against intimidated (but untied) civilians. Without the skill, if you look at such civilians (so that your head is turned less than 50°) and your distance is less than 7 meters, their intimidation time will increase instead of decrease (at a rate of 1 per second). With the intimidation aura (with 10 m radius), you don't even need to look at them and their intimidation time instantly reaches its maximum. Obstacles do not matter for this whether you have the skill or not. The issue with this aura however is that the function handling the intimidation is called once per second and then handles only one out of all intimidated civilians (including tied ones). With 20 tied civilians and an untied one, the untied one will change his intimidation time only every 21 seconds (and then either increase it by 21 seconds, decrease it by 21 seconds, or set it to its maximum). The intimidation aura also stops civilians from fleeing when scared. If civilians hear too many alerts (Stockholm Syndrome gunshots do not count) in a short time, they will run off even when intimidated. If they are within the intimidation aura, they never run off.

Enemies get back full health when you convert them, so feel free to hurt them in order to dominate them.

Stockholm Syndrome basic makes alerts caused by the player intimidate civilians. A single alert increases the intimidation time to its maximum, regardless of the alert type or weapon type. If a civilian was cool when he heard the alert, then any type of alert will intimidate him as long as the player is the aggressor. In fact, the civilian screams upon spotting you have you as the aggressor; thus cool civilians become fully intimidated upon spotting a player with Stockholm Syndrome. Uncool civilians are susceptible only to gunshots (they cannot even hear explosions). Gunshot alerts have a cooldown of 1.5 s, so firing in rapid succession has no effect. In fact, there is no need anyway, as a single alert fully intimidates civilians, even if they do not drop to the ground (intimidation and dropping to the ground are two different things).

Civilians cannot flee if they have ever been tied by someone with Stockholm Syndrome aced. Otherwise, civilians helped up by the police start fleeing immediately. After civilians become uncool or their intimidation time runs out, there is a delay of 5 to 20 s until they flee; despite not fleeing yet, civilians may call the police already during these 5 to 20 s.

Fleeing civilians ignore all alerts. They alternate between running and calling the police and can only be stopped by shouting.

When using Stockholm Syndrome to keep down a fixed number of civilians, a single gunshot alert every minute is sufficient. In the worst case scenario it takes 65 s until a civilian starts fleeing and thus ignoring your alerts. After intimidation wears off, he takes a few seconds to stand up and will not phone the police right away, so there are definitely no phone calls in the time window from the gunshot alert to 65 s later. When new civilians keep spawning, it is mandatory that you alert them less than 5 s after they have become uncool or they might become immune to your alerts.

Forced Friendship basic also increases the intimidation time when shouting by 50%. It has no effect on the maximum intimidation time or intimidation through alerts.


Underdog and related skills are activated when the player is targeted (as per the Target Priority section) by 3 or more enemies who are less 18 m away. The vertical distance may not exceed 10 m. The enemies are not required to actually shoot at the player. The skill lasts for 7 s. Recall that enemies still know about you even when they lose sight, and in fact can only forget about you outside of assaults if you move more than 7 m from the last place they saw you (though they will prioritize players with line of sight). If you are playing as a client, enemies do not delete their targeting info upon death. As a result, corpses can activate the skill for clients, provided the client was the last target and the corpse has not yet despawned.

Underdog aced reduces the damage of DW+ snipers to 204. This allows ICTV users to survive such a hit without health damage. Some perk decks offer ways to take no health damage even without Underdog.

Berserker is an excellent skill to increase your damage output. For every percent of health that you have below 50%, you gain 2% extra ranged damage and 5% extra melee/saw damage. E.g. if you have 10% hitpoints (the amount of hitpoints you have after being revived on MH+), you deal (50%-10%)*2 = 80% extra damage with guns. Due to the nature of this skill, your armor will be the one thing to keep you alive. The ICTV (the heaviest armor) is essential to reliably use Berserker. The only time you get the full 100% damage bonus is during bleedout and Swan Song.

Molotov cocktails are a convenient way to activate Berserker. The flames deal 20 damage per tick and (in contrast to ambient fire or gas) are calculated locally, so when a client leaves those flames, he stops taking damage immediately regardless of ping. Similar to enemy sniper shots, the damage carries over from armor to health. Armorer builds with 280.5 armor and 230 health find themselves with a minimum of 11 hitpoints left, corresponding to 90.4% Berserker, but it takes 2 molotovs to cause enough harm.

Enemies can also be used to activate Berserker. In particular, the gangsters on Rats day 1 deal 67.5 damage per hit. With Underdog aced and 230 hitpoints, take health damage 4 times to end up at 0.5 hitpoints. At this point, the HUD does not even show a sliver of health.


The reduced time to place trip mines does not affect the time to use them as shaped charges.

Primary application for trip mines in sensor mode are staircases.

A rather cheap but powerful strategy is to place sentries at locations that the AI cannot reach. For some reason, enemies of the assault task prefer to path towards sentries instead of players. Place a sentry gun at an unreachable position, making sure that enemies will not be able to attack it. Most of the assault force will gather around the unreachable position or even get stuck at the spawn. Alerting the stuck enemies or even fighting them does not get them unstuck. Placing drills or having loot bags has no effect either. Enemies don't actively seek out drills or loot bags; they disable drills and steal loot only if on their way towards their objective they happen to run across them. Hostages on the other hand are actively sought out. Being tased usually breaks the strategy: When a player is being tased, the assault force often starts pathing towards that player. Even after the tasing effect wears off, the enemies will keep moving towards the player and ignore the sentry. Non-exhaustive list of locations:

• Rats day 1: Open the door of the shed below the balcony. Place the sentry in the corner created by the open door. Make sure to place it close to the door or enemies might gain line of sight and destroy the sentry.
  
• Trustee Bank: In the dead-end alleyway with the dumpsters in front of the bank, place the sentry in the left corner behind the dumpster.
  
• Transport Park: Place the sentry at the concrete platform with the tree and bushes by the white truck.
  
• Hotline Miami day 2: At the final staircase, below some boards. This place is often used by players too to take cover.
  
• Firestarter day 2: Between the sofas to the left of the kitchen.

Chameleon basic puts a plain 0.75 modifier on the rate at which your suspicion builds up in casing mode, but does not affect on the range from which you can be seen. Once you put on your mask, it has no effect at all.

Sneaky Bastard and Low Blow consider the detection risk of the player. The basic versions do not grant fractions of bonuses, so 6 detection risk means a 9%/27% bonus, not 9.67%/29%. For the greatest bonus, the total concealment must be 118 or greater when using the basic skills and 105 or greater when using the aced skills. Thus when going for the maximum bonus, acing the skills effectively provides a bonus of 13 concealment.

The spotter assets available through Sixth Sense aced are at a fixed position for each level. Generally, a spotter is an invisible point hovering in mid-air. On day 2 of Election Day for example, he is located high above the center of the central warehouse section. He spots everything as long as he has line of sight with a field of view of 90 degrees.

Shockproof basic makes you almost immune to being downed by Tasers (though not gunfire while being tased). When the skill succeeds, the Taser is subject to a melee attack with a knockdown value of 100% of his health so he will always experience heavy hurt, giving you enough time to react. The melee attack does just the tiniest amount of real damage however. Tasers frequently stop before this time however, be it due to them running out of range while simultaneously tasing you (not sure why this is even possible) or due to enemies walking in front of them (anyone, shields or any ordinary enemy, interrupts the Taser attack when standing in the line between your head and the head of the Taser for a split second). In fact, sometimes they just abort their action for no obvious reason at all. If this happens, they will often start tasing you again as soon as possible, leaving you barely any time to react. This way, the heavy hurt is circumvented while you are being tased. However, once a Taser does decide that he wants to incapacitate you, he will most likely not succeed and be knocked to the ground by the melee attack.


Enemies do not shoot at players in bleedout unless the player becomes aggressive (alerting anyone with gunshot or damaging but not killing an enemy) or has an arrest cooldown (see Target Priority section).

When affected by berserker effects, only the regeneration through Gambler teammates is blocked, but nothing else.

Here are my personal builds. These builds may require infamy to handle the tier requirements.

ICTV crit LMG: http://pd2skills.com/#/v3/mr:efGHikLNqr:tlNqR:gJlMOQr:fHLOpr:ibcdea:pA8::w61-15-6-17:s70:a7

There are four different tasks performed by the police once the alarm has gone off (enemy weapons hot):

• Assault. This task defines one entire assault wave, going through the following phases: Anticipation, Build, Sustain, Fade, Regroup. The assault force retires (moves off the map and despawns) when Fade ends. The HUD shows the ongoing assault for all phases except Anticipation. Technically, the game does not treat Regroup as an assault phase (but I do) even though it behaves just like one including the HUD message.
  
• Recon. This task is performed only when there is no assault and at one point in the game outside of stealth there had been at least a single civilian (whether tied or untied or intimidated or fleeing) or loot bag on the map. Dominated enemies on the other hand do not cause recon units to spawn. The recon force retires as soon as an assault wave begins (i.e. when Anticipation starts).
  
• Reinforce. This task is performed when there is neither Fade nor Regroup. Each level specifies reinforcement locations. Such a location is fully defined by its position and the amount of enemies. The game spawns enemies who will walk to their assigned reinforcement location and then defend that area.
  
• Hiding Cloakers. This special task spawns Cloakers that find spots to hide. These Cloakers initially spawn in quick succession and are replaced 20-40 s (45-60 s on Very Hard) after the death of one of them.

There is one more way for enemies to spawn: Scripted spawns. The mission can arbitrarily spawn certain enemies at any point in time. E.g. all the initial guards on maps are scripted spawns. In fact, all gangsters, cops and snipers are also scripted spawns. Somewhat confusingly, scripted spawns may or may not be assigned to the tasks; if they are assigned, they will belong to recon (if no assault at the time of spawning) or assault (else). Gangsters are often assigned to the recon force. When the assault starts, they retire.

The tasks are rather independent: Killing a recon enemy does not affect the assault or Cloaker task at all. One exception exists due to a limit on special enemies; if the maximum number of e.g. Bulldozers has been reached, the tasks cannot spawn Bulldozers anymore (scripted spawns ignore this restriction).

There are two concepts used by the tasks:

Diff (actually "difficulty", but that would be rather confusing) is a number between 0% and 100%. Higher diff increases the number of assault spawns and extends the Sustain phase. Diff is changed dynamically on a per-map basis. It always starts out as 0% during stealth and is usually raised to 50% some time after alarm went off. After the first assault wave, it is usually raised to 75%. After the second assault wave, it usually reaches 100% and remains there. Only few maps start assault waves with a diff value less than 50%.

Diff is not used by itself but works on a triplet of numbers. Take the assault pool size on OD for example, which is {600, 750, 1050}. The first number corresponds to 0% diff, the second one to 50% diff, the third one to 100% diff. Between those, the game interpolates linearly: For diff between 0% and 50%, interpolate between the first and second number; for diff between 50% and 100%, interpolate between the second and third number. So at 0% diff, the pool size is 600. At 33% diff, we are 2/3 of the way from 600 to 750, so the pool size is 700. At 50% diff, the pool size is 750. At 67% diff, we are 1/3 of the way from 750 to 1050, so the pool size is 850. At 100% diff the pool size is then 1050. Because diff is usually at least 50% by the time the assault starts, the first number in the triplet can be mostly ignored.

In this section, all triplets with curly brackets make use of the diff calculations presented above. If the result is expected to be an integer, always round up. Thus the limit on the size of the recon force {3,4,6} at 1% diff becomes 4 (3.02 rounded up to 4).

Drama is a number between 0% and 100%. Certain assault phases may be skipped or last forever depending on the drama. Drama is increased when a criminal is tased, takes damage or goes down. It decays at a constant rate, going from 100% to 0% in 30 seconds. Ways to increase drama:

• Criminal enters bleedout or is being tased: 10%
  
• Criminal enters fatal or incapacitated state: 20%
  
• Criminal takes bullet/melee damage: damage/230 * 0.5 * distanceMultiplier (distanceMultiplier is 1.0 at 0 m distance between enemy and criminal and linearly decreases to 0.5 at 60 m and more)

The game only considers the damage that is actually dealt: Getting hit by a SWAT for 225 damage with 20 armor only deals 20 armor damage and no health damage, thus the drama is only increased by that small amount. Damage that is dodged does not increase drama at all. A single hit is capped at 230 damage (thus getting sniped for 240 only counts as 230). Bots in the team do not use 230 when taking damage, but their actual increased hitpoints.

Effects of drama:

• Drama > 95%: Skip Anticipation and Build phases.
  
• Drama < 25%: Go from Fade to Regroup.
  
• Drama < 10%: Skip Regroup.

Drama > 95% cannot always be reached: The tasks and drama decay are only updated every 2 seconds if there are no units to spawn. Drama decay is calculated before the tasks. As a result, if there are no units to spawn, the maximum drama that can be achieved is 93.33% as the decay function subtracts 2 seconds worth of decay. If there are units to spawn, the interval becomes 0.4 seconds. (The game takes orders of all three tasks and then hands them over to the actual spawn function, which spawns only 3 units at a time. If the total of all orders is 3 enemies or less, all spawns will happen instantly and the next update occurs 2 seconds later. If the orders request more than 3 units, the spawn function will cause the next update to occur after 0.4 seconds.) Either way, there's a bit of luck involved to reach 95% drama.


Additional info:

• Enemies generally spawn in groups (of variable size between 1 to 5). Curiously, the spawn function randomly decides the actual size of the group without considering the current enemies on the map. Instead, each task has a unit limit after which spawns are stopped. Take the OD recon task at 75% diff, which has a limit of 5. If the first group to spawn had 5 members, the limit would have been reached and the spawns would stop. If the size of the first group was only 4, the spawn function would spawn another group of random size. Thus if the second group were to have 5 members (which is perfectly legitimate), the total size of the recon force may be 9 despite the limit of 5.
  
  
• Special enemies have an additional hard cap for the number of specials that may simultaneously be on the map. Once the hard cap is reached, this type of special enemy does not spawn anymore. Scripted events, such as the helicopter with the Bulldozer on day 1 of Rats, ignore the cap, but increase the special count nevertheless. Thus the White Xmas heist may spawn 6 Bulldozers as a scripted event, but no Bulldozers will spawn as part of the assault force until the number of Bulldozers goes below the cap.
  
  N

  H

  VH

  OK

  MH+DW

  DS

  Medic

  0

  0

  0

  3

  3

  3

  Shield

  2

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  Cloaker

  0

  0

  2

  2

  2

  2

  Bulldozer

  0

  0

  2

  2

  2

  3

  Taser

  0

  2

  2

  2

  3

  3
• Instead of retiring, enemy groups might change their tasks from recon to assault (and vice versa). The reason is that some recon and assault groups can have the same composition. Such groups do not retire but change their tasks.
  
  
• Retiring groups of enemies do not change their minds anymore. They will move out of the map, then despawn; even if they are way behind schedule so that they are retreating while the next assault is already well underway. Once they have decided to retire, they will not be counted against the task spawn limits anymore. Retiring special enemies do count towards the hard cap for specials however.
  
  
• Both recon and assault task are started only if spawn points are enabled and there is a path from these spawn points to any criminal or sentry gun. The assault task has the additional condition that diff needs to be greater than 0. In most cases, the game enables spawn points immediately after the alarm, which starts the recon task. The Anticipation phase of the assault task then starts as soon as the diff is increased (ending the recon task).
  
  
• Recon and assault task units do not spawn if there is no path from any spawn point to any criminal or sentry gun. If the entire crew climbs on the Big Bank crane during an assault, assault spawns will stop. The assault will eventually fade out and the next assault cannot start.

The recon task usually brings in the first enemy responders as, right after the alarm, the game usually raises the diff above 0% only after a delay (be it 30 seconds or 2 minutes), during which no assault occurs. Recon groups can be spawned rapidly one after another in intervals of 2 seconds provided there are spawn points available. If the current number of recon enemies on the map exceeds {3,4,6} on MH+ difficulty, else {2,4,6}, groups will not spawn anymore. Patrolling security guards are generally assigned to the recon force except on day 1 of Framing Frame (and they behave very strangely on that level; they never investigate cameras and they just keep patrolling even when the alarm goes off; unless they see a criminal of course), further draining from the recon spawns.

If there are neither civilians nor loot, there will be no recon task and thus no task force. However, on higher difficulties, once the first assault wave has started, the additional spawns due to the recon task rarely make a difference; the time between assault waves is usually just around 15 seconds, so the recon group will spawn, then start traveling towards their objective (either loot or civilians), and then retire as the next assault wave starts. On larger maps, I've seen such groups walk along the road to reach the bank or store, only to be given the order to retire causing them to keep moving past the building and disappear behind the next corner out of the map to despawn without ever engaging (unless provoked by running into them).

The actual objectives (rescuing civilians or retrieving loot bags) are never removed from the list of all recon objectives. If at any point after the alarm there has been a single civilian alive on the map or a loot bag somewhere, recon task units will spawn between assault waves until the end of the heist. For example, take a map without civilians and assume that you picked up loot. If you throw the bag on the ground, the game will add a recon objective within 2 seconds. No matter what you do with the loot after that, recon units will spawn between assaults until the end of the heist.

All recon units pick the first objective in the list of recon objectives and move towards that location. Only the first objective in the list is ever considered and the other objectives are always ignored.

Reinforce

The reinforce task is the most straightforward of them all. Every {10,20,30} seconds, if the map has reinforcement locations that are not fully manned, a group of enemies will be spawned and walk to that location. Spawns do not occur during Fade or Regroup. Once there, they gain the "engage" attitude and won't move anymore. If a location has too many units, retire the largest group with less or equal members than the excess (thus the location may have more members than asked for if retirement would mean that the location is not fully manned anymore). Other than the restriction on spawning, the assault phases have no impact at all on the reinforce units. They never retire unless the location has too many units. Reinforcement locations may be at inconvenient places forcing you to deal with the reinforce enemies anyway (e.g. in one of the halls in the gallery on Framing Frame).

The assault force has a maximum number of spawns for each wave as well as a limit on the simultaneous enemies on the map. The limit on simultaneous enemies disregards retiring enemies and reinforcement enemies. However, it includes both recon and assault forces (though these two are usually mutually exclusive). If the recon force does not retire for whatever reason, the assault force cannot spawn as many units. In particular, the guards in the back of the Big Bank are recon units but unable to retire due to the timelock door. These guards reduce the limit on the simultaneous enemies in the assault force. Scripted enemies (camera guy, snipers, unreachable or reachable balcony enemies, some cops at cars) count against the limit only if they are assigned to the assault force; so scripted enemies that are taskless do not affect any of the tasks in any way: Kill them or leave them alive at your discretion, the assault force will not care at all.

Limit for simultaneous enemies depending on difficulty and number of criminals (humans + bots) who are in full control of their character (round up the result). Criminals who are being tased, downed or in custody do not count. When playing solo with bots, subtract 1 from the number of criminals. When the number of criminals is less than 1, it is forced to 1 for these calculations. Once the number of non-retiring recon and assault enemies exceeds this threshold, the assault task does not spawn more units (the recon task itself does not consider this limit to determine whether to spawn units). The limit is chosen at the start of each assault.
A group of 4 players at 100% diff on Death Sentence will have to deal with at least 108 assault enemies (up to 112 possible if a group of 5 spawned at 107), in addition to reinforce enemies and scripted enemies.

Maximum number (pool) of enemy spawns in an assault wave. Specials count as one spawn just like ordinary enemies. If all spawns are used up during the assault wave, enter Fade. The system is the similar to before; but the pool size is adjusted every 2 s (depending on all criminals in full control of their character, as before). The other tasks and scripted enemies do not drain from this pool. Killing an enemy does not affect this number other than potentially making room for more assault groups (it is the process of spawning, not killing, which drains from the pool).
Fade is also entered when the other phases run out of time. The table above is mostly irrelevant nowadays because the pool is so ridiculously large.

Assault phases:

• Anticipation. Duration 30 seconds (if there is a hostage when Anticipation begins: 40 seconds on MH+ and 60 seconds below). This phase ends prematurely if drama > 95%. The limit for simultaneous enemies is 5 less than the actual limit. The assault force does not engage during this phase unless you run into each other and even then, they will try to pull back. Retire all recon groups. No flashbangs or smoke grenades allowed.
  
• Build. Duration 35 seconds. This phase ends prematurely if drama > 95%. Other than that, this phase is the same as Sustain. Flashbangs and smoke grenades allowed, enemies seek you out, no additional restrictions on the simultaneous enemies.
  
• Sustain. Duration is {40, 120, 160} / {44, 132, 176} / {48, 144, 192} / {52, 156, 208} for 1/2/3/4 human players.
  
• Fade. Minimum duration is 5 seconds. No enemy spawns allowed. Fade ends only when both of the two following conditions are satisfied:
  
  • Fade has lasted for 355 seconds already, or there are less than 50 enemies (recon and assault force combined) who are alive and not retiring.
    
  • Drama < 25%.
  Once the conditions are satisfied, the closest crew member to the player will call out the retreat (with no other consequences).
  If the retreat has been called out and the two conditions above are still satisfied and there are less than 4 enemies engaging all criminals, stop the assault.
  
• Regroup. Duration 15 seconds. This phase ends prematurely if drama < 10%. No enemy spawns. Retire all assault groups upon entering this phase. No flashbangs or smoke grenades allowed.

Trading hostages for crew members is disabled when Anticipation ends and enabled when Regroup ends. Once the assault is over, send recon forces and schedule the start of the next assault wave after this delay (in seconds):

• Normal: {60,45,30}
  
• Hard: {45,35,25}
  
• Very Hard: {40,30,20}
  
• Overkill: {30,20,10}
  
• Mayhem: {20,15,10}
  
• Deathwish: {20,15,10}
  
• Death Sentence: {20,15,10}

When heists increase diff after the end of an assault wave, this happens when Fade ends, before this delay is calculated. If a heist on Normal difficulty starts with 50% diff and is set to have 75% diff after the first assault wave, the second assault wave will start 37.5 seconds later, not 45.

Assault groups path towards criminals or sentry guns (in contrast to recon groups that path towards civilians or loot bags). Upon spawning, they set a waypoint on the location of one of the criminals or sentry and then keep moving towards this location until arriving there. Once there, they set a new waypoint, once again on the location of one of the criminals or sentry. This waypoint remains fixed no matter where the players go. Assume that all players were at location A when an assault group spawned, causing the assault group to path towards A. Even if the players move towards location B at the opposite end of the map, the assault group will keep moving towards A. Once there, they set a new waypoint on B, provided the players have not moved again.

Certain assault groups have a death guard tactic. During Build, Sustain and Fade, if a player enters bleedout or is tased for just a moment, all such groups on the map with this tactic will abandon their current objective and set a waypoint on the location of the player.

Remarks:

• Bain usually announces when the diff is increased: He will say that tougher units are coming in.
  
• Dominated (but not converted) enemies of the assault task still count towards the limit for simultaneous enemies of the assault wave. However, once the assault wave ends, even dominated enemies are given the order to retire and do not count anymore.
  
• The spawn function assaults works as follows: Every 2 s (or 0.4 s if units are still queued to spawn), check if there are less assault and recon enemies than the limit for simultaneous enemies. On success, randomly choose a group type to spawn. Now check if the minimum number of specials in that group would violate the hard cap for specials. If the hard cap would be violated, do nothing at all (until the next call 2 s later). Only if the hard cap is fine, spawn the group.
  
• Enemies are very defensive during Anticipation. Seeking them out only has the risk of skipping the phase entirely due to high drama. Leave the enemies be during this phase.
  
• Build is no different from Sustain, which is the toughest part of an assault wave. Skipping the phase with high drama is a good idea, though not very practical as high drama is often impossible to obtain.
  
• Fade never ends if the drama does not drop below 25%. It is possible to kill all assault forces and then use the reinforce enemies and scripted spawns to make this phase last forever without any assault troops alive (beware not to kill the reinforce enemies as they do not respawn during this phase either; only scripted spawns like snipers can occur during this phase). On high difficulties, a single Armorer ICTV can repeatedly get shot at by a single sniper with no other enemies alive and the assault wave will never end, leaving 3 other people to perform the objectives. Conveniently, snipers take at least 3 seconds between shots, which exceeds the armor regeneration time if the player has regeneration skills.
  
• Regroup is the safest phase of them all. However, intentionally extending that phase is rather tricky, as there is not always an indicator whether you are in Fade or in Regroup (levels increasing diff with assault waves will have Bain start talking when you transition from Fade to Regroup). Once Fade ends, you have about 5 seconds to gain more drama before the it drops below the threshold. Either way, the phase is that short that it is not worth the effort. The effort should be rather directed at extending Fade.
  
• With 4 players and 100% diff, the Build and Sustain phases last 243 seconds. You have to deal with virtually endless enemy spawns during these 4 minutes. Once Fade starts, all spawns will stop, though the remaining assault groups will still attack.
  
• There is usually no reason to kill retiring specials. Not only will these specials never take part in the assault anymore (so you are wasting ammo and health for nothing), but they still count towards the hard cap for specials. So while the next assault wave may have begun already, it may fail to spawn a group because of the special cap.
  
• Cloakers can spawn either as part of the assault task (though the spawn hard cap is valid at all times), or they spawn through the special task that sends them to hiding spots. Assault Cloakers do not hide, but move to your location. The assault Cloakers do count towards the limit for simultaneous enemies of the assault and drain from the spawn pool, whereas the special task Cloakers do not have any pool; special task Cloakers initially spawn in quick succession and are replaced 20-40 s (45-60 s on Very Hard) after the death of one of them.
  
• Killing civilians has no effect on the tasks. Jewelry Store and Ukrainian Job are specifically scripted to spawn more snipers if civilians are killed. That is all.
  
• Killing the first cops to arrive usually has no effect on the tasks as they are taskless units. On some levels though, they are declared part of the recon group. Killing them would enable the actual recon groups to spawn (which are not much of an issue either). Once the assault wave starts, they will retire just like ordinary recon groups if they were indeed assigned to the recon task force.
  
• Gangsters are often part of the recon force. Once the assault starts, they will retire.

The fact that killing enemies during Build and Sustain just spawns new units seconds later determines much of the dynamics of assault waves and the loud part of the game. The objective during these phases is not to kill as many enemies as possible, but to stall them for as long as possible. The further the enemies have traveled from the spawn point, the juicier targets they become:

• If you take out an enemy group right after spawning, another group will spawn (not necessarily at the same spawn point) just 2 seconds later: You have effectively disabled the group for ~2 seconds (and you most likely have no access to the enemy ammo drops).
  
• If instead you find cover against the enemies far away and kill the group at short range, the next group will have to travel the entire way to your location again during which it poses no threat. Effectively, the group has been disabled for the time it takes to reach you again.

Try to let enemies travel for a while before killing them as spawnkilling is pointless. Deal with the closest enemies first. The further you are from the enemy spawn points, the easier the assault.

Enemies can also be stalled in the following non-lethal ways:

• Suppressing enemies may be preferable to killing them. Binding them to one place effectively disables the group for as long as they remain suppressed. Special enemies still need to be killed as they cannot be suppressed.
  
• On some maps you can run around the map in circles or otherwise avoid the assault groups, effectively stalling the assault for as long as you want. Either make use of suppression to slow down the assault groups, or do not shoot at all so they decide against shooting.

Regardless of the strategy, immediate threats still need to be taken out as soon as possible.


The data is presented in the following format:

• Name: Delay until first assault (initial diff). Changes to the diff values as the heist goes on.

All percentages mentioned here refer to diff values. The delay is relative to the moment the alarm goes off (start of the heist if there is no stealth phase). Diff depends either on the number of assault waves or on the time; the times specified are also given relative to the moment the alarm is raised unless specified otherwise. Some heists start assault waves at different times depending on the circumstances (e.g. Rats day 2 if you are ambushed). For these heists I will generally specify the times relative to the moment the first assault wave starts, indicated by "after assault start". Thus the first entry in the list, Firestarter day 1, starts the assault wave 30 seconds after the alarm was raised. 3 minutes after the alarm has been raised, the diff is set to 80%. Rats day 2 on the other hand, if there was no ambush, increases the diff to 75% either 1:35 or 1:45 after the alarm.

• Firestarter day 1: 0:30 (62%). 80%/100% after 3:00/6:00.
  
• Firestarter day 2: 1:06 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Trustee Bank: 2:00 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/3 assault waves.
  
• Rats day 1: About 0:45 (55%) if you run to the lab immediately. 65%/80%/100% after 2:50/4:55/6:25.
  
• Rats day 2: 1:20 or 1:30 if no police ambush, else 0:00 (50%). 75%/100% after 0:15/3:15 after assault start.
  
• Rats day 3: 0:30 (75%). 100% after 1:20.
  
• Watchdogs day 1: 0:45, 0:50 or 0:60 (50%). 75%/100% after 2:05/4:10 after assault start.
  
• Watchdogs day 2: Start in the Sustain phase (0%). 50% after 0:20. 75%/100% diff after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Jewelry Store and Ukrainian Job: 1:27 on Jewelry, 1:55 or 2:05 on Ukrainian Job (50%). 75%/100% after 5/10 minutes after assault start. Killing at least 3 civilians starts the first assault early.
  
• Big Bank: 0:30 or 1:00 depending on Preplanning (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Go Bank: 1:00 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Big Oil day 1: 1:00 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Big Oil day 2: 0:35 (50%). 75%/100% after 2/4 assault waves.
  
• Election Day 1: 0:45 (60%). 80%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Election Day 2: 1:00 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Election Day Plan C: 0:05, 0:15 or 0:25 (50%). 75%/100% after 2/3 assault waves.
  
• Framing Frame day 1: 0:50 (75%). 100% after 3 waves.
  
• Framing Frame day 2: If ambushed, constant 60% and the assault never ends.
  
• Framing Frame day 3: 0:35 (50%). 70%/90%/100% after 2:05/4:05/6:05.
  
• Transport Crossroads/Downtown/Harbor: 0:30 (65%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Transport Park: 0:30 (50%). 65%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Transport Underpass: 1:00 (50%). 65%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Diamond Store: 0:30 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• Hotline Miami day 1: 1:30 without Preplanning, else 2:00 (25%). 50%/75% after 1/2 assault waves. This level does not reach 100% diff.
  
• Hotline Miami day 2: Assault starts while moving across the first floor (25%). 50%/75%/100% after 1/2/3 assault waves.
  
• Hoxton Breakout day 1: Never-ending assault at the start once you take the stairs to reach the armored truck (50%). 100% diff when entering the garage and ordinary assault wave mechanics enabled.
  
• Hoxton Breakout day 2: 0:30 (50%). 75% after 2/4 objectives. 100% after 3/4 objectives. 50% after picking up the server to escape (never-ending assault).
  
• Nightclub: About 25 seconds (35%). 50%/65%/75%/80%/100% after 2:05/4:35/7:55/11:15/14:35.
  
• Mallcrasher: Random delay: 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 seconds (10%). 20%/30%/40%/50%/60%/70%/80%/90%/100% after 0:30/1:30/2:30/3:30/5:35/8:35/11:35/14:35/17:35 after assault start.
  
• Four Stores: 100/90/80/70 seconds on Normal/Hard/Very Hard/Overkill+Deathwish difficulty (20%). 35%/50%/65%/70%/80%/100% after 1/2/4/7/10/13 minutes after assault start.
  
• White Xmas: 25 seconds after climbing down (50%). Never-ending assault. 75%/100% after 1:40/3:20 after assault start. Ordinary assault mechanics restored at a random point in time 300-500 seconds after assault start. This state lasts for 3 minutes and is the first and last chance to trade teammates out of custody. After that, a never-ending assault is enabled again until the end of the heist.
  
• The Diamond: 0:35 (50%). 75%/100% after 1/2 assault waves.
  
• The Bomb, Dockyard: 0:45 (65%). 80%/100% after 1/2 assault waves. Never-ending assault once you can get on the ship.
  
• The Bomb, Forest: 1:01 (50%). 70%/80%/90%/100% after 1/2/3/4 assault waves.

Day 1 of Hotline Miami sets the diff to 100% after the third wave, but overwrites it with 75% one second later. Depending on your drama, Regroup may or may not end early and you may or may not use the increased diff value for the calculation of the time between the assaults. Trustee Bank takes remarkable 2 minutes until the start of the assault. Transport Underpass is the only transport heist giving you a full minute before the assault. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Transport Harbor leaves you just 30 seconds and puts you into a container for the first 12 seconds.

The SWAT turret has a shield protecting its laser, which is the weak spot. As long as the shield is intact, bullets cannot hit the weak spot. Once the shield is destroyed, bullets gain a 100x damage multiplier against the circular area around the laser.

Explosives have a 7x damage multiplier against both the shield and turret at all times. Fire has a 0.1x multiplier.

A single attack cannot damage the shield by more than 3500 damage and the turret by more than 42000 damage. This limit is enforced after the explosive/fire damage multiplier and the 100x damage multiplier of bullets when hitting the weak turret spot (so bullets with more than 420 damage against the weak spot are wasted).

Explosives and fire can damage both the shield and turret at the same time. Any excess damage above the maximum 3500 damage for the shield (or if the shield is almost destroyed, above the current shield hitpoints) becomes turret damage. E.g. an RPG attack deals about 70000 damage. The shield damage is clamped at 3500. The remaining 66500 are clamped at 42000 turret damage.

The turret and shield use an altered version of the 512-granularity. Damage is rounded down instead of up, but each player remembers his excess damage and adds it to the damage of his next hit.

Bullet damage is synchronized so that when a player damages the shield, the shield takes damage for everybody; when a player damages the turret, the turret takes damage for everybody.

Explosive and fire damage against the shield is not synchronized. When players use explosives or fire damage against the shield, they don't inform anyone else; they inform others only when the turret itself is damaged. Because of this, the shield can be broken for one client, yet have maximum health for the host (and other clients). If the client keeps using explosives/fire, he will eventually inform the others about turret damage. This turret damage is also synchronized oddly: The host is only interested in the damage amount, and applies this damage as though he had locally performed the attack. I.e. if the shield is not broken for him, the turret damage from the client becomes shield damage for the host.

The synchronization mismatch offers a way to bypass the turret repairs. A client can locally destroy the shield with explosives. The weak spot is now exposed for him (whereas the shield is probably at near maximum health for anyone else). He can then shoot the weak spot with bullets, which will deal turret damage for everybody. In this manner he can destroy the turret even though the shield is still intact, according to the host.

The SWAT turret gun deals variable damage to the target depending on the distance. If the distance to the target is <= 8 m, the base damage (given in the table below) is multiplied by 4. If the distance to the target is >= 15 m, the multiplier is 1. Otherwise, the multiplier is piecewise linear function going from 4 at 8 m to 1.1 at 10 m to 1.0 at 15 m.

When the shield is destroyed, the turret begins shield repairs, which take 30 s. This can happen 2 times.

If a player is less than 3 m away, the turret spawns tear gas. Cooldown 10-13 s.

The turret uses an altered detection system. Its maximum detection range is 100 m, modified by the player concealment as usual. Its minimum and maximum delay are 0.3 s and 1.5 s respectively. The minimum delay is multiplied by the minimum delay multiplier (2 for crouching player, 1 when standing), as well as the concealment modifier. In contrast to the usual detection system, the distance-and-angle modifier considers only distance and is defined slightly differently.

• Distance modifier = (distance - 3) / (35 - 3)

with distance given in m. If the distance is just 3 m, the distance modifier is 0 and the detection delay is given by the modified minimum delay (i.e. minimum delay times the minimum delay multiplier times the concealment modifier). If the distance is 35 m, the detection delay is 1.5 s. Otherwise, interpolate between the modified minimum delay and the maximum delay depending on the distance modifier. It follows that all players regardless of detection risk take 1.5 s to be spotted at 35 m. If the distance is greater than that, players take longer to be spotted. Curiously, if the distance is greater than 35 m, players with low detection risk are spotted faster than players with high detection risk. If the distance is less than 35 m however, players with high detection risk are always spotted faster.

In contrast to other enemies, the turret can be made to forget about the player even during assaults if the player moves more than 7 m from the last known location and keeps a distance greater than 10 m from the turret.

The turret fights for the players for as long as ECMs are active. Only the normal ECM effect works; feedback does not work.

Other turret stats:

• Spread: 0.5 degrees. Just like sentry guns, the turret has an inherent spread similar to the spread of players. If a bullet is at one point less than 30 cm from the head of a player, that player takes damage.
  
• Rate of fire: 1000 per minute
  
• Clip size: 800 (48 seconds of sustained fire) on MH+, else 400.
  
• Reload time: 8 seconds

• Winters appears on certain maps on VH+. He does not spawn in singleplayer mode. He can spawn only once per map.
  
• The initial chance for the Winters phalanx to spawn is 5%/10%/14% on VH/OK/-. The chance is repeatedly evaluated during Build and Sustain with a 120 s cooldown. As the cooldown is also applied the very first time an assault is active, the first spawn chance is after 120 s. If the chance to spawn failed, the chance is increased by 5%/9%/9% on VH/OK/-.
  
• The phalanx consists of Winters and 10 minions, carrying shields with the usual penetration features. They use the same CMP as ordinary Shields.
  
• Upon phalanx spawn, hunt mode (infinite assault) is enabled. While map specific hunt mode also forces the assault phase to Sustain, the phalanx does not. Hunt mode disables the transition Sustain->Fade and the spawn pool cannot be emptied anymore.
  
• When the phalanx is in position, i.e. a minute or so after spawning, law enforcers start taking less damage. Law enforcers (including phalanx) initially multiply received damage by 90%, and every 5 s the amount is decreased in steps of 5% until 50% is reached after 40 s. The received damage multiplier is applied right before the damage is converted into granules that define the final damage.
  
• Winters is invincible. His minimum health is 20%, and any excess damage has no effect. Only Ilija is technically capable of killing Winters, but he never targets him.
  
• Phalanx minion hp is 1500/3000/4000 on VH/OK/-. The damage of a hit is clamped at 10% of the hp (150/300/400). Winters has twice the hitpoints, i.e. 3000/6000/8000 on VH/OK/-, and the hit damage is again clamped at 10% (300/600/800). This clamping occurs after weapon type bonuses and shield penetration are calculated. It occurs before any damage type bonuses (e.g. headshot, crits), so damage type bonuses let you push the damage past the clamping. Explosives get a 6x damage multiplier, also applied after the clamping. Headshot/Crit multiplier is 10 on VH, 15 on OK, else 7.5 (of course, with a perk deck, the actual headshot multiplier is also multiplied by 1.25).
  
• Winters retreats when he has 20% health or more than half of his minions have been killed (so there are 4 minions left or less). The received damage multiplier is instantly removed. The retreat occurs when the Winters starts moving again, not upon despawn. The remaining minions stay on the map but remain mostly passive.
  
• Winters' retreat disables hunt mode and forces the Regroup phase. Hunt mode can only be true or false: If there is a map specific hunt as well as hunt due to Winters, the hunt mode is disabled upon his retreat (e.g. White Xmas can have ordinary assault mechanics if Winters retreats after the map forces hunt).

The following tables specify enemy hitpoints and their weapons, as well as enemy group compositions:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15sW5ujghwxsph0xo89vTZbnS_aD7DbKU3CmAFtRBuUI/edit#gid=326942020

Each table is divided in two sections. The first section (ALL) is an overview of all enemies that may or may not be encountered in the game.

• Freq has an A if the enemy may be part of the assault on this difficulty, an R if the enemy may be part of recon or reinforce, an X if the enemy may be part of the extra spawns (Phalanx and lone Cloakers). The number in Freq is the number of different mission files that reference this unit on this difficulty. My method for getting that number is not perfect; but it gives a rough idea.
  
• Type has the internal name of the enemy character and the weapon used. This type determines all other columns, except for the existence of body armor.
  
• HP (armor) has an (x) if the enemy has body armor.
  
• HS (crit) shows crit multiplier only if it is not the same as the headshot multiplier.
  
• Head HP assumes no perk deck, i.e. Head HP = HP/HS.
  
• Hurt resist shows the types of hurt that do not affect the enemy:
  
  • B: Bullet damage
    
  • C: Concussion grenade
    
  • E: ECM feedback
    
  • F: Fire damage
    
  • F*: Fire animations. Cloakers can be stopped instantly with fire damage, but they will not show an animation. (So F* is less resistance than F.)
    
  • K: Knockdown though Dire Need and Heavy Impact (and melee knockdown in general).
    
  • M: Melee knockdown
    
  • P: Poison
    
  • T: Taser
    
  • X: Explosive damage
  Even without hurt or any animations, enemies are affected by the damage.
  
• Dmg mods may clamp bullet or explosive damage and afterwards multiply explosive damage, for example:
  
  • B<100: A single bullet attack cannot do more than 100 damage.
    
  • X<1000: A single explosive attack cannot do more than 1000 damage.
    
  • X*6: Explosive damage is multiplied by 6. This happens after the clamp from the previous step.
• Reload times are actually the durations of the reload animations. I have seen enemies shooting again 0.133 s before the animation is finished. I don't know if this depends on weapon type or is universally true.
  
• 1/ROF is the delay between shots of a burst. Some enemies only shoot in bursts of 1 bullet, so they do not have this value.
  
• Focus is the focus delay. Enemies are less accurate until you have been continuously in their line of sight for this duration. (The increase is linear between a minimum accuracy to the accuracy. Later on, I omit the minimum accuracy to save column space. It's not interesting enough.)
  
• Close range is a reason for moving enemies to shoot, as explained in the Decision to Shoot section.
  
• The range entries have two formats:
  
  • 20 x 3.4 (90%) /0.2 s => 20 damage, 3.4 burst size, 90% accuracy, 0.2 s recoil
    
  • 9 (90%) /1.25 s => 9 damage, 1 burst size, 90% accuracy, 1.25 s recoil
  and the values mean:
  
  • Burst size: The average number of bullets that the enemy shoots in one burst. There is actually a distribution behind this, with chances for 1 bullet, 2 bullets, 3 bullets, and a longer burst.
    
  • Accuracy: The chance for the enemy to hit the player. Whenever an enemy fires at a player, he simply asks the random number generator whether he hit or missed. If hit, the projectile will hurt the player unless dodged. If missed, the projectile is set to deviate more than at least 30 cm from the player and the player will not take any damage. However, armor regeneration is reset if the projectile deviates less than 60 cm, which applies to most missed shots. Suppressed enemies calculate multiply the accuracy by 0.5. Enemies with concussion effects also multiply the accuracy by 0.5. For whatever reason, the accuracy value is not used when an enemy shoots at a non-player when the burst size is 1; instead, a spread value is used, which is generally so small that the enemy will hit.
    
  • Recoil: The average delay between bursts. It is actually a uniform distribution between some min and max.
  In more detail:
  
  • Reloading does not affect recoil, so if the recoil is shorter than the reload time, the enemy will shoot immediately after reloading.
    
  • When an enemy reloads in the middle of a burst, he will forget about the burst, i.e. how many bullets left in the burst, but also the recoil. After reload, he will start a new burst. Put another way, the recoil is applied only when the last bullet of a burst has been fired.
    
  • Due to the two previous points, if a reload happens in the middle of a burst, the time between the unfinished burst and the next burst is exactly the reload time. This does not affect enemies, because their reloads take longer than recoils; but the reload time of bots for LMGs is smaller than the recoil.
  
  Usually, the -10 m means that when an enemy is between 5-10 m away, he has the damage, burst size and recoil of that -10 m entry. His accuracy is interpolated from the previous cell (-5 m) however, so instead of suddenly dropping like the other stats, accuracy changes (decreases) linearly. The leftmost (rightmost) range entry of an enemy also gives the stats when the distance is smaller (greater) than that range. The ranges of 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 100 m are a simplification; few enemies also have 0, 2, 7 m and other ranges. I've put their values in the most fitting ranges (e.g. 7 m becomes "-5 m"). The difference between true range and approximation is 5 m at most. I have removed the data for ranges <= 2 m entirely because enemies will almost exclusively use melee at this point (the 2 m entry is actually very rare; the majority is 1 m).
  
• Objects are basically the skins of the enemies. They also determine body armor.

The sections after ALL give the group compositions. These sections contain mostly redundant information, because the same enemies are already found in ALL. The leftmost column first gives the chance for the group to be spawned. Then it shows the number of units that make up this group. I merged American and Russian units if they have identical stats. If they have different stats, I show the American unit first (next to the column with the number of units), then the Russian unit (next to an (R)). Example:
The group tac_bull_rush has a 15.8% chance to spawn. It contains 2 units. Depending on the map, the units are then randomly chosen from the American units, i.e.

• tank(r870 / )
  
• tank(r870)
  
• tank(r870)

or chosen from the Russian units, i.e.

• tank( / r870)
  
• tank(saiga)
  
• tank(rpk_lmg)

For the ALL section, I have also merged enemies (each filename in Objects was originally one enemy). Some enemies could be merged only on some difficulties. This is the reason for the empty rows. I kept them empty to keep everything aligned.

Crew abilities (effect for 1/2/3 bots):

• Bot projectiles can penetrate shields, walls and people. But they deal no damage against body armor.
  
• *0.75/*0.5/*0.25 interaction time with anything except pagers
  
• Bots can inspire. 6/4/2 min cooldown. The cooldown is shared by all bots.
  
• +20%/+40%/+60% ammo pickup multiplier

Crew boosts:

• +50% reload speed and +50% swap speed
  
• *0.5 movement speed impact of armor and +50 stamina
  
• +30 armor
  
• +3 concealment
  
• +60 health
  
• +5% dodge
  
• Regenerate 5 health every 5 s.
  
• Gain a grenade on every 35 killshots.

These bonuses affect all players of the team except the health regeneration when the player is affected by a Berserker effect. The bonuses are not very balanced. The top three bonuses of each section are my favorites, and in this order.


Weapon stats of AI criminals: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15sW5ujghwxsph0xo89vTZbnS_aD7DbKU3CmAFtRBuUI/edit#gid=530703966

The cell format is very different.

37.5 | 143.3 173.6 (419.1) means

• 37.5 damage
  
• 143.3 average headshots per minute
  
• 173.6 average bodyshots per minute
  
• 419.1 damage per second

The damage per second assumes a headshot multiplier of 3 (applies to most enemies on MH+) and no body armor. It is easily calculated from the other three fields and acts as a rough indicator of performance.

Sniper rifles do not penetrate. Even with the crew boost, body armor absorbs all damage (yet a projectile spawns behind the enemy). So for frontal encounters against body armor, only headshots will have an effect.

The average headshot and bodyshot rates are not very accurate. I have played some rounds and measured the average chance for bots to hit depending on spread (see below).

The spreadsheet does not show the column at -3 m for assault rifles, where they do twice as much damage. Maybe the dev thought that damage was linearly interpolated. It does not work that way; I left it out because I found it rather misleading.

In essence, the best shotguns are clearly Steakout and Mosconi. The best assault rifle is arguably the AK17 because it has the greatest damage and its effective rate of fire does not differ much from the fastest firing assault rifles. However, assault rifles are generally rather bad. The Brenner is probably the best LMG, only beaten by the Buzzsaw for very short ranges on low difficulties (I would not bother). The sniper rifles actually all behave the same apart from damage, magazine size and reload time. Apart from some completely inferior rifles, there is some tradeoff between effective rate of fire and damage. The order from damage to effective rate of fire is: Thanatos, R93, Rattlesnake, Repeater and Contractor. The Repeater and Contractor trade a lot of damage for just tiny improvements of the effective rate of fire; they might be useful on OK or below; although the Brenner is probably a better choice. Similarly, the Thanatos excess damage compared to the R93 is often wasted because it exceeds enemy hitpoints; in contrast, the R93 falls exactly on many breakpoints. Because body shots are more likely than headshots, sniper should ideally have enough damage to take out specials with one bodyshot. I.e. 900 damage on OK, 1800 on DW, 2700 on OD. The R93 has 1800 damage in a 25 m range and 900 damage afterwards, so it is a strong option for OK+DW. In fact the 900 damage for long ranges also guarantees instant kills with headshots on OD, so the R93 is really well rounded. The Rattlesnake has essentially the same power the same as the R93 for short ranges on OD but with a faster effective rate of fire.

Overall, the most versatile weapon is probably the R93. The Steakout is excellent for CQC but a bad choice past 10 m. The Brenner is strong up to 20 m and still fairly solid up to 30 m; especially on lower difficulties. The Mosconi has less damage than sniper rifles but gets many headshots.


The rest of this section explains some of the background, but is not required to understand the spreadsheet.

In contrast to enemies where the burst sizes, recoil and reload times are quite helpful and can be somewhat exploited in enemy vs player interactions (in particular for Berserker), the interactions bot vs enemy are completely out of our control. So while the values do have an impact, we are mostly interested in average performance over time.

The first step is to get an effective (average) rate of fire, incorporating reload times, rate of fire, burst size and recoil. The rate is rather hard to obtain for some weapons where burst sizes and recoil durations are random (especially because recoil is not applied when a weapon has to be reloaded in the middle of a burst, so I just simulated these weapons with 5*10^7 samples for each cell which is more than enough for the precision needed.

The next step is related to spread. NPCs do not always hit. Understanding this spread needs some more background. I will call it "base spread" in the next section to distinguish it from the resulting spread.

Usually there is an accuracy check to determine about hit vs miss.

• On success (hit), the spread is set to 20 cm or weapon base spread, whichever is smaller. So the spread cannot exceed 20 cm.
  
• On fail (miss), the spread is just the base spread. The shooter aims somewhere else by 31 cm (vs player) or 150 cm (else), plus randomly 0-100% of the base spread. More precisely, at the end of the aiming vector of the shooter (i.e. the head of the target), make a circle with that radius. The shooter then aims at a random point of that circle. This is NOT a disk; the deviation from the target must be exactly the given amount.

In either case, the spread is then applied. This works the same as changing the aim where the spread is the radius of the circle. The result then defines the projectile trajectory.

• A player is hit if the projectile is closer than 30 cm to the camera. I think there is a small chance that a missing enemy hits the player if the bad aim is compensated by the spread.
  
• NPCs are hit in the usual manner, i.e. projectile impact on the collision sphere or capsule for head and body. In particular, enemy heads are spheres with a radius of 20.15 cm. The center of the sphere is offset from where the enemies aim at; they aim at the back of the neck, which is about 7 cm from the center (can be several times as much during some animations), and in particular 6 cm below.

The usual accuracy check is not used for single shot (burst size 1) vs non-players. The accuracy values are not used at all; instead, the base spread is directly applied, without possibly lowering to 20 cm. Because the accuracy values are not used, I have removed them from the spreadsheet for weapons that can only fire single shots. Conversely, I have removed the spread for LMGs because they cannot fire single shots and because the spread is actually greater than 20 cm.

Because players have a tolerance of 30 cm and because enemies aim exactly at the camera, spread has basically no effect against players. On a hit, the spread cannot exceed 20 cm, so a hit is guaranteed. On a miss, larger spread values may make lucky hits less likely, but the effect is fairly small.

Because NPCs have a head radius of 20.15 cm and because NPCs aim slightly below that, spread values have great effect on the hit chance. E.g.

• Precision weapons like single shot shotguns have 15 cm spread and a good chance to hit the head. The automatic shotguns with 18 cm spread are also fairly accurate.
  
• Shots with 20 cm spread are not guaranteed hits because the NPC aim is off. Such shots happen either through single shots with 20 cm base spread or bursts with successful accuracy check where the base spread is 20 cm or greater.
  
• For single shots with a spread of 25 cm, the head can only be hit because the enemies do not aim exactly at the center of the head.

I have played some rounds and tracked the chance to hit for these spread values. The results are
15: [0.459, 0.294]
18: [0.352, 0.354]
20: [0.29, 0.352]
25: [0.118, 0.302]
with the the values:
1) Headshot chance
2) Bodyshot chance

The bodyshot chance includes hits to body armor. On average, against armored targets, about 25% of bodyshots hit the unarmored body and the other 75% hit the armor.

Now these things can be combined to get the headshot and bodyshot rates. The first thing is to get the chance that the bot will use single shot, because that decides whether accuracy has any effect. This problem is weighted by the burst size itself. E.g. a bot shooting either 14 bullets or 1 with 50% chance each will have single shots 1/15 of the time.

The actual headshot chance is then the sum of two components:

• The chance for a single shot and that it hits the head. Single shots do not change the spread, so we look up the chance in the table above depending on the weapon base spread.
  
• The chance for a burst and that it hits the head. Bursts enforce that the spread after successful accuracy check cannot be greater than 20, so we look up this modified spread in the table above, and multiply by the weapon accuracy. Unsuccessful accuracy checks have very large spread so I ignore such misses, although legs might be hit occasionally.

The headshot and bodyshot rates are then the chances multiplied by the average rate of fire.

In the description of the heists, I mention various stats for the ones that can be stealthed, most of them being self-explanatory. Unless specified otherwise, the "uncool triggers", which are the map-specific ways that observers can become uncool, only apply to guards and cameras. In fact, I can think of only one uncool trigger for civilians, namely the windows on Jewelry store. Static lasers are triggered by players and bags. The dynamic lasers on GO Bank and Big Bank are triggered by players only (they appear local for each client). The detection range and multiplier of uncool triggers are assumed to take default values, i.e. 40 m and 1. All alarm triggers mentioned cannot be blocked by ECMs. Occasionally I mention an ECM rush time for levels that can be rushed without too much trouble. For the trickier levels I also give a walkthrough, a rough outline of my preferred way of doing the level. The stealth spawns obey the rules laid down in the stealth section, i.e. there is a spawn after 145/120/120/80/45 seconds when 4 enemies are not cool and if the map has this feature (indicated by "+1 spawn").

If an interval is given, every number within the interval is assumed to be equally likely. 6-9 paintings means a 25% chance each for 6, 7, 8, 9 paintings.

When DW is mentioned, it usually includes MH and OD as well. Exceptions exist mostly when the developer forgot to include MH and OD at all.

Heists usually have a chance of about 10% to 25% to have an escape level if alarm went off (if the heist does support escapes at all). Every dead civilian adds 5% to this chance. The expert driver asset removes the chance entirely. If there are several possible escapes, they are all equally likely to occur.

The levels usually enable escapes immediately when the alarm goes off. Once all players enter the escape zone (2 seconds before the level actually finishes), the game checks if escapes are enabled at all and if they are, the escape chance is evaluated. If alarm goes off after all players have entered the escape zone, the stealth bonus is lost, but there will not be an escape. Day 1 of Framing Frame and day 2 of Rats enable escapes only after a delay: There is no escape as long as all players enter the escape zone before that.

As for the actual escape data:

Notes on the escapes:

• Overpass: Bain announces at the start whether to expect a van or helicopter. There is only one possible van location, at the parking lot.
  
• Garage: After going up the staircase, it is possible to stick to the left and jump over the barrier, then hug the wall and cross over to the other side.
  
• Park: The van only arrives in streets which are not blocked by police vehicles.
  
• Cafe: The map has three possible van locations, but the location closest to your spawn is disabled.

Uncool triggers: None
Alarm triggers: A gangster has turned uncool. Some completely stationary gangsters may become uncool without causing alarm, but any patrolling gangster makes alarm go off instantly.
Enemies: About 15 gangsters per hangar (thus 30 on MH+, else 15).
Cameras: Off-map operator. 5 cameras. Titan.

Notes:

• On MH+, there are 11 or 12 bags in the hangars. Otherwise, there are 12 bags in the hangar.
  
• As long as someone has C4 or a saw, there is no drill that requires waiting, so the only limit is the speed at which the team carries bags.
  
• Move the bags from the hangar to the stairs first. Once all bags are at the stairs, move the bags to the van. The cops take some time to arrive at the hangars and even longer to arrive at the stairs, so retreating in two steps ensures the least resistance from the cops.
  
• The weapons are a large chunk of your payout. Destroying them is pointless as the fuel tank is often just as far away as the stairs, which mark the zone that can be easily defended.

Walkthrough:
On Overkill and below, take the suit to carry the bags faster. Kill enemies while carrying bags and try not to stop.

There are different options on MH+. You can carry some of the bags before the assault and then fend off the entire assault wave before moving the rest of the bags. The time window to move the bags after the assault wave will be sufficient to move all bags, which means you are gone when the second assault wave starts. Another approach is to escape before the first assault wave arrives in full force. Bring maxed out sentry guns or ECMs with feedback, try not to get killed by the gangsters, and carry the bags out of the hangars as fast as possible. If you are downed and revived, your low hitpoints and lack of armor will get you downed again right away, so heal immediately. Finally, there's a lot of luck involved regarding the hangar locations.


Uncool triggers: 1) Metal detector (alert range: 12 m). 2) Open fuse boxes spotted by guards or cameras (alarm message "hacked computer"). 3) Opened outer server room door upstairs (range 3.5 m; multiplier 0.2). The server room downstairs and the room upstairs by the main entrance are not detected when opened. Guards will enter the other two rooms to investigate.
Alarm triggers: 1) Cutting a wrong wire. 2) Opening the outer server room door before the correct wires are cut. 3) Using C4 on the inner server room door (saw, drill, ECM, keycard are fine; C4 on the other doors is fine too).
Enemies: 5/6/8 patrolling guards on -/OK/-. 10% chance for 1 stationary FBI in the office behind the wooden door. 33% chance for 2 stationary FBIs in one of the bigger rooms upstairs. 33% chance for a stationary guard at the reception. +1 spawn (FBIs do not count towards the limit) who will patrol to the main entrance, then patrol to 3 random waypoints in the building, then move in front of the main entrance before leaving forever.
Cameras: Off-map operator. 7-8 cameras. Titan.
Spotter: There are 2 spotters. One is located at the main entrance, lined up with the windows to the left of the door, so he could look down the corridor leading across the building. Sadly, he is located too high to do this, so he will mark guards only in the entrance area. The second spotter is right below the unaccessible skyway leading to the building that sometimes spawns snipers. He has perfect view of the long corridor upstairs. He can also see the area in front of one of the possible server room locations (the one closest to the main entrance).
Keycards: 25% chance of a safe with a keycard in the office behind the two wooden doors. The keycard can be used to open the inner door to the server.
ECM rush time: 80 seconds to obtain the server before the alarm. At least 120 seconds to get the stealth bonus.

Notes:

• The time before the first assault can be used to check out the evidence room. Shoot open the wooden door, then saw open the iron bars. The room has a 25% chance to contain 1-4 coke bags, 15% chance to contain 1-4 cash bags, 15% chance to contain 1-4 gold bags, 15% chance to contain 1-4 weapons bags (all evaluated independently, so the maximum amount of loot is 16).
  
• When alarm goes off before the correct wires are cut, a barrier goes down in front of the server and must be drilled. If the correct wires are cut before the alarm, there will be no barrier, leaving only 2 ordinary doors between you and servers (and thus the escape).

Walkthrough:
Start ECM chaining, shoot the glass twice to get inside (smashing glass twice takes longer). Find the server room by moving in front of it, hack the computer, cut the two wires. Once the wires are cut, there will be no barrier in front of the server even if alarm goes off. Saw open the two doors to the server and escape.

If you decide against ECMs, keep in mind that as soon as the correct wires are cut, alarm may go off. Your team can quickly open the doors with a saw or C4 and you will be gone before the first assault wave.

Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: Alarm buttons. Each teller has access to one and will press it when either teller has become uncool (a cool teller may in fact press the button). A third alarm button is in the back of the bank on any difficulty except Normal and will be pressed by civilians when any civilian in the back has become uncool (a cool civilian may press the button).
Enemies: 2/3 patrolling guards on N/-, 1 stationary guard in security room.
Cameras: Operated by guard in security room. 5 cameras. Titan. Broken cameras are not investigated if dead camera operator.
Keycards: A keycard is found either on the bank manager or on the desk in his office. It is used to open the security room (or the door for the electricity on the roof if Firestarter).
ECM rush time: 30 seconds if fully upgraded ECM. 60 seconds with basic ECMs.

Notes:

• The alarm buttons are the most common cause for alarm. Deal with the tellers and then guard the alarm button in the back to prevent alarm.
  
• The glass by the tellers is not detected by anyone when damaged or broken, nor does it alert anyone. To make it even simpler, bullets can penetrate the glass. Depending on the camera placement and civilians, it is occasionally possible to kill both tellers while standing outside, without anybody noticing the corpses.
  
• The tellers are intimidated like ordinary civilians. Just wait for them to become uncool, then shout at them once. They may not drop to the ground, but they are intimidated nevertheless and will not push the alarm buttons anymore. Even after the intimidation wears off, they will only call the police, but not attempt to push the buttons. As a cool teller may press the button if the other teller is uncool, it is mandatory that you get the attention of both tellers at the same time. Run right in front of the counter so they can both see you, then shout once they are both uncool.
  
• The civilians running towards the alarm button in the back can also be stopped with a single shout.
  
• If you always take care of the spawning civilians quickly enough, the last chance a civilian might spawn in the streets is at 5:00, after that the map is clear.
  
• If a civilian hides behind a corner outside of the map, use grenades.
  
• Sometimes uncool civilians run off the map entirely, i.e. they despawn so their exclamation mark suddenly disappears. There are no consequences though, so this is actually a good thing.
  
• The vault door is electrified on Firestarter. The switch is behind the door on the roof, but you have only one keycard for both the security room and this door, so usually the security room has higher priority.
  
• 4-6 planks can be found in this level.
  
• You can saw open all deposit boxes with a single small ammo bag, provided you have Fully Loaded basic and almost full ammo when entering the vault.
  
• There are 120 deposit boxes, each taking 20 seconds to lockpick without skills. Even a team of 4 specialized ghosts will take 4 minutes to open all boxes. A single person with a saw achieves the same in 90-120 seconds.
  
• When going loud, a helicopter will drop off several cops at some point in the heist, who will then lead gas into parts of the bank (unless they are killed quickly). Bain will announce this. The gas attacks armor first, so passing it poses no threat in heavy armor. It also quite handy for Berserker.
  
• Do not block the view of the person sawing. Either keep your maximum distance to the loot that still allows you to pick it up, or, if things have gone loud, you should in fact defend and have no place inside the vault itself.
  
• The game randomly selects 5 deposit boxes that shall contain loot. The same box may be selected several times with no compensation however, so the actual number of boxes with loot has a tiny chance to be smaller than that. The deposit box version of the heist selects 2-6 more deposit boxes with loot. The cash version adds 4-8 money bags in the vault. The gold version adds 2-5 gold bags. The random version has a 25% chance to be a deposit heist, 15% chance to be gold, 60% chance to be cash.
  
• The deposit version of the heist keeps track of picked up loose loot only after the thermal drill is done. The escape is enabled upon reaching 25000 (emptying an ATM after the drill is the fastest way).

Walkthrough:
ECM rushing this level is extremely fast and safe. Mask up and gather in front of the bank. Start ECM chaining and have someone with Stockholm Syndrome alert the people before entering the bank. Open the security room with an ECM if possible, otherwise search for the keycard. If the keycard cannot be found in time, use the saw to open the door.

Notes:

• Be careful not to grab ingredients too quickly. If you interact with two ingredients of the same kind too fast, you get one ingredient for the price of two. Similarly, if two people add the same ingredient in the lab simultaneously, it will disappear from both inventories.
  
• Each ingredient is used only once for each bag of meth, but the order is different each time. There are ingredients for a maximum number of 7 meth bags.
  
• Blowing up the lab on Deathwish difficulty kills every player regardless of their location. Pistol Messiah offers a way around this, but the van is only scheduled to arrive after you have cooked 3 bags. You also need to throw 3 bags into the van before the escape becomes available.
  
• On Deathwish, barricade the windows in the back room upstairs and place all ammo and medic bags there. You won't need the bags anywhere else, so place them right away. Going into custody with 2 aced bags in your inventory is not going to help your team.
  
• Grenades destroy planks even through walls: Do not throw grenades into the kitchen downstairs or the barricades in the back room upstairs will be destroyed. You don't want a Bulldozer to climb in from there. Throwing grenades from the back room into the far end of the lab room is acceptable however.
  
• Depending on where the enemies are attacking from, the safest escape on Deathwish may be by jumping from the balcony onto the little shed, then jumping to the ground. You should roughly hit the center of the shed to avoid fall damage. You must deal with snipers first.
  
• The assault does not start unless somebody has found the meth lab (by standing next to it) or 90 s have passed (no time limit on Cook Off).
  
• The van becomes available as a loot and escape zone 70 s or 130 s after picking up the third bag of meth. On Cook Off, it stays 90 s or 95 s on DW, 105 s or 115 s on OK, 115 s or 125 s on H and VH, 135 s or 145 s on N. It arrives again 270-300 s or 330-360 s after leaving.
  
• The van location that is found on Cook Off only allows you to secure bags by throwing them underneath the van.

Uncool triggers: Technically, none. In fact one trigger is disabled here, namely being spotted by gangsters.
Alarm triggers: 1) A gangster is uncool (the two gangsters at the trade behave in a rather odd way however). 2) Going to the trade without having cooked any meth. 3) 10% chance for police ambush. 4) Betrayal by gangsters possible (15% chance if 3 bags or more, 50% if 2 bags, 75% if 1 bag traded). 5) Stealing back the meth. 6) Setting a drill on a safe.

Notes:

• The gangsters do not become uncool when seeing the players (they don't mind you hugging them), though alerts and the detection of other suspicious things remain the same however. You can kill the gangsters blocking access to a staircase and then proceed upwards and the gangsters upstairs will not mind your presence at all.
  
• Using your laser or flashlight does not make anyone uncool (it is invisible to them after all). Similarly, aiming down your sights doesn't do anything. This only makes sense, considering that your third person model starts aiming down the sights whenever you activate your laser or flashlight (it is impossible to tell if someone is currently aiming down the sights when either gadget is activated).
  
• When stealing back the meth, the game will claim that the mandatory 3 bags are barely worth anything. Pressing the Tab key seems to confirm this too. This is incorrect, as checking via Tab key at the start of day 3 will reveal the full amount of cash for every meth bag (2.7M per bag on Deathwish). If you do not retrieve any loot on day 3, you will then in fact get the amount of cash shown at the start of day 3. Even when cooking just 3 meth bags, those bags make up the largest chunk of the payday.
  
• Occasionally you are ambushed by the police, early in the trade. In this case the gangsters do not become aggressive towards you, but rather try to flee from the scene.
  
• Occasionally the gangsters betray you, leading you to a false apartment and then opening fire.
  
• If you have brought more than 3 bags to the trade, the correct apartment is the one with bags of cash in it. Yes, indeed, the gangsters may have led you to the wrong apartment with the intention to kill you, but they have prepared the cash for you anyway.
  
• The apartment staircase farthest from the spawn is not fully blocked off by a gangster. You can move past him upstairs without killing anyone even before completing the trade. This gives access to 3 of the 4 apartments. If you have brought 4 bags of meth or more, this allows you to deduce the location of the correct apartment: Either one of these apartments has stacks of money, or the correct apartment is on the opposite side. The gangsters decide to betray only after the trade is complete, so before the trade you may walk through these apartments unharmed, even though (after the trade) standing in one of these apartments may start the betrayal sequence.
  
• If you are extremely lucky you can surprise the gangsters in their attempt to burn the intel. In this case you can just grab the intel from the open safe.
  
• If you don't need the intel, waiting for the gangsters to burn it might be the fastest option if alarm went off.

Notes:

• The escape becomes available right after killing the gangsters in the bus, so this level can be finished in less than a minute (without cash however). Another popular strategy is to carry 4 bags into the escape. If you have the intel, I recommend defusing the C4 anyway, as one person is guaranteed to mess up leaving you with even less cash.
  
• To defuse C4 (provided you have the intel), interact with the cash in a suitcase to pick it up. The C4 will then appear at the buttom of the suitcase, requiring you to interact with it to defuse it. There is a 20% chance that a given suitcase is not booby-trapped in the first place.
  
• When going for all bags, the ace pilot becomes mandatory. This ensures that the helicopter always arrives at the same spot close to the bus and saves you some minutes of waiting. If the host buys this asset, you can be fairly certain that he wants all bags.
  
• Too much lag may make it impossible to defuse the C4 in time. If you don't trust your connection to the host, stay outside and defend.
  
• On Deathwish, only 1-2 players should throw the bags into the helicopter while the others keep defending. You will be overrun very quickly if nobody fends off the cops because they start attacking from both directions at that point.

Notes:

• The truck has a fuel tank below the passenger seat, which will cause an explosion and a fire upon shooting at it. This may push the bags out of the truck, so try to avoid that.
  
• The door by the crane can be shot open. It cannot be lockpicked or drilled and thus only shows interaction icons for C4 and the saw, but obviously shooting is the best option.
  
• The alley offers access to the platform opposite the warehouse: At the end of the alley, jump on the dumpster (jump onto it from the side) to the right. Next, jump on top of the boxes on the opposite side. Move in front of the small pipes going upwards along the wall and keep jumping. Eventually you'll end up on the platform.
  
• Good defensive positions are either the large room of the warehouse, the smaller room next to it (which serves as a possible loot truck location) and the platform across the street reached via walkway (which serves as another possible loot truck location). Defending from a loot truck location is preferable, but you may need longer to move the bags there.
  
• Do not throw the bags at the door leading to the smaller warehouse room from the outside. The door itself will push the bags down the walkway into the alley upon opening.
  
• You can saw open the bottom of the truck to escape. There is no point to that however; it does not save time and takes away your primary.
  
• The escape car will arrive shortly after throwing the fourth bag into the loot truck. As the escape is extremely fragile, you must then hurry to the car location and wait for it (and not the other way around). The safest time to throw the fourth bag is when the assault is almost over. If you are not the host, you should probably wait for his signal before throwing in the bags. Of course, once someone has thrown the fourth bag, you must help throwing the remaining bags and rush to the escape point as fast as possible (do not abandon your team however).

Notes:

• If you did not catch the escape car, there will be heavy enemies waiting at the loot truck. This means 4 Shields and a Skulldozer on Deathwish. Any bags carried directly on your back will show up right in front of you. Therefore, if the car was destroyed but you brought 4 bags into the escape, those will be conveniently placed right next to the warehouse already.
  
• The warehouse is locked on Deathwish. Good defensive positions are the corners between dock 7 and dock 8 or between dock 8 and dock 9, or the platform on the warehouse (close to dock 9), accessible via ladder. The platform also serves as a possible escape point. If defending from the platform, after securing the first 4 bags, make sure to carry the next 4 on your backs. If the helicopter happens to come to your platform, you will instantly escape. Due to that, the platform may prevent you from securing all 12 bags if you use it as a defensive position.
  
• A large container ship will block one of the docks, serving as a spawn point for cops and causing the loot boat to arrive at either of the other two docks.
  
• Throwing a bag into the water will cause it to respawn at the loot truck location.

Uncool triggers: 1) When a camera is destroyed or uncool or the camera biker becomes uncool, he will push a button to detonate mines around the house. 2) 10% chance for booby-trapped doors releasing flashbangs when opened by the player (30% on DW).
Alarm triggers: Gunshot or explosion alert being heard around the house. A single alert instantly causes alarm even when everyone is dead. If you are far enough from the house, you may be outside the 16 points around the house that check for alerts and can fire freely. All other alert types are acceptable. Flashbangs do not cause alarm, but mines do.
Enemies: 3 bikers patrolling inside the house, 9 stationary bikers in the house (1 in living room downstairs, 3 in security room upstairs, 3 on the balcony, 2 in the main room upstairs). 10% chance for 3 bikers patrolling outside (100% on DW). 10% chance for 4 gangsters and 3 bikers in the kitchen trading coke.
Cameras: Operated by stationary biker in the back room upstairs. 7 cameras at random places outside. No Titan.
Keycards: 50% chance for a keycard on a table. It is used on day 2.

Notes:

• 10% chance for a small medic bag randomly placed on the map. 10% chance for a small ammo bag randomly placed on the map.
  
• Each table randomly spawns one of 6 different items with no duplicates allowed: Blueprints, intel 1, intel 2, shutter codes, plane keys, keycard. Upon picking up either intel 1 or intel 2, you are in fact given either guard intel, scientist intel or fusion intel.
  
• The saw causes gunshot alerts. Anybody sawing without causing alarm is a cheater.
  
• The fence has a 10% chance to be electrified when not spawning behind the house. Merely getting close to it will cause you to shoot, instantly raising alarm if your weapon is not silenced.
  
• Bikers will occasionally open doors while patrolling (defusing the flashbangs if there were any). The back door of the house in particular is opened even when bikers merely want to pass through from the living room.
  
• The plane keys, if they spawned on a table, can be picked up even when burned. Just wait for the fire to end, then pick them up from the ashes on the table. The keys offer the fastest escape on day 2.
  
• The shoot-on-hurt issue has great effect in this level when not using shotguns. For every biker who has been uncool for 3 seconds you are gambling against the random number generator which may instantly raise the alarm. In the worst case, with 12 bikers alive this turns your chance of stealthing it using ordinary guns to 0.9^12 = 28% provided you kill everyone with a single shot and play perfectly.
  
• When there is a deal in the kitchen, the dealers often notice corpses in the living room. The situation is rather tricky no matter the weapon of choice. Ordinary guns suffer from shoot-on-hurt, shotguns may not get into the 5 m range and thus also suffer from shoot-on-hurt. Ordinary guns especially are in a rather bad spot as the dealers are packed so tightly that a dealer in the back occasionally may not be hit due to a dealer in front still collapsing and absorbing the bullets. If there is a trade, I usually wait for the back door to open, which allows me to flank the dealers. When edging forward and picking off the dealers one by one, the remaining dealers will just remain stationary and not do anything if they haven't spotted the player.
  
• There are 0-4 weapon cases placed anywhere in the biker compound.
  
• Drills can be repaired through walls.

Uncool triggers: 1) The server is being hacked or has been hacked (same detection stats as drills, except that it makes no noise). 2) Guards notice the open basement door; they need to get really close to notice it though due to invisible walls blocking their vision.
Alarm triggers: The helicopter arrives to pick up the engine. This is required to finish the level. It cannot be fully stealthed.
Enemies: 5/6 patrolling guards on -/OK+DW. 20% chance for 1 stationary guard at the main entrance. +1 spawn who will patrol to the main entrance, then patrol to 4 random waypoints in the building, then move in front of the main entrance before leaving forever.
Cameras: Off-map operator. 4 cameras. Titan.
Keycards: The keycard from day 1 can be used to open one of the three possible server rooms.

Notes:

• Engines 3, 4, 10 (the only engines that show 400 bar exactly) are never correct.
  
• Two of the possible server room locations can be checked from outside. They are both on the upper floor, one on the side where you spawn and one on the opposite side. Shutters make it very tricky to identify the correct room. It is however always possible to do so even with shutters closed.
  
• If there was no keycard on day 1 and your crew has no ECMs to open doors, you will have a hard time opening the room to the server in stealth.
  
• The detection point of the server is at the base of the computer screen. The server upstairs closest to the spawn is frequented rather often by guards. The server downstairs may rarely be spotted by guards from the ice hockey room, Otherwise, guards will just pass by the room without ever noticing it.
  
• The server can usually be hacked in stealth even while wearing heavy armor. Unless you have extremely bad luck with the camera placement, you can sneak to the server room, start the hack and then either retreat or guard the room (depending on its location). If you can dominate, you don't even need silent weapons.
  
• There are 3 hints for the right engine. Two notes can be found at random places anywhere in the villa (including basement), specifying the element and giving a H number, which is the number of nozzles attached to the engine. A computer in the basement tells you whether the pressure is <= or >= 400 bar. In fact, as the correct engine never shows 400 bar, the requirement actually is < or > 400 bar.
  
• If the element is helium, there is a 75% chance that two engines fulfill the requirements. Only one engine is correct though. This problem can be solved using the knowledge that the engine with 400 bar is never correct.
  
• If the notes say "H" (meaning 1 nozzle), you only need either pressure or element to identify the correct engine.
  
• If you obtained fusion intel on the previous day, the correct engine on the second day is either 9 or 12 (deuterium 3H), with only the pressure left to be determined.
  
• On DW, the helicopter has a 50% chance to arrive at the pool to pick up the engine. Strangely enough, it will still arrive at the airfield to pick you up to escape.

Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: Lasers between two halls.
Enemies: 4/5/6 patrolling guards on N/H+VH/OK+DW, 1 stationary lobby guard, 1 stationary guard in security room. 15% chance for a guard to spawn at the bathroom door when a player gets close to the door. +1 spawn who will patrol to the main entrance, then patrol to 3 random waypoints which can be located at the building entrance and on the roof, then move in front of the main entrance before leaving forever (as far as I can tell, due to the randomness it is possible that he just picks 3 waypoints around the entrance and never goes on the roof).
Cameras: Operated by guard in security room in the center of the gallery. 1 camera per hall, 1 camera at the lobby. Titan. Broken cameras are never investigated.
Keycards: 1 can be acquired with Sixth Sense aced to open the security room.
ECM rush time: ~120 seconds when going for all paintings and the stealth bonus, 20 seconds when going for the minimum amount.

Notes:

• The potential bathroom door guard never spawns if the gallery had been entered from somewhere else already (as soon as Bain starts talking and the objective updates). The ideal approach is to enter the lobby from the main entrance (for just a second) right at the start to disable the bathroom guard before approaching the bathroom door.
  
• It may be useful to suppress the guard in the lobby with a shotgun.
  
• If you crouch below the hand drier in the bathroom, it will cause nearby guards to come and investigate.
  
• Each painting you collect becomes one camera on day 3. As day 3 is a harder heist to stealth than day 1, try to get all paintings to improve your camera coverage.
  
• There are small windows facing the street in hall A, C, E right below the roof that can be used to get paintings on the roof without requiring a catcher (but still benefit from having one). Jump and throw them at the peak of your jump to make it. It might still require a few attempts before the painting ends up on the roof. The glass roof windows can also be used to get the paintings out of the gallery, but those do require a catcher (while they can be thrown up on the roof without someone to catch, someone does need to pick them up or they will be spotted).
  
• When taking out the guard in the security room, his corpse will occasionally be seen by guards passing through the halls. Play it safe and bag him, then throw the bag into a corner.
  
• There are 9 paintings in the gallery.
  
• Entering from the roof is preferable unless going for hall E (and hall D if you have bad luck with the lasers).
  
• Switching to the other side of the lasers requires passing by the lobby guard if you are coming from hall A. If you are lucky, the lasers are located so that the path from the security room to the bathroom is clear; in that case you can clear the right wing first, then drop in from the roof into the left wing and drop a final ECM to escape without having to deal with the lobby guard.
  
• You can count the paintings for each hall from the roof. There is one blind spot in C and several in A, so your count becomes the minimum amount of paintings found in the gallery. One painting in A can only be seen from the small windows facing the street.

Walkthrough:
There are 4 different roles that all help with the objectives.

1) Camera operator. This player takes out the security room and then cycles through the camera feed.
2) Pitcher. This player grabs the paintings and throws them to the catcher on the roof.
3) Catcher. This player catches the paintings on the roof and also spots guards if possible.
4) Spotter. This player provides direct overwatch from the roof by marking guards for the pitcher. He also counts the number of paintings in each hall and communicates them to the team.

Catcher and spotter are expected to move together with the pitcher. There's no point spotting guards in hall D if the pitcher is in hall A. The two roles on the roof can be merged if necessary; in public games you are fortunate if a single other person is willing to cooperate.

Get the additional entry point in either hall A (easy access to the security room if there are lasers A-B) or hall D (cover in an otherwise empty hall). Get 3 spycams if you have the equipment to open the security door, otherwise get 2 and a keycard. The camera operator should find the security room and drop in from the roof (if possible) to take out the camera guard. In the meantime, the pitcher shall pick up the paintings and throw them to the catcher.

The spotter should gather all relevant info, i.e. location of security room and lasers, and number of paintings per hall. When I play this level as a spotter, this is what I usually write in chat:

"security in C"
"lasers C-D"
"1,0,2,1,2 in E,D,C,B,A"

It tells your team that the ideal path to the security room is either hall C itself (in case it can be accessed from the roof) or hall B. It also tells your team that the right wing (E and D) contains only one painting, whereas the remaining paintings are all found in the left wing. Thus the pitcher can quickly retrieve the painting from hall E and then drop in from the roof to grab the remaining paintings from the left wing.


Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: Ambush possible. 1% chance if day 1 was stealthed or the player escaped less than 50 seconds after the alarm, else 76% chance.

Notes:

• After the trade, right after exiting the train, there is a grate on the ground which can be sawed open. The passage underground leads to the far end of the warehouse. This passage is not recommended. The dangerous part is crossing the street, not getting through the warehouse. The underground passage not only robs one player of a proper weapon, it also takes much longer to move the bags when using it.
  
• In case of an ambush, the street can be safely crossed by using ECMs to make the SWAT turret fight for you.
  
• If there's no ambush, the three workers on the street do not require a person to sprint to them immediately. There are no special uncool triggers, heck, being civilians they don't even mind if you throw a bag of cash next to their feet. Help moving the bags instead.

Uncool triggers: Moved bookshelves. The moved bookshelves that are not at the pre-vault room may be detected in certain cases; their detection point is located slightly inside the wall, where the pre-vault entrance would be. They are not detected most of the time as the wall blocks line of sight. However, if not the wall but the moved shelf itself blocks line of sight, guards will spot it (so they spot it only from certain angles).
Alarm triggers: Vault lasers.
Enemies: 5/6 patrolling guards on -/OK+DW. +1 spawn who will patrol to 2 random waypoints on each of the 3 floors. The order of the floors is random, but he always patrols to both waypoints on one floor before going to the next one. He leaves forever after having patrolled to all 6 waypoints (which takes about 7 minutes, though the actual time may vary due to random waypoints).
Cameras: Off-map operator. 3 cameras. Titan. Unusual camera stats: Minimum and maximum delay: 3 and 8 seconds. Range: 30 m. Field of view: 90 degrees.
Keycards: 2/1 on -/DW placed randomly on furniture. There are 3 doors requiring keycards, one leads to the server room and the rest to storage rooms.

Notes:

• The vantage point can be used to mark guards in the hall. As with all vantage points, it is completely useless. First of all, there is a good chance that the vault is not located in the hall. Second, the player must have High Value Target aced or Confident basic to have sufficient range. Finally, spycams are cheaper and better.
  
• There are only very few places not checked by guards. The spot under the stairs is not completely safe, as guards go even there. Placing bags behind the bed is safe, as is the right half of the wardrobe downstairs.
  
• Open up keycard doors to give yourself more hiding places during stealth. Especially the room in the office is recommended as there's a bit of luck involved if you need to hide behind the desk. If you have bad luck, there's even a camera downstairs in the office, which means that not only you need to avoid detection by both the guard and the camera, but if you do happen to be spotted by the guard, the camera will turn uncool almost instantly. If the server room happens to be there in the office, you have a perfect hiding spot for body bags on the right between the door and the server racks. Otherwise, you must take great care when hiding body bags there.
  
• The bag shortcut is a deathtrap unless you are prepared. The bags appear right in the middle of the corridor downstairs, easily detected by guards and cameras if not picked up. Make sure that a person at the other end of the shortcut is ready before using it. With a good connection to the host, ECM or camera loop are not necessary if the player quickly picks up the bag coming from the shortcut.
  
• The cameras mark items with a yellow outline, visible to all players. This highlighting system is manually scripted for this level. Every camera has a list of items assigned to it. Switching to the camera automatically highlights all items assigned to the camera (Zooming in or turning the camera has no effect) after a delay of 1 second. Items remain highlighted for 10 seconds. In contrast to the ordinary highlighting system, it is not possible to continuously mark the items as you need to wait for them to be unmarked before they can be marked again.
  
• You can kill guards right in the beginning to thin out the lines. Taken to the extreme, if you kill 4 guards and wait for several minutes, the newly spawned guard will eventually disappear, leaving you with just 2 guards left, who can be avoided somewhat easily. A more conservative approach means taking out 1-2 guards to have backup pagers.
  
• The doors can be shot open. Hit the lock 4 times with any weapon. Take care not to damage the glass (the glass is a bit sturdier than usual and can take a hit without taking damage though).
  
• 3 trip mines with motion sensors in the staircase are an easy way to warn you about guards.
  
• If there is alarm at any point, it's back to square one. You may have placed the coke and secured the gold, but the escape zone simply disappears when alarm goes off and you need to do all loud objectives. If your ECMs are running out of time, keep in mind that you can carry gold into the escape zone instead of using the zipline.
  
• When going loud, once the computer is being hacked, your objective is to defend the 2/3 electricity boxes on -/DW. The players should split up in teams of two. The cops do not care about the computer at all, so there's no need to defend it.
  
• The server room makes a beeping noise that can be heard from outside, so you can figure out the correct room without opening any doors. However, when the alarm goes off, the background noise will make it virtually impossible to listen for the correct room anymore.

Walkthrough:
Place spycams. 1-2 players find the items and vault while the rest watches the cameras. To move the coke, the team could remain split up with a camera operator on the roof and the rest carrying. If all players have low detection risk, the preferred option is to have everyone help carrying. Have the main ghost lead the way while the others follow. With 4 people carrying, this means just 2 trips to place the coke. The main ghost then goes to the computer to open the vault door while the other 3 people remain in the vault after the second trip. They proceed to move the gold into the pre-vault room. The ghost regroups with the team after the vault is empty and everyone moves the gold bags with just 2 more trips.

Uncool triggers: None
Alarm triggers: None
Enemies: 5/6/7 patrolling guards on N/H/-. 50% chance for 1 stationary guard at the gate (he is there whenever the gate is open).
Cameras: Off-map operator. 5 cameras. Titan.
Keycards: 1 can be bought as an asset. More can be found on the 2/3/4 dock workers on N/H/-. Workers with red helmets always have a keycard. Workers with yellow helmets (and orange jumpsuit) have a 50% chance for one. Workers with white helmets never carry keycards. The keycards can be used for easy access to the first warehouse and may be necessary to reach the computer without breaking glass.
Spotter: Located on top of the roof of the warehouse further away, 2 m above the roof window closest to the spawn. He looks towards the container ship on the opposite side of the docks. He does not look into the warehouses.
ECM rush time: 20 seconds for plan C. 60-80 seconds otherwise.

Notes:

• The worker civilians are taken from a pool of 6, with 2 workers of each helmet color. The 2 red helmets both have a keycard, one of the yellow helmets also has one. Lower difficulty has a higher chance to yield no keycard at all simply as there are less civilians. High difficulties are guaranteed at least one keycard.
  
• There are 6 trucks by 4 different companies. 2 companies have a pair of trucks each, the other 2 companies have one truck each. Those with 2 trucks are never correct, which leaves just two possible trucks. The computer shows the incorrect companies, leaving only the correct truck. You can also check the containers: The color determines the type of cargo. If you see a container with cosmetics, then trucks of the same color are incorrect. You might also find a container with election posters, i.e. the correct cargo. The two possible trucks may have the same color rendering the container contents useless: You must use the computer in that case.
  
• The chance that the right truck was found when hacking the computer is 33% after the first hack and 90% after the second hack.

Walkthrough:
If going for plan C, run to the trucks and place an ECM if spotted along the way. Tag any truck of a company which appears twice.

If going for the correct truck, chain ECMs while trying to find the computer. Check the 3 wrong companies and communicate them to your team. Escape. This level takes just a minute.


Uncool triggers: Enemies see a voting machine being hacked (range: 7 m).
Alarm triggers: None
Enemies: 2 guards patrolling upstairs only, 3/4/5 guards on N/H/- patrolling downstairs and outside only, 2 (4 if computer was hacked on the first day) cops patrolling outside without pagers. +1 spawn (while the 2 cops that appear due to the hack on the first day do not count, the other 2 cops do count towards the limit) who may walk around outside and in the areas below the offices and then leave. Upon despawning, he causes a new spawn 145/120/120/80/45 seconds later on N/H/VH/OK/DW, creating a loop of spawning and despawning. Killing him breaks the loop and does not cause any new spawn.
Cameras: Operated by civilian upstairs in the offices in either the left wing or the right wing. 5 cameras. Titan. Broken cameras are still investigated if dead camera operator.
Keycards: 1 can be bought as an asset. 3 keycards are guaranteed to be somewhere in the offices, reception or locker room. The keycards open the cages in the warehouse.
Spotter: Located high above the center of the central warehouse section. He can look through the roof into parts of the warehouse. He cannot see into the office areas and does not see much of the courtyard.

Notes:

• While there are only 2 guards patrolling upstairs, the ones downstairs will occasionally go upstairs. Such guards do not actually have waypoints in the upstairs area, but only use this area to travel to their objective. If their actual waypoint is somewhere in the warehouse, they will go up the stairs in one wing, then go along the walkway and go downstairs in the other wing. If the door by the spiral staircase is opened, guards and cops may additionally use this door to enter or exit the building, going upstairs in the process. Thus if the spiral staircase door is opened, the adjacent offices is not completely safe even when the upstairs guards are taken care of. The offices in the opposite wing however are not affected: Nobody but the upstairs guards ever goes there.
  
• The cops patrolling outside magically know when a voting machine is being hacked, so one of them will start pathing towards the machine. If the machine finishes early, he will still keep walking towards it. Once he has reached it, he becomes stationary in front of it (unless another machine is being hacked). Just get rid of the cops early to save yourself the trouble.
  
• If there's a camera looking towards the ladder, just move quickly. You can run right up to the ladder and climb up without issues if your detection risk isn't horrible.
  
• You can interact with one of the three forklifts to make a guard path towards it. Each forklift can only be used once and the effect is too random to be of any use.
  
• The only safe place to hide body bags are the dumpsters, or the right wing upstairs if the two cops and the two upstairs guards are dead (anywhere upstairs if the staircase door is still closed).
  
• Enemies do not mind open crates, whether the machine has been hacked or not. There is no need to close the crates again.
  
• To safely get body bags out of the windows upstairs in the right wing, drop them inside next to the window. Jump on the window sill, then grab them again and jump down to the dumpster to dispose of the bag.
  
• Sometimes the cages that are opened with keycards are covered making it impossible to look inside from the front. Even then however, you can still look into them from above to find the ones with crates inside.
  
• The storage cages contain 6 money bags.
  
• There are 8 voting machines on the map. 2 of them are found in storage cages, the others are outside the cages.
  
• When going loud, police will place trip-mines at the door in the left wing facing the street. The mines deal between 530-570 damage. The explosion can be survived with the ICTV and Muscle deck. The mines are triggered by players only. They cannot be detonated in any other way.

Walkthrough:
Deal with the camera operator as soon as possible. If you decide to kill the two upstairs guards, you can just tie down the camera operator with no more work required. Otherwise kill and bag him or tie him and stick his head into a wall. Open the crates to see if there are voting machines inside. Do not hack the machines right away if they are in exposed places. Instead, try to find all voting machines first. Once you have found the required number of machines, chain ECMs and start hacking all machines. Run to the escape while the guards try to radio for help. As soon as all machines are hacked, the truck with the gold will open up. Alarm may go off at this point; it makes no difference, you can still escape with the gold.


Alarm triggers: C4 detonation. This level cannot be stealthed.
Notes:

• The deposit boxes only contain loose loot, not bags.
  
• There might be a door inside the vault which you need to drill/saw/C4 open, so proper equipment still has its uses despite the deposit boxes being worthless.
  
• 80% chance for 2-4 bags. 10% chance for 12 bags. 10% chance for no bags at all in the vault. The required number of bags shown when pressing the tab key is only updated upon entering the vault, so it does not offer a shortcut for achievement hunters (though apparently HoxHud gladly shows the number of bags in the vault right from the start).

There are 3 loot bags to be found in every truck (more loot possible on Crossroads). Using C4 to open a truck destroys two boxes, which may have contained loot. This should not concern you too much however, as the payout of this heist is absolutely horrible; one bag more or less makes no difference. The escape will arrive a few minutes after the first loot bag is picked up.

C4 is optional. In the end you usually need to wait out a full assault wave, so you usually have time to repair drills while defending anyway.

I've ordered the heists by perceived difficulty, easiest first.

There is a secluded area when you go into the alley on the left after spawning, which is easy to defend and rather close to the trucks.

There are 3 easy spots to defend. 1) From your spawn, if you turn 180° and stick to the right, you will come to a possible escape zone in an alley. 2+3) The corridors of the overpass.

After picking up your first loot bag, Bain will announce whether to expect a helicopter or van. The van arrives at your initial spawn point, the helicopter arrives on the opposite side. You can move the bags into either building because you can then use the skyway to move bags across.

The wine store has a small room with a desk providing cover. But any other store works as well.

Partial cover is given by the hole in the road. Alternatively, just stay close to the trucks.

Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies: 4/5 guards patrolling around the train on N/-. 2/3 guards (with flashlights) patrolling in the ravine only on -/OK+DW. 2/3 guards patrolling around the lumber mill on -/OK+DW.
Cameras: No active cameras. 3 inactive cameras inside the vaults.
Keycards: Found on some civilians with red helmets. The keycards are used to open the train sections. There are three setups:

• On N, there are 3 civilians. 2 of them have red helmets and they both have keycards.
  
• On H+VH, there are 4 civilians. 3 of them have red helmets and 2 of the red helmets have keycards.
  
• On OK+DW, there are 4 civilians. 2 of them have red helmets and 1 of the red helmets has a keycard.

Diff:

• 0.75 after alarm.
  
• 0.8 after 1:00 after the alarm.
  
• 1.0 after first assault.

Notes:

• You can walk on the girders to get on top of the train without having to use the stairs.
  
• Each train car has one vault, but two possible locations for the vault door. If you find the vault door right away, you do not need to open up the other section of the same car.
  
• Each train car with ammo contains exactly 10 bags.
  
• 65% chance for truck to pick up the loot, else boat.
  
• The hack has a timer lasting 60/90/120 seconds on N/H+VH/OK+DW. After starting the hack, there is a chance of 20%/30%/45% every 29 seconds that one of the boxes need to be rewired. A box can be chosen only once during the heist however, so if your first hack required you to rewire all boxes, the remaining hacks will not require any rewiring.
  
• The only map-specific difference between OK and DW is that DW requires 20 bags of ammo instead of 12.

Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: Alarm on the glass of the showcases, which must be disabled with a keycard first. All other glass is fine to damage.
Enemies: 2/3 patrolling guards on N/-, 1 stationary guard in security room.
Cameras: Operated by guard in security room. 4 cameras. No Titan. Broken cameras are still investigated if dead camera operator.
Keycards: The keycard is found on the female manager. Insert it into the keypad found in a random place inside the store to disable the alarm.

Notes:

• There is a 15%/25% chance on H/OK+DW that the outside door to the security room does not exist. The other difficulties always spawn the door.
  
• This heist is very easy to stealth if the camera operator can be taken out right away. The remaining guards can still be lured by breaking cameras or placing a loud drill in the adjacent car store.

Uncool triggers: Open vault.
Alarm triggers: 1) Missing a phone call. 2) Moving through the lasers at the vault (throwing bags through the lasers does not count). 3) Crossing the street while carrying a money bag before bribing the blackmailer, if the phone call was received. 4) The final phone call will give you a deadline before alarm is raised.
Enemies: 1/2 guards patrolling inside the bank on N/-. Chance for 2 GenSecs after a phone call. 3 cops will spawn after another phone call.
Cameras: Off-map operator. 1-2 / 3-4 / 3-5 / 5-6 cameras on N/H/VH/OK+DW. No Titan.
Keycards: One of the two keycards required to open the vault is found on one of the bank employees. The other keycard is found either on the manager or in his suitcase, which in turn might be located either on the counter in the bank or in a car trunk in the parking lot behind the bank (the other car trunks never contain anything).

Notes:

• Grenades can destroy the doors of the portable toilets in the back. They can also destroy the red ladder inside, which is the safest path to the roof, so be careful (a single grenade is enough to destroy it).
  
• Once the timelock starts running down, a large number of civilians will spawn on the streets. After a while, a civilian will also walk out of the portable toilet in the back. Once the vault is open, the civilians magically stop spawning entirely.
  
• This map requires either Stockholm Syndrome or explosives as even 24 cable ties are not enough for all civilians. I suppose one could leave the civilians inside the bank untied, but even in that case, as soon as GenSec appears or a civilian becomes uncool on the street, there is a good chance that the uncoolness will cascade out of the map, requiring explosives to kill civilians out of reach. A player with Stockholm Syndrome just needs to make sure that civilians are alerted within 5 seconds after spawning. The saw is preferable due to its 75 m range when hitting something, which covers the entire map (unless you move to the edge of the map).
  
• After killing the cops sent to investigate, a final phone call will give you a deadline of 1-3 minutes before alarm is raised.
  
• Occasionally, a civilian may randomly run off despite being cool.
  
• On higher difficulties, there are lasers at the vault. You can only sneak through when the three bottom rows are completely clear. They don't register bags however, so throw them right through.
  
• The boards used to barricade the windows are unique to this level. This being said, recall that civilians do not care about broken glass (unless they hear it breaking), so during stealth their purpose is to block the view to suspicious things inside the bank. Boards are generally attached to the inside of the window and do not help against cops or GenSec spotting broken or damaged glass.
  
• When going loud, the plane might take several attempts even with the ace pilot.
  
• The best defensive position while drilling open the vault is behind the cover right in front of the vault door. If there isn't any, hide behind the counter.
  
• The escape van after things have gone loud is in the tall building behind the parking lot behind the bank.
  
• This level has many rare events:
  
  • 15% chance that there is no ladder in the bank on Overkill and Deathwish, 5% on Very Hard.
    
  • 2 cops might be at the gas station. 2% chance on Hard and Very Hard, 5% on Overkill and Deathwish.
    
  • 10% chance for the plane to be destroyed if the ace pilot asset wasn't bought. This chance is determined right at the start of the heist. The plane may still miss the balloon without consequence, but the moment it would actually pick up the cage, it is destroyed instead. Right after missing the balloon, the pilot mentions being hit by a .50 round. Shortly after, the plane explodes in mid-air (though Bain explains that the pilot bailed out before that), forcing the player to move the bags through the sewers.
    
  • 1% chance that the vault is open from the start. One additional guard standing right in front of the vault and the open vault is no uncool trigger. Bank manager and employee having a conversation inside the vault. No vault lasers and no phone calls whatsoever.
    
  • If the vault is not open, there is a 3% chance that a GenSec truck including 2 GenSecs is at the bank. The truck contains loose loot only.
    
  • 20% chance that the players are asked to find codes for GenSec, which stop GenSec from dispatching more guards. If the players are not asked to find codes, 15% that GenSec believes the players anyway and does not send anyone (100% if the GenSec truck spawned). The odd part is that if the truck spawned, you may still be asked to find the codes and failure to find them will send the GenSec car.
    
  • 20%/80% chance for the non-ace/ace pilot to accept the cage on the roof. If that chance fails, there's another 20% chance that he gives in after Bain complains. If that fails, the cage is either on the street or parking lot.
• The vault contains 8-10 money bags.

Uncool triggers: Open vault.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies: 5 patrolling guards outside the depot but inside the compound, 1 stationary guard at the docks, 4 patrolling Murkywater soldiers in the depot, 1 stationary Murkywater soldier in security room. 1 guard patrolling the alleyway on DW. 20%/40%/70%/90% chance for 1 stationary guard at the main gate on N/H/VH/OK+DW. 20%/40%/70%/90% chance for 1 stationary guard at the corner of the depot (center of the compound) on N/H/VH/OK+DW. 50% chance for a helicopter to drop off 2/4 additional soldiers roaming the depot on -/OK+DW (the helicopter can be forced to carry a container instead by standing on the helipad).
Cameras: Operated by Murkywater soldier on the second floor. 6/9/13/12 cameras on N+H/VH/OK/DW. Titan. Broken cameras are still investigated if dead camera operator.
Keycards: The camera operator has one. The worker with an orange jumpsuit and a yellow helmet has one (there are 4 civilians on this map, the remaining 3 have white helmets and never carry anything). On Normal and Hard difficulty, there is an additional keycard on the counter in the kitchen. One of the soldiers dropped off on Overkill or Deathwish always has a keycard (one of the two soldiers who get out of the helicopter first; the one closer to the pilot). The 4 patrolling soldiers that exist on the map right from the start are taken from a pool of 9, with 3 having keycards. The vault can be opened with 2 keycards. Excess keycards may be used to open the cages.

Loot:

• 4/5/6 crates in the depot on N+H/VH+OK/DW have equal chances to contain coke, artifact, gold and money. The remaining crates are empty (there are 9 crates in total).
  
• 1 server is found either in the security room (1/3 chance) or in the other room on the upper floor with server racks (else).
  
• 2 bags of money in the depot.
  
• 2/1 crates with paintings in the depot on -/DW.
  
• 2/1 weapon crates in the depot on -/DW. 66.7/83.3% chance for 1 additional weapon crate on -/DW.
  
• 2 bags of coke in the depot. 75% chance for 1 additional bag.
  
• 4 bags of money in the containers outside.
  
• 4 pieces of samurai armor in the vault.
  
• 1 artifact may be dropped by the helicopter.

Notes:

• Chance for the patrolling soldiers at the beginning to have keycards (hypergeometric distribution):
  
  • 0 keycards: 11.9%
    
  • 1 keycard: 47.6%
    
  • 2 keycards: 35.7%
    
  • 3 keycards: 4.8%
• Murkywater soldiers use a different hurt table on Deathwish making them experience only light hurt. They happen to be reskinned versions of GenSec Elites, so Elites only show light hurt, too. As a side effect, they have a 100% explode reaction to explosions.
  
• The thermite offers a safe passage from the van to the depot. When inside the depot, drop all bags into the sewers and carry them later. The available thermite can be duplicated if several players interact with the suitcase in the same instant.
  
• There is a small gap below each grate in the sewers allowing you to move bags into the next section even without using thermite.
  
• The ladder at the docks leading up from the sewers may be in view of the dock guard. Crouch while using the ladder to avoid detection.
  
• The camera room has two doors, but one of them offers clear line of sight to the entire corridor and the stairs, so it is recommended to open only the other door. When not using a shotgun, make sure to hit the camera soldier in the head to ensure that he will fall backwards, leaving his head in a blind spot.
  
• The enemies and civilians do not open doors, but they will go through doors that were lockpicked open. Soldiers will walk on the balcony of the depot once either door is open. Civilians will enter/exit the depot through the (originally closed) door facing the main gate, passing through a corridor that is otherwise not entered by anyone at all. The same door is used by guards investigating broken cameras in the depot, who will often become stationary outside if the door is still closed.
  
• The soldiers pick their waypoints from a list of 29 different locations. 2 of these waypoints are on the balcony. If a soldier chooses a balcony waypoint and both balcony doors are closed, he will become stationary. Once a balcony door is opened, soldiers cannot become stationary anymore (though already stationary soldiers remain stationary).
  
• The staircase in the large hall of the depot can serve as a substitute if a soldier decides to become stationary at the other staircase.
  
• 300 seconds after the players have entered the compound (indicated by Bain telling them for the first time to check out the containers), the game spawns a helicopter which either drops off soldiers or a container with an artifact inside. 10 seconds before the helicopter spawns, i.e. 290 seconds after entering the compound, you will hear a Murkywater announcer.
  
• When a player enters the container drop location, this location becomes disabled, i.e. the helicopter will drop soldiers unless that location is blocked as well (in which case no helicopter will arrive at all). When there is no player at that location, it becomes re-enabled.
  
• When a player enters the Murkywater soldier drop location at the helipad on the roof, the location becomes disabled. When a player leaves the location, it becomes re-enabled. This condition is different from the container condition, and several players can mess with the system: 4 people entering the location at once will disable it, but a single person leaving re-enables it (thus the helicopter with soldiers may arrive despite 3 players standing at the location).
  
• The green box in this screenshot marks the zone that prevents the helicopter from dropping off soldiers (you want to be in that zone for the next 10 seconds as soon as you hear the Murkywater announcer):
  

Walkthrough:
There are two slightly different approaches. Regardless of approach, the first objective is to kill the camera soldier who will use up one pager.

• Let the 4 patrolling soldiers live until one of them becomes stationary (start looting the depot in the meantime), then kill the others to fully secure the depot. The stationary soldier might be standing in such a manner that he can see the vault door and thus become uncool when it opens. If you barely have any ECM time and want both the stealth bonus and the armor, you will need to take him out and hope that another soldier becomes stationary at a better spot.
  
• Alternatively, kill 2 or 3 of the patrolling soldiers right away and avoid the remaining soldier(s) who may or may not become stationary in a reasonable amount of time. This approach makes initial looting of the depot easier, but may require ECMs to escape with the samurai armor.

Get the boat zipline and 3 spycams in the depot. Climb up the ladder in the alley (beware of the DW alley guard), then jump onto the roof of the depot. Kill the camera soldier. Either hit him with a shotgun or aim at his head to make him fall backwards out of sight.

From there, you have several tasks (in no particular order):

• Take out the 4 civilians. They patrol everywhere and will eventually enter the building.
  
• Stand on the helipad about 5 minutes into the game to force the container drop.
  
• Grab the loot inside the depot and throw it into the sewers. To secure the loot, throw it through the gap below the sewer grate towards the docks. If the depot door facing the docks is closed, the dock guard is at his other spot and the door can be opened and loot can be taken to the zipline without issues. Otherwise, carefully jump down the roof and balcony to reach the loot and crouch when climbing the ladder at the sewers entrance to avoid detection.
  
• Grab the 4 bags of cash and the artifact outside the depot. Somebody can assist by spotting from the roof (Dominator aced + Crew Chief recommended). Either exit through the entrance or drop down from the roof to access the containers.
  
• Open the vault with the keycards from the camera operator and civilian. If there is still a patrolling soldier around, this task needs to be done just before escaping.

With all loot secured, just take the alley back to the van.

Uncool triggers: Computer that is being hacked or has been hacked (no FOV required).
Alarm triggers: 1) C4 blown up. This happens 5.5 s after picking up the car keys, provided no player is outside. 2) Breaking any window or showcase glass. 3) Hacking the wrong computer (alarm when the hack finishes).
Enemies: 3/4/5 guards patrolling inside on N+H/VH+OK/DW. 1/2/3 guards patrolling behind the building on N/H+VW/OK+DW. 1 initially stationary guard at the staircase at the main entrance (this guard will start patrolling in front of the building when the keycard is picked up).
Cameras: 2 cameras in front of the building. On VH+OK+DW, more cameras watching alternative entrances, see notes. Titan.
Keycards: 1 keycard on the manager used to open up his office. The office can also be accessed by smashing the large window next to the door, but this causes alarm. When the game starts, the manager is assigned 1 out of 7 different modes (all of them equally likely to occur):

• Patrolling anywhere in the building. This is the only mode in which the manager may be found downstairs; the other modes are upstairs only.
  
• In the conference room with 2 civilians.
  
• In the office next to the conference room with 1 civilian.
  
• In the single office with 1 civilian.
  
• Sitting at a table close to the inner staircase with another civilian.
  
• Alone in the copy room.
  
• In the rather exposed corner close to the copy room, talking to 2 civilians.

Notes:

• On VH+OK+DW, only one of the three alternative entrances is unguarded. Guarded entrances have the following obstacles:
  
  • Left entrance: One camera watching the door. One camera inside the building watching the door to the inner staircase.
    
  • Staircase in back: One of the patrolling guards outside is actually stationary next to the staircase.
    
  • Right entrance: One camera watching the door.
• Enemies and civilians cannot see through the glass in the offices.
  
• Some roof windows can be lockpicked to enter from above.
  
• If you are not going to ECM rush this level (which appears to be the point of the level due to a certain achievement), the best way inside is the right side entrance. You might need an ECM or camera loop to disable the camera while lockpicking the door to the staircase, but this still beats the spiral staircase in the back (which may be blocked by a stationary guard) or the left side entrance which does not lead you upstairs.
  
• The manager's office contains a whiteboard with the name of the person whose computer you need to hack.

Uncool triggers: Blowing up the meth lab
Alarm triggers: None
Enemies: In contrast to all previous heists, the game assigns a small number of individual waypoints to every enemy and civilian, who will then patrol along this loop of waypoints. Due to the sheer amount of guards and their very localized behavior I shall mention only some of the guards that are missing on lower difficulties and of interest: After the gate to the other dock is opened, the game spawns a new guard at the dock on VH+OK+DW only. On N difficulty, there is no guard on the rooftop north of the lockers+office complex and there is a 20% chance that there is no guard patrolling on the rooftop of the lockers+office complex itself. On N+H+VH, there is a 50% chance that there is no stationary guard at the main gate.
Cameras: Operated by 1/2 guards on N/-. Both operators need to be killed to disable the cameras. 17/18/19/20/22 cams on N/H/VH/OK/DW, randomly distributed over 22 possible camera spots. Titan.
Keycards: 3/2 are placed on desks next to computers on N/-. On N difficulty when playing solo, all keycards are either in the eastern or western half of the map. There are 7 keycards locations that may contain a keycard:

• Locker room
  
• Office (next to locker room)
  
• Ship control room east, opposite security room
  
• Ship control room east, upstairs
  
• Ship control room west, upstairs
  
• Storage room west, west side
  
• Storage room west, east side

Additionally, on N difficulty only, a keycard may be in the security room that has no operator.

Loot:

• There is a meth lab in one of the containers, and 2 sets of ingredients scattered around the map. The individual ingredients may be found at separate locations.
  
• There is a 25% chance that the white truck southwest of the original ship location can be opened (drill, C4, saw). The truck contains 1-2 weapon cases.
  
• There are 6/10 crates on -/DW placed on the map with equal chances for coke, gold, money, nothing.

Notes:

• Keycards can be inserted through walls.
  
• 10% chance that the northeastern warehouse is closed. Item and camera spawns are shifted elsewhere in that case.
  
• There are 1/2/3 safes on N/H+VH/OK+DW (out of 8 possible spots). One of the safes contains the manifest, the other safes are empty.
  
• The manifest marks the 4 containers that contain bomb cases, though only one of those cases holds the bomb. 25% chance to find a total of 2 small ammo bags in those 4 containers, else 1.
  
• 25% chance that the security rooms contain medicine cabinets. If the chance is evaluated successfully, 25% chance for 2 cabinets (one per security room), else 1.
  
• There are 4/2/1 crowbars on N/H+VH/OK+DW, distributed over 14 possible locations.
  
• Most enemy guards have the engage attitude. If they are not attempting to arrest you, they will fire at you even if you don't show aggressive behavior.
  
• The assault does not end once you reach the ship.
  
• Drills placed on containers do not jam.
  
• Map with all possible keycard, crate, ingredient and crowbar locations. Keycards can spawn in security rooms only if there is no guard inside (N difficulty only). Some keycards spawns hinder others from spawning, i.e. you cannot find two keycards in the locker room (as described in the keycard section above). Items located upstairs are red, the other items are green.

Notes:

• The game spawns wagons at 5 out of 10 possible locations. Demolition Expert guarantees a wagon spawn at the chosen location.
  
• All 5 wagons are equally likely to contain the vault.
  
• A crate with crowbars is found east of the wagon 03 location, rendering the crowbar asset useless.
  
• Most wagons are rolled over, but 4 wagons (03, 13, 33, 39) remain standing upright. The location of the C4 crate depends on the number of upright wagons. If there are less than 2 upright wagons, one of the rolled over wagons will contain a single crate, which is guaranteed to contain the C4. Otherwise, the game distributes 2 crates among the upright wagons, with C4 being in one of them and the other being empty. Having the vault does not matter for the count of upright wagons, i.e. using Demolition Expert on 2 upright wagons guarantees that the C4 is found in an upright wagon. The C4 crate is of the same type as the crates on day 2 of Election day.
  
• Every upright wagon contains 2 crates that may contain loot, provided it does not hold the vault. Each crate has a 35% chance to contain loot. Possible loot is either gold or coke.
  
• One of the flipped-over wagons contains 1 crate with a 15% chance for cash, else gold. However, if all 4 upright wagons happen to spawn and the single flipped-over wagon happens to contain the vault, that crate is lost.
  
• The 4 wagons in the west (08, 17, 27, 39) are filled directly by chopper. The others use the river pump. The pump takes 300 seconds by default (160 seconds with the asset). The chopper takes 240 seconds but needs to refill once. The refill takes 120 seconds by default (60 seconds with the asset), in addition to the ~35 seconds after spawning on the map until the hose can actually be attached.
  
• Drills placed on train cars do not jam.

Uncool triggers: None
Alarm triggers: 1) Missing the phone call. 2) Lasers at the time-lock door (bags do not trigger). Can be disabled with the keycards. Each keycard either disables all vertical or horizontal lasers.
Enemies: 2 patrolling guards in the public area, 3/4/5 patrolling guards in the vault area on N/H+VH/OK+DW, 1 stationary guard in security room. 66.67% chance for 1 guard coming from an elevator during the time-lock running down. Chance for cops after phone call (default chance: 0%; increases by 4% for each killed civilian up to 100% chance at 25 killed civilians); if playing solo, 1/2 cops on -/OK+DW, else 1/2/3 cops on N/H+VH/OK+DW; the cops take position somewhere in the public area and then become stationary.
Cameras: Operated by guard in security room in the vault area. 3/4/5 cameras in public area on N/H+VH/OK+DW, 4 cameras in vault area. No Titan. Broken cameras are still investigated if dead camera operator.
Keycards: 1 can be acquired as an asset. 1 is found on furniture. 1 is either carried by the bank manager (2/3 chance) or in his safe (else). Can be used to open the doors to the server room and security room and to disable the lasers.

Notes:

• There are two ways to approach this heist in stealth: The first option is to secure the public area by killing all guards and subduing all civs on the upper floor as well as the cubicles on the lower floor. Breaking cameras in the public area may cause guards in the vault area to become stationary, which usually comes in handy (or dooms you, depending on where they were standing). Loud drills can also turn guards stationary. The second option is to interact with the public area as little as possible and save the pagers for the vault area.
  
• There is an endless stream of civilians coming and going into the hall downstairs. If any of them becomes uncool, the heist is almost guaranteed to fail as the uncool civilians will cascade back to the spawns outside of the map. I suppose one or two people with Stockholm Syndrome and a saw could theoretically hold them back forever, but that's about as impractical as it gets.
  
• The public area and vault area are completely separate zones during stealth. No guard or civilian passes through the time-lock door. The guards in the vault area patrol in such a manner that they never even see the time-lock door.
  
• Three women and the bank manager move around anywhere in the public area. The remaining civilians will path either to those tables downstairs or to any available bank employee (teller and the people upstairs). Tying or killing the employees stops the spawns of civilians that path there, leaving only the tables. Civilians that have already spawned with these locations as their destination will still keep pathing there however.
  
• The entire public area upstairs and the cubicle area downstairs can be secured without the stream of civilians in the main hall noticing. Securing the canteen is rather risky and not recommended (though a keycard may spawn there, which can be picked up with Sixth Sense aced instead).
  
• Certain civilians in the cubicles downstairs can be seen by customers at the tellers when standing. Occasionally they may ignore shouts to drop to the ground which would hide their heads behind the cubicles, causing the entire lobby to become uncool. Worst of all, even if you do shoot them, the death animation may cause them to collapse in such a manner that their head is not hidden by the cubicle. Before shooting them, evaluate whether to use a shotgun, or whether to aim above or below their center of mass and whether it is preferable to have them sitting or standing when shot; sitting civilians do not show any death animations but just ragdoll immediately, so firing at them from afar causes a corpse to sit on the chair with the head highly visible. Alternatively, wait for the customer to go away before shouting down the cubicle area. This action however requires some coordination with the team as another customer often arrives just 10 seconds later (so someone else needs to scout the lobby and give the signal).
  
• Guards in the public area only investigate cameras in the public area; guards in the vault area only investigate cameras in the vault area (basically, each camera has a list of guards that may come to investigate). Several possible camera locations in the public area are assigned to the vault area however, e.g. the camera in the management corridor further away from the vault area (the one used to glitch out of the map). This camera will never make the guards in the public area investigate. However, this is what causes vault guards to become stationary: They try to investigate but can't reach the broken camera. Even if the time-lock door is open, the guards will not be able to move through the door and become stationary. When going for the approach that fully secures the public area, before entering the vault area, make sure to break all cameras you can find.
  
• The poisoned cake makes a guard stationary. He can still see things however. Initially he shows a coughing animation, which wears off after a while without affecting his perception however. If you intend to secure most of the public area, then place the cake in the canteen (which you then have to avoid) to have one more pager for the vault area. A poisoned guard will investigate drills, but will never be chosen to investigate cameras.
  
• The glass at the area with the desks upstairs can take a hit without even being damaged, so you can take out cameras in that area from afar. A second hit destroys the glass however.
  
• The correct terminal beeps and shows a message on its screen whenever the server is being accessed. There is a 5% chance that the server itself is correct when interacting with it for the first time.
  
• Drills can be seen from across the map. Don't place a drill in the vault if there is line of sight from the drill location to the area outside the vault. Guards do not notice the open vault door, but they spot the drills really quick.
  
• Keys can be almost anywhere in the vault area, but there are also two locations in the public area: Either in the management offices or right behind the tellers.
  
• The vault contains 11 money bags and 4 gold bags out in the open. Each wall with deposit boxes contains either gold or money only (50% chance each). There are 3-5 loot bags found in each wall.

Walkthrough:
I will explain the first option which secures the public area. Place the poisoned cake in the canteen, place three spycams in the vault area and unlock the garage door. Stalk the remaining patrolling guard in the public area until you can take him out or shoot cameras to lure him. Deal with all civilians upstairs. Open the server room and start interacting. If the correct terminal is not upstairs, subdue the civilians in the cubicles downstairs as well. Start the time-lock and watch the elevators, killing the potential elevator guard. After the time-lock, watch the highlighted guards in the vault area and count the ones that are patrolling and the ones that are stationary. It might be necessary to kill a stationary guard standing in front of the vault, so remember to save a pager for that. At this point you have either 2 or 3 pagers left. Do not waste it on the camera guard, as the cameras are rather easy to deal with. In the best case you can deal with all patrolling guards and be left with 2 stationary ones staring at walls. In the worst case there are 3 patrolling guards. As long as all patrolling guards are highlighted, you can move with no risk whatsoever. Stick together with your crew to move the bags out of the vault. Having 4 people go separate ways to secure a bag each will get you noticed soon enough. Ignore the escape van and drop all loot bags in the garage (civilians cannot see loot bags). Once you have all bags, throw them into the van. This eliminates the risk of ending stealth prematurely due to civilians noticing a criminal.

Notes:

• The best time to kill the mobsters is immediately after the game starts, before they hide inside the rooms.
  
• The large map in the basement shows the location for each type of cargo. Look up the location given by Bain on the map to find the correct bar-code.
  
• Upon opening the trunk, the beige Monarch in the northeast and the black Monarch in the center of the parking lot have a 25% chance for cash. The remaining cars are empty. The car next to the black Monarch also calculates a 25% chance but does not spawn anything. If 2 cars successfully evaluate the chance for cash, the third car may never contain any cash. Thus opening the trunk of the car next to the black Monarch slightly lowers the expectation value of the number of trunks with money.
  
• There are 5/4/4/3/2 buckets of cash found in the motel rooms on N/H/VH/OK/DW. The actual amount may be smaller because the game has 51 possible spots and enables the cash for the corresponding spots, but 2 of the spots are broken and do not spawn anything if chosen.
  
• There is a 40%/30%/5% chance on N/H+VH/OK+DW that chemicals for 3 bags of meth spawn in the meth lab. If this chance fails, there are ingredients for 1-2 bags.
  
• There are 19 crates in the basement. Upon opening a crate, the game looks at all available crate contents and randomly chooses one. Available is anything that hasn't been spawned 3 times yet. A crate contains one of these 6 things: nothing, missiles, vodka, coats, cigars, chemicals. If there isn't anything available anymore, the first item in the list (nothing) will spawn.
  
• One of the crates ignores all availability requirements and has equal chances to spawn all 6 items regardless of how often they have spawned already. The item spawning in this crate still works against the availability for the other crates however. The crate is located opposite the bar-code scanner, about 20 m away: There are 3 crates, a long one to the left and 2 flat ones to the right and center; the one in the center it is.
  
• Another crate obeys all availability requirements except the one for chemicals. If nothing is available, it will always spawn chemicals. That crate is located in the corner to the left of the bar-code scanner (the flat crate).
  
• By opening the crate that may contain anything first and the crate in the corner last, the basement will always yield enough ingredients for 4 meth bags. The following screenshot marks the 2 crates in question:
  

Notes:

• There is a countdown of 11/10/9 minutes on N/H+VH/OK+DW before all coke is destroyed. The first coke is destroyed when the countdown reaches 8 minutes, and 1 bag is destroyed every minute afterwards (thus the initial amount of bags is 9). The countdown starts once the Commissar reaches the top floor (25 seconds after the players see him taking the elevator).
  
• The police may fight the Commissar once the vault opens.
  
• Loot bags may be destroyed by the fire. Leaving the coke unbagged means one less thing to worry about.
  
• The escape helicopter picks up loot even when it is thrown below it. It would require very odd positioning and angles to actually throw the loot in a manner that will cause it to fall down below the helicopter without being picked up. Throwing too far to the left or right is still an issue (though there's an invisible wall on one side).
  
• Techforcers can repair the drill in the fire without taking health damage (unless there are snipers or other enemies around).
  
• Using the sprinklers is detrimental to your objectives as the fire has several advantages:
  
  • Helicopter attacks (which stop the drill) do not occur if there is a fire. Even auto-restarter drills require manual attention after these attacks.
    
  • One reinforcement task location is blocked, so there are less enemies to worry about.
    
  • From the door that you open with C4, there are three possible vault door locations to the left, rear and right. The fire disables enemy navigation to the rear and right (why it does not affect the left, I do not know). If the drill was placed at either of these two locations, enemies will not break it anymore during the fire. If the drill is located to the left however, enemies will still break it just like before.
• If the drill is located in the back and there is a fire, approach the drill from the right when you need to fix it. You do not take fire damage between the two sofas and the drill can be reached from there. Similarly, if you got the left vault location, the sofas on the left can be used to fix the drill.
  
• The enemy spawn points change as you run up the building, but once you are at the vault they remain there. The farther you are from the vault, the easier the assault waves become, as the enemies need to travel to your location first.
  
• There is a 30% chance that the heist becomes rather easy: If the drill at the vault is an auto-restarter, you only need to fix the drill once after the helicopter attack and can then go downstairs until the drill is done and just deal with the occasional enemy group.
  
• Right after the drill has been placed, it may be worth trying to prevent the enemies from breaking the drill for as long as possible, but once it is broken, retreating downstairs is the safest option. If the drill does not happen to be an auto-restarter, go back upstairs during Fade to repair the drill and then move downstairs again.
  
• By running all the way back to the spawn and waiting for 3 to 4 minutes, the enemy assault will be spread all over the building. You can move back up and will encounter only a fraction of the assault on the way, as the rooms and corridors offer so many different routes. Once you are upstairs again, you have several minutes before the remaining assault forces come back upstairs. I suppose this is the best course of action if the drill is on the left and not an auto-restarter.
  
• Not tying the first civilian downstairs is quite popular, the reason being that someone needs to go all the way downstairs if someone needs to be traded from custody. I disagree. The first civilian is never freed by the police and provides the extended Anticipation phase throughout the entire heist. For a trade, the game picks the hostage that is the closest to one of the players not in custody (the player is randomly selected), but converted enemies are only considered if there is no other hostage available. If the crew only has converted enemies and no dominated hostage, then the civilian downstairs will indeed be used for the trade. One solution is to keep a dominated, non-converted enemy for trading purposes. If this is not an option and the civilian downstairs has to be traded, the crew should first use the remaining time outside of the assault to fix the drill and move downstairs to the civilian as a group once the assault wave starts. As preached several times now, the further down the crew goes, the easier the heist becomes. The crew has 3 minutes of Build and Sustain to reach the civilian downstairs and go back up again, during which their actions have no effect other than wasting ammo and medic bags. so not only does the trade not harm the progress of the heist at all, but going back to the spawn is in fact the strongest strategy.

Notes:

• Ammo and medic bags can be placed on the truck.
  
• The assault never ends until everyone is inside the parking garage. Once inside, the game uses normal assault mechanics again and immediately starts Fade. As the game despawns all enemies outside when the garage doors close, the current assault usually ends right after entering the garage.
  
• Enemy spawns follow the progress of the armored car through the streets. Most spawns are in front of the car, though at some locations one of the spawn points may be slightly behind it. The spawns which are behind become disabled after spawning a limited number of enemies, usually 8; though as the game only spawns entire groups, it is possible that after 7 enemies have spawned, a final group of 4 may spawn before the spawn point is disabled.
  
• The right routes are tougher than the left ones. In particular, if the car does not turn left at the first intersection, there will be spawn points all over your location. The scaffolding can be used as cover. The spawns are disabled once the car reaches the intersection halfway to the garage (or alternatively if they are behind the car and they have spawned enough enemies).
  
• While players are restricted to one route, enemies may also take the blocked-off routes. Enemies in those blocked-off sections usually are not much of a threat while blocking enemies from spawning at other places.
  
• The enemy pathing mechanics has some odd consequences on this map. When a group of enemies spawns, they will set the current waypoint on the location of one of the players, but this waypoint does not change when the player moves around. The group keeps pathing towards the waypoint and upon reaching it, sets a new waypoint on a player location again. (When a player is being tased or has been downed however, he becomes a homing beacon for all enemy groups with the "death guard" tactic. Even after the taser effect wears off or he is revived, he will be chased by such groups.)
  
• The level can be played in a conservative manner, slowly pushing forwards. When giving the signal to the car, hold your position as it moves (the spawn points are not relocated instantly when the car starts moving, but rather when it has moved halfway from one section to the next). Make sure to kill all stragglers and take out the spawns from the spawn points behind the car until the spawn points are disabled, then push back the enemies in the front to reach the car again.
  
• The level can also be played in a rather aggressive manner. The assault starts after running up the stairs to the street and assault groups that spawn will set their waypoint on the player. Many of those assault groups come from the first street that is blocked off, Avoid these groups and move the truck with Hoxton as soon as possible. The groups will first run towards the building that you exited before setting a waypoint on your new location. By that time, they are just slowly chasing after you whlie blocking most of the other spawns. Essentially, this method boils down to moving the van as fast as possible (and hoping that there is no SWAT vehicle that needs to be drilled) and not engaging enemies that are not in your way.

Keycards: 1 keycard at the initial checkpoint area (either at the metal detector or reception). 1 keycard on a table or on top of those terminals in the operations room. 1 keycard in either forensics, director's office or downstairs in the atrium, surrounding the reception. Atrium keycards can be located on benches, chairs and plants. Forensics keycards and director's office keycards are on tables. 1 additional keycard at the checkpoint on Normal difficulty, else 50% chance for a keycard to be anywhere except upstairs. 50% chance for a keycard on a table upstairs. The keycards can be used to unlock the upstairs area, to close doors to the operations room and to open various rooms, including the armory with ammo supplies and the infirmary with medical supplies.

Notes:

• Enemies can spawn either in the atrium, rappel down from holes in the roof in the operations room or spawn at one of the 4 skyways. Destroying a skyway removes the associated spawn point, causing enemies to spawn elsewhere (usually the atrium). Essentially, their destruction helps to funnel and delay the enemies. For the greatest effect, destroy the walkways downstairs and close the operations room doors facing the atrium. This ensures that the enemies have a long way to walk from their spawn to the operations room.
  
• After picking up the server at the end, the game starts an assault that never ends.
  
• Save one keycard for the escape. The other keycards are best used to either complete objectives or close doors to the operations room.
  
• Drills placed on doors jam only once.

Uncool triggers: Laptop being hacked (detection range: 7 m).
Alarm triggers: 1) Timer on the alarm box runs out. This happens 45/30/20 s (on N+H/VH+OK/DW) after any window or door leading into the building has been opened or broken or the player has walked through lasers. The box is found on the ground floor only. 2) If the vault has a retina scanner and the FBI boss is dead, Bain sends a drill which causes alarm on arrival.
Enemies:

• 2/3/4 soldiers patrolling outside the compound on N+H/VH+OK/DW.
  
• 1/2 soldiers walking circles along the fence inside the compound on -/OK+DW.
  
• On any difficulty other than N, 1 soldier walking inside the compound in the space between main gate and main building only.
  
• 2/3 guards patrolling anywhere inside the building on -/OK+DW.
  
• 1 guard patrolling only in the main part of the building (he does not enter the basement nor take the stairs by the billiard table).
  
• 1 guard patrolling only in the extension part of the building (any place the main part guard does not path to).
  
• 50%/100% chance for 1 stationary soldier on N+H/- who is either at the gate in front (75% chance) or in the back (25% chance).
  
• 1 stationary guard in security room.

Cameras: Operated by guard in security room at random locations. 4/5/5/6/8 on N/H/VH/OK/DW. The cameras are usually placed outside the house (there are rare spots inside the house with the camera looking towards an entrance). Titan.
Keycards: 4/3 on N+H/- placed on tables in the house. 2 of them may be necessary to open the vault.

Evidence:
There are 8 pieces of evidence, distributed over 3 locations. Each location contains an evidence board that can be packed. Additionally, a total of 5 boxes are randomly distributed over these locations. The 3 locations are randomly chosen out of 4 possible locations. Each of these options is equally likely to occur:

• Downstairs in the main part of the building (Kitchen, dining room or billiard room).
  
• Downstairs in the extension part of the building (in the basement or living room).
  
• Upstairs in the main part of the building.
  
• Upstairs in the extension part of the building.

Diff:

• 0.5 after 0:25 from being detected.
  
• 0.75 after first assault.
  
• 1.0 after second assault.

Notes:

• Apart from the gates (which may be guarded), the mission provides 2 more entry points. These points are randomly placed and come either in the form of a hole in the fence or a rock placed conveniently close to the fence.
  
• Additional, possibly unintended, entry points are the garden lights (the ones at the front gate in particular) and the rocks at the hill on the right which allow you to jump over the fence.
  
• Lasers are disabled while a guard is on the balcony. The building can be entered without any alarm timer by sneaking past the guard during this time.

Uncool triggers: Noise when breaking a display case (alert range: 12 m). Open cases are not visually detected however (whether broken or cut with the glass cutters): If you break a display case during stealth out of hearing range, nobody will ever notice anything.
Alarm triggers: 1) Breaking a display case before rewiring the 4 circuit boxes (using the glass cutters is allowed). 2) Walking into the lasers in front of the first timelock, disabled by rewiring the 4 boxes. These lasers are triggered by players only. 3) Standing on any pressure plate that does not have a green light at the circuit box. The pressure plates are triggered by players and enemies (both unconverted and converted).
Enemies:

• 1/2 patrolling guards in front of the building on N+H/-.
  
• 1 patrolling guard in the entrance area (lobby and parts of the corridor when going up the stairs).
  
• 1/2 patrolling guards in the basement on N+H/OK+DW. On VH, 33% chance for 1, else 2.
  
• 3/4/5/6 patrolling guards inside, in the non-timelocked area on N+H/VH/OK/DW. Referred to as "main patrol" in the notes.
  
• 2/3 patrolling guards in the timelocked area on -/OK+DW.
  
• 25%/36.25% chance for 1 stationary guard in front of the main entrance on N+H/-. He needs to be taken out if you want to use this entrance.
  
• 1 guard in security room.

Cameras: Operated by guard in security room located in one of six possible closets. 5/6/8/9 cameras in the exhibits and basement on N+H/VH/OK/DW. There is a limit of 2 cameras each in the exhibit on the lower floor and the exhibit past the timelock. There is a limit of 1 camera each for the remaining 4 exhibits and the basement. (The sum of all limits is 9, so DW places all cameras up to the limit.) Additionally, on OK+DW, 1 camera past the second timelock facing the door to the diamond room. Additional cameras in front of the building. Titan. Broken cameras are still investigated if dead camera operator (exterior cameras investigated by exterior guards, other cameras investigated by main patrol).
Keycards: There are 4 civilians on the map, carrying a keycard each. 2 keycards required to open the timelock doors when stealthing.


Diamond path mechanics:

• There is a timer of 60/30 seconds on OK/DW until the tiles to the diamond reset. Standing on any tile when the timer runs out means alarm. The timer starts running down while the correct tiles are being revealed. While the first two tiles are revealed instantly, the remaining tiles are shown at a rate of 1 tile per 0.75 seconds. In the worst case the path has 29 components and thus takes 27*0.75 = 20.25 seconds just to reveal the correct tiles, leaving not even 10 seconds to a DW player to follow the complicated path. In the best case the path is a straight line with 9 components, which takes 7*0.75 = 5.25 seconds to be fully revealed, leaving 25 seconds to a DW player to follow the simplest path possible.
  
• At each tile, the path goes in any allowed direction with the same chance. If the path starts at the left (or right) edge, it has a 50% chance each to go either forwards or to the right (or left). If the path starts somewhere else, it has a 33% chance to go left, right or forwards.
  
• The paths gets easier each time you restart the tiles, up to a limit. Imagine the path making a turn to the right at one point, going from a certain tile 1 to a certain tile 2. When this happens, the game disables the path from tile 2 to tile 1 to force the path to either go further to the right or forwards. However, this disabling is permanent, so in all future restarts the path will never go from tile 2 to tile 1. Only lateral paths are disabled, so eventually the paths will be biased to move forwards. The limit is due to the disabling itself: In the aforementioned case the path from tile 1 to tile 2 cannot be disabled anymore because that would require the path to go along the disabled way from tile 2 to tile 1. As a rough estimate, on average, about 50% of the tiles at the left/right edge will have a 100% chance to go forwards while the remaining 50% remain at the 50% chance each to move forwards or to the side. Put another way, any tile at the left or right edge has roughly a 75% chance to go forwards. With 7 tiles required to make a straight line (provided the start of the path is at the edge), the chance for a straight path is about 0.75^7 = 13% if the tiles have been reset often enough.
  
• The path is created in real-time. Even if you know about disabled paths and can correctly predict where the path will go, walking on any tile that is not (yet) indicated by a green light at the box causes alarm.

Circuit box placement:

• One circuit box is guaranteed to be somewhat close to the security room. The security room can be either on the main floor or the lower floor. There are three possible room locations on each floor, but the ones on the main floor are favored and are twice as likely to be selected for the security room (so the main floor has a 2/3 chance to contain the room). If the security room is on the lower floor, there is a box in one of the other rooms on the lower floor.
  
• In addition to the circuit box placed by the security room, the game picks 5 out of the 7 locations listed below and places a box at each chosen location. There can be only one box per location (with one exception). The security room box is already placed at one of these locations and thus renders the location unavailable for another box.
  
  • In one of the 3 closets on the lower floor.
    
  • In the basement, including the staircase area in the west.
    
  • In the yard, next to the exhibition entrances.
    
  • In the corridor in the southwest. The box can be either in one of two closets or just in the corridor.
    
  • At the exhibition under construction.
    
  • In the closet in the east.
    
  • In the corridor, between the lasers. This location is the exception as the security room may spawn the box here without rendering the location unavailable for further placement. There is a ~5% chance that the game tries to spawn a second box here. If that happens however, there is a 50% chance that out of the two box locations, the same one is selected a second time with no effect whatsoever. All things considered, there is a chance of about 2.5% to get two boxes between the lasers and a 2.5% chance to get only one box between the lasers and only a total of 5 boxes on the map.
• If there are not two boxes placed between the lasers, there are effectively 6 boxes spread at 7 different locations, so there is just one location without boxes. Checking just 5 different location guarantees at least 4 boxes. If there are two boxes between the lasers, there will be 2 locations without boxes, but if you always include the location between the lasers in your runs, you still only need to check 5 different locations. In the rare event that the map only has 5 boxes in total, you may need to check 6 different locations however. You can always fully ignore 1 location from the list above (e.g. basement) and get enough boxes.

Notes:

• The guard locations specified in the "enemies" section are the waypoints that guards will path to. Guards do not always take the shortest path to those waypoints however, which means that the basement guards may go upstairs and walk through the entire building before taking the other stairs downwards again to finally reach their (basement) waypoint. The guard(s) in front of the building and the guards in the timelocked area are not affected as there is only one way out of their assigned areas (enemies on their way to their destination do not pass the same intermediate waypoint twice, i.e. they avoid dead ends). The entrance guard and basement guards and the guards of the main patrol however can be treated almost the same in terms of pathing, though there are certain dead ends in the basement accessed only by the basement guards. You are most likely to encounter basement guards in the basement and main patrol guards on the main floor, but they are not bound to their place.
  
• Starting the first timelock has a 50% chance to cause one guard of the main patrol to path in front of it. Starting the second timelock has a 75% chance to cause one guard of the main patrol to path in front of it if the first timelock was not investigated, else 25% chance. Guards take some time to reach the timelock, so be prepared for a guard to arrive just seconds before or even after the door opens. The investigation of the second timelock is sole event of a guard walking through the first timelock door.
  
• The signs above the rooms indicate what to expect. "High voltage" means boxes, "Employees only" means empty rooms and "Security" means the security room.
  
• The front of the building is divided into 4 areas: 1) Main entrance, 2+3) Building front to the left and right of the entrance, 4) Right side of the building. On N+H, the game picks 2 of these areas and turns them into strong points by placing cameras around them (the main entrance additionally has a 50% chance for a guard if selected). On the higher difficulties, there is a 10% chance to pick 2 areas, else 3 areas. There is always at least one part of the building that can be accessed without worrying about cameras. If thermite is not an option, the potential guard by the main entrance must be taken out because there is no other way inside.
  
• There are 2 paintings that can be collected. One is found in the lobby next to the donor plaque. The other is found in the staircase to the east, right next to the loot van. Paintings are fragile: Damaging them (shooting, melee, explosions) makes it impossible to pick them up anymore. Once bagged however, they become indestructible.
  
• 10 showcases have GenSec stickers. Each case contains between 0 to 3 artifacts. Vase artifacts are fragile just like paintings. Bullets penetrate the cases (as expected of glass), so firing a single bullet to break a case will break the vase inside as well unless you aim carefully around it. Breaking the case with a single melee attack works without issues. The Roman exhibition behind the lasers and the large hall behind the timelock can contain up to 3 showcases with stickers each, the other exhibitions can contain up to 2 each.
  
• Two basement windows can be serve as an exit as well: The third window from the left has furniture placed in such a way to easily walk up again. The rightmost window (around the corner) has a ladder placed in front of the window. Frontally approach the ladder, jump once or twice and you will walk up the rest.
  
• Box (red) and painting (yellow) locations on the main floor. Green circles indicate the circuit box area (only one box per area allowed except between lasers). The 2 paintings in the southeast have been removed with update 154:
  

Uncool triggers: Civilians detect the windows in the back when they are damaged or broken. Chance for metal detector on Ukrainian Job, located at the front door. Iff there is a metal detector, there is a switch on any of the outside walls of the store to disable it. 15%/58%/70% chance on N/H/-. Alert in a 12 m radius and the hot dog cops are magically alerted as well.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies: 1-2 patrolling guards behind the store. 25% chance for a stationary guard behind the store. 65% chance for a patrolling guard inside the store and Bob sitting at the desk. In this case (on Ukrainian Job only), 25% chance that there are some girls standing in front of Bob plus an additional stationary guard next to him. One extra guard on Ukrainian Job watching the cameras. 50% chance for 2 cops at a hot dog cart. Any patrolling guard has the "engage" attitude, the others (which may not even spawn) do not.
Cameras: No cameras on Jewelry Store. 5 cameras on Ukrainian Job, operated by a guard in the back room to the right. The guard sometimes leaves the cameras and patrols within the store, which disables the cameras for this duration. One of the cameras is always inactive, located outside on another building. Titan. Broken cameras are never investigated. Unusual camera stats (the cameras differ from each other): Minimum and maximum delay: 3-8 seconds or 1-2 seconds or 5-8 seconds. Range: 20 m or 30 m. Field of view: 90 degrees.
ECM rush time: 80 seconds to deal with the hordes of civilians on the streets.

Notes:

• Jewelry Store never has more than 4 guards. Ukrainian Job has a chance of 2% for 6 guards and 14% for 5 guards.
  
• Make it a habit to never use the front door on this level to avoid the metal detector on Ukrainian Job. While the detector does not cause alarm, it does alert people all around and there may be more than 4 guards (making it necessary to avoid the ones in the back alley). The store windows next to the door do not make noise when broken.
  
• The alleys might be fenced off. Sometimes there are objects close by that can be scaled to jump over the fence.
  
• Sometimes there is a civilian overlooking the back alley from a window on the second floor. If he becomes alerted, he may duck out of sight, so use a grenade if necessary.
  
• Jewelry store on normal difficulty can be completed in just 20 seconds. It is the fastest way to get cards and thus farmed by intermediate players. Keep that in mind when joining this heist.

Uncool triggers: None. The helicopter breaks some glass upon arrival, but the glass ceiling does not make any noise when broken nor does anybody care.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies: 5 guards total, 2-3 patrolling downstairs and the rest upstairs. 10%/20%/30%/100% chance on N/H/VH/OK+DW for 3 cops at the entrance.
Cameras: None.

Notes:

• There is no loot truck/helicopter. You must carry your loot into the escape for it to count.
  
• 3 bags of jewelry can be found in one of the stores. A fourth bag can be found in one of the safes on any difficulty except N. On N, there is a money bundle instead. All other safes are empty, which only makes sense as the team can only carry 4 bags.
  
• The glass of the railings upstairs blocks detection, providing good cover and opportunities to take out enemies during stealth.
  
• Guards don't go from one floor to another (rare exceptions exist due to pathing issues). The upper floor alone has enough breakable objects to call in the helicopter. An alternative approach to stealth would be to have one player distract the 5th guard.

Uncool triggers: None
Alarm triggers: None
Enemies: 1 guard in pear store, 1 guard in china store.
Cameras: Off-map operator. 2 cameras placed inside the each store. 50% chance for 1 additional camera in the cafe. No Titan. Broken cameras are never investigated.
ECM rush time: 40 seconds to make sure all cameras are destroyed.

Walkthrough:
The cheapest approach is to use an ECM on an ATM if possible and then just hiding. There are two ATMs possible, each with a chance of 75%/0% on -/DW.

For a more thorough but still stealthy approach, the crew should walk into the backs of at least two shops before masking up. Deal with the shopkeepers and start drilling while hoping that you aren't seen.

For the ECM approach, have one person mask up in each shop, then destroy the cameras and deal with the people.

Uncool triggers: None.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies: 4 patrolling mobsters, 1 stationary bouncer. 62.5% chance for 1 mobster by the Poker table. If the manager is in the office (25% chance), either 2 or 6 mobsters in the office too.
Cameras: Off-map operator. 50% chance for 4 cameras to spawn in the back of the club on VH/OK/DW (otherwise no cameras at all). There's a GenSec sticker in front of the club if cameras have spawned. There are no guards, so nobody cares about broken cameras. Titan. Unusual camera stats: Minimum and maximum delay: 3 and 8 seconds. Range: 30 m. Field of view: 90 degrees.
Keycards: One of the patrolling mobsters has one. The club manager (wearing a suit, black and yellow striped tie) has one if he is not in his office (if he is in his office, you are screwed). He can be found either in the crowded areas, front of the club, behind the club, in the kitchen, or in the aforementioned office. 10% chance for a keycard to spawn at one of these four places: Below the left cash register in the coat room, on the ground close to the DJ, at the outside bar upstairs (in the corner to the left of the Königin refrigerators), on the ground in the inaccessible toilet cubicle. The keycards open the doors to the basement and the two areas upstairs.
ECM rush time: 80 seconds to be safe in case that Titan cameras have spawned. 40 seconds otherwise.

Notes:

• There are no pagers or map-specific alarm triggers. Basic ECMs provide total immunity to the alarm.
  
• Grenades may be useful to kill people in the office overlooking the dance floor.
  
• Other than a lone mobster or civilian arriving, nothing will happen once the club is secured. You may have to wait several minutes for the drill and then some more for the escape van with nothing to do whatsoever.

There are 40 presents placed at the start. Out of these presents, 14/16/18 on N/H+VH+OK/DW contain coke. The other presents have a 2% chance for a small medic bag, a 2% chance for a small ammo bag, a 1% chance for toast.

2 train cars can be opened with one charge of C4 each. One car contains a medicine cabinet with 3 medic charges. The other car spawns a small ammo bag when opened.

Tree packages:

• There are 13 locations where presents can drop from trees. If there are presents at all 13 locations, no presents can spawn. More precisely, after opening a dropped present and taking the content (if possible), there is a 6 minute cooldown before the location becomes available again to spawn a present.
  
• Every 30-60 seconds, the game evaluates the chance for a present to drop. If the chance succeeds and at least one location is available, a present is dropped. If the chance succeeds but there is no available location, no present drops but Bain still mentions a dropped present. Regardless of success or failure, the game schedules another evaluation 30-60 seconds later (thus closing the loop).
  
• The present drop chance decreases over time. The following list specifies the present drop chance vs the time that has passed after the pilot escapes:
  
  • 0-20 minutes: 100%
    
  • 20-30 minutes: 50%
    
  • 30-40 minutes: 40%
    
  • 40-50 minutes: 30%
    
  • After 50 minutes: 20%
• A present dropped from a tree has a 1% chance to contain toast. If that chance fails, it has a 70% chance for coke.

Notes:

• The assault may end just once, relatively early in the game. 300-500 seconds after the initial assault has started, the game reverts to ordinary assault mechanics for 3 minutes, which usually entails a single assault break. This is the first and last chance to trade teammates out of custody. After these 3 minutes, a never-ending assault starts.
  
• Every 30 minutes, the game spawns 2/4/6 black Bulldozers on VH/OK/DW. The timer is initialized right after climbing down (which happens about 10 seconds into the game), so the first Bulldozer spawn should occur when the ingame clock reads 30:10.
  
• During the first 20 minutes of presents dropping from the trees, it is mandatory to pick them up reasonably quickly so they do not block the location for new presents. On average, it takes 13*45 = 585 seconds to fill all locations, with a standard deviation of about 30 seconds. One should aim to pick up packages in less than about 585 - 3*30 - 360 ~= 120 seconds after dropping to avoid availability issues. After the first 20 minutes have passed, the drop rate is low enough that availability should not be much of a concern anymore.
  
• Calculation of the expected number of presents to drop from trees within 3 hours, which was the initial time limit of the heist after which presents stopped dropping:
  
  • The average time between drops from trees is 45 seconds. The average number of presents dropped during the first 20 minutes is 1200/45 = 26.67. The number of presents in the intervals after that are 600/45*0.5 = 6.67, 600/45*0.4 = 5.33, 600/45*0.3 = 4, 7800/45*0.2 = 34.67. The average total number of presents dropped is thus 77.33. The average chance that a dropped present contains coke or toast is 0.01 + 0.99*0.7 = 0.703. Thus the average number of dropped presents with loot in them is 77.33*0.703 = 54.37, provided there is always a spawn location available for the presents. Numerically (10^6 samples) one obtains a normal distribution with a mean of 54.72 and standard deviation of 5.94.

Diff:

• 0.5 after 1:25 from start.
  
• 0.75 after first assault.
  
• 1.0 after second assault.

Notes:

• 70% chance that the vault container is in the warehouse.
  
• There are 13 containers. 6 are inside the warehouse. 7 are outside east of the warehouse.
  
• There is a Bulldozer in one of these containers.
  
• 2/1 crowbars on -/OK+DW in the cages in the warehouse. 4/3/2 crowbars on -/OK/DW anywhere else in the warehouse.
  
• 2/1/0 keycards on -/OK/DW found in office, kitchen, locker room or the security room upstairs.
  
• 7 places with loot inside the warehouse. A place can be either a crate or just loot out in the open.
  
• 1 crate with gold in the Bulldozer container.
  
• The vault has a counter initialized to 500 and is opened once the counter reaches 0. The counter is decreased every second by 1/3/8 when using 1/2/3 crowbars.
  
• The loot in the crates cannot be retrieved anymore on DW if all crowbars were used on the vault before opening the crates. If you want the extra loot, use the third crowbar on the vault only after making sure that you have all 8 loot bags.

Uncool triggers: Manned forklift. While driving the forklift, it is detected independently of your personal detection. Even if your detection level has barely filled up, someone may become uncool due to seeing the forklift itself.
Alarm triggers: None.
Enemies:

• 2 patrolling guards in Lobby area (including the area in front of A1| West Hall).
  
• 1 patrolling guard in A1| West Hall.
  
• 1/2 patrolling guards on N+H/- in basement (supposedly only downstairs, but they may take the stairs towards the booths then travel along the corridor and take the other stairs down again). Once the laptop has been used, they either shift their patrol to the underground corridor between the booths or walk next to the guard at the GenSec counter and turn stationary or (if applicable) replace a dead patrolling guard of a first floor booth.
  
• 1/2 patrolling guards on N+H/- on the second floor (Lounge, Hall of Fame, B2: West Hall except the place with the 2 ATMs). If the doors of the miso shop are opened, they might path through the shop.
  
• 1 patrolling guard on second floor around the bar as well as the intermediate plateau (he does not enter the place with the 2 ATMs though).
  
• 1 patrolling guard at A1| Atrium. He usually stays downstairs but may go up to the intermediate plateau that the previous guard paths to as well.
  
• 1 patrolling guard in each active booth.
  
• 1 stationary guard at the pyrobooth. Once the C4 has been placed, he starts patrolling between two waypoints inside the pyrobooth.
  
• 1 stationary guard in security room.
  
• 1 stationary guard at GenSec counter.

Cameras (operated by guard in security room. Titan.):

• 2 in basement (on N+H+VH next to the non-lobby chutes, else they may also be in the hall).
  
• 1 at Capitol Hill Candy.
  
• 1 at miso shop.
  
• 1 at pyrobooth.
  
• 1/2 at the milkshake booth upstairs on -/OK+DW.
  
• On OK+DW, 1 each at Redsquares and at the intermediate plateau.

Notes:

• There are 2,3,4 active booths on -/OK/DW (one is guaranteed on first floor). Each booth has 3/5 closets on -/OK+DW, as well as a guard and a civilian (on OK+DW, the milkshake booth has 2 civilians).
  
• Enemies try to disable both the computer and the power box.
  
• The target of the bag chutes is written above them.
  
• A TV next to the Capital Hill Candy chute can be turned on to make the basement guards patrol towards it and then stand in front of it for 30-45 s before resuming the patrol. This can be done several times.
  
• Diff:
  
  • 0.25 after about 1 minute after alarm.
    
  • 0.5 after 1 assault wave.
    
  • 0.75 after having found all C4.
• After failing the pyro sequence 3 times, 2 guards arrive via elevator.
  
• When playing loud, the lobby zipline is the fastest way to secure the bags, but also the most difficult. The safest approach is to let the cops carry the bags: Fully open the Capital Hill Candy chute and throw in the bags immediately so that they spawn upstairs. Do not disturb the cops while they carry the bags halfway towards your destination. Alternatively, do not use any chute at all but just throw the bags up the basement stairs leading towards either store; this method increases cop exposure because there are additional spawns at the top of those stairs.