This guide is tailored for teams of two or more players. These strategies aren't directly applicable to solo players due to the high dependence on the concurrent completion of objectives, such as hostage trading at the same time as circle standing. Playing solo requires you to forgo hostage trading (if you're not just waiting on something) and complete objectives much slower, which significantly changes the timings of when events happen relative to assault breaks (you will be making use of assault breaks frequently, so differences in assault timings can really change some strategies).

There is some important advice that you should apply to every heist:

• After an assault ends, the map clears itself quickly as all enemies run to spawn points to despawn themselves. This is a double-edged sword you need to be careful of: On one hand, this means that you can make a bee-line for objectives once a break starts without worrying about resistance. But on the other hand, when the assault starts again, enemies start spawning very hard and fast on you as there are no straddlers across the map filling the enemy spawn quota. If you're kiting, you need to make sure you start an assault away from objectives and in a place you can easily escape from.
  
• Don't revive AI if you risk taking a non-marginal amount of damage doing so. Although they've been buffed to go down much less frequently, AI teammates still deal extremely little damage, contributing little to the team firepower that's crucial to smooth success on Overkill. Preserving even a bit of armour is worth much more for you than keeping them going. In fact, it can even be beneficial to let them go down as if they do so very early in the assault, they return from custody just before the assault break, guaranteeing that they'll be there to drop equipment for you. If you're playing solo, the Code Blue skill may be a worthwhile investment.
  
• The ingredients to a good camping spot are: No spawns inside, one point where enemies mainly enter and space/cover to fall back. Space to fall back is the most important as it allows you to respond to and make use of dynamics in enemy assault force, giving up ground when the enemies are fiercer and regaining that ground when they lighten up. Without space to fall back, you may find yourself taking a significant amount of damage if there's a sudden influx of enemies you can't respond to. If you're playing on a heist where the Techie is available, it's important that you stay in a camping spot with multiple exits, so you can immediately run out to hunt the unit down without having to push through the main enemy lines.
  
• If you want to focus on supplying armour repair kits, unless stated otherwise, this should be done with a Menacing build instead of holding civilians that would otherwise be traded for time. For the most part, civilians are far away from objectives or camping spots and trying to move them would cost far too much time, which may result in objectives not being completed during negotiations, forcing you to wait out an extra assault to handle them. You should source your repair kits from intimidated police instead: intimidate and take one hostage sometime during the assault and, once it ends, immediately trade the hostage, run out, intimidate another cop and trade it.

28/11/2023: Guide creation.
01/12/2023: Update 1.0.2 - Added Cook Off and adjusted notes on AI.
04/12/2023: Fixed inaccuracies in the Rock the Cradle strategy.
05/12/2023: Added proper Dirty Ice strategy.
13/12/2023: Update 1.1.0 - Added Syntax Error and notes on hostage trading.

The No Rest for the Wicked strategy focuses on two camping spots, the sprinkler box and the crates in the corner of the parking lot. The box is always in a very easy location to defend, and camping it allows you to instantly disable the sprinklers, keeping the thermite going with no interruptions. After the vault is opened and looted, the second camping spot is the stack of crates in the corner of the parking lot, between the bank and the alleyway. This area is important as it's the closest place to the escape van that you can feasibly defend without haemorrhaging armour, as well as being so quick to move bags to that you can do so within a single assault break. The zipline bag is not used for this strategy as it takes way too long to move bags from the vault to the zipline.

Hostage skills are absolutely not necessary, as the assault begins the moment the thermite is started. Even without hostage skills, trading just half of the civilians in the public area will buy you more than enough time to reach this point. Your skill points are much better off going to the Infiltrator tree, so you can empty out the vault quicker.

• No degree of stealth is necessary. Mask up in the public lobby of the bank, blast the guards, run into the employee area and tie down civilians as they exit the stairwell. One person ties and trades front hostages, optionally closing the shutters. Save the backroom hostages for armour repair kits later. Any extra players locate the sprinkler box (I think it only has two spots: in front of the IT room and in the parking lot entrance room) and prepare for the thermite drop. Trader only needs to trade hostages up to when it asks for 5 hostages: when the police ask for 7 hostages, stop trading.
  
• Once the thermite drops, set and start it up, then camp on the sprinkler box, using it to turn off sprinklers the moment that sabotage squads set them off. During assault breaks, take the extra thermite drops and feed them into the fire or stash them with the sprinkler box. If you're careful enough, you shouldn't lose a single plate of armour before the thermite finishes.
  
• The vault should be open sometime after the halfway point of an assault. Make your way into the vault and, once you're in, get the dye packs defused as fast as possible. Once that's done, one player defends the vault opening while everybody else bags and moves loot. First, throw all bags in the room immediately outside the vault door, so the player doesn't need to keep defending the vault opening. Next, if possible without too much resistance, move all bags to the room that opens to the parking lot.
  
• When the assault ends, run into the alleyway to trigger the escape van arrival and have one person take down the bollards (you have to be quick to get this done all before the next assault). Start moving all bags behind the crates in the corner of the parking lot and drop your resources there. Having a hostage there is optional: it can help, but getting gassed doesn't completely force you out and environmental explosives can risk killing the hostage, so if you want to have one it's best to bring Menacing and use police as quick-to-obtain, expendable hostages.
  
• Wait out the assault guarding the bags behind the boxes. The escape van will arrive and you'll have to take care of the bollards again later. Securing 4 bags will trigger a final charge and on Overkill, the minimum loot required is 7 bags. After the assault ends, one person secures three bags while someone else takes care of every bollard box except for the closest one to the van. Go back to the boxes and hold out another assault.
  
• After the assault ends, move the rest of the loot to the van, secure it, deactivate the last bollard box and make your escape.

If you are using the Van Will Not Leave asset, follow the plan as usual until bagging the cash. You should be able to just push through the bank and move bags to the van during the assault, but if you're meeting too much resistance you can do the secure 3 bags/wait assault/secure remainder strategy to lighten the threat. Stay in the bank while waiting for the van to move. Once it's in position, everybody rushes to the highway to take care of bollard boxes to escape. You should be able to do this quick enough that the enemies can't move in on you in time and escape smoothly. Overall, this asset is worth using if your team has high firepower but is less co-ordinated.

The strategy for Road Rage consists of three different phases: the stealth preparations, car escorting and loot securing. In stealth, you prepare the camping spot and the road ahead of the truck before arming the EMP, doing all of the heavy lifting before raising the alarm to ensure the loud section goes as smoothly as possible. During escorting, you make a formation of human shields that makes you and a buddy near-invincible during the truck's journey, and looting involves using a camping spot to survive assaults without getting pummeled under the truck.

Now, there is an issue with this one. I try to avoid exploits with these strategies, but the southern helicopter overhang god spot is the only halfway-decent camping spot in the map, exploit or not, so you have little choice but to use it. A fix shouldn't necessitate a change in a strategy, however, as it should be a strong camping spot even without the exploit.

Hostage skills are not necessary. At least one person should bring Infiltrator skills to take loot quickly.

• You have 1:30 to address the obstacles on the vehicle's path, all of which are on the left or centre part of the bridge. You need to move the forklift, shut down the electric box to open a gate, cover the two road holes with two separate pairs of tracks and find and move the hacking device. Another person takes the closest left-side civilian hostage and brings him to the southern helicopter spawn (with two big, distant chimneys), putting an armour bag there. Do not arm the EMP until this is complete, as doing so will skip your 1:30 and immediately summon for the truck to arrive. Tie down as many civilians as you easily can - hostage rescue will arrive before you can return to the camping spot, so having civilians all over the map are good to distract them and keep them away.
  
• When the truck arrives, put down the hacking device at its front-right wheel so you can start it as fast as possible. When the truck starts, stay between the truck and the nearest wall, as opposed to the open opposite side of the road. Now, for the journey you will need two players with human shields covering each other's back. Unlike what you would expect from a janky video game, enemies will not shoot through one player's human shield when targeting another player. What this means is, if you have two people with human shields back-to-back, they can cover themselves from every angle. This is very powerful on this escort objective in particular, as the movement penalty does not matter and the linear level design makes it very easy to reach full protection angle coverage. As long as you aren't using some absolutely useless secondaries, this tech should be enough to take the truck to the ramp with little resistance.
  
• Once the truck has stopped, start the drill on the bottom and run to the prepared camping spot. Wait out the assault. Once the assault ends, get the truck open, empty its contents onto the road and signal the helicopter. You can easily defend the bags from the camping spot. Wait out another assault, and once it ends, quickly move to secure the bags. You should have enough time to secure all bags during the break, but in case you don't, it's important to know that the minimum loot amount and final charge trigger point is all 6 rare element bags, so in a desperate situation, either focus on them and ditch the money bags or leave one for last and slowly secure all loot over extra assaults.
  
• Armour up at the camping point. When the escape is activated, it's a straightforward run to the opposite end of the bridge to escape. There should be little danger as long as you don't dawdle.

If you have a quick crew, the Additional Secure Point asset allows you to plunder and secure all loot from the truck within the span of a single assault break, quickly triggering the escape and skipping an assault.

If you have the roof helicopter asset, all-loot completions are very straightforward and require no special plan. This strategy is for very fast, minimum loot completions with no assets.

Dirty Ice is the best starter heist for beginners to Overkill as its strategy is very short and simple but works similarly to the strategies of other heists, helping you to prepare for the challenges they pose. By making quick preparations during negotiations and only taking the right loot, the heist can be completed after just a single assault. By taking all of the loose jewellery, you can bring the secured loot percentage all the way up to 40%, which can enable you to escape almost immediately with just four non-cleaned VIP jewellery bags.

One player with hostage trading skills is a nice-to-have, but this strategy is so simple that it's definitely not strictly necessary.

• First, a very quick stealth section in casing mode. Run around the back of the store where the van is, and find a QR code in the private area. It should be easily accessible. Once that's secured, run back around and enter the store through the front doors, close the shutters and start grabbing the loose jewellery along the windows as fast as you can. When a guard tries to arrest you, mask up and continue taking all loose jewellery in the main area. Ignore the baggable loot here, it's worth too little even if you clean it.
  
• When the alarm is raised, run to the manager's room to get the code location, find the code and use it to enter the basement. Take the red keycard from the guard, shut down the VIP lockdown in the safe room and run back upstairs. Open the VIP room, take all loose jewellery in there, unlock all the cases and then start bagging. All loose jewellery in the main area should get you to 28-30%, and taking all from the VIP area should get you to 40%, enough to escape with the four VIP bags.
  
• You'll want to hold out the assault in the VIP area as it's very easy to defend and prevents enemies from spawning on the same side of the map as the helicopter. Take note of when the assault starts, and make sure that the flare is lit one minute later to time Bile's arrival with the assault break. If there is too much resistance in the employee area of the store, run through the main area and out the front door to light the flare.
  
• Trying to move loot closer to the helicopter during the assault before it arrives is unnecessary. Wait for the assault to end and the helicopter to arrive before moving the bags, then secure them and escape.

Rock the Cradle can be made vastly easier by using stealth to quickly barge into the VIP room and capture as many civilians as possible, which can buy you enough time to complete most of the heist before the first assault even begins. From there, you move all bags spread across the VIP area to the zipline elevator shaft, an area that's exceptionally easy to defend, so you can afford to wait out multiple assaults without worrying about your armour reserves. After taking them up the zipline, securing the bags and escaping is straightforward.

Zipline bag is necessary. One person needs hostage trading skills. Bring stun mines.

• For the stealth section, the hostage trader stays at the front entrance while another player moves to the VIP entrance. Steal the keycard from the bouncer, unlock the door and run through, equipping your mask as you move down the stairs. Shout down all of the civilians, start hacking the box to re-enable the vault keypad and then start tying them - order is important for most efficient use of negotiation time. Once the alarm is raised, the hostage trader starts to tie and trade all hostages upstairs.
  
• When the hack is started and civilians are tied downstairs, find and note the vault code. Then, all players in the VIP area work on moving bags from all over the area to the elevator shaft. The moment the cage parts are dropped, a player moves up from VIP to assemble the cage, then returns to continue moving bags to the shaft. After the hostage trader trades all civilians in the main area, quickly move down and trade the hostages in VIP.
  
• When the assault starts, if the vault spawns in the same backroom area as the shaft, empty out the vault and move bags to the base of the elevator shaft, then put them all on the zipline and follow them up. If the vault spawns on the opposite side, wait until an assault break before looting. If you feel that you haven't bagged enough outside loot before the assault, move all bags as usual but don't send them up the zipline and hold out the assault. Then, take outside loot during the assault break.
  
• Either way, once all bags have been sent up the zipline, guard the bags during the assault and throw them into the cage one at a time during the break, putting a stun mine on the loot cage. Trigger the mine whenever an enemy attempts to steal a loot bag. Repeat these steps until enough loot is secured, then continue to hold out where the bags were and rush out to the escape once it's available.

With just a little co-ordination, Under the Surphaze is an easy heist with a straightforward plan. Both top and bottom floor security panels can quickly be unlocked before the assault with a prepared hostage trader, and the design of the building lends itself well to kiting. However, the kiting route you should take isn't the obvious one of just running circles around a floor, as the front side of both floors are very open and leave you exposed to significant fire. Instead, you run a circular loop through the backsides of both floors, looping up and down the two enclosed stairwells. The top floor part of the route is much longer and provides much more cover, as well as a strong alternative route if E4 is opened, so you should move slower on the top floor than on the bottom.



Aside from that, the room closest to the stair platform in the images above is a good place to camp and protect bags while waiting out the assault. Just be aware that camping in this room demands commitment - you need a good amount of firepower to keep yourself alive in there, and abandoning it during an assault may not be possible. You do not want to be on the roof during an assault for any extended period of time, as it's impossible to defend and enemies reach it rapidly from anywhere.

One person needs hostage skills. Get Infiltrator skills if you can easily spare the points. Take stun mines to protect yourself if you're using the camping spot.

• First, the hostage trader should wait at the waterfront gathering, ready to capture civilians when the alarm sounds. All other players hack both security panels, then lockpick doors and collect QR codes. The best way to enter the building is by scaling the boxes and pipes at the back of the building, then entering via an exhibit through the roof. All four exhibits on the second floor can be opened without QR codes by breaching the roof: two are accessible by cutting open windows while two are opened by climbing through ventilation shafts. Once they're open, no degree of stealth is strictly necessary here, so stealth for as long as you can bear to.
  
• After both panels are done, open E1, bag the painting and light the flare as soon as possible. Start unlocking the server room, manager room and camping room and scour the building for QR codes.
  
• Securing both blood-soaked paintings will trigger the spawning of Heavy SWAT and using the USB will trigger the final charge, so you should have all of their rooms open and the spectrophotometer deployed before attempting to secure them.
  
• When all loot is accessible, secure them during assault breaks. This can be done in a single break except if you're playing solo, in which you should take both blood paintings in one break and the USB one in the next assault. Escape as normal.

There are two parts to Gold and Sharke: the easy part and the hard part. The easy part is getting the vault open: quick stealth to open the gate and grab oxygen, trade hostages so you can get the drill started before the assault and protect it from the right camping spot. The difficult part is moving the bags to your escape: the sheer amount of loot makes it very slow to move through exposed areas and difficult to take the specific minimum amount. However, as long as you've completed the right preparations during assaults and move swiftly, it should be possible to move all bags through the most treacherous vault lobby within the span of a single assault break. Do not take the zipline bag: the bag-moving route with the zipline is entirely exposed. The only point of the zipline is that it might make moving drill parts slightly faster, but it's not worth the time it would take to deploy.

One person needs hostage skills. Bring a motion sensor.

• First of all, take the red keycard and open the gate in stealth. This part is very easy with tricks to avoid intruding HR. There are three possible locations where the keycard could be, and you can tell by the presence of a civilian in the room. The first one you should check is the office outlooking the front of the bank. Before you even enter the building, just run to the right-side corner and try to find the civilian through the window. If he isn't in there, check the next office in the open hallway, next to the break room. Put a motion sensor on the left side of the door near the corner. If it doesn't detect the civ there, he's in the office behind the tellers and you need 2 QR codes to reach him. It should be easy to find the keycard: if it's in the paper stacks, there'll be something red sticking out. Make sure that you look for the oxygen throughout, as it could be in any of the bathrooms or lockpickable rooms.
  
• Once the gate is open, the hostage trader should stay at the bank entrance, ready to capture all civilians whenever the alarm may sound. You don't need to stealth any longer, you can either go loud or try to continue quietly. Either way, complete objectives as usual until the vault room is opened and the drill is set up. Even if you went loud before opening the vault room, the hostage trader should buy you enough time to have the drill up and running before the assault. Make sure that you've taken oxygen. If there's a hostage left over, put it in front of the camera room. If you have the camera room's keycard, unlock it and tie down the guard inside.
  
• Guard the drill by standing on the right side of the vault room, in front of the camera room. This is the best camping spot that the drill is visible from as you're only exposed to spawns from a single side, which the pillar can act as cover from. If you've got good firepower and solid control of the room, you can replace the oxygen as soon as it's depleted, but if you're struggling, don't sacrifice your armour and leave it for an assault break.
  
• Once the vault is opened, move into it, drop an armour bag behind the central loot table if need be and move your hostage inside. Bag all the loot in the room and throw it all into the middle of the horseshoe-shaped desk, you can easily do this from the vault during an assault. Once all loot is in the desk, wait out the assault. If you're still bagging loot when an assault break starts, just make sure that all bags are in the desk and prepare to wait the next assault. Trying to move bags up during an assault will leave you completely revealed to enemy fire.
  
• Once all bags are in position and the assault ends, you're going to get all bags from the desk to the roof stairwell (above where you camped, opposite the side with the vault stairs) through the broken glass guardrail. Take a bag, get a short run-up on the desk, jump and throw it through the broken glass to get it in front of the roof stairwell door without running all the way around with the vault stairs. This method allows you to get everything near the safe, defensible stairwell before the next assault can even begin. Make sure all bags are moved from the desk before moving them into the roof stairwell, as the latter can be done much easier once the assault starts. Do not open the red doors - you'll open a route for the enemies, who can't open the doors themselves!
  
• When every bag is within the stairwell, one person should run to the roof to call the helicopter. Move the bags all the way to the top of the stairwell, just before the roof door. Put them in in the corner to the left of the door, and leave an armour bag on the right side of the door, where the door being busted by enemies should result in cover. Once all bags are in position, hold out and wait for an assault break.
  
• Securing loot involves two different approaches in at least two assault breaks, as securing enough money to escape will result in a final charge. During the first break, secure loot until you've secured ~90% of what's needed, including the server. Don't move all bags all together, as you want anything that won't get secured to stay in the stairwell, ready to hold out another assault. If you haven't come close to securing that amount of loot repeat this until you do, but if not, secure the remainder during the next break. This time you do want to move them all at once, so you can have them secured as quickly as possible. If you can't get it all done within the break, either ditch the extra loot or push through and escape.

On 99 Boxes, pretty much every objective involves running from place to place and there are no good camping spots along the way. If you want to win on this heist, you have to kite. Kiting is when you bait enemies into following you around the map or herd them into an unimportant place, instead of directly engaging them and trying to penetrate their lines. This mechanic makes use of the low enemy spawn cap, as once the maximum amount of cops has been reached and they stop spawning, places on the map that would otherwise drop enemies right on top of you suddenly become very safe. The issue is, of course, that you need to know when to stop and let enemies reach your position and when to keep moving. As said before, you are never going to be near a good camping spot, so if you get pinned down in some random place it becomes a death sentence. You can minimise the chance of this happening with a good kiting route. Refer to the diagrams below:


Figure 1 shows the route looping around the warehouse. You always should start the route at a corner near the yard entrance, moving away from the yard. This is important as when an assault starts, enemies will spawn on you rapidly and you can't shake them off until their numbers saturate the limit. If this happens in the yard, enemies will swarm you too quickly to get any objectives done. Run from corner to corner, stopping at each to let enemies catch up. Stopping is crucial here as if you run too fast, cops will take shortcuts through the warehouse. Having enemies in the warehouse in the middle of the map can seriously impede your run as from there, they can reach any part of map quickly, allowing them to reach objectives too fast or intercept you on your path, forcing you into a significant firefight. Waiting for them at the outside corners of the warehouse prevents them from entering as they're kept on the edges of the map.


Figure 2 shows the route in the yard. This part is the most important as the yard entrance is a chokepoint that's completely exposed to a large, open area, so if you don't kite correctly you can either get stuck before crossing the entrance or have your armour shredded trying to run past enemies. However, as long as you've kited correctly around the warehouse, the yard should remain empty with enemies arriving predictably in a large group, so preparing them for your exit is feasible. To do this, after you've progressed the objective in the yard and the enemies are starting to meet you, make your way to the camping point at the far end of the yard. It's important to be near the centre of the yard so enemies don't arrive through your escape route, but not to the point where you're exposed to the entrance. As you receive more enemy fire, creep towards the edge so the enemies start to move near the camping spot and out of sight from the entrance, then run along the edge and out of the yard entrance, which should be mostly clear. From there, continue the warehouse loop as usual to get them back out of the yard.

Every player should be kiting together. Enemies can fixate on a lone straddler.

At least one player needs hostage trading skills, Menacing greatly recommended. The plan involves a quick stealth section.

• For the stealth part, the hostage trader needs to prepare the truck and hack the computer, while another player prepares the zipline. Extra players assist hacking the computer. The easiest way to enter the warehouse is by lockpicking the left-side gate and entering through the cargo truck opening. Once these objectives are complete, don't bother trying to maintain stealth and start rushing. Hostage trader stays in the warehouse to grab hostages while another player takes the zipline to approach a device container. If you haven't triggered the alarm yet, do so now. Extra players take hostages around the map.
  
• Make sure someone is ready to prepare the thermite as soon as it's dropped. Don't grab the spike strip during negotiations as you'll risk getting too close to police. You can take the spikes while kiting during an assault. If trading goes well and your crew is quick, you should be able to get the first device opened and secured before the assault. If you aren't certain you can do so, however, don't risk it and make sure you're at the kiting start point before the assault. Then, you can kite the enemies around and work on unlocking the device according to the kiting route, preparing for it to be secured during a break.
  
• As for securing the next device, it's impossible to construct a very precise plan you can tightly follow because the timing of objectives relative to assault breaks vary greatly depending on various factors, such as player count, time gained from hostage trading and the seemingly random time the final charge triggers (as early as after securing the first device). You'll have to direct yourself with the kiting guide, but there is some extra advice that you should follow. First, whenever the assault ends, stop kiting and head directly for the objective. Otherwise, don't abandon the kiting route to grab the thermite, loop around and grab it later. When handling the wi-fi circles during an assault, only complete one full circle (per player) before heading to the yard camping spot and continuing the kiting route. Enemies on Overkill move fast and this is all you have time for before you risk getting overwhelmed.
  
• Once the second device is ready for the taking, you're going to have to abandon the warehouse kiting plan for a final route. When you've grabbed the device, run into the warehouse through the long side, opposite the loot secure point. Be quick but always try to be behind cover. From there, you can secure the bag, close the truck and continue straight through to plant the spike strips. Run directly to the escape, using the open containers on the edge of the map as cover. If everybody is close together (as you should be if all is going to plan), you should escape before you risk taking too much damage.

The plan for Touch the Sky revolves around camping in the master bedroom as much as possible, only doing objectives during assault breaks. It's very easy to defend as it holds no spawns inside (except an occasional cloaker from the bathroom), holds some objectives and acts as a loot secure point with the zipline bag (as in how it functions in practice, not talking about the exploit). The only objective outside the room that you need to defend is the SSD decryption. However, as long as nobody's camping in the room, only the sabotage squad will enter, which we can handle entirely using sentries. Going for all loot holds little risk, and it's best to do so. The Hidden Thermide asset allows for the heist to be completed one assault faster.

Before going into this heist, you need a zipline bag, one person bringing sentries and one with hostage trading skills (can be the same person). Skills to move hostages quicker are a nice-to-have but not strictly necessary.

• First, the person with hostage skills blasts the guard at the entry and barges in. Another player runs up the stairs to grab the zipline and run in. Hostage trader ties and trades all civilians EXCEPT for Mason (bald black guy with a black tuxedo), who another player grabs and takes to the master bedroom. Anybody who's doing neither of those things focuses on wi-fi circles. Players who are doing the circle standing should focus on upstairs circles, so the hostage trader can get downstairs circles between trades, completing the objective faster. The two women standing between the kitchen and the closet are the only civilians that are not categorised as employees, trade them first. If no guards were intimidated into being hostages, make sure to open the security room for an extra hostage.
  
• Once the bedroom is open, do objectives until Bile is called in with the thermite, bring Mason to the back of the master bedroom in front of the vault, and drop all of your resources there. Don't forget to lay down the zipline. The thermite should be dropped before the assault begins, so get that started and return to the master bedroom to wait out the assault. If you don't get the drop in time, just wait out the assault in the bedroom as usual and start the thermite during the break.
  
• Once the thermite is finished, you need to be ready to move fast during the assault break. The instant the assault ends, one person grabs Mason and starts moving to the office, another runs to the keycard room to grab the keycard and anybody remaining clears the way for whoever's holding Mason. Emphasis on doing this quick, the timing is tight here. Whoever's holding Mason opens the office and has him unlock the vault as normal, while another player (NOT the sentry holder) runs back to or stays at the master bedroom, ready to open the vault and crack the safe. Trade Mason or forget about him. Sentry holder places the sentries inside the office, guarding the computer. Extra players help get the office vault open quicker and take loot from it to the bedroom. SSD carrier should be able to start the decryption just barely before the assault begins, so once it's started return to the bedroom. If you're too slow and the assault has started before you could start the decryption, wait it out and then start it.
  
• Wait out the assault in the bedroom, the sentries should protect the SSD to completion. Once the assault ends, everyone runs to the office to take the SSD and extra loot to the bedroom, lighting the flare along the way. Back at the bedroom, start bagging the jewellery and dropping it on the floor.
  
• Some time before the helicopter arrives, a final charge will begin. Hold on to the loot bags until Bile arrives, then just throw all the loot onto the zipline, as it will land right into the escape zone and secure itself. When everything is secured, take the zipline to the escape. Make sure everybody is synchronised to take the zipline at the same time - avoiding damage in the escape zone is near impossible, so if the escape isn't quick you may find yourself downed at the very last second.

If you are using the Hidden Thermite asset, one player needs to get the thermite set up ASAP. Take Mason to the office instead of the bedroom. Once the office is opened, the rest of the plan continues as normal, skipping an assault.

I am still refining this heist's plans for higher bag counts. As it is, it's good enough for at least 5 bags on Overkill solo, so it's definitely suitable for ensured completions.

Based on how it was in Payday 2, you'd expect Cook Off in Payday 3 to be very straightforward. However, there's been a change that significantly complicates the heist, being that cooking can be interrupted by police cutting off the power. Luckily, it can actually be very possible to quickly re-enable the power without losing much armour thanks to strange dynamics in enemy behaviour. These strange dynamics involve how enemies appear to spawn in distinct, discrete waves from a single direction at a time. They seem to mostly accumulate in one of two areas: the open area between the house and the far shed, and the small area in front of the basement stair entrance. You can notice this if you camp upstairs: you'd have one wave of enemies coming from the scaffolding and then one from downstairs, repeat and repeat, instead of coming in from both directions at the same time. Thanks to this, you can expect half of the map surrounding the house to be mostly clear at any one time, meaning you can reach the power box during an assault with no resistance as long as you play it right.

Now, you need to take one of two approaches depending on where the lab spawns in the heist. If the lab spawns inside the house on either floor, you camp in and around the bathroom on the first floor (only go to the top floor to insert ingredients), reaching the power box via the back window if it spawns near the house, or by running all the way around through the basement if it spawns on the far shed. If the lab spawns in the basement, you have to keep track of enemy waves and reach the power box when the path is clear, as it's a much more direct and exposed run through either basement entrance to reach the boxes.

Another important thing to note is that the trigger for Heavy SWAT and Bulldozers are not related to any objectives or level of progress, but rather they always spawn on the third assault, so it's important to be quick during the first few assaults and make as much progress as you can while it's much easier.

Bring a zipline bag if you intend on continuing after the final charge.

• The zipline is in the middle of the main road, the setup point is right beside it. Before you enter the house and engage the police, there is a small stealth section that you can make use of to take ingredients and planks. Throughout the heist, you should take ingredients from a specific order of locations: first the far shed, then around the outside of the house, the close shed, the garage and leave the closest ingredients for last, saving them to resupply yourself during an assault.
  
• When you reach the lab, move the two hostages to the two doorways of your camping spot (remember, if the lab is in the top floor you still camp in the bottom floor, move them downstairs). This is to slow down enemies and make them put their shotguns away. Don't put the hostages all the way through the doorway, you still want them to be a small distance inside so HRT can't rescue them without exposing themselves to you. Start putting planks on windows, focusing on the windows that expose you most to enemies (above the meth lab and across the ramp in the basement), and avoiding the breakage-prone areas (window next to the door on the first floor) and the back window if you're camping in the house.
  
• Cook as usual, following the prior advice. If Shade gives an incorrect ingredient, she corrects herself very quickly (but not in the same line, won't show up on the same subtitle), so you don't need to wait for another line to confirm the ingredient, just wait a second to listen out for a correction. When the meth is cooked, it only takes about 10 seconds for it to reach its perfect, most valuable state, which you can tell by it turning blue and sparkling. Do note that the meth quality won't change while the power is down.
  
• When the van appears, it won't leave until a length of time after 3 bags have been secured. Secure bags during assault breaks. If you want to use the zipline, try to move bags up to the top floor before the assault break.

Due to the lack of effective camping spots, especially with the introduction of the Techie forcing frequent scrambles, the strategy for Syntax Error revolves around kiting in circles in the basement. Although it doesn't allow to you avoid engagement as effectively as in 99 Boxes, it still allows you to make resources last much longer, while barely extending the length of the main server objective.

When kiting, stick around the edges of the downstairs area. Move slowly through the enclosed, bright backrooms and sprint through the more exposed server areas. Pass through the control room entrances and backrooms behind the server dropoff point, but avoid running through the cooling system room unless there is an objective there. This route isn't as strict as the 99 Boxes route - if you encounter great resistance and an off-route passageway is clear, take that passageway and return to the route as soon as you can.

If you end up above-ground during an assault and you face too much resistance to return to the basement, there is a vent in the upper floor supply closet that stays open that you can camp in to wait out the assault. The vents are completely safe from all enemies, including techie drones. I'm not sure whether this is a cheese or intentionally done to prevent players getting stuck during the alarm.

One person needs hostage trading skills, including Menacing. Bring a zipline bag.

• Get into the basement in stealth. You can quickly enter the employee area by opening the bathroom door outwards and using it as cover from the guard and cameras, allowing you to lockpick the door without being detected.
  
• Once you're in the basement, mask up and try to take as many guards hostage as you can. Sprint around and disconnect from radios to lure them to you. Take explosives and deploy the zipline before the alarm sounds, otherwise the zipline will only be deployable in a useless position. When the alarm sounds, go for the red keycard and then control room, tying down and trading hostages as you go. When you turn the first cooling valve, run back to the control room as it will complete before the assault begins.
  
• Re-engage the deactivation in the control room, then start kiting. When the second cooling valve appears, don't abandon the route to enable or re-enable it, just go all the way around. Once that's complete, deactivate SINS at the control room and return to the route, grabbing any server that you can quickly grab along the way. Do not go out of your way to grab servers during an assault, only take what's immediately accessible to you on the route. If a Techie or FBI van spawns upstairs, take the zipline to dispatch it and return to the basement.
  
• During assault breaks, abandon whatever you're doing and go to take all servers to be verified. When the assault begins, start kiting again, discarding the bonus servers as you run past them. Do this until the drone server is complete, then keep kiting until the assault finishes.
  
• Once the assault break begins and the drone server is available, take an Overkill weapon and the drone server and set up the explosives to escape. Take cover behind the boxes in the field, it should be straightforward to keep the area clear. Escape as usual.