Ready or Not

Ready or Not

25 ratings
Greased Palms S rank
By Zoey~
A guide detailing my method for S rank on the worst map in the game (Dec 17 2023/Jan 17 2024/Jan 19 2024 Crack AI versions)
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Equipment
Equipment in this mode is pretty obvious, for the most part. The one thing that stands out is stab vest for extra nades. Here's the detailed list of what I brought:
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Judge:

-Beanbag Shotgun - 5 units of ammunition

-Sidearm of Choice (Revolver for me) - 0 units of amunition

-Stab Vest

-CS Gas grenade x10

-No tactical equipment

-Mirrorgun

-Gas mask
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Team (Alpha/Charlie):

-VKS Peppergun - 6 units of ammunition

-Sidearm of Choice (for me TLE 1911) - 0 units of ammunition

-Full Coverage Steel Heavy Armor

-Flashbang x1

-CS Gas Grenade x1

-Door Wedge x3

-M320 Gas

-Gas Mask
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Team (Bravo/Delta):

-Beanbag Shotgun - 6 units of ammunition

-Sidearm of Choice (for me TLE 1911) - 0 units of ammunition

-Full Coverage Steel Heavy Armor

-Flashbang x1

-CS Gas Grenade x1

-Door Wedge x3

-M320 Gas

-Gas Mask
Terminology
Yes this map has taken me so many hours I've coined shorthands for certain concepts and locations. Here are the terms used in this guide.

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Saferoom:

The room directly behind the front desk and bathrooms. Three initial doors and one outside door. "Saferoom" extends as a concept as you complete more and more of the map. It is generally just wherever all entrances are wedged off and there is no risk of running into a suspect while traversing.
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Van Room:

Room past the far-left saferoom door. Extension of saferoom. Leads to Cheese Grater.

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Cheese grater:

The name for the area right after the van room extension of the saferoom, and also the name for any object on the map which has tiny holes that suspects will see and shoot at you through. Trying to shoot past a cheese grater is generally a fool's errand. You'll just have to run around it and get a clear shot. This area is a clear extension of the saferoom.

Area on map:


Examples of objects:


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Main office:

The office up the stairs from the saferoom. Has info windows.

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MGR (Manager's Office):

Small office in the corner of main office. Sometimes has a suspect hiding inside.

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Side office:

The office outside and to the right from the starting area.

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Evidence office:

Office with the evidence down the catwalk from the Main office. The window to the right of the door is NOT an info window. You will be shot through it if a suspect can see you through it.

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Jungle:

The area behind all the conveyor belts with lots of thin metal walls, staircases, and places to hide. The worst part of the whole map.

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Info Window:

These are great. Windows which you can see out of but suspects can't see into. You can look out of them all you want and get as much free intel as possible. Very rare for a window to be an info window in this game.

Example of free suspect location from Info Window:
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Hostie:

This map taught me how to take hostages as SWAT. Hostie is short for hostages. They are suspects that are immediately visible from the mirrorgun under a door with nearly no danger from opening, shooting, and dragging them into your current saferoom with the grey middle mouse menu commands. Taking hosties makes your chances of completing the map much higher.

Example of a hostie:
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Loose-Safe:

An area that a suspect will never physically BE in, but can still shoot at you from outside of.
The Map
I made a map for this map, and you can study it to get better acquainted with everything. There is a lower level version and a version with both levels. You don't really need the upper level version because there is so little up there. It's just for educational purposes. The map will be used to keep track of saferoom expansion during progress of the run in the guide.

LL ver:
UL ver:
Route
The route I normally take to save as much time on failed attempts as possible is as follows:

1. Front Desk - No saferoom


2. Behind Front Desk, bathrooms - No saferoom


3. Clear saferoom, order team to wedge off left and right saferoom doors, enter van. You can also take main from here if you want to first. - First saferoom


Saferoom:
This area will always be safe, no matter what, as long as it is wedged properly


4. Clear Van, enter Cheese Grater


Saferoom:
Outside of Van is still a concern. There may be a suspect further out past the Van. This is Loose-Safe until later.

5. Clear Cheese Grater, wedge off outside saferoom door, head outside


Saferoom:
By now that area outside Van is no longer a concern. No longer Loose-Safe.

6. Order team to stay behind and clear outside, go in front of semi, check each gate for hosties, come back to Cheese Grater. Order Fall In if there are too many suspects outside for you to deal with alone.


Saferoom:
Outside is Loose-Safe. There will never be a suspect that comes out of the gates from the loading area, but they can still shoot at you from inside loading area.

7. Order fall in, check for hosties all saferoom doors, clear side office (OR take main office):

-Throw Gas Grenade at Junk (if you want to)

-Enter Side FD

-Enter side hall

-Enter detector

-Nade coffee, if you want, then clear it and clear behind coffee

-Mirror and clear bathrooms if needed

-Go to Jungle door


Saferoom:
All of outside is safe now. As long as jungle door is wedged, Junk and Side Office will always be safe now.

8. Check for hosties, then go into Jungle, up the stairs immediately to your right, throw ceiling nade, advance to back part of jungle


Saferoom:
Very small loose-safety gain here in the far right corner of Jungle. You may still be shot at in this area from loading area, so beware.

9. Go back up those stairs again, go to the other side of the jungle door and shallowly clear that small part of jungle, then exit jungle, wedge it off, head back to saferoom, check for hosties under saferoom doors again, then go up the stairs to Main Office. Enter main office with Gas grenade (SUSPECTS WILL NOT SHOOT YOU THROUGH THE STAIRS - thank god...)


No saferoom change

10. Hug the wall left, then go around the desks leading to cat, close the door at cat if open, wedge it, then mirror/clear MGR (Manager's Office), Make your way back to the Cat door, mirror it and check for a hostie. Take hostie if there is one. Check Info windows for remaining suspect locations


Saferoom:
All of Main Office, MGR, and Cat are now fully safe.

11. Go back down main stairs and make your way to the outside saferoom door. Re-wedge the Main office door and the right saferoom door while you're on your way just to be sure, check outside saferoom door for hosties (If you saw a hostie through info windows you could take from outside, go outside and get him first. Best to be safe)


No saferoom change

12. Enter from outside saferoom door (use fall in only, it's safest), hug left wall through the sorting stations next to Evidence Office, Fall in around the middle of Under Main and wrap around into Evidence Office. Clear Evidence Office with gas or flash. This is the most dangerous part of the whole mission. Be prepared


Saferoom:
Under Main is now Loose-Safe and Evidence is now safe.

13. If mission is still incomplete, throw remaining Gas or Flashes into previously unaccessed areas, listen for coughing or shouting after throwing. Carefully secure suspects until game gives you the "Bring Order to Chaos" task completion (NEVER ASSUME that the suspect you are currently securing is the last suspect - keep taking hosties and playing carefully)


Saferoom:
Entire map is now fully safe.

14. Search and secure. Do not end mission until TOC forces you out of the mission. Secure all weapons, civillians, etc. If done perfectly you will get your S rank.
Search and Secure
BE CAREFUL HERE BECAUSE SEARCH AND SECURE (MMB -> 6) IS RIGHT NEXT TO Y ON YOUR KEYBOARD. DO NOT PRESS Y ACCIDENTALLY. SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY PRESS 6.

I wanted to make a section specifically for this because it almost happened to me. This is gonna be you if you accidentally do this.
This is gonna be you if you DON'T accidentally do it.
Technique - Nades
There are a few techniques which can make your time on this map less torturous. The main ones are good nade locations. Here are some good nades you can throw to improve your odds and lessen likelihood of getting killed instantly upon rounding a corner.
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Cheese Grater gas nade:

Really good nade, almost always hits 1-2 suspects unless Cheese Grater is empty. I always throw now.

Location:
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Outside semi flash:

RELATIVELY inconsistent, you don't always have to throw this, especially if you're confident in the gates area of outside. I try to not use gas for this because it will just prevent you from seeing if there is an enemy at gate 3 and he will shoot you through the gas if there is.

Location:
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Gate 3 Cheese Grater gas from Outside semi:

If there is an annoying suspect by the gate 3 cheese grater, you can throw this to force him out. Usually I don't have to throw this one but sometimes I do it just to make sure I don't die.

Location:
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Gate 3 semi flash:

Doesn't always hit, but usually it will if aimed properly. Not always a suspect in this location, but I always throw it anyway, just in case. Might be better to use gas.

Location:
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Main office gas:

Very straightforward nade, and will definitely increase your chances of taking main office without a hitch. I would definitely always throw this nade. You can have your team throw it too, but they will probably be slower than you.

Location:
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Right backdoor Jungle staircase ceiling nade:

Usually a very helpful nade as there is generally at least one suspect in this location. I always throw it. This can be a gas nade or a flash. Either one works.

Location:
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Junk gas nade:

This is a paranoia safety nade. You usually don't have to throw it but it can sometimes catch a suspect who's hiding in Junk.

Location:
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Under main gas nades:

Really good nades. I would always throw at least one of them.

Location:
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Technique - Speed, Skill, Map Knowledge and QOL
Generally you're just going to lose, so we should try to make runs end as quickly as possible, if they are going to end, while still having as efficient of a route as possible to maximize success odds. You should use low ready (default - spacebar) any time you're in saferooms to run faster and generally follow the route detailed in the guide. One of the main reasons we go to the side office right after outside is to wedge off the backdoor. I have had times where a couple suspects went out that back door and made side office hell to deal with. It ended two separate runs single-handedly before I decided to just make sure they can't come out of there anymore. It's not about trying to die, it's about making riskier areas safer and dealing with risky areas ASAP so that if you do fail in them you didn't waste your time clearing all of the easy areas for no reason first.
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Cat Morale:

Basically if you shoot or gas a suspect from up on cat, he will never surrender to you. You can sit there and waste 20 shots on 1 suspect but something to do with how the game determines line of sight prevents them from surrendering to you when you're up on cat and shooting down. This, plus that NON-INFO window on Evidence makes going down Cat from Main a REALLY dangerous and bad idea. Most of the time you will just get killed if you try to do this. I wouldn't bother.
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Free Lean:

You will NEED free lean. It's default on alt, but you can rebind it to whatever you want. Your visible hitbox to the AI is much much smaller when you're free leaning, so when taking hosties, or checking corners, be sure to slowly free lean around and make sure whatever you're looking at isn't just a box or some prop but actually a suspect. Sometimes you can even catch a small part of a suspect visible and they won't see or shoot you. Take advantage of this. Most important tip.
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Fall In spam:

Sometimes when you go back into your saferoom with your team following you, they will spot an enemy on their way in and decide it's a good idea to stand still in the middle of a bunch of cheese graters and try to get a shot off on the suspect (probably a shot at his head). You can mostly avoid this by going DEEP into your saferoom and spamming the ♥♥♥♥ out of Z to make your team fall in 30x per second. Fall in will just override whatever it is they are automatically doing. Saved a teammate's life several times this way.
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Bathrooms:

When clearing bathrooms you don't always have to worry about lockpicking and entering them. I only enter them if there is a suspect inside. Mirrorgun them and if there is a civilian or nothing inside just move on immediately. No point wasting time.
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Wedge storage:

You can store extra wedges on your character. I will sometimes make an AI put a wedge on a door just so I can take it off and have it on me so I can wedge something off myself faster than ordering an AI to do it. This is particularly useful when going back down from Main so you can wedge the stair entrance off behind you as well as the left saferoom door once you make it back to saferoom. That prevents suspects from running upstairs into Main when you aren't looking.
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Player-Exclusive Cheese Graters (PECG):

There are a rare few cheese graters that the AI can't shoot through. Whether the AI can see you through them is inconsistent. Some of the PECG can be seen through by the AI and some can't. You can definitely shoot through these though, and I have multiple times. To hit your shot, you should use your laser as a guide, not your sight. Here's a few examples of PECG:

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Command cancelling, Fall In timing:

You can cancel certain commands by ordering Fall In too early. Wedges and restrains are the most common thing this happens with. Once the SWAT AI gets to a certain stage in the order they can't cancel the animation so keep an eye in the bottom right when you're about to order Fall In. "Wedging Door" and "Restraining Suspect/Civilian" are the points which they can't cancel anymore.
Here's Images:


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Bad civillian spawns:

There are a couple of SERIOUSLY horrible places where civillians can spawn. They will almost always die if they spawn here. Move them out of these locations with the grey middle mouse menu asap. Images of locations below:

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Early injuries:

I find if you or your teammates get injured really early, you might as well just reset. There's no point in going through so much more map with so little health left. Someone is going to die. I say if you take damage before you get to the outside area past Cheese Grater, you should just reset. Your team should all be healthy by the time you go to side office, and you shouldn't be heavily injured either.
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Team restraints:

Your teammates can restrain suspects while you're going through and making progress on the map. It's faster if you let them do it while you do everything else. Keep in mind though, if a suspect pulls out a new weapon, you will have to re-order your team to restrain the suspect in question. They also refuse to restrain suspects when any teammate (including you) is in combat. Keep an eye in the bottom right corner and make sure it says that one of your teammates is preparing to restrain, and don't forget about that specific suspect until it switches to restraining suspect. They can't cancel the animation to pull a new gun so by the time the animation starts you're good to consider that suspect secured.
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Saferoom doors mirrorgun tips:

when mirrorgunning the saferoom doors, keep an eye out for people's feet. You can see a little bit of them under all that junk in the middle of the room. It could lead you into a secured hostie or two. Also, on the right initial saferoom door, there is a rare occasion where there will be a suspect whose gun and hand is around the corner to the right. You can consider this a hostie. To take him, I usually use my laser as a guide more than my sights. If your laser is on that hand, you can hit him, get him to surrender, and become a hostie.

Example of suspect's feet visible under shelf of boxes:

Example of the arm of a hostie on the right edge of the right saferoom door:
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FISA Agent:

This guy can be pretty annoying if you don't know what you're doing. After about 20 or so attempts, it became clear to me that this guy only has one gun, and he is actually willing to play it safe so that maybe in front of the judge he can pretend he didn't know we were SWAT. You only have to get him to surrender once. After that he's as tame as a civilian.
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Res/Framerate:

If you're running 4k at under 144fps, just switch to 1080. You get so much more frames and it feels a lot more responsive. Also be sure you're in fullscreen mode because sometimes if you left/right click and you're on borderless, you have to spam it for a bit until it actually responds. It gets very annoying and can sometimes even cost you your life.
Video Example
I got an A+ rank on this god forsaken map. Only bad luck and incorrect science caused me to lose an officer here. I ran out of ammo because I thought it would be a good idea to bring 11 nades (it wasn't). This is what I looked like doing this run.
So that's it! Here's the only video I'm gonna get because my computer isn't good enough to run both RoN and OBS at the same time, and this video is gonna be obsolete soon because void has confirmed they are going to fix the crack AI eventually. Might as well just install nocrack now because that's all the update is gonna be!

Anyways, here's the replay of my S rank run. I didn't have OBS running because it tanks my frames too hard and it was super annoying to deal with.

This took me just over 50 hours. This game might be permanently ruined for me. I don't think I want to play anymore.
15 Comments
The Hipsterminator 13 Jul @ 10:49am 
I thought I'd drop you a quick note to thank you for your amazing guide here. Your detailed analysis and strategies for achieving the S rank were incredibly helpful and clearly took a ton of effort to put together. Thanks to you, I was able to clear the mission with a cohesive strategy/mindset. I almost S ranked it - one of my breachers was absolutely SMOKED by one the last baddies in the main office. Oh well! Your work is greatly appreciated by the community—keep up the fantastic job!
NPC Police Officer 28 Jun @ 1:14pm 
Bro- I just want to complete this map, fuck S rank
18er Roebelfroebel 1 Jun @ 4:07pm 
Huh, I just made it. With 24 evidence secured and 4,940 points. I had 4,945 in my A+ round. Anyway, FINALLY done. Thank you for the guide, I stuck rather losely to it but it helped a lot with all the hints and tricks and images!
18er Roebelfroebel 31 May @ 6:11pm 
I just cleared the map, comparing to your S ranking I got 5 more on civilians but 25 less on evidence (24/24 as compared to your 25/25). Missing a total of 20 points, I got an A+ but the mission ended by itself.

This was my idk... 30th try and I finally got to the end without having anyone killed. Is this a bug where suspects don't carry enough weapons to have 25 to secure? Anyone seen that before?
JoylessTiger 18 Jan @ 6:50am 
after a couple of tries solo and with AI I found your guide and went play by play (I had unknowingly followed the steps mostly the same) and brought a lot a gas I beat it on my first try thanks to you, thank you for making this guide easy to understand and follow
urbophobe 11 Jan @ 2:32pm 
Succeeded with this guide after like 15 tries, on my lucky run i accidentally ended up storming the loading area with gas and arresting 4 suspects after trying to get only one of them out to the street, then the rest of the level became much easier to clear. It was still nice to have a consistent strategy like that in mind.
Yummy 7 Nov, 2024 @ 8:34pm 
im here cuz i did it all but theres like one gun somewhere lost and my AI teammates are incomponent and wont go and search em! hope im not missing something else, i did report the dead body...
NotJebKerman 3 Nov, 2024 @ 9:22pm 
I used a similar technique, but starting with side office and always saving jungle for last.
Theimortaldoctor 1 Nov, 2024 @ 9:42pm 
have the devs thought about reworking this map? or deleting it?
ShyGuy 17 May, 2024 @ 3:24am 
Wow, thank you SO MUCH for this guide. I've tried to S-rank this map over 20 times, and I managed to S-rank it first time following your guide!