This spot is reserved for changes made to this guide. Current version 1.25


Version 1.25 Changes:
Added this to Mallcrasher:
This has been removed in the recent patches. You'll take damage now, referring to the safe fire spot.


Version 1.24 Changes:
Added:

• Added Additional "Things you should know (Part 6)(Hotline Miami)" tips
  
• Added "Things you should know (Part 7)"
  which has watchdogs entries.

Version 1.23 Changes:
Added:

• Things you should know (Part 6)(Hotline Miami)

Specifically for the new Hotline Miami DLC


Version 1.22 Changes:
Removed "competition foregrip" from the non-dlc concealment build for the Car-4, as it was a dlc item.

Version 1.21 Changes:
The Plan - Go Bank (Part 1)
Removed this part:
"bag hitting the lasers"
Added this part:
"hitting the lasers with a loot bag will not sound the alarm."

The Plan - Go Bank (Part 2)

• Added a 2 player option

This guide is meant to add more information about things that you'll learn playing the game.
Things this guide won't cover:

• The menus
  
• Game mechanics
  
• Achievements
  
• All Cage Package Locations

I'll link, in the bottom of this guide, some other guides that might help you with those things, but this guide won't as it doesn't need to.

Things this guide will cover:

• HoxHud Basics Settings
  
• Things you should do before starting the game
  
• Concealment Builds
  
• Most useful Cage Package locations
  
• Skill you should pick
  
• Skills you should avoid
  
• Good ways to complete some missions in
  
• Safe loot dropping locations for some maps
  
• Things that you should know

Odd that a guide for a game would start off with not playing the game?
Not at all, there are 2 things you need to do before you play the game.

First thing first.. Join the Payday 2 group on steam!!
now wait.. why would you want to do that? well for starters you get alot of free guns and ingame items and the more people join the Payday 2 group on steam the more free content the developer(Overkill) will put out, so it's a win win for both parties.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/games/218620

you can follow the community unlocks here(the crimefest)
http://www.overkillsoftware.com/crimefest/

Second thing you have to do altho it is optional(but the rest of this guide will presume that you have done so) is to download and install HoxHud, you first need to join the HoxHud group on steam before you're allowed to download it.
HoxHud steam group:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/hoxhud

Download link:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/HoxHud/discussions/1/35222218847987080/

you want "the HoxHud Automatic Self-Installer" once it's up and running point it to your Payday 2 steam directory and it will do all the magic.

The newer versions of HoxHud adds an audio track that will play in the beginning of each round, i personally and many others find this irritating, luckily it can be removed.

Goto:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PAYDAY 2\HoxHud
(or wherever you installed your steam library.)
and delete the file named "hoxhud-initialised.mp3" renaming it or removing it from this folder should work as well.

you nolonger will hear anything when you start a round.

Now you can start up the game.

From the Mainmenu go into "Options" and you should notice that you now have "HoxHud Options" to pick from, this means that you installed HoxHud correctly.
Now open up the "HoxHud Options" then "Main Options", you'll see alot of tick boxes and some sliders, even some color pickers that you can chose to your liking.

Tick these settings ON:

• Show Interact Circle
  
• Show Interact Timer
  
• Show Melee Charge Timer
  
• Show Reload Timer
  
• Show Armor Regen Timer
  
• Show Numeric Suspicion

last thing here is to set the "Press2Interact Mode" to "All Interactions"
what this will do, is that you no longer have to hold the button when you do something, which is tremendously useful, it will prevent you from doing mistakes like: letting go of the pagers which will sound the alarm if you do, blowing the money on the 3rd day of rats and you don't have to hold the button when lockpicking which is very nice since a unskilled lockpicker takes 20sec to lockpick doors.

Next menu is "HoxHud Extra Options"
Tick these settings ON:

• Show Timers
  
• Show Pager Timers
  
• Show Pager Timers as Client

Last thing in this menu is to put the "Timer Migration Threshold" to 500, now all timers will show in you hud instead of being in the info-hud, which frees you from constantly checking it.

Now to the last menu, "Infobox Options" set all these to ON and the rest of the menus are really up to you.

If you're having connection problems consider using some of the options in "Network", these might or might not solve whatever connectivity problems you have.

One thing to note is that the "Clear Progress" option is not the infamy option and you should steer clear from it.

There are some skills that all players should have and that you should have early on aswell.
It can be a good idea early on to plan your skills ahead of time, this site lets you try out different skill builds with your few precious points.
http://www.pd2skills.info/

The wiki page calls these "Core Skills" and that couldn't be a better name for them.


Mastermind

• Mastermind unlock (1 point)
  This will allow you to place doctor bags.
  
• Endurance (1 point)
  Doubles your stamina, allowing you to run twice as long.

This will also unlock the first tier bonus, allowing you to use Doctor bags 20% faster.

Enforcer

• Enforcer unlock (1 point)
  This will allow you to place ammo bags.
  
• Transporter (1 point)
  Doubles your stamina, allowing you to run twice as long.
  
• Transporter Aced (3 points)
  Allows you to throw bags considerably further. Throwing bags is usually the most efficient way to move many of them.

This will also unlock the tier 2 bonuses giving you 10% more health and 10% more Threat.

Ghost

• Ghost unlock (1 point)
  This will allow you to carry an ECM Jammer, which blocks cameras from seeing you and can open atms.
  
• Sprinter Aced (4 point)
  For much faster sprint speed, and faster stamina regeneration.

This will also unlock the tier 2 bonuses, giving you 20% weapon switch and 5% more dodge.

12 of your first points should go towards these skills. These are the wiki's must have skills but i would also add "Fast Hands" Aced (4 points)
the basic fast hands gives you a 25% boost to packing and interacting with loot bags and the aced version further increases your pack and interaction speed with loot bags by 50%, you'll quickly notice when you don't have this skill as your teammates will pickup bags much faster than you.

I would ace "Endurance" for 3 extra points as well, unless ofcourse you play with friends, which means only one of you need to have aced it for the rest of the crew to get the bonus.

That's 19points of core skills, your skills should look like this once you're done:
http://www.pd2skills.info/#/profile/core-skills-21/

here are more skills you should consider:

• Cable Guy (Aced)
  Lets you tie civilians 75% faster and increases your supply of cable ties from 2 to 6.
  Having hostages gives you the ability to trade one of your imprisoned crew members back to the field and delays the assault waves. It's also a great alternative if you don't have any more body bags and you happen to have alerted a civ, you'll be able to move them.
  
• Nerves of Steel (Basic, you might want the aced version if you're going to get "Pistol Messiah")
  You take 50% less damage when performing interactions, like reviving a teammate, repairing the drill or lockpicking.
  
• Fast Learner (Basic/Aced)
  Basic version gives you a 15% experience bonus for finishing days and jobs and the aced version gives you and your crew 30% more experience when you complete days and jobs, this does stack with the initial 15% for a total of 45% exp bonus. Note that if you do play with friends, only 1 of you need the aced version for all of you to get the bonus, that would save the team 9points if you played with 3friends, this skill becomes obsolete once you reach level 100 unless you want it for the rest of the team to get the bonus.
  
  For interesting builds and more info on skills check out the wiki below!
  Source: http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Builds

This section might raise an eyebrow or two, but i'll make sure that i'm clear on why each of these skill aren't worth the skill points, skills left out of this part are consider "alright" to use. You might find that you have to use points to unlock the next tier of skills on some of these skills, hopefully an infamy level up might solve your problem. Some of the aced versions are really good, so you'll have to bite the bullet and buy the basic version too.

(x points) "x" is how many point's you'll save when not taking this skill, might included/exclude aced version or only have the aced version.

• Inside Man (Basic) (1 Points)
  Description: Reduces the asset costs in the Job Overview menu by 50%.
  The aced version might be useful for characters that want keycards for specific missions and don't want to invest into the ecm that can open doors. The final tier bonus of the Mastermind class gives exactly the same bonus, making this skill obsolete to spend points on and even if you aren't going Mastermind all the way, money shouldn't be a problem, most missions gives you enough cash and if you don't have enough surely your teammates will.
  
  
• Dominator (Aced) (3 Points)
  Description: The power and range of your intimidation is increased by 50%.
  The wiki reads:
  "as soon as the guard becomes completely aware of the player (the detection circle is filled), there is a 1.5 second window during which domination is virtually guaranteed. Take care not to shout at the guard prior to being detected, as there is a 1.5 second delay between shouts, and you will likely miss this window if your timing is off."
  This is ofcourse only during stealth runs, i wanted to add that just to let you know.
  Keep in mind that this skill will only let you and your crew dominate 1 enemy, if all players have the basic skill then the total amount that can be dominated is increased to 4.
  The final tier bonus for Mastermind increases the power of your shout by 200%, the third tier bonus increases shout distance by 25%. These tier bonuses and that you can only have 1 enemy dominated at a time should convince you that this skill aced is not worth the extra 3 points.
  Source:
  http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Shout
  http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Dominator
  
  
• Spotter (Basic) (1 Point)
  Description: Special enemies marked by you take 15% more damage.
  The very first problem with this skill is that you HAVE to mark the specials, which you have to keep in mind as you play and when marked they don't stay marked for too long, so you'll have to constantly re-mark them and the whole process just keeps you away from actually shooting at them and they usually go down pretty fast when the whole team works targets them, if you need something that gives you more bang for your buck you might want to try out the "Silent Killer" skill in the ghost tree, it gives you a 15% damage increase on all guns with a silencer and the aced version gives another 15% adds up to 30% extra damage, which on alot of guns might actually make them alot better than without the silencer, snipers in particular.
  
  
• Stockholm Syndrome (12 Points)
  Basic: Nearby civilians have a chance of reviving you if you interact with them.
  Aced: Civilians reviving you have a chance of giving you ammunition.
  The overall problem with this skill is that the civilians HAVE to be loose, meaning that you can't tie them for this skill to work at all and i can only imagine the perfect scenario for this skill to work, basically if civilians aren't tied, they will try to call for help, run away or during an assault(when you don't have time to control them at all) they will run towards the cops and escape that way and to top it all off they have to be close by for this skill to work. This is if not the most useless skill in the game and you should avoid it like the plague.
  
  
• Joker (Aced) (8 Point)
  Description: The converted enemy gains 55% more health and deals 45% more damage.
  The first basic skill is somewhat useful as you'll be able to convert a guard to fight for you(but only if the alarm is on), interestingly enough a converted guard can still be traded in for a teammate, the guard will go back into a cuffed stance and you'll be able to trade him like you would with the dominator skill. Giving more health and damage to a guard is not the best use of your skill points, as you first need to get a guard cuffed, which means to wound him and get him to go down, this can be a very frustrating since your teammates are busy trying to fend off the cops and can end up shooting that one guy you're trying to get cuffed, in some cases you might go down trying. The points would be much better served with "Combat Doctor" skill that lets you place 2 doctor bags instead of one, which is exactly what you want, you want your team to survive longer.
  
  
• Black Marketeer (12 Points)
  Basic: Reduces the cost of all your purchases by 10%.
  Aced: Further reduces the cost of all your purchases by 20% and selling items is now 25% more lucrative.
  The game isn't cheap when it gives you cash for a high level job, not to mention that regular bank heists on deathwish can give you up to 4mil in offshore and 1mil in spending per run, if you really need cash i'd recommend Shadow Raid on any difficulty, you will be swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck before the day is over.
  
  
• Control Freak (Aced) (8 Points)
  Basic: Noise created by you intimidates civilians.
  Aced: Civilians remain intimidated 50% longer.
  The aced version assumes that once you have made noise you won't be able to make more noise, which is quiet odd, i can't think of a situation where this would apply, even if you need to lockpick something, you'll be able to get back and do something loud before the civs start to run off. The basic version can be very useful in big maps if you have a saw, as you'll be able to saw into the air(which doesn't cost any saw ammo) and you'll be able to control all civs on the map, do note that this will alert guards as well.

• Bullet Storm (4 Points)
  Basic: Directly after you deploy an ammo bag, you can fire your weapon for 5 seconds without depleting your ammunition.
  Aced: You can fire 5 seconds longer without depleting your ammunition.
  If you thought that you could get a cool new saw upgrade for your mighty enforcer build think again, this skill has no effect on the saw's performance. This skill has a vital problem and that's that you have to have an ammo bag on you and you have to deploy it when you know you want to use this ability, but that's not the case with ammo bags, you place them when you know you can get back to them and when your team needs ammo, then there are times when you don't even have ammo bags and you don't want to respec for those mighty 4 points, ultimately you can only use this ability twice, that is if you have the "Ammunition Specialist" skill.
  
  
• Pumping Iron (4 Points)
  Basic: Your melee attacks against non-special enemies do 50% more damage.
  Aced: Your melee attacks against special enemies do 50% more damage.
  You should only really melee when you are trying to reload and a cop is infront of you and you want to knock him down so you can reload and kill him afterwards. Melee to kill enemies in Payday 2 is pure suicide, if not on all difficulties. This skill should be avoided as it encourages players to run out into a crowd and die.
  
  
• Die Hard (Basic) (1 Points)
  Basic: You can use your primary weapon in bleedout.
  When you do go into bleedout you'll find that enemies quickly shots you down to the point where you can't shot back, and if you do manage to get yourself stuck in a crowd of enemies you'll have better luck with throwing a grenade then trying to shot them all even so, your teammates will come to your rescue and kill the enemies and if they can't come and get you, no point in you trying to kill a couple of guards before you go out.
  
  
• Portable Saw (Aced) (8 Points)
  Description: Increases your saw blade amount by 1.
  Instead of using the 8 points on 1 single extra blade for your saw, ace "Ammunition Specialist" instead, you'll get many extra blades for your saw and in exchange you'll have better ammo bags for the times you don't bring a saw.
  
  
• Carbon Blade (12 Points)
  Basic: You replace your saw blades with carbon blades, increasing your saw efficiency by 20%.
  Aced: Attacking enemies with the OVE9000 portable saw wears it down 50% less than before. Saws are 20% more effective.
  The basic version doesn't matter as long as you have "Ammunition Specialist" or one of your teammates brings an extra ammo bag. The aced version is as i've said before, suicidal to run up and melee enemies, you'd much rather spend points on something that keeps you alive more, the durability falls shorts as did the aced version of "Portable Saw".

Any of the sentry skills

• Sentry Gun (4 Points)
  Basic: Unlocks the sentry gun for you to use.
  Aced: Your sentry gun gains +150% more health.
  
  
• Sentry Targeting Package (12 Points)
  Basic :Your sentry gun gains +100% more accuracy.
  Aced :Your sentry gun rotational speed is doubled.
  
  
• Sentry Combat Upgrade (12 Points)
  Basic: Your sentry gun receives 50% extra ammunition.
  Aced: Your sentry gun receives a protective shield, making it invulnerable from attacks from the front.
  
  
• Sentry Tower Defense (12 Points)
  Basic: You can now place two sentry guns instead of just one.
  Aced: Your sentry gun damage is increased by 300%.

A jaw dropping 40 points!

A new player should avoid the sentry until they get a better grip on the game, sentries are mostly useful in close corridors or on escape missions, but i'd say that ammo and doctor bags are alot more useful to the team's performance than 2 sentries are, further more if there is a shield facing the sentry, the sentry can end up using all its ammo without killed that shield.

You might want to fool around with the sentry when you get more experienced, but i can't justify using 1/3 of all your skill points on 2 sentries.

something to watch out for with the sentry, wiki reads:
"Beware that, if you place it on an object that dissapears later on, such as on top of the thermal drill on bank heist, it will dissapear with the object, so care should be taken on where you put the sentry."

More info on sentries in the wiki:
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Sentry_gun_(Payday_2)

• Demolition Man (Aced) (3 Points)
  Description: Decreases your trip mine deploy time by 20%.
  If you're going to work towards c4, you still shouldn't take this, presumably you'll have time to plant the trip mine/c4 wherever you are, especially the trip mines as when planting them close to enemies they can detonate from the gun fire. This skill really seems like it should have been inverted so the basic version decreased the deploy time and that the aced version added that 1 extra trip mine to your inventory.
  
  
• Combat Engineer (4 Points)
  Basic: Allows you to turn trip mines on or off.
  Aced: Upgrades your trip mines with a sensor mode. (Replaces the "off" mode).
  I've tried this on framing frame and it doesn't reach its full potential, as you'll hear a quick beep when one of the sensor detects something, the problem is that the sensors don't spot the target like the player would, you won't know which sensor that went off where, or which type of target moved pasted it. I'm not sure what scenario you'll want to go back to the trip mine to deactivate it, Overall this isn't worth using your points on.
  
  
• Improved Crafting (4 Points)
  Basic: Your cost of weapon crafting is reduced by 10%.
  Aced: Your cost of mask crafting is reduced by 10%
  Once more, skill points used towards getting/saving money isn't useful, what you want are skill that can get you through a mission so you'll get your payday, this skill does not, and you shouldn't take it.
  
  
• Silent Drilling (12 Points)
  Basic: Your drill makes 65% less noise. Civilians and guards are less likely to hear your drill and sound the alarm.
  Aced: Your drill is silent. Civilians and guards have to see the drill in order to sound the alarm.
  This skill just seem plain broken.
  There is a simple way of testing this, if you went into the Jewelry mission, inside the store all the way into the back, placing the drill inside any of the back rooms won't alert any civs or guards in the room right next to it. Another way of testing this can be done on Shadow Raid, with the cages, placing a drill on a cage, the guards won't be alerted at all, as long as they don't see it.
  
  More info on why silent drilling doesn't work:
  http://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/1yw8oo/whats_the_point_of_silent_drill/
  
  
• Shockproof (12 Points)
  Basic: Taser shock attacks on you backfire, knocking back the Taser.
  Aced: Interacting with an enemy Taser while he is electrocuting you will electrocute him, dealing 50% damage to his health.
  The wiki reads:
  "The Basic version of the Shockproof skill from the Technician tree skill will knock the Taser back after a random amount of time of being tased (about 1-3 seconds), but is generally considered to be unreliable, and the Ace version is recommended if the player intends to obtain the skill at all. With Aced Shockproof, one can shock the Taser back by facing the Taser and pressing the Use key (default "F") while being tased; conveniently, this input is similar to marking the Taser, which should be second nature for a player already."
  First you read the basic description and think that wow now you'll be completely taser free, well that isn't the case, as the wiki reads above, you'll still be tased, but it's unreliable and the aced version isn't much better, as you have to face the taser to tase it back, which isn't often the case, most of the time i get tased without even seeing the taser, so before i turn around a few times to spot him, either my teammates have killed him or i've gotten down from the surrounding gunfire.
  
  Source: http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Taser_(Payday_2)

• Dead Presidents (4 Points)
  Basic: Adds 10% value to loose cash that you pick up.
  Aced: Further adds 20% value to loose cash that you pick up.
  This skill has been duped "the newbie trap" and it should be avoided, you might think "oh great more cash!" well.. cash is easy to come by in payday and the 30% in total to loose loot isn't worth the 4points, further more the player that have this skill is the one that needs to pick up the loot, which slows the whole operation down as one player has to pick up each item and the others can either watch or move some bags.
  
  The biggest problem with this skill is that players think they get much much much more cash then they normally would, which just isn't the case. The skill should only work with instant cash items like jewelry or atms which degrades it's usefulness even more.
  
  More opinions from the community:
  http://www.reddit.com/r/paydaytheheist/comments/2aal71/dead_presidents_skill_useful/
  
  More information in the wiki:
  http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Dead_Presidents

• Chameleon (Aced) (3 Points)
  Aced: You are 15% less likely to be targeted when you are close to your crew members.
  Most loud mission you will be near your crew, but what strikers me about this skill is that it should(in theory) make the rest of the team go down faster and leaving you to stand a bit longer, or you would be able to run behind the enemy shields and take them out that way, but you shouldn't do that, running into gunfire is suicidal.
  
  
• Martial Arts (4 Points)
  Basic: You are 50% more likely to knock down an enemy with a melee strike.
  Aced: You take 50% less damage from all melee attacks because of training.
  Basically you shouldn't be using points on skills that encourages you to get up close and personal with the enemy, it's suicidal and that's a reason why to not take this skill. And it doesn't affect the cloaker's kung fu ability.
  
  
• Nine Lives (12 Points)
  Basic: You gain the ability to go into bleedout 1 more time before going into custody.
  Aced: When you go into bleedout, you have a 10% chance to get right back up.
  The basic version is obsolete if you atleast have 1 medic bag with you, you'll be able to replenish all your 3 downs. The aced version might sound tempting, but only 10% isn't enough to rely 12 points into, you would be better off with "Pistol Messiah".
  
  
• Camera Loop (Aced) (8 Points)
  Description: Camera loop duration is increased by 10 seconds.
  I haven't been in a situation where the extra 10 seconds would be worth the additional 8 points. On diamond store you'll sometimes get a camera infront of the security room door on the left side of the store, if you looped this camera you would still be able to lockpick the door, the trick is that the loop will not last until you're done lockpicking, but if you have a good concealment(which you should have when doing stealth mission) you can just let the camera spot you until you're done with the lockpicking, you can either just walk in and kill the guard or just move back and get the camera off your back, this is useful as you don't want to shot the cams and you'll save those precious 8 points.
  
  
• Moving Target (12 Points)
  Basic: You can now sprint while strafing.
  Aced: You can now sprint in any direction.
  Wiki reads: "This skill is rather straightforward; as stated in the description, it allows players to sprint while moving from side to side (basic) and backwards (aced)."
  Moving target might be one of the worst top tier skills in the game, sure can be fun running around in all sorts of directions, but the 12 points needed to unlock this is next to insanity.
  
  Source: http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Moving_Target

These are some skills you might want to consider under some circumstances, if you don't meet those circumstances you might want to reconsider why you picked them to begin with.

Enforcer

• Stun Resistance (4 Points)
  Basic: Reduces the visual effect duration of flashbangs by 25%.
  Aced: Further reduces the visual effect duration by 50%.
  If you feel like you get hit by flashbangs all the time, then this is the skill for you, do note that it won't completely remove the flash effect
  
  Wiki reads:
  "The amount of time it takes for vision to clear up depends on the player's distance from the flashbang and whether or not they were looking directly at the grenade's general direction when it explodes"
  Source: http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Stun_Resistance
  
  
• Berserker (Aced) (8 Points)
  Description: When your health is below 25%, you will do up to 100% more damage with ranged weapons.
  Sometimes overkill/deathwish can get your health down to below the 25%, for the large majority of a game, this skill could be for you if you're doing alot of hard loud missions.

Technician

• Nerves of Steel (Aced) (3 Points)
  Description: You can now use steel sight while in bleedout.
  As i said earlier in the "Skills you should pick early on" if you are working towards "Pistol Messiah" then this skill might be for you, otherwise it isn't worth the points, not to mention that if you do need some sort of aiming when you're down, your laser sight can still be used, which i found very effective.

Ghost

• Lockpicking Expert
  Basic: Increases your lockpicking interaction speed by 25%.
  Aced: You can now silently crack safes by hand. Further increases your lockpicking interaction speed by 25%.
  Lockpicking safes is really only exceptionally useful on loud missions, otherwise the points might have been spent better on the first 2 drill upgrades as they work for thermal drills too. Please do note that Titan safes cannot be lockpicked, which reduces this skills usefulness on harder difficulties, do not get this skill to lockpick deposit boxes, that's what the saw is for.

There are 2 maps to collect cage packages, The normal Bank Heist on any difficulty also the same map for Firestarter day 3 and then the Jewelry map, i won't cover the Jewelry map as you'll be playing the normal Bank Heist alot more and you only need to remember these package locations.
Any map other than the two specified above isn't worth the time and effort to collect and on some maps having one player distracted by possible packages can cause the team to fail, do remember only normal Bank Heist for cage packages, you can look for them as you're waiting for the drill to finish.
You'll need the "Gage Mod Courier DLC" to unlock weapon mods by collecting cage packages, if you do not have this DLC you'll get a +5% exp bonus when all packages have been located.

Thanks to HoxHud you'll now see this icon below, and a counter next to it, this counter will tell you how many Cage Packagers are left on the map.
Green Mantis – 5
Yellow Bull – 10
Red Spider – 15
Blue Eagle – 20
Purple Snake – 25

The above names and the values next to them is how many of the specify cage packages you need to unlock a new weapon mod in that color category.

The number of packages that appear on each map is dependent on the current difficulty setting:

Normal – 2
Hard – 4
Very Hard – 6
Overkill – 8
Death Wish – 10

Link to the wiki page for more info on cage packages and their unlocks.
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Packages

Here's a map i made with pictures included for all the locations, there are more than 10 spawns for all the packages so you'll run into places where there won't be spawning anything.

I'll now show you some Save spots where you can leave loot, in what seems like the open but in fact are safe locations.
I'll be covering some for Shadow Raid and Framing Frame


First one is on the roof, behind the stairs up, place them as i've shown and they won't be seen at all.

Second place is right next to this ladder(which might or might not spawn depending on your luck) keep in mind that a guard can spawn here and he'll be really close to the wall, you'll have to make sure he isn't there before you start dropping bags from the sky, you can kill him and leaves his body there noone will see him!

The last safe spot is next to this grate inside the warehouse, don't throw them in-between the crates infront of this grate as guards will see it, place it as i've shown and you should be good to go.

Now that we are talking about Shadow Raid a common misconception is that this spot is safe.. Wrong, this spot is far from safe, the guards on the roof and the guard patrolling in the valley can see your bags here, so don't use this spot to drop off your loot.

Behind these huge cloth pieces you can hide with loot altho this is temporary as guards will come around, but they don't always do, you can gather your paintings and hide here for a bit.

You can enter through the lobby, where this painting is located is a good spot to wait until the lobby guard turns around so you can sneak past him to the left side for the gallery, you'll find that you have to stand where the painting is located and then to the right sometimes when another guard patrols, but you won't be seen. Note that on deathwish a camera might spawn that is pointing towards this direction and then this spot isn't safe, altho you can still stay behind of the first sculpture to the left to not be seen, but you have to move back and forth between them to not get spotted by guards that patrol.

The second toilet booth is safe from guards, altho they will go into the toilet, they won't see your painting tucked away in the second booth.


There might be 1 guard that goes into this small square which is infront of a shelf that might have the vault behind it, check the guards pattern, if one comes this way, take him out and then you can safely place your loot here, don't worry about the guard that comes from the stair he won't notice the bags or you in this corner.

This locker is safe to use, for bags, corpses and yourself too, be aware that there might spawn a camera directly infront of it, if you for whatever reason have to afk, make sure that you aren't standing outside of this locker.

These stairs can be used when tackling with the hard vault, altho a guard can patrol under them so do make sure you check the guards pattern to check that they won't walk this way.

behind the bed infront of the nightstand is a blind spot where no guards will see anything you place there, altho i have had little success standing there myself, so do keep in mind that you only want bags behind it, check for packages infront of the nightstand, sometimes a package will be there and that package will elevate your bags up a bit, this might be enough to get you caught so do bear that in mind.

This is not a safe spot and you should avoid placing bags here altogether, the guard that patrols on the right side can and will see your bags all the way from the other side of the map.

Another bad spot, too many guards usually walk around here, refrain from placing anything here including yourself, use the locker behind it instead.

I'd go over some basic concepts that you'll stumble upon as you play the game.

The basic idea here is that each player has a position in the ecm chain, placing 1 ecm after the other.
For exsample, player 1 places the first 2 ecm then player 2 places theirs and so on, this is to use the full potentional of the ecms, as if 2 ecms are places at the same time, you'll be loosing the effect of 1 ecm as they both will be counting down at the same time.

Ecms jams cameras by default and can delay pagers(if you have "Ecm Specialist" aced in the ghost tree). Ecms also jams phones meaning that noone can call to sound the alarm.


If you have HoxHud installed you'll see this counter for the ecms conveniently placed under the objective notifier, helping you to know when you should place the next ecm, keep in mind that it takes 2-3 seconds to place an ecm and you should start placing a new ecm before the previous one is over, so you're sure that the alarm won't go off.

If you're playing with friends each one should be giving a position, otherwise you might want to command players to place ecms instead, as many do forget their position or get distracted from the counter or they might not have HoxHud and would thereby not know when to place one.

The difference between this and chaining the ecms is that this has a focus on rushing a curtain part of the game, rushing implies running and doing the objectives as fast as possible. You'll be chaining ecms here too, but the main focus is to do the objective.

Different missions have different parts you can rush, if you're trying to escape on Framing Frame day 3 you can place ecms to delay the alarm, or if you're out of pagers, you can chain the ecms and rush through the rest of the objectives to complete the mission, each player can have up to 2 ecms, which gives the team 1 minute per player to rush, that's 4minutes in total, which is alot and you can rush through Framing Frame day 1 this way, running inside the gallery and taking all the paintings and then running to the car, do note that running through the lasers will still sound the alarm no matter what.
Election day, the first and second day can be ecms rushed, especially the first day where you need to find the right truck, you can quickly find out which truck it is and tag it then run back to the escape.

A list of things that you should know that you might not yet have discovered on your own.


When you're doing stealth missions any enemy you shot will die with 1 shot no matter what or with whichever gun, but as soon as the alarm goes off this changes back to normal, maps like the transport missions and watchdogs start loud so this won't apply at all to those missions.


Grenades are a very useful tool to get rid of large groups of enemies, but do take care, friendly fire is ON with grenades and you should avoid using them near allies, they do damage across different levels and through walls so do take care with maps like the Big Bank and when you're stuck near your crewmates, don't throw grenades in the end of a mission, you might down an ally and maybe cause a failure.


You'll need the "Shaped Charge" skill aced in the Technician tree to be able to convert your tripmines to C4, which can be almost invaluable on the transport missions. They can be used to open doors, safes(except titan safes) and trucks like the picture above.


Don't get angry if your crewmates place drills and you just happen to have a upgraded version, yes upgrading the drill does take longer than placing it right off the bat, but it's better just to place it as fast as possible to get those extra seconds of drilling.

Sure if you need to move civs killing them can be a really big deal.. BUT! when you already have the map under control, killing civs isn't a big deal at all, sure you lose a bunch of cash, but that's only affecting the player that killed the civ and one thing you should know is that even if you fail a mission the money penalty for killing civs will still apply, so don't think you can just kill everyone on big bank and get away with no penalty.

I killed 1 civ and it will cost me $8,000, now you might be thinking, 8k sounds like alot.. well if i did any of the bank missions on deathwish i would get 4mil offshore and 1mil spending, ofcourse the penalty of killing civs is alot higher on deathwish, but it doesn't bring my cash flow down to a stop and that is really the point of it, you shouldn't be afraid of killing civs and if you're out of cable ties and still need to move them, simply kill them and bag them, or just kill them if you have the rest of the map under control.

Day 2 of big oil, you have to find the right fusion engine, there are 3 clues you need to find, before you can determine which engine is the right one, do note that you might want to tell newcomers not to pickup any engines as that would make it harder for you to see where the right one went.

You'll find these clues below either in the basement or scattered around the house.

This one can show 1 of 3 gasses; Deuterium, Helium, Nitrogen.


This one shows how many nozzles is on the engine it can be; 1, 2, 3 or a lemniscate (∞) which means 1 nozzle.


The values are 5783psi or 5812psi with another 2 variables being "≤" or "≥", do note that you get this screen and not one of the others, there are some that look like they got the answer, but they have to look like this screen with the big numbers or it will be the wrong values.

Here's the calculator, input your findings here and it will tell you which one is the right one, if it ever gives you 2 engines, then it's one of those 2 or you misinterpreted the clues..
http://payday2skills.ru/bigoil.html

Check the wiki for more help on this mission:
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Oil

You can only get out with the bags you carry, any bags that are inside the escape zone won't count.


This is a safe spot, any cops that come into the fire here will instant die, yes even bulldozers, do make sure that you light the fire inside this store with 1 gas can. This has been removed in the recent patches. You'll take damage now.


The store's location. 1 store away from the jewelry shop.


Don't use time to place drills as you only can get out with 4bags max(each player carrying 1 bag) and the money isn't worth doing this mission for, so don't waste time around the drills and you'll be away from the rest of the team which will leave you easy pickings for the cops.


Remember to tie the hostages, you'll run towards the bus anyways so tie them on the way!
Hostages delay oncoming assault waves, giving you more time to breathe, it is worth those extra seconds to tie them, you'll have around 4 or more civilians on your way to the bus, so do tie them down before they run away, you can leave them where they are.


With HoxHud installed you'll have no troubles opening these suitcases, altho 1 players should focus on the cases and the rest should defend him, the chopper should arrive shortly after you're done looting the bus.


Get your team to defend the bus from the front, it's alot more effective at keeping the mighty cops off your back.


if you have troubles with throwing the bags into the chopper you might want a laser sight, it will help you with your aim.

Applies to all the bank heists on this map and on Firestarter day 3.

Dumping the drill bag onto the vault won't alert anyone, but they might see the bag if you throw it and they won't notice the un-deployed drill.

Depending on if the car has spawned on this side and where the vault has spawned, you don't want to barricade the first window from the left and the last one all the way to the right, even if you do barricade them and shot the barricade afterwards you'll still have difficulties with throwing the bags out of the window and it's just an annoyance for the rest of the team.

Careful walking into the store, as sometimes you might get metal detectors infront, if you walk past them, the alarm will sound, luckily you can disable them.


You'll have to find this fuse box, it's located behind the store; where the guards are patrolling. Even tho it says on after you use it, the detectors will be off, might be a prank on the develops side to confuse you.


You should place the drill to the safes as soon as you can, you'll end up waiting for them.

The train heist is an unique mission, it can only be unlocked if you find the intel in any of the transport dlc missions. It all depends on luck, if you get it or if you don't.

Make sure that the first keycard you find on the map is used on the front door all the way towards the tunnel, this is the hardest door to defend and getting it open first would get your team away from the front, which might save you.

More about the Train heist mission in the wiki:
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Train

A very fun mission to stealth but you need to know these things if you're ever going to make it!
This mission can be ecm rushed all the way(both day 1 and day 2!), it's fairly fast once you know what you're doing.

Finding the right truck can be confusing at first, but don't worry it's very simple. Basically if there are 2 trucks from the same company then those 2 aren't the trucks you want, in this case it's either Kranich or Hefty which both are red, if there was a color difference the below method can be used to exclude colors, but if they both are the same color like above, then the only way to figure out which one it is, is with the computer in one of the 2 warehouses.

If you have a color difference then you'll have to look for containers around the map and search their contents, this yellow container is transporting chips, which isn't the voting cards we're looking for, so you can safely exclude all yellow trucks, on harder difficulties a ship will spawn infront of the trucks, meaning that you won't be able to see them from the spawn and you'll better search the containers on your way to the trucks.


You're looking for the company that's going to Washington, any ones that don't can be excluded from the search, use the computer 3 times as each time gives you a different company, but only 3 different options. There are 2 possible spawns in the first warehouse for the computer and 4 possible spawns in the second warehouse, remember to check both first floor and second floor.

On day 2, cops don't have pagers, you can safely kill these guys and pack them up, but it might not be a good idea if you're short on body bags or if someone might see them die.

You need to hack voting machines and that should be your top priority, the faster you get them hacked the faster you can be done with this mission and get your potential stealth bonus. Guards will be alerted to machines that are being hacked, but they won't be alerted to open boxes.

Even tho Bain tells you to cover the boxes again, this has no effect on the mission and you can just leave them uncovered.

Drills are a dangerous cocktail on this map, you might get spotted trying to drill the cages, but the real problem with placing drills on cages is that you should be looking for voting machines first, whatever loot the cages might hold it can't be worth the trouble. The team should focus on finding as many voting machines outside of the cages and if you can't find enough, remember that keycards spawn around the map and that you can use them to open the cages, which can still be done without alerting the guards.


If you manage to hack all the voting machines without sounding the alarm, you'll get gold gold gold as a bonus.

Shadow Raid is THE MISSION to do if you need cash, on deathwish a single round of shadow raid can give you over 12million in offshore spendings, that's usually 20-30min of work, depending on how good your team is and where the guards spawn.


Remember to use these zipline to move loot quickly, guards won't be alerted by flying money bags on the ziplines so don't be afraid to use them to their full potential. This zipline on top of the warehouse should be used to move all the first floor loot bags to the car, it's alot faster than the sewers.


If the boat spawns(you can see it from the car as the zipline will glow yellow through the map), you'll want to use the boat to move all your bag instead of the car, it's WAAAAAY faster and the risk is lower.


If the above boat has spawned, you'll have to get into the sewers from this gate, this means that you shouldn't use your thermal paste in the sewers where you normally get in, instead you need to use it here to open this gate so you can get in the warehouse this way and so you can move the bags to the boat from here, do note that you shouldn't throw bags up from here as guards or cameras might see them on the surface. any loot bags dropped into the water by accident will respawn here, very nice of the developer to add this nice little feature.


Even with "Cat Burglar" aced, you'll still be incapacitated if you fall from the top of this ladder, which can happen, the game can glitch and sometimes not let you go down the ladder, this can be especially annoying if someone is coming and you're trying to hide down into the sewers and you can't.


When you get out of the sewers dump the loot bags infront of the sewer, NOT beside the car, as guards might see them from the gate.


If the boat has spawned be carefull moving bags to the car, the guards can sometimes spot you.


If the alarm goes off, 3 murkies will spawn out of this door, right infront of the gate, do consider that if you're not playing with a full team to leave bots on, so they might deal with the murkies if it ever comes to that.


Artifacts are a pain but they do give 1million once you have secured them, either move them first or last, but don't mix them in with the rest of the loot as that will slow the whole procees down.


You'll need 2 keycards to open the vault they both have to be placed in 10seconds or less, if you don't place the second in time, then you won't be able to open the vault. There are 2 sure ways to get keycard but murkies patrolling around the map might also have them. First way is with this civilian, he is easily recognisable, he wears a yellow hardhat and an orange jumpsuit, he will always have 1 keycard on him.


The last way to be sure to get a keycard is with the murky in the camera room, killing him can be tricky, if you miss he'll detect you and possibly shot. alerting the rest of the guards. Remember to have 1 reserved for this one, unless you plan to rush it with the loot inside the vault.

This is a titan camera, it cannot be destroyed, you'll have to kill the security guard that is overseeing the cameras to stop it from spotting you, maps like Framing Frame day 3 don't have a camera room, you won't be able to stop it from spotting you on that map, you'll have to loop the camera(with the "Camera Loop" skill) or use ecms to make it stop spotting you.
Guards will be alerted if they see a broken camera. On maps with a security room a guard come to check up on broken cameras, this can be a useful way to kill guards, but you'll have to wait for the guard to come.

A player with the "Berserker" skill in the enforcer skill tree should do damage to themselves to be able to open deposit boxes with their saw much faster. On the regular bank heist you can use the method below.


The easiest way by far is to jump off the roof, but that might not be so easy, if you have "Cat Burglar" aced in the ghost tree, altho i have found a way to circumvent this. You'll have to go to the roof and jump onto the edges of this vent(A) then jump on top of the vent(B) and lastly jump over the building, make sure not to land on the car right infront of the building since that won't incapacitate you. Players with the "Combat Medic" skill aced in the mastermind skill tree should avoid recovering berserkers as that would grant them too much health, players that do have this skill should state to the rest of the team that they have it aced and that they shouldn't help the berserker up.


A oddly common mistake people have is to think that placing ecms on the ecms marked spot would work, I've seen alot of people do this, even on doors.


A popup will show and whatever button it tells you to use you'll have to press that button, this will work if you have an ecm, you'll need "Ecm Overdrive" aced in the ghost tree to open certain doors.

Doctor Bags have 2 charges after that they're gone. Using a doctor bag replenishes your health and your downs, you should only use doctor bags if you need to pick some of your crewmen up and you're low on health or when you have been down for the 3rd time(HoxHud will count your downs, but your screen will be black and white anyways) if you go down 4 times you'll be in custody, cloaker-downs do not count. With the "Combat Doctor" skill in the mastermind tree you can place 2 bags with the basic version and your doctor bags will have 4 charges each with the aced version.

More on doctor bags:
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_bag_(Payday_2)

Ammo bags are your primary source of large quantities of ammunition. The basic ammo bag contains 3 uses (300%) for one weapon. Percentages are calculated from the total ammo a weapon has, no matter which weapon is used, that means that a weapon with 50% of its ammo left should only take that amount of the ammo from the bag that it needs to refill itself, which would leave the bag with 250% of ammunition left.
Do take care in weapons with a small total ammunition count as they will take a higher percentages from the ammo bag, say you have a gun with only 10rounds of total max ammo, and you have a gun with 100rounds, both weapons would take 100% to refill, even tho the first gun only has 10rounds.
Note that the ammo bag will prioritize your secondary weapon, this means that if there isn't enough ammo for both of your guns, your secondary will be filled first.
With the "Ammunition Specialist" skill in the enforcer tree you can place 2 bags with the basic version and your ammo bags will have 5 charges each with the aced version(that's 500% each to give out).

More on ammo bags:
http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Ammo_bag_(Payday_2)

On day 1 of framing frame if you have "Cat Burgler" aced you'll be able to also land on these middle piece and even the tiny pieces you see to the side, you'll ofcourse have to hit them or you will go down, this is really useful if you want to take out the security room as fast as possible.


You can hide behind these tiny art pieces and move around them so the guards won't see you, works stupefyingly well.


Don't be afraid to take the phone on day 2, rather take it as fast as possible, it'll safe you time waiting for it.

Shooting the door knob on framing frame day 3 is a fast way in, but if you miss you'll hit the glass, guards will react to this glass like any other glass and will sound the alarm, so either you hit or you lockpick; this is a 7sec door.

again framing frame day 3, moving the shelf to find the correct vault isn't hard, but if you don't move it back, guards will react to them and sound the alarm, so do remember to move it back, i forgot to take a picture, but nonetheless, if a camera is pointing towards the vault and the vault is open, this is the vault door that's open not the shelf being moved, the cam will react to it and there goes all your hard work.


This is the easiest vault on the map, as the shortcut is right infront of it, i duped it "The Easy Vault", the "Middle Vault" is on the floor above this one and the "Hard Vault" is on the lowest floor, you do not want to do the hard vault, it takes a considerably amount of time more and if you can, restarting the day would save you more time then actually doing it.

The big bank is the hardest stealth mission to do, as it demands a fully competent team.


You'll have to use this server computer to find out which one is the one you'd want to hack. You'll need a player continually using this computer so another can look around for the one that needs to be hacked, avoid running around trying random computer.


When a player uses the server room computer, the right computer will make a beeping sound and have this message on the screen, any computer that does not have this message is not the correct one and you shouldn't hack them, it can be the ones upstairs or downstairs next to the tellers.


You'll find a key box like this with the keys for the vault, check the guide i linked all the way in the bottom to see the spawn locations of it.


You'll know you or one of your crewmate has the keys for the vault with the indicated key icon to the bottom left of the picture above, be careful with the vault doors so you don't accidentally place a drill. You'll need to keep retrying the keys until the vault cage door opens, don't think that they won't, they will eventually open. Tell your crewmates not to place any drills as that would just distract them from defending the vault, it's much faster just to retry the keys.

A easy fun little mission, you can either do stealth or loud.


To trigger the escape van, you'll need 15k, there is a very easy way to do this and that's with the atm. The atm will give you move than enough cash to trigger the escape, you'll have to wait a minute or two before the escape van spawns. It's best if it spawns inside this store, if not try checking the chinese store on the other side of the street, if it doesn't spawn there either just restart until it does. On death wish the atms wont spawn at all, on overkill only 1 atm will spawn and it doesn't like to spawn inside stores too often, if this happens look for a store with 2 safes, this will increase your chances of getting more than 15k easily. If things do go down place an ecm, go around the map and kill or tie the civs and shot any cameras, there are plenty of cameras around this map and you should check all across the map, remember that the guards have pagers.


If you're lucky and go the above atm, you can place an ecm and loot it, you can hide behind its door, if a civ sees you through the small opening to its left, simply kill that civ and carry them behind the atms door, wait here until the escape comes, you can do this alone, leaving your crewmen to wait unmasked.

The new Hotline Miami is a loud 2 day mission that really is epic, here are a few tips to help you through it.


On day 1 of Hotline Miami if you find loot down in the basement a quick way to get them up to the surface is the same way the cops are coming down to you, through these vent holes, the bags will land outside in the parking lot, saving you some precious seconds.

On day 2; when you reach the Commissar's apartment depending on how fast you where, there should be coke on this table, you need to move this coke away from the vault, preferably to the back, this is because a helicopter will come and set fire to the whole place, any coke or cash in the fire will be burnt and lost.

The Commissar has alot of health, he might become a hard challenge on overkill/deathwish but don't worry there is an easy way to deal with him and that is.. not to deal with him, simply backing out of the vault room when it opens and leaving him to fight the cops, he will eventually die and the loot should be easy pickings.

If you need a good place to deal with all the cops during the assaults then these stairs up to the Commissar's apartment is just the thing, it's a good choke point for all the cops and depending on if you took more supplies in the pre-planning a good spot to heal and get more ammo.


You should place the loot bags here, the cops might see them and still grab them, but you'll be able to kill them on the way and they won't get too far away with your loot, alternatively you could place them farther in the back.


Another good spot is in the camera room behin the vault, ontop of this rack, altho this spot is questionable as the cops will knock the bags off but only when you're not near them.

On overkill/deathwish watchdogs is a challenge, especially since you don't know where the loot van will spawn. When the truck gets open throw 4 bags onto the left side as seen above, and then take 4 to the right, since you need 4 bags to activate the escape you'll have 8bags in total and you'll be able to leave the bags behin if the van spawns on the left side or the right side, gaining you alot of time to not die from all the cops.


You'll want to take the last 4 bags into this room, the door on the right side might not spawn so go around up the stairs and lockpick the door from this side, you'll be able to wait here for the van and have the cops in a choke point, easy pickings.


On day 2; if you're playing on deathwish the door to the left should be locked, you'll be able to camp here with your team until the loot boat arrives and even better you'll be right ontop of the escape when the helicopter arrives.

There certainly are many ways to play Payday 2, but here are some of the best strategies and plans to do some of the most frequent missions.
These plans have been tested and refined as i've played and so far they haven't failed as long as everyone sticks to the plan. These are ways to do the missions in, they are not intended to be a walkthrough.

Style: Stealth
Mission Time: 5-9min
Players needed: 1
Difficulty: Any
Assets: None

Thanks to my amazing photoshop skills i've made a small visualization of the map below, with all the things you need to know, the only reason you'd want to play diamond store is for the quick exp/cash or if it ever comes back again the huge stealth bonus that was removed in the last patch, do note that playing for fun isn't counted.

The only camera you need to be concerned about is the one on the right side of the building, it might or might not spawn, if the security door here doesn't spawn, then it will only spawn inside the store, which would make the mission a bit harder, i'd recommend simple restarting the mission with HoxHud, go into the main menu and hit "Restart" do note that you can't do this with pro missions.
There might also spawn another camera on the first pair of stairs, but since we will be tackling the security room first, that camera won't be a problem. You don't want to alert any of the civs in the grey areas, you can do this mission without alerting them at all.
One more thing is to remember not to shot the camera infront of the security room as this will make a guard come to check, doesn't matter if you take out the security guard 2seconds afterward, a guard will still come around, altho you can smash it when the security guard has been dealt with.
Last to remember is to not place any drills, this map gives you more than enough loot and the safes might or might not have 1loot bag in them, the time it takes to open them, not to mention that your fellow crewmen will be distracted by the drill(constantly trying to fix it) makes these safes not worth waiting for. Since the a few patches ago the atms level based on the risk level of the heist, so on deathwish an atm will hold $300.000, unlike the safes these atms take 9seconds each to loot there are 2 on the map which give you $600k for about 20seconds of work.


Since it wouldn't be a good idea to simply shot the camera, there are 3ways to deal with it:

• A player which has "Lockpicking Expert" aced can open the door fast enough that the cam won't sound the alarm. You'll have to let it look at you meanwhile you lockpick, do tell your teammates not to shot the cam, as they might think you're in trouble.
  
• A player with "Camera Loop" basic can loop the cam as i mentioned in "Skills you should avoid - Ghost", simply looping the camera once then lockpicking the door without "Lockpicking Expert" will work, the cam will be able to see you for a few seconds, don't be afraid, it won't have time enough to sound the alarm, simply open the door and move away from the cam and you should be good to go.
  
• If you don't have "Lockpicking Expert" or "Camera Loop", well the last way to deal with the camera is to simply get one of your crewmen (or yourself if you have "ECM Specialist" or if you can wait an extra minute just place your only ecm) to place a ecm, this will jam the cams on the map and you can safely lockpick the door and have time to spare.

Once you have opened the security room and killed the guard inside(do remember to look for the alarm pad if it has spawned in here), you can proceed upstairs and open the door to the upstairs of the store, please keep in mind that when you open the door a guard can be right behind it, you'll have to move in carefully if he's there or shot him throught the door, if you touch him he will cuff you and you'll be unable to move until one of your crewmen saves you.

The manager can sometimes sit in C or D, she'll usually get up pretty fast in C but not in D, you can shot her(make sure not to hit the glass behind her!) bag her body before anyone sees it and leave her next to the alarm pad spawn in that room, noone will see her there and you can now take the keycard and disable the alarm if it has spawned anywhere but A. If it has spawned in C you can disable it across the computer workstation, you don't have to go infront of the window to actually do it.
Kill all guards that come into B, if some are still left down the store, you can either wait longer for them to come up or you can place 1 ecm and rush down to take care of him, if you do have "ECM Specialist" aced you can take care of the civs before answering the pager, but most of the time it's enough with basic.
When you do rush remember that any glass broken inside the store will automatically sound the alarm and all your work would have been for nothing.
The first thing you should do when rushing is to disable the alarm if it has spawned in A, doing so will let you shot freely. The guards can sometimes miss you and hit glass themselves, so the alarm is your top priority.
Once all the civs are tied or dead you can begin looting the store, do shot the front windows as they will slow you do, throw the bags outside, if any civs see them, deal with the civs and keep moving, remember the atms! You should be done with the mission in 5-9min.

Style: Stealth
Mission Time: 8-12min
Players needed: 3-4
Difficulty: Any
Assets: Body Bags

ALOT of players hate Go Bank, it is an easy mission once you have a plan and now you'll get one. The mission can be done with 3 players but it's easiest with 4, each player will have their role and the player should always stick to this role.
Roles:

• Vault Looter
  You'll want 1 player that has the "Portable Saw" skill as this will greatly decrease the time you'll spend on this map, if noone has the saw, this player will have to manually lockpick the boxes.
  
• Phone Junkie
  (Yeah i'm making these names up as i go) 1 player that always will stay at the phone and always pick it up, you don't want to have this player running around as sometimes you'll only have a few seconds to answer the phone, altho when gensec arrives you'll need this player to answer 1 of their pagers(applies if you only have 3 players on your team) this might be a little risky but it can be done.
  
• Crowd Controller
  Basicly you want to have 2 people to control all the civs that are around the map, if you do have a Vault Looter with the portable saw, every civ on the map will be alerted when that player uses the saw, keep that in mind, you might want to kill the civs in all the buildings around the map, killing them is much better than tying them, since you can use the tie on civs in the street instead.

The exp in this mission was raised to something like 600k, so it's worth doing now, altho this mission isn't worth all the effort if you're looking for cash, the normal bank heists are alot easier for that, even that there are 2 atms on this map, you'd much rather have players focusing on their individual role to get through the mission in one smooth run.


A: You might get a call from a blackmailer and he'll want 1 loot bag or he will sound the alarm, if you place the first loot bag in the car instead of giving it to him, the alarm will sound and plan B will start, you don't want to do plan B.
B: Uniformed officers will spawn here, make sure they walk around the fence before they get alerted, like the saw sound, they can be very difficult to kill if you don't have grenades, so do wait for them to come out in the open, they do not have pagers.
C & D: Possible spawn for the 2 gensec guards that will come in a car, when you hear on the phone that guards will be dispatched, these 2 guards have pagers and you should have 2 players ready on each side to take them.
E: This might not happen at all, but sometimes 2 gensec guards will spawn with a truck infront of the bank, presumably the truck has loot and presumably the loot can trigger the exit, altho i have not tested this, but when they spawn you'll notice in HoxHud that you have 4pagers, 2 of these guards and 2 left for the potentially dispatched guards.

Remember that not all cameras spawn the same place, sometimes you might get 2 cams other times you might get 6 or more.

Sometimes a guard/civ might be hidding in the toilet, this person will come out later during the game and you should quickly react to him when he starts screaming, i haven't tried this, but you might be able to kill him through the toilet door.

When you're looting the vault remember that the lasers trigger the alarm, this is also why you only want 1 person inside the vault, hitting the lasers with a loot bag will not sound the alarm. When looting make the person inside the vault throw the first bag they get out of the vault and another player should take this bag to the escape car, this will now unlock the escape, incase something triggers the alarm; like a missed pager or even when the Vault looter goes out of the vault and accidently hits the lasers. The escape is by sewers and you'll get a marker on your screen where it will spawn, before you go down the sewer bring all the bags over to it, since once you go into it an escape timer will show up and you'll have limited time to move the rest of the bags. If you haven't moved any bags to the escape car before the alarm goes, you'll be switching to plan B, which is loud and really hard.

Before you start running towards the bank, you should check the trunks of the openable cars...

Sometimes you'll get a briefcase like this one and inside you might or might not get a keycard, if you ever wondered why you only have 1 keycard this might be why.

B1 & B2 are valid points to get to the back of the bank, you'll always want to enter through the back, do kill any civilians in B1 & B2 on your way, you don't want to tie them as you'll need ties for the street, don't be afraid to kill them. Do not go through the bank when you're trying to get behind it, both of the doors to the back might be locked or you'll hit a guard on your way.

Once you're ready to go, place 1 ecm and rush inside you'll want to kill everyone inside the bank, guards and civilians, this will free the whole team from using and ties and you'll have more time to do important things, remember to shot all the cams around the bank, you should check each location for a cam, inside the bank is quiet easy as you just have to do a 360 to see all the cams then proceed to outside and take care of those too, remember pagers.

The next part of the plan is to get the Phone junkie in position, this player shouldn't move from the phone unless as i've said above.

Each of these 2 bank employees might or might not have a keycard on them, look around for a briefcase inside the bank if you can't find any on the employees. It can be very difficult to see the keycard itself, but the popup should appear.

The game can glitch with the keycards, so do make sure that each player uses a different side of the vault, if not, you might get a glitch where the first keycard will overlap with the other, resulting in the vault not opening and you'll be out of keycards and be forced to restart the map, this can also happen on other maps with multiple keypads for 1 door. Do not wait around with the vault, it will slow you down, the civs outside never stop spawning.

Now that you have the insides of the bank under control you and the rest of the team(except the Phone junkie which should stay at the phone) should look for planks, they can be all over the map, even on the roof of the bank so do check all across the map, i haven't gotten less than 3 in all my time of doing this mission like this.

You should board up the front 5 windows as fast as you can, no need to move the civs to the back, which is the way alot of players do it, it takes too long to move all the civs to the back of the bank and more civs might spot you as you're moving them, so do board up the windows like this, no civs will see anything inside as they walk past, it is alot easier and it's faster this way.

You might get officers or gensec guards coming to check the place out, remember to stick to the plan and let the Crowd controllers handle it, you still want the Vault looter to do his job and just head into the vault and start looting, the Phone junkie should stay at the phone.

If civs are alerted and they are too far away from a decent cover, kill them and bag the body, it will save you alot of time, also reduces the risk of other civs seeing you moving them.

Continued in part 2...

I ran out of space...

If the Vault looter has a saw, as soon as they start sawing you'll see civs that are left on the map getting alerted, it's a good idea to kill all the civs in B3 before you start looting the vault.
Now that the saw is active, you'll want to just kill new civs that come on the map, no need to move them at all, as new civs will be alerted anyways.

Once you have 1 bag, you can leave and cash in the exp and the payday, if you want more cash you can loot the rest but do unlock escape with your first bag tho.

You really don't want to do Go Bank with players that don't use the ingame chat system, as you won't be able to get them to cooperate to your plan, if you're playing with friends, you shouldn't have this problem.

It is completely possible to do this heist with only 2 players, the trick is to make sure that both players are outside when the gensec guards arrive, to answer their pagers, that's the main thing to do before entering the vault.
One thing you should do before using both the keycards to start the timer is to control the map, make sure everyone inside the bank is dead and that the front 5 windows are boarded up, once that's done you can start the timer, remember not to go inside the vault before gensec arrives, the officers on the other hand can be handled by 1 player as they won't have pagers.
Depending on how much of the outside you have controlled, you should consider if you want all the loot or just 1 bag to trigger the escape, bags do not sound the alarm when you throw them through.
The phone has to be answered by whoever is nearby, don't let one player stay by it, as you both need to help each other with the civs.
That's the difference from the regular plan and the 2 player version.

This is, if not the map you'll play the most throughout your time playing the game and it is a fun map, i'll be covering 2 ways to do this mission in, both are technically stealth, but i'd call the second "loud" to differentiate between them.

Mission Time: 8-12min
Players needed: 1
Difficulty: Any
Assets: None

Only 1 player is needed, but it's faster with more as you'll be able to go into the bank alot sooner when you have more people to take the pagers.

There should be a player that can open doors with "Ecm Overdrive", this will make this mission alot easier as you don't need to rely on the manager for a keycard to open the door to the security room.

DO NOT GO ON THE ROOF!! the roof is a trap, especial if there are any skylights(windows) sometimes guards will be up there too, which might be usefull to kill them on the way down the stairs, but don't kill them on the roof since skylights, you might accidently shot them off the roof, or a civ will spot you from the roof.


there are only 2 cams on this map that might give you trouble, the first one is outside the bank, it might or might not point towards the door and any of the doors except the ones to the security rooms might be open or they might not.

Deal with the camera the same way i recommended in the "The Plan - Diamond Store", altho on this map if you can, you might want to just shot the cam outside the bank to kill the guard that comes afterwards, depending on how much time you want to use waiting around and if you're alone or not, shooting the cam might just slow you down.

First thing first, you can either go through Door X or you can simply walk into the bank without your mask on, altho you might hit a guard or you'll find that you can't go anywhere where you can take your mask on safely, so i'd recommend just going through Door X to save time on trying.
You want to see if Sec A has spawned if not, then Sec B has or vice versa.
If Sec A has spawned, go inside, kill the guard and either manage to kill him so he end up in the corner(shotgun works well for this) or pack his body up and dump it outside the bank. Now that the security is dealt with, you have to go to Door Y and if Sec A didn't spawn you'll have to go into Sec B, it might be a little annoying waiting for the guards to cycle and the manager sometimes comes this way too, but patience and they will move, you don't have to shot the cam infront of Sec B to open the door with an ecm, you just have to hit the keypad fast enough, if you find it too tricky, get one of your teammates to plant an ecm so you can do it without having to fear the camera.

Once security is all down, it's time to find which door to the tellers that is open, if none is you'll have to lockpick it, take the one with noone looking, but on most runs 1 door will be open, you'll rush it with your teammates when you place a ecm, your teammates should be coming in from the back(Door X) to control the civs and make sure that they don't hit the panic button next to the door towards the stairs, you can also do this yourself, if you run over to it fast enough.
When you place a ecm you'll want to kill the tellers, you'll see the panic button under the counter, don't try to dominate them as they might just go for the panic button faster than you can get them to go down, just kill them.

With the guards down and the civs tied you can answer the pagers in piece.

There might be 2-4civs going around outside, control them or kill them, they will not respawn.

and that's how you do this mission, it's fairly simple, i know alot of the missions can seem overly complicated at first, but once you got a plan you'll be good to go.

As i said earlier, this isn't technically a loud plan, but it's easier to differentiate between them this way.
I call this the 1minute rush, it's called that since you can control the insides of the bank in 1min or less. You'll need atleast 2 people for this, altho it is recommended to have 4 as the pagers might be too hard to do with only 2 people.

Mission Time: 6-8min
Players needed: 2-4
Difficulty: Any
Assets: None

With 2 players, 1 should take out the tellers and the other should control the back, making sure no civs reach the panic button. With 4 people this will be alot easier.


All crew members should enter through the front door with masks off.
Now you'll need to get in positions
1 member infront of whichever door to the tellers that is open, to kill them.
1 member infront of the security room, to kill the guard inside.
1 member infront of the panic button in the back, to stop any civs trying to rush for it.
The last member will kill the guards and/or go on the roof to kill the guard up there.
The rush being on an ecm that the leader will plant, you can open the security door with a saw or with ecm, depending on if you have "Ecm Overdrive" aced or if you have "Portable Saw" if you have none, you might want to chain the ecm(placing one after the other, waiting for the first to almost run out then placing another) until you find a keycard to get into the security room with.

The plan is really easier to execute if you have a competent team.
and that's it for 1minute rushing on the bank heist.

Here will be some concealment builds to get you as low as possible, do note that some of these builds have dlc weapons, look in the "Links to other guides" section for another guide that covers weapons much more thoroughly than this one if you need more than good concealed weapons.

No DLC Builds

Here is a build you can use if you have no dlc installed.
This build can be used with no points in the ghost tree.

Primary
Weapon: Car-4
Mods:

• Barrel - Short Barrel
  
• Barrel Ext - The Bigger the better suppressor
  
• Custom - Auto Fire
  
• Grip - Straight grip
  
• Magazine - Vintage
  
• Stock - Folding Stock
  
• Upper Receiver - Exotique Receiver

Secondary
Weapon: Chimano 88 Pistol
Mods:

• Barrel Ext - Size doesn't matter suppressor

With no dlc and no points in the ghost tree, this build comes down to an incredible 4heat rating.

With DLC Builds

DLC needed: Armored Transport

Secondary
Weapon: Swedish K Submachine gun
Mods:

• Barrel - Grease Barrel
  
• Barrel Ext - Medium Suppressor
  
• (Optional) Gadget - Compact laser
  
• Grip - Ergo Grip
  
• (Optional) Sight - See More Sight
  
• Stock - Folded Stock

With the Swedish K you'll still keep your heat down to the low low 4 heat points.

Secondary
Weapon: Gruber Kurz Pistol
Mods:

• Barrel Ext - Size doesn't matter suppressor
  
• (Optional) Grip - Laser Grip

DLC needed: Cage Shotgun Pack

Primary
Weapon: Raven Shotgun
Mods:

• Ammunition - 000 Buckshot
  
• Barrel - Short Barrel
  
• Barrel Ext - The Silent Killer Suppressor

Without any points in the ghost tree this shotgun will get you up to 10hear rating.
But with the fourth tier bonus from the ghost tree this shotgun goes down to a even lower rating than before, now it's 3heat and it's especially useful on Shadow Raid where the murkies take more damage if they see you.

Here are some guides that might cover some of the things i didn't want to cover.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=265725841
a very usefull guide to get to know Shadow Raid's spawn, which you should check out, since Shadow Raid is THE mission to do for cash.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=229715328
Will help you understand the different classes abilities, strong points and it will run down on the infamy system. It also explains the different tier bonus and the basics of leveling.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=248169103
Will tell you about the exp boosting mechanic and the exp penalty mechanic, that is crucial to understanding why some missions gets exp penalties and how to remove them.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=251751235
This guide is insanely useful for picking the right guns for different styles of missions, you won't go wrong with a gun from this guide.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=272264896
It's called a solo guide, but there are plenty of useful things in it, like the different spawns for keycards or vault keys, you should check this guide out when you're about to do the Big Bank heist.

I might add more to this guide as i come across more things that are worth sharing; as i play the game more. This guide is a little unorthodox when i look at some of the other guides out there, but i hope it helped you in one way or another.

Update: This guide has grown from being a small set of things i wanted noobs to know, to a huge guide covering alot if not most of the game that should get new players through without making silly mistakes. I'm still surprised i find new things to add to it, i hope it helped someone out there.