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Weapon Mechanics[]

Armor Piercing[]

Certain heavily armored enemies, such as Maximum Force Responders and Shields have protective equipment that made them bulletproof to most attacks from the front. Note that despite their appearance, Bulldozers do not, in fact, have armor in a game-mechanics sense and instead have a huge number of hitpoints coupled to a huge headshot damage bonus. Only hitscan weapons are affected by armor.

Weapons with AP capability can pierce bulletproof armor, as well as shields, thin walls/objects, and through enemies into targets behind them. This includes:

Weapons that can bypass armor but don't have all the properties of AP rounds include:

  • Flamethrowers (bypass armor and shields entirely)
  • Shotguns with Tombstone Slugs and Flechette Rounds (will only penetrate armor)

Some skills and perks will also give normal weapons a chance to pierce bulletproof armor to do damage:

  • Rogue's final perk Killer Instinct, in which will gives a 25% chance to pierce armor for all weapons.
  • Grinder's fifth perk Endorphins, and its last perk Euphoria, grant a combined 30% chance.
  • Technician's aced Surefire, which gives a 100% chance to pierce armor for all weapons.

In general, aiming for the head remains approximately 4x more efficient. Utilizing Surefire and Body Expertise, however, can be very effective for less accurate weapons, since you can then aim for the center of mass and still do about 90% of the damage.

Suppressors[]

Suppressor (a.k.a. silencer) barrel extensions and suppressed barrels reduce or eliminate the chance that NPCs will detect shots fired. Normally, the detection radius for a suppressed weapon is 0 meters (undetectable), though some weapon shots can be detected up to 1 meter away. This also reduces the weapon's threat to 0, removing any chance of suppression.

Firing modes[]

Firing mode ident

The player's primary weapon is currently switched to the automatic mode, while the player's secondary weapon is locked to semi-auto mode.

There are two main firing modes in the game: full-auto and semi-auto. In full-auto mode, the weapon is able to shoot continuously by holding down the fire button. In semi-auto mode, each press of the fire button fires one shot.

If a weapon is not locked to one of the two modes, the player can switch between the two modes by pressing the [Switch Firemode] key on PC. The player's HUD will indicate which firing mode the player's weapon is currently using.

Weapons with the Auto Fire mod equipped are locked to full-auto mode. Weapons with the Single Fire mod equipped are locked to semi-auto mode. 

If one of a weapon's mode indicators appears greyed out, it means that the weapon is incapable of using that mode. Some weapons are locked to specific fire modes (such as Sniper Rifles and Miniguns), and can not switch modes through any means. Other weapons may be locked due to equipped weapon modification.

The Basilisk 3V can fire in "Burst" mode instead of full-auto, which fires off up to three rounds in quick succession.

The Hailstorm Mk 5 and Rodion 3B can fire in "Volley" mode instead of semi-auto, which fires off to 15 to 3 pellets respectively, all at once.

Damage Mechanics[]

Headshots[]

Headshot multipliers vary depending on enemy and difficulty. See the Enemies (Payday 2) page or individual Special Enemy pages for more information.

Shots at an enemy's head will always deal additional damage (exception: Hoxton Revenge's informant with armor, Mountain Master's Yufu Wang in armor). Shotguns fire a number of pellets with each shot; if any single pellet hits an enemy's head it will do full headshot damage to that enemy. (If more than one pellet hits the enemy, no extra damage is done.)

The second perk Helmet Popping for all decks increases your headshot damage by 25%.

Critical Hits[]

HITMARKER

Critical hit marker.

Critical hits are shots that deal an additional headshot multiplier (exception: Bulldozer x5), that can stack with doing a headshot. There are two separate ways to trigger a critical hit: Low Blow and Unseen Strike.

The skill Low Blow provides up to a 30% chance for any shot fired by the player to be a critical hit.

Critical hits and headshots are stacked multiplicatively, allowing massive damage to be dealt with a single headshot that's also critical.

Fire[]

Fire is a damage mechanic that causes enemies to take damage over a period of time.

See Fire for detailed information.

Poison[]

Poison is a status effect that can be applied to enemies, causing them to take damage over time and often stunning them for a brief period.

See Poison for detailed information.

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