Payday 2 Analysis

It has been many long years since “The Long Guide” has been updated. Since Payday 2 has changed so much during that time, much of the information found in that guide is now incorrect. The purpose of this guide is to provide a modern, in-depth, and technically accurate analysis of Payday 2’s systems.

Some of these systems may seem self-explanatory, but they all have underlying mechanics that are not immediately apparent. This guide will delve into the math and mechanics behind these systems to provide a comprehensive understanding of how they work, for the mentally-ill masochists out there.

All information in this analysis comes straight from the game’s decompiled LUA code to ensure accuracy, as the wiki is often a poor source of information. No external resources have been used in the creation of this analysis; everything comes straight from the game’s code.

Any corrections, suggestions, or other feedback can be sent as pull requests to the project’s GitHub repository.

Thanks for reading!

- Avery (Jacket430)

Armor

Armor is a secondary health bar, a protective shield that sits on top of your health. It is not damage reduction, damage resistance, or a percentage. It’s a pool of hit points that enemies have to break through before they can damage your health (with exceptions, we’ll get to it…)

A note on terminology:

• “Skills” refers to abilities from the skill tree
• “Perks” refers to abilities from perk decks

Base Stats

Note: Other values exist internally, (ARMOR_STEPS = 1, ARMOR_DAMAGE_REDUCTION = 0, and ARMOR_DAMAGE_REDUCTION_STEPS with the values {1, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 0.95, 0.97, 0.98, 0.99}). However, since the game is hard-coded to return a “0” for ARMOR_DAMAGE_REDUCTION and return a “1” for ARMOR_STEPS, these values are never used. Seems to be leftover code.

Armor Types

• Base Armor: 2 (5 on console) - The base value of armor that all players start with, before any bonuses from armor type, skills, or perks.
• Armor Rating (bonus armor granted by armor type) - A flat bonus to armor that is added to the base value, before any bonuses from skills or perks.

Additional stats per armor level:

Max Ammo Multiplier:

Multiplies the total max ammo the player can hold at a given time.

Ex-President Health Storage Cap (flat value, then multiplied by 1.5x.):

When you kill enemies while armor > 0, you store health up to this cap. When armor breaks, the stored health is converted to armor regen. Keep in mind values are displayed x10 in game.

Ex-President Armor Regen Rate:

How fast armor regenerates after breaking (flat value, then multiplied by 1.4x). Base armor regen rate is = 1x (this would be equal to 3s, or 1.75s when playing solo) and resets to 0 when armor is full. The armor rate bonus from kills only applies during the regen window (after armor breaks, before it fills). 19.6 flat + 1x base regen = 20.6x increase.