How can a crew perform a stealth job on the Big Bank job?

Question

The Big Bank job introduces the pre-planning phase which has a number of options for entering the safe and escape plans.

What pre-planning options allow for completing the job in stealth?

Answer 1

This is a bit off the top of my head, but when I did stealth with my crew we used:

• Default safe crack (Beast, though we never used it)
• Elevator escape (silent, doesn't involve treking back through the bank)
• Spycam (Inside Man), East upstairs (I think, for highlighting guards in the back rooms)
• Extra keycard(Inside Man), for quickly getting into security room without wasting ecms that we might need later.

(With the addition of the new fugitive skill to pick up items in casing mode, the extra keycard is even more valuable as it allows us to guarantee being able to open the server room without risking being spotted by any civillians.)

Our general plan was to find the security room, kill both guards in safe area, find the computer with someone still in casing mode, try and activate without alerting civs (and ecm/tieing them up/breaking cameras if it went bad), wait for new cops, move into back room to stealth open the vault (while avoiding guards).

Generally, we noticed that the guards tend to follow a predictable patrol route, allowing us to easily take the same route back and forth between the vault and the escape with little issue. Getting the top-left vault entrance is one of the best layouts, as there are parts of the office section there that guards will never patrol/see into allowing you to hide if you have a particularly bad patrol pattern.

When doing it with the default escape and without deactivating the lasers (for the achievement) we generally left someone in the front of the bank, allowing us to throw bags through the lasers (bags don't trip lasers on this mission) without risking a player travelling through.

Answer 2

You do not need to use any favours to complete the job in full stealth, however, there are a few favours that will come in handy. You'll have to think about how much each will benefit your play style though.

• Elevator Trick escape option: avoid taking the bags through the bank back to the van, which can be difficult
• Spycams on the vault side of the bank: helps keep an eye on the guards (2-5 on that side depending on difficulty, excluding security room). If you have problems with map awareness, this and/or a friend spotting are must-haves.
• Open Door in the garage: if you did not take Elevator Trick, this can be extremely useful.
• Poisoned Cake: taking out one guard can be extremely useful, especially on the public side of the bank.
• Body Bags: I wouldn't consider body bags unless you solo and know you'll need them.
• Extra Keycard: if you want to open the server room with a keycard, it can ensure you have enough keycards to disable the lasers. Getting a crew member to the other side in casing mode to spot guards is very useful.
• Locate Keybox: might be useful if you have difficulties finding it and don't want to use a silent drill.

The easiest way is to control/deal with the roaming civilians on the public side and to deal with the roaming guards. After that you need to

1. make sure the roaming people (civilians and/or guards) that come from the elevators during the time lock don't become a problem and
2. make sure cameras don't see the door when the time lock is done.

When all that is done, it's all about avoiding the guards on the other side and following the objectives.

Answer 3

I'm just adding a followup answer more tailored to solo-stealth except Deathwish.

First thing, at a minimum, you need Cleaner, Lockpicking Expert and ECM Overdrive all aced in the Ghost tree and Sixth Sense aced in the Fugitive tree (avoid wasting favors on the extra keycard). Winston Wolfe aced may save you some money.

Deathwish doesn't have Titan cameras or safes, so silent drilling and camera looping are optional.

Pre-Planning, I like two options:

[Option 1]
Elevator Trick escape
Spycam, in the vault entry hall
Body Bags in the west stairwell.

[Option 2]
Normal escape (airlift - but you'll use the van)
Spycam in the vault entry hall + 1 of the others near the vault
Body Bags in the west stairwell
Poisoned cake in the canteen
Unlocked garage door

In option 2, the heist is much easier if the timelock door is upstairs, giving you a more direct route to the western stairwell.

[Pre-mask]
Start by walking through the bank without masking up. I usually go through the tellers' desk, the computer terminals both upstairs and downstairs, the upstairs offices and the canteen.

While finding that, you should also check and see if the keybox is in the area. Possible locations are on the wall behind the tellers, or in one of the upstairs offices. Make a mental note of camera locations, security office location and the two guards.

Once you have the keycard (picked up with Sixth Sense), go to the western stairwell, mask up and grab a 2nd body bag. Do not unlock the door to the garage yet if you're using option 2. Civilians may wander up into the building, which is bad.

NOTE (Option 2) If the keycard is in the canteen next to the poisoned guard, he WILL detect you if you pick it up with Sixth Sense. This situation requires you to kill him and subdue the two civilians. This is about 50-50 chance of a restart.

[Masked up]
You now have 4 roaming civilians to deal with (black woman, white woman, old woman and manager), 2 guards, and another keycard to retrieve. The civilians must be tied up to preserve your body bags. The best place to tie them up or to kill guards is the western stairwell. Be careful not to leave bodies or civilians on the roof outside the stairwell because there's a window with line of sight inside the bank. If there's a camera in the stairwell, shoot it. If there's a camera pointing at the timelock door, shoot it also.

Option 1 you must kill both guards / option 2 there's only one roaming (the other is sick at the canteen). Kill the guard(s) and deposit the body bags behind the manager's desk. This is also where I lead the tied up civilians. You may need to shoot cameras in this hallway. These guards must be dealt with because they roam past the server room and will alert when that door is open.

Once they're taken care of, resupply your body bags, then go use a keycard on the timelock door. Pick the other one up from where you tied the manager. If it's not there, hit the painting in his office and pick the lock on the safe to get your 2nd card. Use it on the timelock door. Lasers are all disabled now.

Go to the server room and open it with an ECM. Hack the computer. It may (low chance) start the timelock countdown. If not, you'll need a local terminal where the computer programmers are. Since you're solo you must try these one by one. Start downstairs since you can do this pretty easily without killing anyone. Move upstairs if needed, kill anyone who alerts to you, and continue hacking.

After you activate the timelock, move to the manager's office again. Keep an eye on the elevator. If a guard comes up, wait for him to exit then shoot him and answer the pager. If a civilian comes up and you killed any programmers, keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't alert. Otherwise, answer the phone when needed and with luck you'll be in.

[Vault stage]
By now you've used from 1-3 pagers (1 is only possible with option 2). You must now get to the vault for the fingerprint scanner, then hit the two activation switches, then move back to the manager's office for the final input. Try to avoid killing guards in here. Sometimes you're forced to use a pager to remove a fixed guard spawn near the vault who will not move. Because of this, I avoid using a pager on the camera room operator. The cameras are relatively easy to avoid with multiple paths to the vault.

While you're in here, if you haven't found the keybox already, look for it here. (IIRC) It can be upstairs near either of the operation rooms or downstairs dead center past the entry hallway.

With all that done, you can move back to the vault and enter. If you had to kill any guards, the body bags can be safely stashed in the vault; otherwise it's better to run them back out to the manager's office.

Gather up the money and gold and start picking locks if you want. The saw is a non-option in stealth. If you didn't get the keybox, silent drilling is your other stealthy option.

Your last task is to move the items to the elevator (option 1) or all the way out (option 2).

[Option 2 exit]
If you went with this option you're a little safer due to the extra spycam but you also have a longer run out. Once you get bags out, stash them in the west stairwell before dealing with the van. If you feel confident, you can move money bags to the top of the stairwell and walk out on the roof. Jump on the rail just above the van, and throw them directly down into the van. It takes good aim but the civilians will not bother you. I'm not sure if gold can be thrown far enough for this.

The other choice is to pick the lock to the garage and start running stuff to the van. You'll have to avoid civilians wandering by because they spawn endlessly. If you set off an alert for any reason, you'll have to move the remaining bags to the upper roof and use the helicopter.

[Crew]
Most of what I wrote also applies to a crew, except that you can make do without the body bag placement. I suggest using the extra points to place an extra camera near the vault, using the Elevator Trick to escape. You're pager-limited in the inner section, so you all need to take care and watch out for patrols when moving the bags.

Also when you have more than one crew member, one person can spam the computer in the server room while another finds the correct computer in the staff area. This avoids the trial and error required when soloing.

Answer 4

The Safe cracking options for stealth Big Bank don't matter, as they're only used after the heist goes loud.

There are two viable escape plans for stealth Big Bank. The default escape plan; Airlift can be used without spending favors, but it requires going through the bank, and the lasers that may trip the alarms if you're not careful. (Assuming you didn't turn those off with keycards) The second is the Elevator Trick. This opens an elevator in the lobby area before the vault room. Once it's open you can drop through the open elevator and bring your well-deserved loot back to your safehouse.

In my experience, dead drops have not been detected by guards. I may or may not have been getting lucky, but that is the conclusion from my tests. So any dead drop should be okay.

Every other pre-planning options (Hacking, Surveillance, etc.) Are usable in stealth, though they may not be helpful. All you need to be sure to avoid are the escape plans; C4 Tunneling, and Bus Stop.

Happy heisting!

Answer 5

The 'poisened cake and keycard' would appear to be the best preplanning options for the perfect Big Bank heist. The cake will come in handy to thin out the number of security guards and the keycard helps you disable the lasers. Also I would recommend the ECM Specialist skill to be aced so you can instantly open the security door with your ECM to begin hacking the code. I also would recommend the elevator trick, but as you may or may not know the majority of the crew must vote for the escape plan.

However once you have got all the preplanning and the ECM Specialist skill aced you need to enter the bank through the front door, staying in casing mode with a concealment level of less than a maximum of 30. Then the person who has aced the ECM Specialist skill needs to take their mask off after the security room been marked out. While 3 players still remain in casing mode, you need to hack the computer in the security room. 1 out of 10 times, you will get the code for the time lock on the security room computer, but normally Bain will tell you to go and look for the correct PC. While the person with the mask on hides in the security room, the other 3 players need to go to the staff terminals. The person in the security room needs to keep trying to get access via the computer. One of the staff terminals will soon keep beeping, with a red alert box appearing on the screen. Once they have found that the player that has spotted it needs to go behind the desk of the computer and put their mask on. As soon as they have put their mask off they need to crouch and take out the person operating the correct PC. Bag them if they are not already in a hidden location.

Hack the correct computer and then keep crouched behind the desk. Once that has done only 2 players should have their masks on. One of those players sneak to and activate the time lock. Note somebody must be on the phone in the manager's office for when GenSec call. Once the time lock has completed get the keycard and try and find the manager (he looks the same as when robbing Harvest & Trustee or GO Bank). Then among your crew you should have 2 keycards. Enter them both in the slots at where the time vault had opened and the lasers will be disabled. At this point you should not have used any pagers and not had to destroy any cameras. Then sneak the to vault (killing a maximum of 2 guards) and insert the thumb into the biometric reader. Now you can go and grand access from 2 consoles. Remember 2 people should still have their masks off. Those 2 people sneak up behind a console each and kill the guard controlling it. Grant access and then somebody needs to go to the manager's office (where the phone was) and get the code. Everyone return to the vault door and then open it. You can drill the cages if neccesary but it would be better if you had found keys. Secure at least 4 bags and then escape with your stealth bonus.