Is it possible to change my loadout in the middle of a heist?

Me and my crew were playing Payday 2, running a Framing Frame overkill pro job. We managed to complete day 1 and day 2 with full stealth, and we had just killed the last guard on day 3. Unfortunately, one of the bullets went wild and shattered a glass window.

Even more unfortunately, that glass window was perfectly in the field of view of a camera, and I couldn't shoot the camera, because I was answering the pager for the dead guard.

Sure enough, the alarm went off. So now we're stuck on Overkill difficulty, in our dashing, but very squishy 2-piece suits.

We didn't want to just give up the payday; we were so close. Plus, it costs $3M to buy the Framing Frame contract from Bain, and even if we couldn't get the gold, we wanted the bag loot. But that means we need to survive wave on wave of tan SWAT and special enforcers. Which means we need good guns and good armor. Which we aren't carrying.

So...is there any way to switch loadouts in the middle of a heist?

Solution 1:

If you're not the host, and drop-in is enabled, you can change loadouts in the middle of a heist.

It helps if you're friends with one or more of the other players, and it also helps if the host has set the game options to either private or friends-only.

Simply exit the heist and then reconnect (or have someone still in the game invite you back). You'll be taken to the mission briefing screen, where you'll be given the chance to change your loadout before you reconnect.

(It's best if you synchronize your efforts so that all three non-hosting players don't leave the game at once.)