How can a crew perform a stealth job on the Big Bank job?
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.
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
- make sure the roaming people (civilians and/or guards) that come from the elevators during the time lock don't become a problem and
- 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.