When Meltdown came out, it was intimidating for sure. The level was the same map as Shadow Raid, but considerably larger. The job is also considerably faster paced than most other jobs in Payday 2. To clarify, a typical job has you go to a location, set up a drill or hack, and wait the requisite 3-5 minutes, all the while killing waves of cops. Whatever comes after the wait usually involes moving lots of bags. Meltdown adheres to this formula, but since a lot of cops spawn in an above average sized map, people have a tendency to panic. This causes them to forget crucial things, like "snipers hurt a lot" and "forklifts are slow". I'll go through all the common errors people make in due course, but I will begin by walking you through the heist, step by step. You will see it is very straightforward, and not at all dissimilar to what you already know about Payday 2.

This is not an achievement guide, but merely instructions on how to finish the job as easily and painlessly as possible.

As it says on the title. You will spawn in on the roof overlooking the Murkywater Warehouse, with two ziplines, and a set of containers that form stairs. This is the first error a lot of people make. What an brash person will do is rush for the zipline, and get down first. This is great, except for the fact that you've left half your crew behind. If said crew does not have Cat Burglar, you've just made it unecessarily risky for them to descend. To avoid this, you should ideally decide ahead of time who needs (not wants) to use the zipline, and who can simply jump down. If you can't communicate with your crew, in pubs for instance, just assume that they will be taking the zipline, and jump down yourself. If everyone assumes this, then hooray you've all decsended as a unit, and have more firepower.


Speaking of, getting inside the warehouse is next. The building will be filled with Murkies, and the first thing that you will notice is that they do lots of damage. A keen observer will notice that, althugh they have the same amount of health as an FBI response cop (130), they carry SCARHs, and hurt a lot more. Get in and kill all of them as fast as you can, before doing anything else. This will free up your bullets and health later for dealing with important threats, such as bulldozers or snipers.

Pretty simple. Everyone run around looking for crowbars, a minimum of 2. One of these will be used to jam the fans of the vault (once you find it) and the other will be used for cracking crates. Crowbars always spawn inside the warehouse, never outside. That should narrow your search. They are most often found inside the office section of the warehouse, although they can spawn on the warehouse floor. Be ready to look for them.

For overkill difficulty and below, there is a way to get an easy crowbar. In the offices or lunch room, you will find a keycard. That keycard can be used to open up one of the four lockers on the top or bottom floors. Open whichever one has the crowbar.




Once you find a crowbar, start opening up Murkywater shipping containers. The sooner you find the vault, the sooner you can stick a crowbar in and start the temperature climb. You only need one crowbar in order to overheat the vault, although it will take longer.

Once you find the vault and have jammed a fan, use the other crowbar to begin cracking crates containing loot. Each crate will contain one piece of either coke, cash, or gold. Some of the items will be loose, not in crates. Keep an eye out for these. You will have finished once you have a total of 8 bags. Once you have reached eight, jam the remaining crowbars into the vault.

Note: if you do not care about the extra loot, then ignore the above an immediately jam all the fans as soon as you find a crowbar. Ask the host before doing this.

Once you have at least one crowbar in the fans, everyone who doesnt have a crowbar should be gathering forklifts and gathering them at the door of the vault, not the fans. If you are going to just be getting nukes, find 3. If you want all the loot, find more. If that isn't possible or practical, you will need to make multiple trips. Either way, 3 is your minumum for moving the nukes all at once. BE WARNED: You can, and will, be shot, tased, cloakered, or sniped out of forklifts. make sure you take safe routes to your destination.
Once the vault is open, load the nukes onto the forklifts first, saving the loot for last. The nukes are the job objectives, so you need to move them before everything else. As a forklift is filled, move it aside, in a position ready to drive off to the longfellow. Only once you have removed all the nukes should you start adding other loot to them. Gold goes first, followed by cash. Since you can sprint with coke, it is not necessary to use forklifts to move them. However, if you have the vehicles to spare, feel free to do so, but only after everything else has been loaded.

The Longfellow is the aspect of this job that confuses most people, and often times they ignore it, with predictable results. It exists for a reason, and you should always use it. Once you have all the forklifts and loot by it's initial spot, here is what you need to do with it.
Firstly, decide who will be running the nukes and loot. Ideally this should be whoever is a techforcer, or at least has ICTV. The reason for this is that dodging is not viable while you are driving. You are counted as standing still when driving, so your dodge is at it lowest. Snipers and turrets thus are much more dangerous to you than to someone with 289 armor.
Secondly, load up the car. It isn't very important which loot you load first, since you will only be leaving once you have everything. You can load four bags into the Longfellow at a time. Once it is full, the driver will go, alone, to the trainand offload the loot. Repeat four times. On the fourth trip, everyone piles into the car for the final escape.

Everyone who isnt driving has one objective: survive. With three people by the forklifts, this should not be difficult. If you find things are getting sticky, there is a red container near where the Longfellow spawns. Inside there is the safest place to place first aids, medbags, or ammo should you need it. Leave with the driver once all the loot is gone.


ALL CAPS WARNING: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS ANYONE TO TAKE ANYTHING BUT THE LONGFELLOW TO THE TRAIN.

You see? Meltdown may be big, but it is by no means complicated, or even difficult. Sure you move the bags with cars instead of your legs, but you're still just moving bags. Now that you've read this, hoepfully you won't be "that guy" who goes down because he parked a fully loaded forklift between a sniper and a turret.