What are the underlying mechanics of Ammo bag and Medic kit in Payday 2

payday-2

Very similar to this question, except for Payday 2 instead: Do medic and ammo bags run out after a certain number of uses, or after a certain amount of health/ammo dispensed?

I'm trying to figure out how the Ammo bag and Medic kit work in Payday 2 so that I can optimize use of them. I haven't been able to find any reliable information about their underlying mechanics – but I have discovered plenty of conflicting accounts. I suspect some of it may be from early beta.

It appears as though the Ammo bag depletes based on the amount of ammo picked up. It's certainly something more complicated than a simple number of uses… sometimes it disappears after two uses, sometimes after many. I'm not clear on whether or not it is helpful to deplete secondary ammo before using the ammo bag, or if this simply uses up twice as much of the ammo bag. If it's simple a quantity based thing – then optimal use would probably be to only use your most effective ammunition, and recharge as often as viable.

It appears that the medic kit may be a number of charges as it was in Payday: The Heist. This would mean optimal strategy is to only use it when very low on health.

Can anyone confirm, contradict, or elaborate on these hypotheses?

Best Answer

Steam user Faildozer has written a very detailed guide, " PAYDAY 2: The Numbers" ("taken from the game files"). Here is what he has to say about ammo packs, supporting your theory:

The ammo bag starts out with 4 uses, some further info about how usage is counted by the game:

  • It's not split between primary and secondary ammo; there's just one pool of ammo that weapons draw from
  • How much ammo drawn from the bag is based on a percentage of how much ammo you've used so an empty AK draws just as much as an empty M308 which draws just as much as an empty Crosskill and so on
  • A default bag holds enough ammo for exactly 4 full refills (400% ammo if you want to think of it as a percentage)
  • The Enforcer skill that increases the capacity of the ammo bag gives you 50% more ammo per bag (so 6 full refills/600% ammo)
  • The game will always prioritize filling up your secondary first before your primary, so if both your primary and secondary are completely out of ammo, and the bag has exactly 1 full refill left (or 100% ammo) then your secondary will be refilled completely and your primary will still be empty

Medic bags do get used up after 2 uses (without upgrades). Similar to Left4Dead, you die for good if you go down too often, but healing from a med kit resets this counter. So saving them for teammates that went down multiple times already might be worth it.

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