Starts at level 0. Activates on 2nd assault start (or 1st, if a heist is tagged as "hard" by DSBW). Will increase if amount of enemies on the map is too low, and if the player with highest KPM stat (kills per minute, measured in last 40 seconds) has a KPM higher than a certain amount. Basically the better you are at killing, the higher the level will go.

Levels can go both up and down depending on team performance.

Every level increase will increase amount of enemies that spawn in per squad, for example at level 0 for each 1 light swat spawned, 0 additional light swats will spawn, but at level 4, 4 additional light swats will spawn. This always affects light and heavy swats but only affects certain specials, and only after going up a few levels.

Additionally each level increases max spawn cap of enemies by 10% (default max at level 0 is 50).

Level 1:
Increases amount of rifle medics, tazers, and green bulldozers spawning in.

Level 2:
Increases amount of shotgun medics, cloakers and black bulldozers spawning in.

Level 3:
Increases amount of all spawning in enemies. Adjusts weapons that are used by enemies, making them use only heavier hitting options, but no new weapons. 1 player with highest KPM ratio will receive a 20% damage reduction penalty that is only applied personally to them (if only 1 player is available, it will always apply to them). This is equal to requiring 1.25x the bullets to kill enemies. Damage reduction penalty is only applied a few seconds after moving to level 3, if you manage to maintain it for long enough.
Enemies will start prioritizing shooting players with higher KPM stats whenever possible.
Friendly AI now deals 20% less damage. (Sentries, Jokers and Team AI bots)

Level 4:
Adjusts weapon usage further, allowing enemies to use G36 rifles that deal 375 damage per shot and do not have fall off, along with other heavier hitting weapons. Top 2 KPM ratio players will now receive 33% personal damage reduction, or roughly 1.5x the bullets to kill, if this level is maintained for long enough.
Friendly AI now deals 33% less damage.

Level 5:
Maxed out spawns. If maintanied for long enough, everyone on the team will receive a 33% damage reduction penalty that will stay with players until the end of the heist day.

Whenever you start an interaction, a "hotspot" is created at your position. Hotspot heat level depends on what objective/deployable you have interacted with when creating the spot and how many players are close to this area. Hotspots can also be created at player's location without interacting with anything.

Hotspot's heat level is constantly updated by the mod, and it depends on amount of players in proximity to the hotspot. If a hotspot was left alone for long enough, it's removed.

The mod will dedicate multiple enemies to try and guard top 3 hotspots with highest heat level. Some enemies are excluded from this task. Whenever unit is assigned to a hotspot, they will instantly rush towards it, locate nearest available position, and dig in. They will not move. They defend the hotspot until it's either discarded by the mod's logic or until they die.

This system makes objectives harder to defend, and makes camping harder, since hotspots created at player's positions will constantly have enemies come towards them, because enemies will completely disregard safety and cover searching protocols to try to get to the hotspot as soon as they can.

Works exactly as presented in the GIF above. Any interaction can be interrupted by any enemy.

If you have a cop close enough to your location, you will be cuffed automatically during interactions. This mechanic starts working 1 second after you start the interaction, BUT if your interaction is a player revive, it will be delayed, and only activate after 3 seconds.

To get rid of cuffs, you need to either wait for a minute to uncuff yourself, or one of your teammates needs to come and rescue you. Inspire does not get you uncuffed.

All cuffing mechanics work on other (human) players as well, exactly the same way. If clients have DSBW installed as well, they will be able to handle cuffing on their own, eliminating ping related issues with this mechanic.

Can semi-randomly spawn at the start of an assault. When they spawn, all enemies have a global 50% damage resistance (2x the bullets to kill). Global damage resistance always overrides personal damage reductions that you may have due to a high adaptive difficulty level. Additionally, while boss is active on the level both normal and Bulldozer medics will get a red highlight to help you out a little.

At the start of each assault bosses roll their chance to spawn in. Starting chance is set to 40%. After the roll, regardless of the result, this chance is increased by 15% for the next wave. Note that some heists may force this roll on the very first assault, while others may roll for the first time only during the 2nd wave.

While miniboss is present it increases the adaptive difficulty level by 2, but only for enemy spawns, without additional effects like damage resistance or weapon usage.

If miniboss is not defeated by the end of an assault, it despawns and their debuffs are removed. This can also happen if boss is despawned via mission scripts (like going up the elevator shaft on Beneath The Mountain).

Reduced chances for a stun from 80%-100% every second to 18% every second. After enemy is stunned, they will be stunned for only 1.5 seconds, instead of 3-9 seconds (in vanilla duration depends on enemy type).

This is practically a nerf to Hacker Perk deck, because it's stun effect, and it's spammibility is way to high.
This implementation unfortunately affects standard ECM jammers as well, but oh well, Hacker is just too good.

This change does not disable Hacker's ability to gain health, and dodge for killing enemies affected by PECM, since enemies are still affected by it, they just don't get stunned, and can fight back.

ECM/PECM has 100% chance to stun the "Devil" Miniboss.

Flashbang fuse timer reduced from 3 to 0.9 seconds.
If flashbang was not successfully destroyed, it has a 45% chance to turn into a fire field trap, 22.5% chance to turn into an average power explosive, and lastly a 7.5% chance to turn into a much deadlier explosion.

These grenades do not hurt enemies or civilians.

Light swat have 25% chance to surrender. Heavy swat's chances are set at 15%.
Getting them to less than 33% health will double your intimidation chances.

As a bonus: super light cops and guards, will have 100% chance to surrender regardless of circumstances. These easy to give up cops also can rarely spawn during assaults, making for easy to trade hostages, or converts (don't expect for them to live for long tho).

If you are struggling with intimidations, use relevant skills in the Mastermind tree, get enemies as close to <33% hp threshold, and try getting guard-like cops at the very beginning of the game.

Heavy swat have a 50% chance to use a 225 damage rifle with no fall off, 17% chance to use a 150 damage rifle with no fall off, 17% chance to use a 325 damage slow rate of fire shotgun with fall off, and a 17% chance for a 80 damage high rate of fire LMG with fall off.

Light swat have 50% chance to use a 67.5 damage SMG with no fall off, 33% chance for a 150 damage rifle with no fall off, and 17% chance for a 525 damage shotgun with fall off.

Most special units use weapons with slightly higher damage. All bulldozer types now use deadlier weapons, and can sometimes use the VD12 shotgun with flashbang-like stunning effect.

At adaptive difficulty level 3, lower damaging weapons are removed from this random pool, and only higher damaging options remain. At level 4+, only highest damaging options remain and a 375 damaging rifle can be used by light and heavy swats.

Max possible amount of enemies on the map reduced from 120 to 50. Enemy spawn speed is significantly increased.

Very first assault wave is shorter and easier than the 2nd and onwards. During the first assault wave, enemies from normal, overkill, and mayhem difficulties will spawn in, as 'recon' units. By the end of the first assault, some zeal units will start to appear, but in smaller quantities.

After a regroup, 2nd assault and onwards will be in full force. Acting quick and accomplishing objectives during the first wave is preferable.

Some heists, which are deemed "hard heists" by DSBW, are exceptions to the rules above, and will have a less forgiving first assault, which will last slightly less than 3 minutes, and will still be a bit easier, but nowhere near as easy as standard maps. 2nd assault and onwards have full force.
Maps that are exceptions, are usually made this way due to logical reasons (like Alaska being a set up, so "recon" assault is not needed), or to make maps feel better (like default bank heist, because it has an absurd delay before enemy spawns start).

Second assault and onwards have a duration of 4,5 minutes. After main assault phase is finished, fade begins, and will ALWAYS last it's maximum duration of ~60 seconds. During this phase no enemies spawn in, so you should clear enemies that are left alive, and complete your objectives. After fade ends, regrouping/waiting phase begins, during which enemies also do not spawn.

Escape days will now always have endless assaults.
This was done just to make them harder. They also count as "harder" maps, so they can spawn miniboss immediately.

Captain Winters may now spawn on maps that he usually does not appear on. In such case DSBW will print a welcoming message for him in chat (so that you know it's not some voice line mod).

Instead of building up to 50% damage resistance, captain will now instead call out his position with voice lines over a period of 1 minute, after which he will initiate his new penalties.

New penalty will uncap special limits, allowing for any amount of bulldozers (or other specials) to co-exist on the map at the same time. It will also raise max enemy spawn cap to 150, which will most likely overwhelm you quickly. While captain is present he is also adding 2 levels to the adaptive difficulty, but this does not affect additional bonuses like damage reductions and enemy weapon usage, but only enemy spawn rates.

Lastly, captain Winters can now reappear roughly 10 minutes after his previous appearance.

To make heists last slightly longer and for breacher skills to be more valuable.

• Immortal Dominated cops - may prevent frustrations when playing with randoms
• Gilza - my own weapon/skill rebalancing mod. It makes gameplay overall slightly less dependant on DPS skills, but overall is harder due to harsher weapon control and ammo pick up. This rebalance also the game overall slightly harder, so maybe give it a go on vanilla DS difficulty first :)
• TdlQ's Lobby settings - saves lobby settings properly and allows you to limit players who can join your lobby based on their infamy/playtime but unlike NGBTO will do all these checks while players are connecting, so they wont be kicked after joining, but rather declined on the Crime.net screen
• Anti crash - self explanatory. People sometimes are assholes, and DS difficulty attracts these assholes like no other.
• Peer Mod List Highlighter - highlights mod names with color you specify when viewing player's mods. Helpful for avoiding cheaters.