PD2-Protect-Surrendered

A PAYDAY 2 mod that makes surrendered (intimidated) enemies and civilians immune to all damage in loud mode, and allows bullets to physically pass through them.

Features

• Full damage immunity — Surrendered enemies and civilians cannot be harmed by bullets, melee, fire, explosions, or tasers.
• Bullet penetration — Bullets pass through surrendered units instead of stopping on contact, so they won't block your shots at active threats behind them.
• Covers the entire surrender sequence — Protection kicks in as soon as the enemy begins their surrender animation (hands up), not just after they are fully tied.
• Multiplayer support — Works in both singleplayer and multiplayer. See Multiplayer Behavior for details.
• Converted cops (Jokers) are unaffected — Enemies that have been converted to fight for your team still take damage normally, matching vanilla behavior.
• Stealth exception — While the game is in stealth (whisper) mode, surrendered hostages and enemies remain vulnerable as usual.
• Stealth-to-loud transition — If enemies surrendered during stealth and the alarm is then raised, the mod retroactively updates them so bullets pass through.

Requirements

• SuperBLT (or compatible BLT mod loader)

Multiplayer Behavior

Recommended: all players install the mod

When every player in the lobby has the mod installed, protection works perfectly on all machines — no one can damage surrendered units, and there are no visual desyncs.

Host-only installation

If only the host has the mod installed:

• Host — Fully protected. Surrendered units cannot be damaged or killed by anyone. The authoritative game state (health, alive/dead, mission objectives) is always correct.
• Other players — They may see surrendered units take damage or die on their own screens. This is a visual desync only; the host's game state remains correct, so missions will not fail due to "killed" hostages, and surrendered units will continue to function.

Client-only installation (non-host)

If only a client (non-host) has the mod installed:

• Network damage blocking is host-authoritative — The UnitNetworkHandler protection path only blocks on the host/singleplayer authority side.
• Why this is intentional — This avoids client-side network blocking that can create stuck "ghost" units (visible to one player but not interactable or meaningful to the lobby).
• Practical result — You may still see host-authoritative outcomes (including surrendered targets dying) when the host does not run the mod.

This is a fundamental limitation of PAYDAY 2's peer-to-peer networking — see TECHNICAL.md for a full explanation.