Payday 3 Rock The Cradle Heist Guide

"Rock The Cradle" is the fourth heist in Payday 3, where the gang teams up with Russian mobster Vlad to steal a cryptoladen hard drive from a shady nightclub. The heist must be completed without triggering any alarms if you wish to obtain the valuable cryptocurrency. In the event of detection, you will have to settle for whatever cash and other valuables you can steal.

To carry out the robbery successfully, you need to know the intricacies and details precisely, and even then, many things can go wrong. With this guide, you have the best chance of escaping with the loot.

Everyone should have a silencer-equipped pistol for this robbery; even a single unsuppressed shot can ruin all your plans.

Rock The Cradle Heist Overview

"Rock The Cradle" can be roughly divided into two parts: infiltrating the VIP area where the crypto hard drive is hidden, and bypassing the security measures to actually steal the hard drive once you're inside. There are two options for each part.

To access the VIP area, you must either forge VIP invitations to show to the bouncers or manipulate the club's sound system to distract the bouncers and sneak in while they are occupied.

To obtain the hard drive, you can either kidnap the club's accountant and force them to open the security gate or reset the power supply of the building to deactivate the lock.

If the alarm is triggered at any point, the crypto hard drive will be wiped and rendered worthless. At that point, your objective changes; you must empty the club's vault and escape with as much loot as possible.

How To Get A VIP Invitation

Empty VIP invitations can be found in the office of the club's entertainment director, Cassandra Rifkin. The easiest way to get there is to go all the way to the back of the club, where you can open the door on the left side, directly across from the VIP doors, using a lockpick.

While picking the lock, crouch down and position yourself as close as possible to the corner of the room. This minimizes the likelihood of the bartender noticing you.

After passing through the door, go up the stairs and enter the door straight ahead. You will be near the DJ booth, and the office is straight ahead and to your right. Be cautious of the security guard patrolling in a clockwise direction and the camera above the office door.

Once inside Rifkin's office, hack her computer. Shade will mark Rifkin's location; she always wears a black suit coat over a red dress. If she is alone, you need to backtrack. Otherwise, send a teammate to intercept Rifkin. She moves slowly within the club, alternating between public and private areas.

When you are behind Rifkin, you can hack her phone. This is a suspicious action, so you should only initiate the hack when you are not being watched. The best place to do this is on the stairs near the main entrance, leading to and from the VIP area.

Stand near Rifkin until the hack is complete; everyone should receive a copy of the QR code required to open the case containing the VIP invitations. Let the player in the office handle this task, and then begin searching for Rifkin's laptop.

The laptop can be found in one of three locations: the booth directly across from her office, the table in the VIP area, or the staff office in the back right corner of the club. Wherever the laptop ends up, be cautious of surveillance cameras.

Place the VIP invitations on the scanner next to the laptop and then hack the computer to overwrite them. Once you have collected the forged invitations, stand next to the bouncer in front of the VIP doors for a few seconds, and he will let you in.

Stand directly behind the doors to the VIP area and crouch down; if you position yourself just right, you can steal the bouncer's access card without him or his partner noticing. This will be very helpful to you in the next section.

How To Get Into The VIP Area Without An Invitation

At least one player must wear a mask to gain access to the VIP area without an invitation. Follow the same route as described above to reach the DJ booth outside of Rifkin's office. Once you enter the area, look to the left for a staircase. If you are wearing a mask, you can jump over the barrier and climb the stairs up to the scaffolding above the club.

Use a suppressed weapon to destroy the cameras on the right and left sides of the scaffolding, and then reconnect the speakers at the four corners. Once all four are set, interact with the DJ booth to change the music in the club.

Shade says you need to capture the DJ, but if you stand directly behind him, you can change the music without him even noticing.

Once the music is changed, the bouncer with the access card will head towards the DJ booth, while the other bouncer patrols the public area. Have an unmasked player wait in the corner behind the upper landing of the stairs, and then steal the bouncer's access card when he passes by.

If you are alone or no one is unmasked, you will need to sneak carefully through the club to reach the VIP area. By this time, the bartender will have left the area, so stay low and move behind the bar. You can just manage to enter the VIP area without being noticed—it's tricky, but not impossible.

Scan the bouncer's access card to open the VIP doors, and then proceed down the stairs. If you are wearing a mask, shoot any cameras you encounter along the way down.

How To Steal The Crypto Wallet

In the VIP area, there is significantly less security personnel, but you still need to deal with some guards, bouncers, cameras, and partying civilians. The crypto hard drive is located behind a locked gate in the IT room, which is in the back corner. The door is typically guarded by a bouncer and a camera, but you can enter from the side, either through a ventilation shaft in the bathroom or a side door in the maintenance area.

Once you're inside, check the board to find out which circuit breaker and switch you need to use to reset the power supply. The electrician's room is immediately on the right when you enter the VIP area. The best strategy is to have someone pick the lock and wait in the electrician's room until another player can confirm which switch is correct.

If you can't restore the power or if you're masked and can't move too much, you can instead take the accountant hostage. You'll find him in one of the poker rooms; look for a man in a suit standing in the corner instead of sitting at a table. Shade will identify him once a player has spotted him.

You should be able to guide the accountant through the maintenance rooms to the IT room; as long as someone takes care of the cameras along the route, you shouldn't have any problems. Push the accountant into the retina scanner, then tie him up again and steal the drive.

The drop-off location is behind the tram; throw the hard drive (and any other loot bags) over the construction materials to secure them. You can then escape through the service elevator, which is located near the stairs to the main club. You can also rob the vault to get even more money from the heist.

Look for wooden crates in the VIP area; they sometimes contain cocaine that you can steal for additional loot.

How To Open The Nightclub Vault

If you fail to secure the crypto wallet or if you simply want some extra cash after the escape, it's time to open the Neon Cradle vault. It is located in a side room in the maintenance area; look for a red cable running along the floor, and you should be able to find it quite easily.

If you haven't triggered an alarm yet, you just need to open the vault by entering the passcode on the keypad. The passcode is located in the accounting office, which is directly across from the electrician's room. There are three codes: one on the desk chair, one in the side storage room, and one in the safe. Find the code that opens the vault, then pack up the money and escape.

If the alarm has been triggered, there is an additional step: Shade needs to reactivate the keypad. Follow the red cable as before until you find an access point and hack into it. Once the progress bar is filled, you can open the vault again as usual.

If an enemy gets too close to the access point, they will interrupt the hacking process until someone restarts it.

How To Escape The Nightclub If The Alarm Is Triggered

If you purchased the "Crypto Wallet" asset during the heist preparation, you have a short grace period after triggering the alarm where you can still steal the drive. Otherwise, it will be immediately wiped. From there, the mission changes. Head to the parking lot and collect the parts of the sky cage left behind by your driver. Place all three bags in the center of the dance floor; this will be your new loot drop-off point.

The bags on the sky cage can still be stolen by police officers or destroyed by cloakers. Protect them during the assault waves!

Once all the money is on the sky cage from the vault, Shade will send a helicopter to pick you up. Shoot out the skylight above the dance floor and defend your position until the helicopter arrives. Then move to the extraction point next to the sky cage.