So I decided to play GTA V

....And loved it

I had just spent the past couple of months playing Gary Grigsby's War in the East religiously. If you know that game you'll know it's a massive, complex grand operational war game. After playing two German and one Russian grand campaign I was in need of a momentous gaming shift. I needed to buy a new game that was like as far removed from operational wargaming as I could find. Spent a few days on Steam, and GOG and Googling 'best PC games' looking for inspiration.

One recurring thought was 'something like GTA'. Despite enjoying games like the Witcher and Dragon Age, third person games aren't my thing. I will play them if the game is great, but I much prefer first person. I might rate Witcher 3 as the best game of all time, so I'm glad I play them. But first person allows me to become far more immersed in the character I am playing. Just a preference sorta thing.

I hadn't played any GTA game since San Andreas, and that was back in 2004, and even then I probably didn't play more than a few hours before moving on. I didn't grab me.

So back to two weeks ago... Unable to find a game that really lit my fire I had a look at GTA 5. Oh that's right...they added first person. I wonder....

Oh hell with it, it's only $30 and if I hate it no big deal.

But I really enjoyed it. The gunplay, the car chases, running from the cops. The radio, the funny ads, all of the satire. The heists.

And the city of Los Santos. Seriously, a wonderful game world.

I can't remember a game I've played that made me laugh so much.

That was thirty bucks well spent. Not everything was great. I was no fan of Trevor. Despite it being a GTA game and knowing what that means, I still managed to find him repulsive and repugnant, and maybe too far over the top, but he's just one of the characters. Actually, none of the characters really clicked for me, but what did click was me becoming these characters (first person yay!).

So what's the deal with GTA online? Sh!t show? I can't imagine it's anything but. Still, I liked the story mode so much I kinda want to give it a go. But I suspect my enthusiasm would be dashed within minutes of venturing online. Yeah, the game is 5 years old, and didn't even run all that well for me. 170 fps, but with micro stutters that I never did completely eradicate. But it's a wild ride with an amazing gameworld, and really funny.

170 fps is not running good ?

I think the online is still very popular. It's still top 5 on Steam.

Not with the stutters. I was able to reduce this significantly through tweaking, but not completely. And for a five year old game on a fast modern box I would say not running well. But acceptable. It's just that stutter at 130 MPH on the Los Santos freeway isn't good

Does it stutter if you turn on Vsync?

Actually no I did not. Perhaps I should! Maybe it's running too fast?

The advice I read about stuttering said to turn vsynch off in game (which I did) but on in the nvidia panel (which I never did do)

GTA:O was fun but it is a huge grind fest and it is full of people who will troll you.

There is a way to play in a private session though with just friends and that is a lot of fun or to just cruise around by yourself having fun exploring. A lot of the online features only work in public sessions though and that is a real shame because public sessions will give you cancer faster than microwaving your dick.

Yeah I had read that online pricing is insane, and so you need to grind the money to afford it. Not a put-off in of itself, I do play Elite Dangerous after all

But no appeal in having progress erased by internet psychopaths who just affix a sticky bomb to the new car you played weeks to afford. There's insurance and all, but still.

And with the game being so old now, I doubt I'd find a group of friends wanting to play. I think I'll pop in and see what's what. I don't expect to find a great time, but nothing ventured...I suppose ya never know (but can take an educated guess). Not in to pick-up crews, so not sure there's really much for me in GTA:O.

I wasn't expecting to like the game as much as I did, nor to be as impressed as I was with the game world. Just looking for a little more content and since there is no SP DLC, online is my last option.

I play it online now and again, but mostly I like the Stunt Races and making my own in the editor. I think I have made over 50 by now

Is it more fun or more frustrating for you?

Ya know what this game is missing? Grand theft of autos. I mean seriously, why is there no mechanic for me to steal and sell hot cars? Actually, the whole stealing cars thing was a bit of a letdown. Too easy, too little consequence. I could extend my playtime drastically with a more fleshed out system with more danger, and more reward for nicking supercars.The Simeon arc starts down this road but it is over as soon as you crash through the plate glass.

There are a bunch of online missions for stealing cars from your run of the mill cars to very high end cars.

GTA V is cpu intensive, are you on a older system ?

It's a 6700K Skylake , 1070, 16 gigs 'o RAM

I guess others don't get this stuttering?

Thanks Master, that's what I want to do

You can play MOST of the regular online missions by yourself in a closed session. Only some of the bigger missions require help and some of the bigger stuff like heists and etc require a full crew first.

You are still going to be grinding before you can do the missions you want as you have to open the mission givers first but to be fair the first parts of GTAO are pretty fun. its not until you are trying to grind out a few millions that it becomes an issue.

Now I'm somewhat biased since I've been a fan from the old top down 2D version, but this really is a great series. The developer understands how to put out a top notch entertainment product that is superior to any other open world game. I love the feel of the world and how every aspect meshes together into one seamless experience. The online feature while having some drawbacks is great game mode that offers its own unique experiences.

I still play here and there so if you or anyone wants to get together online let me know.

I might just take you up on that, My first time in GTAO was not good. Here's how it went.

Clicked Online and was treated to a long loading screen after which it told me I had yet to create a character, so another loading screen and then to character creation. Threw together one that sorta looks like the dude married to Nicole Kidman. Then was taken to the game opening where you're introduced to a few mechanics. After a brief introduction with Lamar I have to choose a car for a race. I chose the Surge, which as I might have guessed (but didn't) was electric. Which means no cool engine sounds and that won't do. But it had the best acceleration, which I thought would be good in a street race. It was and I won the race easily.

First I am made to go buy some exorbitantly priced clothes and am then tasked with tracking down some gang members to take their stash of less than legal party favors. A shootout ensues against a bunch of NPCs which is pretty easy, but I notice the drugs have jumped in a car and I'm off in my soundless Surge (is this thing on?). Tracked them down and ended up shooting out the tires. Banger bailed and I gunned him down in the street, grabbed the drugs and delivered them to one of Lamar's friends for $500.

Knowing I will probably be killed soon after being dumped in to the game world I pull out the phone and deposit some of my money in the bank so I don't lose it when I die, After a series of messages telling me al of the things I can do I am tasked with stealing a car to be my main hoopty for the early parts of the game I guess. Whichever car you take to the custom shop will get free insurance and a tracker so I can find it when it's stolen. So set off in my silent Surge looking for a good car. Except in online there are a lot more types of cars, but far fewer just sitting around waiting to be nicked and some of them are rank-locked

At this point my enthusiasm is already taking a hit. On the right side of the screen is the text chat. It''s basically endless variations of "who's the modder?" From what I've read there are a lot of hackers in GTAO and it seems I've landed with one in my first server. Undaunted I start driving around Los Santos looking for a likely mark to make my ride. Players are shown on the minimap as dots, so you can see where they are. I just tried to keep my distance at first. On the left side of the screen a steady roll of players killed ticks by. So I can see that it's just mayhem. Deathmatch essentially. No one seems to be doing anything other than killing each other. One guy dies, then another, then four all at once as they kill each other, probably in an explosion.

I get a message to go Los Santos Customs after stealing my car. But I decided to stop by, see what options there were, and then continue my car search. But then I see for this first visit stuff is free, but I don't want to make the Surge my main ride. So I alt-F4 out and more long loading screens.
Back in I finally I locate an Ocelot. This was one of my favorite cars in story mode, and one of my characters hit 146 MPH in it, so I was psyched to get it and find it wasn't rank locked. I drive it to the custom shop to see it's not the F260 that I thought it was and it's some other Ocelot car. Alt-F4 and begin again. Now I have no car at all and am on foot, and players are in helos. Gunships really.

I find a parking deck, which are great places to find cars of course and I begin climbing the decks in search. A message

Hello dbond, your Uber awaits at the top of the parking garage.

Un oh, I've been noticed.

I want nothing to do with it and as I look out the sides of the deck I see a helo in a perfect hover watching me. I climb a deck. He ascends likewise. As I reach the top deck he lands and I get in. Yeah. Well I did and he takes off and we fly across the city and he land at the Vinewood sign. I get out and stop to admire the panoramic vista of the city below. The pilot also gets out and he's a clown. Literally. Green hair. Uh oh, clowns are never good. He pulls out a machete. I pull my fists. Doh. I then pull my starting pistol and shoot him in the face, but he doesn't die. I do from the machete chop.

:"Sorry, I had to do it"

yeah right D-bag.

So I respawn. In the same spot. Seriously? The clown is back in his helo and I try to run away but he chops me up with his rotor blades.

"Sorry, I had to do it"

Homey don't play dat.

What was that that Master had said? You can play MOST of the regular online missions by yourself in a closed session? How to actually do this is not very obvious, but eventually I work out how to start a private server. At this point I am still in need of a car. But now I have no D-bags to trip me up. So I alt-tab so I can do a quick search for opinions on good starter cars. After like four minutes I hop back in to be told I've been idle too long and it reloads the server, but public and once again I am surrounded by sociopaths. What the hell, maybe this server is better. I steal a crap car and evade the cops and begin looking for my new car. I'm driving along and suddenly a message appears that I have invited me to my apartment, long load screen and when I come out of it I am just a camera, nothing else, and am in a hail of gunfire, I assume from a helo. More hackers. Good grief.

So I reload again in a private server and find a car. It's a black coupe, like a 3-series BMW. Take it to the custom shop, then run a couple of missions like bounty hunting. I've played for a little more than two hoursand accomplished little aside from being a hacker or clown victim. What fun.

Still, the solo server stuff gives me more content, but it's a shame that folks can't play this in the right spirit, it's just deathmatch, everyone killing everyone over and over. Not what I want. If I keep at it I can at least develop my character and if I go back in public at least not be equipped like a noob. But my first experience sucked. Once I get some stuff I would be interested in joining HHF and anyone else here that might get the itch to get back in to this game. But public PvP is a complete sh!t show based on last night.

DBond,I wanted GTA V just to play online but you just described exactly why I have resisted it every time I see it on sale.

Well then let's start our own group

There's fun to be had here, but not in PvP it seems. I knew that already, but I still held out hope that things would be different. Recently I made a post here and the uptake was that people suck. Cant recall what I was talking about, but the sentiment is universal, innit? At this point I plan to level up my dude and get some stuff. If anyone's interested in getting something going I'm in.

I'll do a little more private server stuff today. See if I can gain some bank, and get a good weapon. I want to play public, but I hit 100% hacker rate last night and that will not do.

I play The Crew 2 for my arcadey madness fun kick. Sometimes i wish it had the option to get out and do a bit of run and gun and some better upgrade options but for an hour of crazy touring car action with friends it's just straight up good fun.

For my quick action/madness fix I just play Rainbow Six: Siege.

My son plays Crew 2 on the PS4 and has a blast. He plays Forza Horizon 4 too which I got him for Christmas (but on XBox One, he is spoiled)

I played more GTAOSwE (Grand Theft Auto Online Solo with Exceptions) yesterday. Trying to build up some rank and cash and kit. Managed to get to rank 6 which unlocked a lot of stuff and I can play golf now

The exceptions are the fact that even though I am in a private server alone, I can at any time choose a mission and the matchmaking fills the spots with other players and I did that a few times. But once the mission is over it reverts to my private server so I can roam freemode in peace. Had a few really good missions with the dudes I was matched with. So that works pretty well and is sort of a hybrid SP/MP way to enjoy this game.

Aside from a few of these co-op missions, the main way I've leveled so far is bounty hunting (there are only a few, and I managed to accidentally kill one of the targets which cost me ten grand), stealing and selling cars and robbing liquor stores. That's fine for now but sooner or later I'm gonna need a crew to run some of the better missions.

so the Online game is a bit of a grind especially as a lone wolf, but essentially it gives you prompts for everything from your criminal contacts (which you can turn most of off after a while). Once you get to a certain level and filled bank account you can purchase businesses from which you can run your criminal enterprise that includes car theft missions of high end iron, which makes the most money quickly at first so it's a great start, you have to become a CEO (only the most expensive rides should be sold the rest just sit in your special chop shop garage). Many times there are special events which earn you double, Stunt Races, Death Matches, Arena Races etc you can access custom content made in the editor by going to the Social Club webpage or if someone puts them up in game. My in game name is KurtBong, add me and you can find my Stunt Races as well as others by bookmarking them and then pulling them up in game. I'm not sure but I think you have to reach level 100 before you have access to certain weapons/jobs but they removed a lot of restrictions a while back. I have been seeing a lot of new players of low rank so if you can find a few to run missions with it can help you and yes, unfortunately there are some menu users still about and they usually can be detected in game by finding random weird objects show up in odd places, I just find a new session, however if there is no one in the session your missions have way more NPC's attacking you than if there are a few randoms around. The game prompts you to attack each others jobs but I usually leave them alone as long as they do the same.

Thanks Bong! Good to have an experienced player around. I'm a long way from level 100. Making money has been slow. I have about 100 grand now from my shady shenanigans. I somehow lost 54,000 though. I have six $9,030 charges on my bank account. The only thing I see that sells for that amount is the extended mag for the marksman rifle, a weapon which I bought. I also bought six 'boxes' of ammunition. But it looks like I got charged the extended mag price instead of the 100 bucks the rounds should have cost. Bummer. It's possible I screwed up, but if I actually bought the x-mag my rifle would hold 16 rounds instead of the 8 it does. Not sure what happened, but that's a big loss at this stage.

What goals should a new player be looking to reach? I'm thinking a garage first to get the Elegy or whatever it's called.

I became a VIP but don't know how to benefit from that at this point. Are there any jobs there that I could do solo without matchmaking?

What's menu user? Is that another term for a hacker? One server I joined it was snowing. Is that a dead giveaway?

I'm sorta in limbo as I am running out of the easy solo missions and liquor store robberies don't pay much. I do them more for the rank. Stealing cars is fun, but not much money there and you can only do one per day. I can call Simeon, but the 'request job' is locked. How do I start getting his repossession missions?

If you are ever up for hooking up to complete some of the co-op jobs let me know. I don't trust any of the fools I've been running in to.

I think I'll have a look at the contact missions. I was trying to get these by calling the dude or waiting for them to contact me but I see I have to go in to the Jobs section. These look to be a good way to make quick rep and cash, but at level 6 there are only a few open to me I think.

Found this today. Old news for vets, but for anyone like me just starting out there is some good info here, though perhaps some if it may be out of date?

GTA Online Mega Guide

After reading stuff today I think maybe i should forgo the starter garage and go straight for a luxury apartment. I can have 200 grand by tonight so that seems to be the best bet. I get a safehouse plus a garage.

I also see conflicting info on whether PC players get the free Elegy (Nissan GT-R). Perhaps it's been changed a time or two. I'll find out once I buy something with some garage space.

Those contact missions are the way to go. Most take about 5 minutes and net decent cash and cred. The grind was mentioned earlier and so far it's not been a problem at all. Compared to other grindy games, like Elite for example, GTA is a lightweight. Some things are really overpriced, like clothing. But other stuff, like cars and properties are quite reasonable.I've been playing online for just a few days and already have a pretty good ride (the free Elegy/GT-R), a good arsenal and a luxury high-rise apartment complete with a 10-car garage and a view of the beach and the golf course I like playing the golf in this game so I set up shop right next to the course. It's a trendy address.

As a KBM player I've grown accustomed to the controls, the combat and land vehicles are no trouble. But I just can't fly well with a keyboard setup, especially the fixed-wing stuff. Gotta get a controller. I have Dual Shocks and XBox One controllers in the house. Which way to go? The XB1 would be plug and play but the Dual Shock requires some additional software? Would my Cougar work with GTA? Would there be any issue in having a controller set up just for aircraft, but use the KB+M for the rest?

The hybrid way of playing the game is great. I can control how much I am in with other players and how much I am in a private server. The mix works well and eliminates the frustration of griefers and D-bags. I would play in public free mode more if the dots were gone. If there was a setting where the markers for the players were eliminated it would go a long way toward making it more fun.

The additional content is awesome. I didn't think I'd get very far playing public, and after the initial exposure that proved true. If there were no way to play privately I would have given up already I think. Public free mode is the sh!t can, the lowest common denominator. With all of the hackers on top of it it's pretty bad. But being able to play in peace, and occasionally choose to join others for various missions works really well.

Eventually I will want to try the heists, but for that I need help. So if anyone is interested in hooking up and making serious fooking paper let me know There's no way I am going to try that with randoms online.

#%&*$# DBond, now I feel I missed out.
I did buy this on steam last autumn but when trying to start the game I was forced to join some retarded club to be allowed to use the game I just payed for and old and bitter as I am that was a no go and I did a refund.
Been watching the kids play this on playstation for years and thought it could be something casual when not having the effort for flight sims despite having trouble with controls on the kids PS but hoped KBM would solve that for me.

Reading your always detailed reports here makes me think it could have been what I hoped it to be.

Anyhow, please carry on - I'm reading with a smile

Oden my man, how's things?

It's not too late, we can rob banks and cause mayhem together ya know.

Base jump off buildings, race motorcycles, steal drugs from local gangs and cruise the streets in our rocketsleds.

Yeah,, that's Rockstar's Social Club you're talking about. It's required on PC to sign up, but it does net you a few goodies, like the free GT-R, and there are some tie-ins to RDR 2. I just registered and that's it. Log-in is automatic and not intrusive at all.

I've done it all with no micro-transactions. I just bought the base game and that's it. Sometimes the game is bundled with a 'Shark Card', which is a way to pay real money for GTA cash, but as I found it's just a shortcut and progression in the game is fine without spending any additional cash.

I was reading some articles about GTA 5. It is the highest-grossing entertainment thing ever. Not franchise, but as a single release nothing has ever made more money, films included. They've also made 500 million in microtransactions alone and sold 90 million copies of the game. Good grief.

There was one player on a forum who said he has bought $3,000 in Shark Cards. SMDH.

Would love to do that and I'm sure we'd have a blast but you 'mericans need to buy a new useful timezone!

/runs-in-circles-mumbling-swedish

This is true, as we have learned in Falcon. Svedenland is not well-placed honestly. It should be closer, but that's obvious.

But it all comes in to alignment on Sundays, don't ya know?

See here's the thing. As I said, sooner, or maybe later, I want to run the heists. For the cash money see? And if you complete them all, in order, and with the same crew you get an extra 10 mil. That's a lot of paper. So in order to cash in on this I need to get a crew together. So let's say there were three others beside me here who wanted to play GTA Online instead of endlessly discuss politics, movies and celebrities... just thinking out loud.... we could get together once a week on Sundays and get this done. Or just play golf or race jetskis...hang out at the strip club smoking ganja... just stop by the Richards Majestic, apartment 51 I'll host and even pay for the heist

But yeah, I know with times zones and the game being old and not everyone's cuppa, that I will not be successful in this quest. I don't want to play with randoms, but folks here so we can discuss it later over champagne and strippers. What's not to like. I'm just level 20 at this point, so a complete noob. Come noob it up with me

Apply within

Yes, the Ellegy is free but you have to have a garage or a house/apt, you can own a few of those and Bennie's does a retro customized version as well. You will hemorrhage cash all the time for various "services" and it used to be you'd pay Insurance on player personal vehicles you destroy although that was shut down because hackers had figured out a way to weaponize it and what we used to call hacking is now a paid for in game menu that one can buy to cheat in game.

Thanks, yes I bought an apartment and have the 10-slot garage and got the Elegy. A yellow one at that. It's quick and handles great. Really good car to have for free. My first car was a Sentinel, which was pretty OK, especially in the city. But top end was barely over 80 mph and that was too slow if I happened to be being chased on the freeway. So the upgrade to the Elegy once I bought my digs was a big bump in cop evasion ability.

The menu users just ruin it. I've been reading about it and how Take Two is going after these guys with the legal hammer. And how so many people are moaning about it. Boo hoo we can't mod. I expected a sh!t show in public but it easily surpassed my expectations. Really bad. That's why I need a crew and they can join my private server whenever I am on. And right now that's every night. East coasters would be particularly good. Well anywhere this side of Svendenland

The first heist is a two-man job right? Only need one more gangsta to run that one. But I'd be up for just about anything that doesn't include me piloting or stunt racing.

Having cleared the mountain of applications to play GTAO with me off my desk I realize I am about 4 years too late. Well the offer stands if anyone gets the itch. I really need 3 regulars, but looks like I will be spending more time with random fools. Actually, it's a mixed bag. I've had some really good runs with some random players, and had some turn out not well at all. That's the trouble, ya just never know and it's rather inefficient, to invest the time and have it all go titsup because the dude bails or gets killed in the opening seconds. I'm no GTA expert myself, but coordination helps a lot and a regular crew will get that down.

Hit rank 31, so decent progress, though ranks are unlimited and looks like there are players over rank 1000, so I am still a neophyte in the GTAO world. I've managed to gain a nice apartment in a luxury highrise complete with a huge garage, big screen TV and a bowl of fruit. Have three cars (GT-R knockoff (free), 3-series BMW knockoff (stolen) and a Grotti Carbonizarre, which looks mostly like a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta with maybe some Aston Martin styling thrown in. That one I bought with cash money. When I was just a low level street thug I dreamed of owning a Ferrari and now that I'm rollin' in it I splashed the cash. I also bought a street bike, an Akuma as it's called. Super inexpensive and very fast, but until I work out a controller, riding bikes is a bit of a mess on the kB+M.

Because I am playing strictly in first person, the cockpit view is very important. A high seat/low dash sort of arrangement works best and means some cars jut won't do. Especially muscle cars with the long bonnets.

A typical day starts with a round of golf, which is right around the corner from my digs. It's a 9-hole course and I play twice for 18. Usually shoot high-60s, shot a 66 yesterday. Golf is fun in GTA. From there I spend the day running missions like stealing cars, assassinations and retrieving various items for rich people. I also look for the Gang Attacks and get in to some combat. Maybe stop by the custom shop and add the latest unlocked mod, stop by the shooting range for a match against some random dude online, or just go for a cruise and rip through the streets at insanely high speeds.

One fun thing to do is hang out in the apartment where I am safe and watch the mayhem of the other players on the streets below. One rather entertaining helicopter dogfight took place right outside my window yesterday. People are nuts....

Are you driving with the keyboard ? I found that very difficult, too twitchy.

I am yes. I've gotten good with it. Not ideal, but certainly good enough. Have even won a few races online.

But for flying I need a controller. I tried getting a USB Dual Shock to work. I downloaded the DS4 Windows program which is supposed to make it work, but I failed and not sure how to get it working. At first it said device working properly, but seconds later it went to unrecognized and it no longer even makes the USB connect/disconnect tones. Not sure what to do.

Not a big console guy and maybe it has something to do with the controller being synched to my son's PS4. Perhaps a new controller would work. I have no idea really. But until I get some sort of analog control, flying is too difficult. I can manage in helos, but planes are a #%&*$#.

These games are really designed for use with a controller. I'm a big PC guy but I still have a wireless Xbox 360 PC controller as its the only choice for some games in my opinion. I still play all the older games like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Hidden and Dangerous 2 and so on with mouse and keyboard as that's the only way to play and what they were designed for but some of these newer games are designed centered around a controller. Newer stealth games like the Styx series or the newer Tom Clancy titles benefit from a controller too. The controller gives you that slow analog movement control that you need. One of those will be perfect for a third person game where there's also driving and flying. However not every game gets the shooting mechanics, inputs and sensitives right with a controller either. Its rare to find a game that makes a controller intuitive and accurate across the board. I think a controller would really help you in this game DBond. Hopefully you can get that controller working. If not, the Xbox 360 controller is probably one of the best and its been invaluable to many of my PC games.

I bought a hard copy of GTA5 but was unable to get it to work through my poor iNet connection, so I purloined a cracked version for me to play solo on my own machine, which was always what I wanted to do. It's a great game, I'm an explorer by heart and my way to enjoy this game is to explore everything that I can. The game engine is very robust and difficult to fool

I don't have any qualms using a cracked version given I have the hard copy (with map) on my shelf, but it does mean I've been unable to play any online version of this. Not a great loss for me, but I do see that other people have a scream playing it.

Rockstar Social Club isn't what you think, it's where you keep your friends list and it allows you to join on said friends. On the webpage for it is how I share my content that I make in the editor. And as an interface anytime there is some major update to get rid of hackers you have to sign in through it.
It has been a part of every online Rockstar Game for a while now

Ah ok.
But I don't have friends so maybe it's a no issue

I'll give this another go and join you this weekend DBond.
Maybe Coot, DM and "KRT not Kurt" too will join us!

There's no doubt. Hoping I can get it working. Maybe I should just order a XBox controller and be done with it.



Oh man, it's on now. Los Santos will never be the same

We can get you ranked up in short order, If you want to give it a go before then, this is how I start an Invite Only online session. Feel free to join public, but I'd recommend ranking up a bit first.

I start GTA to story mode. Once that loads, hit Escape click Online, and click play GTA Online. Double click actually and that will drill down to additional options like Solo, Friend Only, Invite Only. Solo is limited, but the other two are good. Actually I've only used Invite. Double click this and you are in GTA Online with no one else. Some missions with matchmake, but you are free to roam the gameworld, steal cars, rob stores, run missions, practice at the range and lots of other stuff. And you'll be ranking up as well. Be sure to set it to free aim (if you want/use a mouse) to get a 25% bonus to rank points

If you want to run missions, hit Escape, click Online then Jobs, Play Jobs, then Rockstar Created and finally Missions. More missions unlock with each new rank level, and there are only a couple available from Rank 5. But these are a good way to make money and gain rank, some easier than others. The ones to steal cars are good, and often you don't fire a shot. Just steal the car, evade the law and get the car to the dealership. Counterintuitively, the longer you take to do them, the more they pay. If you wait the full 15 minutes they pay the most. This way you can make 10-15k every 10 or 15 minutes and gain ranks quickly. If one were grinding, you'd try to do them one after the other every 4 minutes for the best money/minute. But I just take my time, make as much as I can and move on to a different thing.

If you play a bit before Sunday you'll get a car, some cash and weapons and maybe an apartment, garage and more. One of those Shark Cards can catch you up quick, but I am not recommending it.

Looking forward to it Oden, this will be a lot of fun. Quite a departure from evading SAMs over Belgrade isn't it?

Oden, once you are registered let me know what your gamertag is and I will add you in the Social Club. And anyone else that wants to join. We are going to give this a go on Sunday, not sure what time, but probably early afternoon eastern. I'll wait to hear from O.D (sounds street :)) and see when he is available. I envision this as an open SimHQ server, no requirement to join others in their shenanigans. But it's not a griefer's paradise, there are plenty of public servers to get your groove on if indiscriminate killing is your bag.

The main reason I want to get this going is to get a crew together to run the heists. So hopefully we can eventually get four of us, that are team and goal oriented, to run these and rake in the long dollars. Earlier I said that if you do the heists in order, with the same crew you get 10 million. But it actually is that, plus no deaths to get that big money. There is also a bonus for the first time you do a heist. So this should mean some really good money for those who take part. The first heist doesn't pay well, but it has no up-front costs to the host and only requires two bangers to run it.

Bonuses are like this:

First time - $100,000 (first try)
All in order - $1,000,000 (in order)
Loyalty - $1,000,000. (same crew)
Criminal Mastermind - $10,000,000. (all the above and no deaths)

For the first session at least though I suspect we'll just be feeling it out. Missions, golf, cruising, whatever. Just have fun and rip sh!t up. Make sure things go smoothly and work out any kinks. Struggling to figure out a good PTT solution. No four-way radio switch in my GTA setup Hoping to avoid open mic. What do others do? Thinking of one of the side buttons on my mouse that I never use for anything.

My tag in game is (edit: PM me). I will change it once I think of something sufficiently cool and street. Address is Richards Majestic apartment 51. Just ring the bell. I've set my stuff to be accessible to friends and crew. Don't steal my stuff.

If you're new, I'd recommend working towards an apartment. They are 100% not necessary. But it gives you a safe house, and a safe place to spawn. If it's one of the high-end ones you get the ability to hosts heists (has the planning board). But the main reason to get one (or simply a garage, even the two-car one) is so you can get the free Elegy RH8 sports car. It's easily one of the best performing cars in the game and great to have early and for free.

Funny thing is that I had so many people call me Kurt that I made my in game name KurtBong

It's gotta be just Bong, doesn't it? Yeah, Bong.

Are ya free Sunday Bong? I imagine you have a helicopter and a Karuma? Good pilot? Join us

It would be really good to have someone who has done this, do this. Less pain, more gain.

DBond you need the High End Apt to run Heists (and the Garage to keep cars). Later when you become a CEO you'll need an Office and you'll likely never set foot in your apt that much. As a CEO you'll have businesses like a car theft ring for which you'll need a Garage to keep stolen cars in and sell from, you'll also have a few other "businesses" like a Weed Farm, Meth Lab, Underground Bunkers, the list is staggering.
I'll probably be busy Sunday, isn't the Superbowl this week or is it next?

Oh I got that stuff. Well not the CEO warehouses. But the other stuff yeah. I'm good to roll. Made some good money running Sightseer yesterday.

Is this thing on?

Superbowl is this Sunday, but not until 6 right? Plenty of time.

For readers holding off GTA due to console controllers and not sure KBM will help I will now assure your it does.
Just frigging amazing!

Enter game I play the intro for the 58th time but now 1st time with mouse (and 1st person) and it was all an old bitter ArmA player needed.
Suddenly I could hit things and got so eager I ran right into a cop hiding behind a car and I got headshotted or something - had to redo this intro just like I've done on PS4 so many times but now with a smile - sooo much easier.

First car theft as the black guy was a new game for a thumb-invalido like me, holy moses so much easier - first time I delivered the bloody car with the hood still on.

So, thank you DBond and Bong for making me installing this at last (Social Club was a hassle though, seemed I had an account on my email since earlier attempts and had to reset and God knows what to get this going)

Will try to become less nooby until weekend DBond, but I can not promise anything but you'll be the boss and answer for our success

(and yes, this is some steps away from hunting SA-6 launchers over Balkans haha)

Awesome, and I agree. First person has made the game fun for me. Especially combat, and moving during combat. Much better for me. I lose SA to a degree, a third-person player is going to see a lot more, but so what. Happy to hear you didn't hate it straight away

Yes, do some stuff and rank up. Get some wheels and a good weapon. Skills aren't important, but ranking up increases health, and that's vital, especially when we run heists. I had read it's 20% increase for every 10 ranks, but don't know if it's accurate.

Golf is good for rank points and increasing strength. No money in it though. Got 4350 RP for shooting a 66 yesterday. Easy points.

You'll be given a mission to bring a car to Los Santos Customs to claim your first permanent vehicle. Take your time and choose one that you think is cool. Don't be like me and drive in to LSC with a car you don't want. I started with a black Sentinel, but there are plenty to choose from. The Sabre is a popular first car, but not the best in first person, at least for me. The view is paramount if you also choose to drive in first person. So steal a bunch and try them out. You may be driving this car for a while (until you get a garage for the Elegy)

When ready to quit your session, be sure to choose 'Leave GTA Online' from the Online menu to be sure it saves your progress. It will take you back to story mode.

To avoid getting kicked for idling, bring up the internet on your phone and flip on one of the videos in the Entertainment section. Like Princess Robot Bubblegum. Some of these are really funny. That way you can go grab a drink or walk the dog or whatever and not worry about it.

Another tip for quick, mostly-easy cash. Check the Daily Objectives. Every day there are three Daily Objectives. If you complete them you get 25k. If you do this every day for a week it's a 100k, and for a month 500k. Some days an objective might be one I won't get, like kill 20 players. But other days it's cake. Like yesterday, it was join a race, blow up 10 cars and go to the shooting range. I did the blow up 10 cars by running the Blow it Up missions which meant another 25k, so 50k in less than 30 minutes, not counting the cost of the explosives

Access this through the interaction menu (M by default) This is one of the most important menus, you'll be using it constantly, but as a new player it isn't obvious. Here you will eat snacks (restore health), put on body armor, put on a mask (use one when robbing stores!), access CEO/VIP missions and vehicles and lots more.

Anyone know of a good resource showing car paint jobs and the colors used? It would be good to be able to respray with less experimentation (and expense!)

I am just full of news.... and it's mostly good

Promotion this month. Log in to GTAO every weekend in February and you'll get 250k each. So do it for the full month and that's a cool million free. So just logging in this weekend gives enough money to buy a high-end apartment. Not bad.

Buzzard Helos are 35% off right now. Lots of other discounts (brake and engine mods!), but I want me some wings.

I am going to stop by the local Staples after work and see if they have any XBox Controllers. If I leave Staples with one, I will splash some cash on a whirly-bird. That'll make getting around Sunday a bit of a hoot.

If your going to get a wireless XBox controller make sure its one that comes with the Windows dongle or you wont be able to use it on your PC.

Yeah good call Mark. I am also wise in the PC ways and knew to avoid having to deal with connectivity, recharging and wondering where I put it. So I managed to snag a USB controller and it worked straight away. Staples only had a Logitech Dual Shock knock off, so I had to drive 20 minutes farther to Walmart, but they had the goods. 20 bucks, not bad.

Fired up GTA and went to Flight School and tested it out. That's better. My character's flying skills are as low as they can be, so I'll need some seat time. Rather unsteady at this stage. But once I get those skills up things should level out.

After doing the first Flight School test in the jet I exited and then hopped a security fence at the airport and stole a helicopter. Not really interested in fixed wings at this point. But i needed to see how flying helos with the controller was. This went well, though 'turbulence' is pretty bad. I thought it was my flying skill being so low, but apparently it's more to do with turbulence.

After that initial successful experiment, I bought a Buzzard attack helicopter. It's on sale at the mo (it was free at Christmas! Grrrr), And I then spent virtually the whole evening flying it around, getting the hang of it. I used it to run the Sightseer mission a few times. Easy peasy. Flying among the buildings downtown, or under bridges is good fun. Just wish it didn't wobble all over. It is exactly like being in a small boat in rough waters. Even in a hover it just bobs about. But the utility it will bring, the speed moving around the map will be a big help. Plus it's fun and imparts a certain cachet upon my character

In no time at all I was flying to my apartment or office and landing on the roof and then taking off to go somewhere else. The controller makes all the difference of course. Just wish I could use Track IR lol. I can actually spawn two Buzzards, so Oden can have one too.

I'm curious about the mechanics of getting a invite session going. I know how to launch the server, but the inviting and comms is a mystery, Does the in-game comms work flawlessly and automatically? I have the setting for comms as 'friends and crew' so I assume that when Oden joins my server we can talk just like that? This is why we need a grizzled GTAO vet to lead the way and make this seamless.

Do we need a backup plan like my old TS server (not sure I can get that up and running though)?

Yeah I was thinking we will use SimHQs TS at first, at least to get past any joining issues. I haven't had my mic hooked up since I was playing Elite, almost a year I think. Gotta give that some attention before Sunday.

Was peeling a friday-orange in the kitchen and it struck me we have the simHQ TS - now I see you are more awake than I am haha.
G'f'da..

I'll enjoy it while it lasts

Oden and I might do a test this evening. If all goes well we are on for a Sunday romp. Anyone else want to get their gangsta on? Post here or PM me with your Social Club handle and I will add you. I will only add you if I know who you are so be sure to contact me about it. PC version of course.

As mentioned I see this as an open server for SimHQ members. Max is 30 players so no problems there. If you want to try/play GTAO but avoid the hackers and griefers this is the place to do it. The idea is no different really from our Falcon servers. An open server where you can do whatever you want, join others or go lone wolf. But I'll kick those who ruin it for the rest.

I've been gaming for 30+ years. I have played a lot of games. But few I have tried have the potential for pure fun that this one does when playing with friends. Oden and I are both low level, noobs really, so don't hesitate to join us even if you've never played or are low level yourself. Aside from the fun, payouts and rewards are increased when playing with friends/crew so you'll rank and get rich faster as well.

But we need to get it working first.

There is a way to have a session to yourself for at least a little while. One person disconnects his internet for a moment and ends up in a solo session, he then invites everyone to a mission and you will all be in that session with no other players, if you can get two groups as rivals (even if you aren't fighting each other) you will have less NPC's to contend with in those missions.

Wait what are you saying? If I start an Invite Only session it can have people I didn't invite? We aren't in a private server?

I mean, why do the network trick instead of just host an Invite Only. What am I missing or misunderstanding?

Feeling a bit panicked, I did some searching and from what I can tell, correct me if I am wrong, the network trick is used to clear a public lobby, correct? This is desirable when you want to be able to play with just friends but have the full suite of missions available (like crates or I/E, which require public). But we don't care about those missions and are fine with the slightly reduced options in Invite Only. I hope it works like I think it will. Doubt creep....

Maybe "coop" as we old farts prefer isn't a thing anymore?

Anyhow, as you say evading cops is not by going fast but making the right turn and stay clear of their cones, just got away after catching a bounty-dude driving a not-sure-what-it-was but it looked like an old phone-pole repair mans best used vehicle (didn't bother to call insurance for my personal car after my latest failure)

But I got me another $10k at Maude's.
Level 5 now and a good way towards 6 (sounds like Wizard level 5 with a green lettuce hat.. or sorts of).

Also received a treasure "picture", is there any other clues than that low-pixel picture?
I mean, if it was Chernarus I would probably know exactly what spot it is and 7 different events I've had in the vincinity but here in this new world I feel a bit lost.

This is getting more fun the more I understand of it.


Edit:
Btw, I have pretty severe loading times into Online mode, is it just me?

The only clues are in the email and the pic. I know, not much to go on. There are 20 possible locations for the first clue, so I cannot help much unless you posted a screen of the email. A chime tone will be heard if you are near the spot.

Now at level 5 you will get the contact missions and these will really get you ranking up quickly. Run the two we talked about in the PM. These are easy and a quick way to progress. If you didn't get them when hitting rank 5 you might have to meet Simeon.

Yes, "Kite, Don't Run" should be the evasion mantra

Load times can be long yes, a bit shorter in Invite Only. But it can take a few minutes. Normal, I think.

Just had a blast online with DBond, earned some good cash and looking forward to buy an apartment soon
Really recommend others to join us, much much easier when more than one.

Yeah that was fun, thanks for joining Oden. It was very easy to get hooked up and play missions. It was what I hoped it would be, but certain would not be

Can't believe it was so smooth really.

Anyway, as Oden and I are two straight-up gangstas for real, I managed to capture this

Sitting on the sofa watching Princess Robot Bubblegum is hard core.


Let's do something really impressive indeed!

This is how our session went, in case anyone is wondering what it's like. Of course, this was the first time for either of us to try this.

We met up on SimHQs Team Speak. There are in game comms, which we will try, but we wanted to be sure we could work through connection issues. Of which there were none!

We had set one another as friends in the Social Club, and once I launched the server I needed to send an invite to my man Oden, which he saw straight away and was able to join me, this took just seconds. Once Oden was in, I jumped in a helo (Buzzard) to go pick him up and take him on a sightseeing cruise. Spotted him and landed in the middle of the street. But he was unable to get in my helicopter. Oden alt-tabbed out to search a solution, but not immediately found. After logging off later, I looked it up. The reason you couldn't get in Oden was because I used the CEO menu to spawn that choppa. Only players in my organization can get in CEO vehicles. That associate request I sent would have fixed it (you would become my employee) , but we didn't get around to accepting it, as we jumped in one of my cars and went looking for action.

I can spawn a Buzzard for free from the CEO menu, but with the organization restriction described above. Or I can call Pegasus to get one, but that has a $500 fee. Not a lot of money, but more than free. So that's worked out, and means if you want a helo I can spawn one for you, or you can join my setup and enter these vehicles. So we can fly around in our own private helicopter squadron if we want

So we leave the helicopter there in the street and steal a car nearby and head to my place. Oden's in the market for his own digs, so I want to show him mine so he can get an idea of what the high end apartments are like. We drive in to the garage, and go to use the elevator to go upstairs. But Oden is denied. I suggest he go around front and ring the bell, while I go upstairs. He does and my bell rings and a menu comes up and I can let him in and give him a quick tour. At this point my dog is crossing his legs and so we need to take a break, which is why you see us watching Princess Robot Bubblegum. After Oden left later I sold the 'taxi' we borrowed for 3 grand.

I asked Oden if he wanted to try a mission and he was keen, so we fired up a contact mission (Where Credit's Due), which is easy. Steal a pink Zion from a beauty salon and drive it back to the dealership, evading the cop response along the way. I drove to the location and Oden drove the mark, with me in the passenger seat. Oden drove it like he stole it and lost the cops like a pro and back to the delivery spot. A cool 10k payout apiece plus the rank points.

In the vote screen right after we chose the mission Rockford Roll, which is another car steal mission. It loads in seconds and we are off to the location. We spot a shady looking car around the corner with a couple of guys sitting it in looking like the Feds, earpieces and dark suits. So Oden hops out and I place my car in front of the Fed's car, so if they try to pursue, they will need to negotiate the obstacle and buy us some time to get away.

We jump in the mark car with me driving. Again we evade the cops, return the car, 10 k plus points. Easy money.

It's rather late in Svendeland so we do one more, this time with a little gunfire. It's a straightforward mission (Pier Pressure) to take out some bangers under Santa Monica Pier and steal their meth. I asked Oden about his weapons and he had just the pistol, so we drive to Ammunation and Oden buys a nice assault rifle. Then off to the beach.

We come up with a tactical plan and open fire, gunning them all down. I take a number of hits and have to change my armor, but we both live through it and Oden grabs the meth and we drive it back to the delivery spot. This one payed out 15k plus points and Oden got a good amount of ammo from the dead esses. So in about 30 minutes we made 35k and Oden ranked up like three times. Good stuff.

Time was limited since it was late. We wanted to play some golf, but time ran out. We will do that Sunday, and I'd like to try some racing too. We are looking to play around noon eastern tomorrow so PM or post if you want to join us. As mentioned in my last post, I was surprised by how well everything went. Connections are fast and smooth, the invite/join stuff is fast, missions load quickly. No troubles. To have everything go so well on the first try is fantastic, and I am looking forward to tomorrow. Got some money to make

Good summary.
I just played some Golf and managed 5 out of 9 on par, the other ones will not be discussed here
Also ranked 12 now, good times good times.

OK nicely done, we will play a round tomorrow. That's easy RP and fun too.

Rank 12 already? Movin' up!

Which apartments are you considering?

Haven't really put much thought to it due to cost (waiting for that February 250k)

Edit
and wait! I forgot to tell I made that pier thingy all solo, Britsh L85 assaultrifles makes a difference

Good work. I found out we don't get the weekend money until next weekend.

"As the result of a class-action settlement with the citizens of Los Santos, Alan Jerome Productions – the fine people who brought you the blood-thirsty hybrid of automotive combat and gladiatorial competition that is Arena War TV – has been ordered to compensate the people of Southern San Andreas with up to GTA$1M each. Jump into GTA Online each weekend in February and you'll be awarded a GTA$250K gift that will be waiting for you in your Maze Bank account when you log in the following weekend. "

https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/events

Do you have a controller Oden?

I can wait a week no worries.
If I buy a slumhouse with a rusty garage, can I sell that later and buy a high end apartmenet next weekend?

Not using controller no (ps3, ps4 and xbox style you mean, right?)

Yeah, that style. No worries, just wondering if you'd be able to fly a helicopter comfortably.

You cannot sell a house, but you can trade it in, at a loss (50%?). Not sure what the loss is. The low and medium end apartments are cheap so it wouldn't mean much in the end.

I recommend you do this so you can get a garage and the free Elegy.

Check this link. Very useful for choosing a property.

GTAO Property Database

You could simply buy a garage to get the Elegy, with no living quarters. Cheapest one is the one on Popular Street for just 25k (2 cars). But a fool needs a place to crash right?

124 Popular Street Garage

Cheapest Apartment is 112 S Rockford Drive . Not the best neighborhood. Poor schools. Well water. That one is 80k

One of the ones I was considering is 4 Hangman Ave . Eventually I decided to just hold out for high end. But I liked this one aside from the access, twisty roads. Not far from Franklin's house in single player. But it's 175k so probably better to hold out. Still, a good location, aside from the access, a nice back yard and a 6-car garage.

If I were looking for a low end I would probably choose 1115 Boulevard Del Perro . 2-car garage, price is a reasonable 93k. Good location near the beach, and a couple of blocks from my office (and my helicopters)

"With a funky retro decor and carpeted throughout, you can literally smell the history in this Del Perro apartment that features an almost unobstructed ocean view for an almost unbeatable price. Includes 2-car garage."

If you don't buy one today, we can jump in the Buzzard and go on a tour of the properties you are considering tomorrow.

DBond.
Can you lend me some cash?


"The Aquarius Yacht "
8,000,000 only!

What a bargain!

Now I need to jump from a bridge haha, not getting that robbing small stores am I?

Sure you can have whatever I have. You might be a few million short though

The yachts are cool, but virtually every comment I've read says the player regretted the purchase. That's a heavy bill. But if I had millions to burn why not. You get four jetskis!

No you won't get that much from hold ups, but jumping off bridges pays even less.

I can't believe no one else has expressed interest in this. Well, so be it! We can roll as a deuce. Who needs to do heists anyway?

There is plenty to do otherwise.

Well, I bought it again!

We gotta recruit you letterboy. We need some gunmen and getaway drivers

Gave my motorcycle another go now that I have the controller and whoa nelly! What a difference. I like the bikes now.

For anyone looking for a street bike I recommend the Akuma. Insane acceleration and fantastic handling all for 9k. 9k! You can make that in 5 minutes.

Got myself an apartment now but not as stellar views as you DBond.
Pretty good side view towards the Golf Club but the main view over the beach is blocked by a bloody Bank complex.
I need some good TNT for that.

10 car garage with 7 vehicles currently - that's what I'm doing at the moment, out stealing cars (shame on me).
Found a Pontic Firebird I think it is, I'm not that good with cars, and it had pretty good handling so I drove by a paint shop and had it yellow and blue to make it my swedish car - anti-volvo as I now call it.

Unless my private profile blocks it you can view it here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1643666488

Also got me a cab (possible mercedes?) that sounds just raw and awesome and by far my best car to date.

Doing good so far, I can still work on my driving skills (as you well know DBond haha) but I'm getting there.
I think I manage high speed mental driving on the highways better than downtown zig-zag mayhem.

I like your style

Which apartment did you buy? What's the address? I'll stop over later

The Anti-Volvo eh?

Should we try the in-game chat system today? I had to go to Settings>Voice Chat and turn it on. I also had to adjust volume there (it was all set to zero). There are other settings such as sound FX and Music volume during voice chat plus Mic volume/sensitivity etc to set. It may take a little experimentation to get the balance right.

Or should we stick with TS since it works fine?

I think stick with TS, since it would let a new guy contact us and get in while we are playing. Let's use the BMS room since I'm sure it's empty.

Oh yeah... go to the internet and the Legendary Motorsports website. Sort by price and find the Annis Elegy RH8 (if set to ascending price it will be the first one since it's FREE!) Buy this car.

Make sure there is one open slot in your garage, which, according to your post, may not be as you've become quite the car thief

I think you should aim to get in to the Import/Export business down the line. I will also be partaking in that line of work. Once I can afford to get in that is.

Aside from the Akuma bike I recommended earlier, I'll add the Bati 801. At 15k this one is also a snip. I bought one now that I can actually ride the bikes well. It's faster than the Akuma, but doesn't accelerate or handle as well but looks fantastic, nicer than the Akuma in my view.. And it sounds like a moped. But it is extreme performance for a bargain basement price. It's interesting how they did the vehicles Some of the best ones are ridiculously inexpensive. And others are ridiculously expensive and aren't all that great.

A few random screens I've snapped in the past few days

I've been flying the helicopter often. Can I increase FOV in aircraft? Everything's done in first person



It's a thug's life. Arriving at my chopper to go on a mission



Cruising in the Elegy



Preparing for takeoff on a Sightseer mission



Anitaliasing was off as I experimented with some stuff, so please excuse that.

Nice pics.
I was planning for a club or something to launder money and maybe get some continous income, I have no idea how it works.

The free car has now been taken care of, thanks for heads up.
Still 2 slots free though
Last few cars I tried to steal and hide in my garage was blocked with a notice, would been appreciated if they told me before I took it.

Voice, yeah TS is ok and good for people wanna try this out in our secure team
But it would be nice if we can run a short test, I've noticed the settings just like you and it seems to be voice activated only.

Anyhow, need to finish my dinner creation deluxe to be ready in an hour or so.

I'm on Team Speak now. Launching the server.

If anyone is interested in joining, hop in the F4 BMS Team Speak room and we can add you so you can join. You must complete the online tutorial to join an online session.

See you over Los Santos.

I don't know the Teamspeak address or your in game name I thought we had a SimHq server on the website but I don't see it. In game tap the Home key go to the social tab and search me; KurtBong, add me as a friend. I have facilities and stuff we can run some of your missions and get you cash to move up in the world. I also have a huge library of custom races both community made and my own. There are a lot of cool skill games as well.

GTA intensifies.
Mr Bong joined us with his rank 15 brazillion and came around in a flying car!
As a shaky rank 16 I was swept in into the most intense action to date.
We drove some M2HB equipped monster into an army style base and all hell broke loose.
We got what we came for and started our getaway with cops all over the place and after one helluva ride we failed but man, that was action.

I need to take a shower after this.

Robbing stores suddenly came into a very different light

I have some work to do haha.

Will we see letterboy join too? Rumors on CNN says so!

Yea, that was complete mayhem. Glad Bong joined, The dude has all the toys and it was cool to try some of them out. So we kind of got away from missions and moving on up to spend time playing with the toys and checking out Bong's empire.

A few screens from today's action.


Oden stops by my office and immediately raids my bar Dude doesn't even need a glass. Note the bullet holes on his back. no wonder my man needed a drink



Bong getting down with the minigun



Bong making champagne rain



Hey's there's Oden

That was fun yesterday fellas, thanks for joining.

Seeing all the stuff Bong has amassed was cool. Lots of supercars, specialty vehicles, and aircraft and properties. Can't even imagine the amount of money tied up in that.

If I keep playing eventually I'll have a micro-version of that. To duplicate it would take thousands of hours, a generous hacker or a number of Shark Cards

It was all a little too chaotic though. I need to be running with a little more decorum haha. Professional gangsta. Before Bong joined yesterday my character had killed 3 cops, and those were just 'him or me' situations. My goal is to conduct my business under the radar if I can. Sometimes the sh!t hits the fan and the lead starts flying, but for the most part I'm trying to keep a low profile.

After the session I had killed 36 cops. You see the shot posted of Bong using the mini-gun. Well, just after that the entire LSPD arrived and it was a war zone. Bong left in a chopper and I was there all alone fighting off waves of cops and helicopters. I wanted to spawn a chopper to make my own escape, but to do that I had to retire from Weed, become a CEO, and request the helo. While I was fumbling through the menus I was unceremoniously gunned down in the parking lot.

The Jetsons stuff was fun to see and play with, but flying cars and motorcycles, Up-and Atomizers and that sort of stuff is too far away from the gritty street crime vibe that appeals to me.

It's road map time. There is so much to do in this game, and most of it costs big money to get started. All of the properties and businesses cost significant sums. The resulting business work can be profitable however. It's important though, considering the cost involved, to make good choices and have things to do that will appeal to the player. It's no good to spend millions and end up having to grind missions you hate.

So with that in mind I've made some choices of the stuff I want to buy and the businesses I want to start. It costs a lot of money and will take time. And the order is still in doubt. Here's what I want to get next

-- Vehicle Warehouse. This enables you to run an Import/Export business. You need to have an office first. I have already purchased Lombank so that's taken care of. Sourcing and selling cars is one of the best money makers in the game. Selling the cars requires a public server. But I'm no longer averse to this. There are ways to mitigate the pitfalls, and now that I have some experience and rank, with better gear it's not so bad in public. I'm aware of the 32-car trick to ensure I am selling only top-end. What remains is the choice of which warehouse to buy. Price is important, but I also value access, location, aesthetics and online popularity. The cheapest of anything attracts the most players, so I avoid that as these are the spots that tend to turn in to warzones on a public server. I also want to factor in proximity to my other properties. The closer everything is, the faster and easier it all becomes.

The La Puerta Vehicle Warehouse is my first choice. Location is quite close to my office, and it's close to the Marina helipad and the freeway. It has ample room to land a cargobob. But it's pricy at $2,735,000. Any other suggestions that don't revolve on price?

-- Hangar. I just love flying in this game. This is far and away the best helicopter map I've ever flown on in all the years I've been simming. Just so much fun. A hangar will allow me to get personal aircraft and modify them. This is very appealing to me. And from what I have read, the associated missions with the smuggling business are fun. There's money to be made here, but modest. It's not the sort of thing you purchase to make profits. But it seems fun, and that's what it all boils down to for me. And if I can make a little on the side all the better. Another perk is that doing smuggling missions unlocks lower prices for aircraft. If you want to start a collection, this can save millions of GTA Bucks.

So again, I have to choose the location. Fort Zancudo is one option, and would get me access to the military base (and no more wanted levels if I get too near). You can easily steal a tank or a jet. But on the other hand it seems silly to run a large criminal import/export business from a military base, and it's located to the north of the city. Not far, especially when flying of course. But from a roleplay POV it doesn't fit.

That leaves Los Santos International Airport and that's what I am leaning toward, though I could be swung with a compelling argument for Zancudo I think. The slightly-less-rundown hangar there is $1,525,000. This is much closer to my other properties and isn't a military base.

LSIA Hangar #1

In order to keep and modify the aircraft I steal buy I also need a workshop at the hangar. That's another $1,150,000.

Total cost is $5,410,000!! I don't have that much

So that leaves deciding on which to get first. I want the hangar first because I would enjoy it more, but the lower income means a longer wait for the vehicle warehouse. If I go warehouse first I can have both a little sooner I think. The frequent sales will help (hangars on sale at the mo) and may shape which direction I go first.

Not really interested at this point in any of the other business ventures, Getting these two up and running should cover me for a long time.

Edit: It's gotta be the warehouse. I'll put the hangar off and make it my reward for running a successful stolen car ring

I'm glad you guys had fun, we basically ran amok and didn't accomplish much and I didn't even show you everything.There are subway tunnels and secrets yet to be revealed, there's even a crashed UFO under the sea at the North end of the map I'll have to get a screenshot of my stats. Here in no particular order.
Now to those of you unfamiliar with the game the Cops in this game will shoot you for a traffic accident, they are neither courteous or friendly, jus' sayin'

Darnit Bong, I have 85 grand and you've spent 71 mil on vehicles only
I know I'm 5 years behind but those numbers, holy moses

Safe to say he's enjoyed the game eh?

The numbers boggle, though with the amount of time I've been dropping I'm catching up haha

The view from my office looking east as a new day of opportunity dawns. The streets are quiet. The peace wouldn't last, but it was nice for a few moments

get used to it...every update they give you previously like 1 million to get you wet and ask 6, 10 million for each new vehicle. i'm tired of grinding,so i just kill people like a serial killer......i much prefer to have focus on turf wars and the busines competition, than those ridiculous saint row esque vehicles and story they came up for online.

Yep, though I have yet to reach this level of jadedness and cynicism. I still find it fun.

Grinding is a strange thing. Intentional grinding is a ticket to burnout. I read so many posts where players are laser-focused on money per minute. They do the same mission over and over and over again, in an attempt to make as much money as possible. Playing like this it's almost inevitable that the player will become jaded or burnt. So few it seems just play the game. Yesterday I did so many different activities. I did a lot of racing, which pays very little. It's no path to riches, but it's fun! I did parachute challenges, a bike race, helicopter racing, gang attacks, sightseer missions, shooting range contests, a time trial, stole a car, stole a helicopter, bought a sniper rifle, modified weapons and vehicles, bought a snazzy new jacket, held up a convenience store and escaped by helicopter, even managed to hook up with Oden and run a few missions.

Another player played the same mission 27 times in a row cause money. And then probably posted about how much the grind sucks

Speaking of racing... this is a pretty robust and fun racer. There is racing for every type of vehicle, planes, helos, jetskis, cars, bicycles, motorbikes, the works.

There are normal street style courses and also other variations such as transform, where what you are driving changes on the fly, and stunt races through and around fantasy tracks.

I really enjoy the street racing, especially motorcycles with traffic set to on. Anyone up for some racing, motorcycles in particular?

The street racing isn't popular online, I assume mostly because it doesn't pay all that much. But 3k for 3 minutes seems pretty good to me. And it's exciting, the money is a bonus. I was really liking the race called Going Down, which is a motorcycle point-to-point (not a lap race) through the city traffic, and includes a nice jump. Doing these races with a few friends would be awesome. I wish I had begun playing years ago when all of this stuff was popular.

Did anyone try this week's Time Trial at Del Perro Pier? I can't come anywhere near the par time. I used my modified Akuma which has a top end of just 110 MPH, but accelerates like a banshee and corners extremely well. Still 20 seconds off par it seems.

Escape by helicopter, haha neat - I need to buy one.
I tend to anti-grind, bought myself a speedboat the other day but first try the weather gods pissed on me and waves outside of my little harbor made me go 50% by air - almost got sea-sick.
Played even on Golf too, 2 birides and two bogeys - getting better.
Found the golden gun in treasure hunt too, was hoping for a good source of income so somewhat a dissapointment.

I bought a lot of vehicles that after a while I sold because they just weren't that great, like the Batmobile which had ungodly acceleration but was made of glass (great homing missiles tho). I have found that the best fast cash solution is selling the cars, once you have stolen them you and 3 buddies can sell 4 at a time and if you don't damage them you'll get $400,000 and after a short time delay you can repeat this.
Some vehicles will be unavailable or outrageously priced until you complete a mission with them and then they will be unlocked or discounted. And you'll have to be a CEO for some missions or run or Motorcycle Club for others, like the Weed Farm.

@ Oden as Bong snuck one in there

Yeah I saw in your character sheet you have a water vehicle. Where do you keep it?

We talked yesterday how to make the money with the revolver. Shouldn't take too long and it's 250k. You can go homicidal on the pier, or just do it like me and make it your main weapon for a couple of days. I ran the Ballas to the Wall mission a lot for the cash/RP plus it was a guaranteed headshot on the banger standing next to the car you steal. 50 might seem a lot but if you do any of the combat stuff it will come soon enough.

It's worth it. Many players say that they think it's the best purchase they have made. One guy said it was the best thing he's bought in any game ever, Get a Buzzard. They are on sale right now, but it's still over a million. Once you have an office and are CEO you can rent these anytime but at a fee (25k?). When you own it, you can call it for free. There are other options as well since it's also a Personal Aircraft once you buy one. I like this one because of the clear side canopy, but it does cost 200 to call it in from Pegasus (small potatoes) and you have to drive to the nearest helipad. CEO Buzzards spawn right next to you.

I use it all the time. One of the CEO/VIP missions is called Sightseer. You have to collect three briefcases spread around the map in 15 minutes. You have to complete a mini-game (hacking) which reveals each location in turn and then you go pick it up. No shooting or cops. The Buzzard means you can do it much faster than in a car or on a bike. It pays 25k.

I think after an apartment, the best thing to get is an office and then either a cargo or vehicles warehouse, since this is where you make the money. A solo player can make about 240k/hour running export missions. Or less if you're me and you do one and then spend an hour flying around goofing off. Once you have this up and running, the income is there for toys.

You mentioned the nightclub yesterday and Bong could tell you more about that, and whether it's a good investment or not. Personally, I see it as one of the last things I would get, if at all.

I need another 600k to get my warehouse, and that will take until the weekend (and then I get the bonus February money too). The last set of events runs through today and fingers are crossed that they discount warehouses this week! I keep checking their site in anticipation. It's killing me!

Hmm ok, office and warehouse first then I guess.
Speedboat is on request and spawns in nearest harbor.

I got myself a bounty, 1000 bucks on my head, by an AI for throwing him out of his car and stealing it - anyone knows if this applies across sessions - to public session that is?

Haha, that's gold. Haven't managed it myself just yet.

As far as i know, and that ain't far, the bounty status will carry over to any session, so best to stay out of public for a bit.

To clear it, you need to stay outside of safe houses for 24 hours (and not get killed by someone seeking to collect). If you do this, then you collect the bounty.

Of course, 24 hours is actually 48 minutes. You can go in to safe houses, but the timer pauses while you're in there.

Good luck. If you go in to public to test people's reaction let us know how it went

Well, that's my opinion, but you should do whatever makes it fun. The reason I recommend this is that this gives you a good income source, and that in turn greases the wheels for further ventures and toys. The office/CEO opens up lots of options as well. If you get the same one as Bong (Maze Bank West) your office would be right across the street from your apartment. It's also the least expensive.




I wonder if it's the marina next to the helipad? The marina with the submarine? (Duh, you said nearest harbor so would depend on where you make the call)

I'll check out your boat next time we are on together.

The time I tried the boat it was a marina with a single helo standing at its parking, like south east of my apartment

If Bong says night club is no good I think it's wise to listen haha

Bong and I was just out on a long sightseeing btw, ended up with a hostage rescue (lots of shooting, it's a Bong session after all haha) but I kept dying so we failed.
(Rank 20-something now)

DBond, remember we talked aboot Stilt Houses?
Annoying loading screens it seems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_QQ30fNoLo

I watched it without sound (at work). Gotta agree with most of what I saw,

What about the loading screens? Stilt houses have different, more annoying screens? Take longer? Some of the stuff shown there was essentially vanity stuff like the Swift and Luxor.

But I still think the stilt houses are cool (although I don't know why the guy here didn't like them). Compared to some of the other properties they aren't a good value. But that's not everything. There's no way really to justify spending 4X the amount of a lower high-end apartment from a cost or function viewpoint. But from a role-play perspective why not? Who doesn't want to live in the Hollywood Vinewood Hills once they've made it?

I might buy one one day just for a place to spend the weekends and throw decadent parties for my friends.

(Lots to do before then though)

Dbond you are new, so enjoy it, there are far more race now since the last two updates, but a year ago there was barely any tracks other then the ones released (also no one plays them).
Problem with online is too many cars shooting rockets, really makes unfair fight, or the the flying motorcycles with rockets....when it was only planes it was bearable, also most activity dont net you enough money.....and the business only work while you are online, takes too long, and you risky being killed while in transport by one of those rocket vehicles or a SATELLITE BEAM OF DOOM !
sure mind you, there are servers dedicated to help players make money, with no agression but, if you need this then the game failed. i was very excited about the possibility to attack other players and steal their cargo, or fight off whoever tried the same,in the beggning we would make blockades, with heavy vehidles i in the street to force them to slow down like the movies, follow with a sniper on the helo trying to get the driver, but when you add all those destruction vehicles, its not fun anymore,they will simply blow your cargo and thats 16h you wasted.

i havent been online for a year and half, i'm having way more fun modding the single player to my level of experience, modifying guns parameters, damage given by guns so peds dont die in one shot in the leg/feet, how much kinect impact each bullet does, so people die realistically, cars handlings, adding more vehicles, geting script for smarter AI, more peds, more variety in the world.
Online seems dead in comparison. i really wish they had implemented the boss system better, so that a "family" would control part of the city with businnes and there would be a turf war to get their business netting you a bonus so all players would be engaged in this contantly moving war zone.

i always play tactical as you can see here, so it kinda frustrate me the way online is.

https://youtu.be/aniNXjrrdCY?t=1532

this is another frustration i see,rockstar only care to stop cheat that affect their micro transaction,otherwise its every new patch isa wave ban then new acounts full of hack again

You make some good points. I don't know how much play time you have but I'd reckon it's north of 300 hours? Even the best games can start to turn sour when you've dropped that sort of time in to it. For me it's even more acute, because if I get a game I like, I play pretty much only that until I burn out. It's a poor way to go about this hobby of ours I must admit, but there ya go. I'd get more mileage by mixing things up a bit more. Sometimes I come back to it. I've been through the cycle a couple of times with Elite Dangerous for example, and will go back again at some point.

The obstruction points you bring up, whether figurative or literal, are a big issue in public. No one wants to work for hours just to have some D-bag come along and blow it all up. I called it an issue instead of a problem, because frankly this sort of gameplay is encouraged and rewarded. It's really what it's about, from Rockstar's point of view. Some players play in that spirit, some players use that as a cover for their desire to just ruin your day. Public's a bit of a mess no doubt. But there are a few ways to do all of this outside of the influence of griefers and D-bags. And that's what I am planning to do, most of the time.

Most of what you take issue with seems to be common among long time players, and I have little doubt that eventually I'll feel the same way about various parts of GTA. As you said, I'm new, and for me it's fun.

As much as I rip public, it has a morbid attraction for me. I disagree that online is dead. I find plenty of populated servers, and at least "I" feel more alive in these servers. There is such a persistent and real threat that you cannot help but be hyper aware all the time. I like to just hop on my motorcycle and race through the streets as random players take potshots at me. Aircraft get me sometimes, but not much you can do aside from try to hide, and that's not the point

I completely agree with you about the futuristic stuff. I'm late to the game, and all this stuff was already part of it. But I'd prefer if the Deluxo, Oppressor, Up and Atomizer and other things of that sort were not in the game.

For me there is only one thing that is needed to transform public gameplay. The single best thing I can think of would be a server option to remove player icons from the map. It would be a different game. It would be fun, still dangerous, and reward proper gameplay. At least, in my opinion.

Oden, I am thinking they tweaked the triggers for NPCs placing bounties on you, because after all the time I've played, I got bountied for the only car I stole last night. $3,000 at that. I simply stayed in invite and nothing at all happened. I guess only players collect bounties, the NPCs don't care.

I checked the Events page today and all of last week's bonuses are over, but no new ones are posted. I'm hoping whatever they do aligns with my plan. So far I've been really lucky. Offices were on sale when I was ready to buy one, and Buzzards were on sale when I was ready for one of those. Those two sales saved me about 1.8 million. Now I need warehouses to go on sale.

Hangars were on sale last week and I'm proud that I was able to resist pulling the trigger and sticking to the plan

Edit: I saw that this week the Events are delayed until tomorrow, something to do with Valentne's Day it seems.

And more about the nightclub...not sure if Bong gave you any feedback, but from what I can tell they are good to have, but really only once you've set up other businesses. The main benefit of the nightclub is to produce product used in your other ventures, if I understand it all. So this is one to save until your empire has grown a bit.

Evidently the crate business is the best money maker, but I thought stealing cars would be more interesting so that's the route I chose. Plus, when I first got in to GTAO I saw myself as running a stolen car ring, even before I knew how or if it could be done. It's mostly absent from single player, but Online makes up for it.

Never heard of!

Yeah, I think I will goof around a little more with all those "top 5" and "worst 5" to be found on YT before deciding.
But as you say, shouldn't really put too much into collecting dolla'res since it will ruin the game experience, better off doing fun stuff - but once the money is there it could be good to know what to purchase (and when).

The office/warehouse makes most sense to me, but there is also the Motorcycle Club and you can become a drug kingpin.

Decent overview here

https://www.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/936rob/new_to_gta_here_is_a_guide_to_businesses/

Word on the street is that this week's property discount will be....


Nightclubs! Drat!

Looks like dat warehouse will run me full price.

Oden, still up for a little action this evening? I have to get my hair cut right after work, but should be able to be on around 6pm eastern.

Want to try the first heist? The Fleeca job? Just need the two of us, and I guess would take around an hour?

Here's a good description of what needs to be done. Ignore if you want no spoilers

https://attackofthefanboy.com/guides/gta-online-heist-guide-fleeca-job/

If we decide to do this, we have to decide on a host (doesn't matter to me) and all you need to be is level 12 and own a high end apartment, and we both qualify. We need to choose roles, and we need to decide on how to split the haul. It seems that the common wisdom is the host gets 40% and the other three get 20%. This is due to the fact that the host has upfront costs to fund the heist. When it's a two-man job we can just go 60-40 I suppose.

The 'driller' role is also the hacker, and it seems in this heist it can be challenging, though it also seems that there is unlimited time to get it done. The other guy is the driver and crowd control.

If you're not in to running the heist, that's cool too. I think the take would be around 100k a piece (150k if we do it on Hard), plus I think you get an additional 100k for doing it for the first time. So 200k for an hour's work, and would get me over the line for the warehouse purchase

Yeah, Friday Heist Time!
I'll try to not sleep on simHQ TS at midnight until you show up and let's go from there.
Good times

OK cool, makin' paper, fool. Gonna roll up on that MF'er and get paid!

(Do you understand Lamar yet? :D)

Played golf with a random yesterday. This guy (or girl) was in the most whacky get up with what looked like blood all over the face. I was dressed in a suit. And we played in the pouring rain and winds were 8-10 every hole. Horrible conditions for a round of golf. What a hoot. Very pleased the other player stuck in there right to the end. I don't know why, but I kept expecting him/her to quit.

The warehouse I want is GTA$2,735,000 since freakin' nightclubs are on sale. I'm paying a premium for location, and to not own the most popular one, which is at least as important I think. I made it to 2.5 million in the bank yesterday. I've been playing every day and tend to make 100-200k per day so it takes a while to get anywhere doesn't it? If we can pull off the heist that money will be very welcome!


I ran da numbas on the vehicles warehouse business.... at first I was shocked! I have to sell 34,000 cars to break even on the investment!

Then I realized I divided by 80, not 80,000 Doh!

So if I buy the warehouse for $2,735,000 and only sell modified high end vehicles for 80 thousand dollars a shot, that's 34 cars sold to break even. That isn't so bad. Of course you have to source these cars, and you want to get your 10 unique low-end and 10 mid-range cars to start sourcing only top end. That will take a good deal of time, let's guess a week of everyday, semi-focused play. Once those requirements are satisfied then it's pure profit from that point on. There is a 20-minute cooldown on solo selling a single car. So at most you can do three per hour. Plus, damages will eat in to that total, for something a bit less in practical, not theoretical terms.

This means a dedicated player focusing on his work can do something like sell three high end cars per hour for $240k, and then run three Sightseers or Headhunters during the cooldowns for another $75k, meaning a very doable, yet theoretical, $315k per hour.

Of course I don't see being nearly so efficient as I get distracted by shiny things, but a rate of 200-250k per hour seems quite reasonable without grinding. Considering that's the high end of my current profits per day, it's a nice bump in income for sure. And it's also true that your stock is finite, so more sourcing will need to be run continually, it's not just sell, sell, sell.

If a player didn't care about location, or access or whether there is a higher probability of campers and griefers, or just wanted the least costly option or judged other properties superior, then the warehouse in La Mesa at $1.5 million is even better. At 80k per pop, that's just 19 high end cars sold to make back your investment. This fails to factor in interior upgrades, money lost through damages, or selling cars other than high end or with no out-of-pocket modifications.

I can help you with the car stuff, you have to steal all the cars and get rid of by sale all the duplicates of the lower two tiers, then you only get High end stuff, sell them with a crew 4 at a time you can make 400k as long as they don't get damaged, as in as long as no one is chasing you try to just drive them to the pick up, there is a like 20 min delay between sales, Find some other business to do and then steal and sell more cars. It is the quickest and easiest way to make money. Truthfully, I have never done any of my own heists so mine are still at the very first one. We can do some of these and at least I have excess equipment to employ in between to make money I'll likely be on this Sunday and maybe some of Saturday. I have a few errands to run and a Murder Mystery party Sat eve so we'll see, I'll try to get in a little time. I'm still trying to buy a 1.6mil R/C truck,

You've amassed that empire without doing any heists?

Appreciate the offer, and gratefully accept. Oden and I decided to put off the Fleeca job until Sunday. That's a two-man job and he and I will do that one (although you and I can do it too if you want to). After that we need a fourth, Where's Letterboy? Yo Letterboy, up for some heist action? There has to be at least one more here at SimHQ that wants to play and make some money. Sign up!

Oden and I messed around a little last night, made a bit of money and checked out his boat. He left it in dry dock

After he left I worked on getting my bank balance over the line to afford the vehicle warehouse. Needed 200 grand, and made that plus a 50k rainy day fund. Bought the La Puerta warehouse and I am glad I stuck to the plan and wasn't tempted to go for a cheaper option. It's really important to make good choices on how money is spent. And if I settle, it will nag at me. I could have saved 1.2 million with La Mesa and have a hangar now too. But I think it's best to buy what I want, rather than be looking to swap or upgrade down the line and suffer the loss (not to mention having to sell off all of the cars I've collected)

Once I had the warehouse I checked it out and attempted to get my first car for my new business venture. I know there are a number of missions involved, some easy, some hard. Not sure where the one I got falls, but it was to steal a Tyrus from a crime scene, dead dude still in the driver's seat, and it's crawling with cops, standing guard, taking photographs, etc.

So I circumnavigate the perimeter trying to decide what to do. Can I just walk up, jump in and drive off? Should I start gunning down the cops? Should I go find a cargobob and lift this thing right out from under them? It was really late and I have work this morning, so I decided to just jump in and go. Bad decision.

The cops opened fire before I even got in and it was a disaster from there. So many cops responded and I got slammed in to so many times that I just Alt-F4'd out and went to bed. Gotta read up on the different source missions and perhaps get some ideas on how to approach them. I should have cleared the cops close to the car and then call Lester to remove wanted level? I have yet to use that feature since evading cops is a fun part of the game, but for business purposes I better start using it. Screw you GTA for giving me that one for a first go

I blame having a flu!
Suffer is my saturday.
Hopefully live and kicking sunday swe-dinner/us-lunch

Hope you feel better soon old chum. I prescribe VIP missions until you reach 1 million and can buy Maze Bank West

Speaking of making sensible purchases and not wasting your hard-earned paper, here's a good thread with a number of interesting responses. What are the five worst purchases you've made?

https://gtaforums.com/topic/877298-top-five-worst-purchases-youve-ever-made/

There are plenty more of these threads, and actually this one is a couple years old. If I find one that's newer and as long and useful I'll add it.

Lists like this are highly subjective of course. I've always been the sort of gamer that finds value in things others find useless and vice versa. But you can get a feel for things you should carefully consider before pulling the trigger.

Some of the biggest repeats are

-- Yacht. Didn't need to read the list to figure this out. The ultimate GTAO vanity purchase. I mean, if you have millions and millions and nothing to do with it then, yeah, still don't buy it. You'll regret it. Maybe if it functioned like the Terrorbyte it would be OK?

-- Motorcycle Club. A bit of a surprise, and maybe they've since added better/more useful content. But the number of players that list the MC was revealing

-- Stilt Houses. The thing I think most people hate is the fact that the garage isn't attached, no way to go straight in from the house. Plus they are less convenient to get to.

-- Crate Warehouse business. It's a pretty good money maker, so the fact that it appears so often shows how boring the actual missions and running the business must be.

-- Lowriders/Benny's stuff. It didn't interest me from the start, but a lot of players regret spending money on lowriders. One guy said a million a pop. Is that what these cost? Good grief.

-- Hydra (GTAO's Harrier). Big Surprise. I see a lot of these when playing. I think if you aren't out to disrupt others, there's little reason to get one.

-- Swift Deluxe and Luxor Deluxe. No brainer really. No better than the cheaper variant and even those kinda suck. Waste of money

-- Rhino tank. Seems cool until you realize there isn't much use for it I guess.

-- The rest is an assortment of various weapons, vehicles, clothing and that sort of thing. No single thing will be valued by every player. But for any of the above, think twice before pulling the trigger

Yeah DB I know that mission actually there are a few variations on it, in different locations. I can usually do them alone but it helps to have back up to slow down the cops because the moment you shoot one it calls out the cavalry. Then you have to escape and try to use the phone to call Lester, so yeah I know and you will do them over and over again with different cars. I can usually get away with doing these in an open session without too much grief but the influx of new players has injected some risk because the game prompts other players to try and interfere so it helps to have air cover if you know what I mean.

A different plan is needed for certain! Haha, it was a fiasco. I was all set to show the world I was cut out for this car theft ring business and made a mockery of it all

I found a guide that gives some pointers for each mission type. I think on this one (called Nasty Business FWIW) I should just shoot the five cops near the car, jump in then call Lester.

DONT BUY MC club, its takes too long for profit and the profit is small, also almost no one does the activities.

Crate Warehouse business. It's a pretty good money maker, so the fact that it appears so often shows how boring the actual missions and running the business must be <<< actually the problem is the missions are too long.

- Hydra (GTAO's Harrier). Big Surprise. I see a lot of these when playing. I think if you aren't out to disrupt others, there's little reason to get one. <<<<<it is the noob griefer weapon on release, but not especially after thje air update, there are a lot of far more powerfull planes in the air, jet fighters, bombers, flying cars, flying motorcyclers, flying JET motorcycles, and a hover pack armed to the teeth.



Valentines day generaly has till death do us apart, its a nice pvp where if one player dies the other is the anchor for their respawn. and the cupid of doom (forget the name) pvp. both are cat and mouse versus

GTAO public is a strange place. In the past few days, twice I've been on and found my way in to servers where no one was hacking, no one was griefing. More than 45 minutes of play in a populated server with no one getting killed! Other times it's just murder and mayhem. But those servers where folks just appear to be playing the game, going about their business are pretty cool. They are also great for the Import/Export work (hereafter known as I/E).

So last night I logged on and began my new business in earnest. Earlier in this thread, having played through the single player part of the game (Story Mode) I said



And that's exactly what the I/E business is all about. When I first ventured in to the seamy world of GTA Online, I thought about how I wanted to make a living stealing and selling cars. So this route is a natural fit. It's quite expensive to get in to the I/E game, but once you've purchased the CEO office and a vehicle warehosue, you can get up and running. Minimum cost without discounts would be 2.5 million. 1 mil for the office and 1.5 mil for the warehouse. If you don't have any other businesses already, then it can take some time to get that sort of bank roll. But that's the way it should be really, I don't want to be able to jump right in and have all the best stuff.

I managed to source my first 8 cars for the new business. The missions to source the cars are fun for the most part, and my noobness was on display. After trying each sourcing mission once, my efficiency should improve. But I did cause a bit of damage to the cars I was stealing haha. In most cases after stealing the car you'll be chased (or at least I was), often including helicopters. Any damage the cars incur comes out of your pocket, eating in to the profits. On average, I caused or sustained $1000 damage per car. So I will need to improve my skills.

I could be selling these cars now, and making some money. Instead, I am implementing the 32-car method with an eye toward higher profits long term. There are 10 unique low-end cars, 10 unique mid-range and 12 unique top-end that can be sourced for the I/E business. The goal is to be selling only top-end to garner the most profit. In order to do this, I need to fill the warehouse with each of the low and mid-range cars and not sell them. The game will always attempt to give you a car you don't already have for the next source mission. Since we would have the warehouse full of all low and mid cars, then we are guaranteed to get top-end. And beyond that, if we get all 12 top-end, we can then choose which cars we will be sourcing. Whichever of the 12 you sell will result in that same car appearing for the next sourcing mission. In this way you can avoid having to drive the poor handling cars like the Z-Type or the Roosevelt. Figure out which ones you like driving the most and sell only those.

When it's time to sell there are more options. Three choices of the kind of client you will sell to. You can sell as is for the least profit, or choose from two levels of modification for higher profits. This is out of pocket and carries some risk. If the car get destroyed you're out the money. If we opt for the highest choices then max profit for the sale will be 100k, minus any additional damage incurred during delivery. That level of return requires 20k in mods, so works out to 80k per sale. In addition, there are 'collections' you can sell for more profit, which require several specific cars plus friends to help deliver them (must be sold together)

So far it's proving to be fun, and just the sort of thing I envisioned when taking the plunge online. The potential is there for really good money, but takes a significant investment in money and time. Glad I chose this route over the other business opportunities. The biggest annoyance so far is the fact that I cannot use the computer in the warehouse office to get the next source mission. I must return to the CEO office. Just a time wasting mechanic from Rockstar.

The La Puerta warehouse after sourcing the first couple of whips for my new business. It's filling up quickly and the money should start rolling in.





Did anyone get their 250k for logging in last weekend yet?

I got my 250k just an hour ago.
Also, I played 2 below par - I'm getting dangerous on the Golf Court!
Feels a tad bit meaningless to run missions for 4 to 10k a pop when I "know" I will get another 250k next weekend.

Heist Sunday in 3½ hours ja?

Ja.

Or earlier. just let me know when you are available. Let's get some golf in too. Sounds like we could have a good game with your quickly improving skills

Good to hear about the 250k since I am just about broke again.

Broke?
Man, you need to stop spending at that strip club!

If you have time I can actually set off an heist-hour right now and then break for dinner and rejoin at US-lunch again.

If you can give me about 20 minutes I'll be ready.

That was fun Oden, thanks for joining.

Oden and I ran the Fleeca Job heist and flawlessly I might add. He was the driver/crowd control, and I was the hacker/driller. It all went flawlessly, our communication was great, and we pulled it off without any deaths first time. Clockwork, baby

When I hopped on today I had about 70k to my name having just bought the warehouse. By the time I logged of an hour and half later I had over 500k. Good stuff.

After pulling off the job, Oden and I meet up at the pub to celebrate over a few Pisswassers




Now we are going to want to run some of the four-man heists and need one more player. Who's got the stuff?

A few funny things happened while Oden and I were on yesterday.

Before we launched the heist, I asked Oden if he had bought a mask yet. He had not, so we headed down to Vespucci Beach to the mask store. While Oden was browsing the selection, I decided to check the map while I was sitting on my motorcycle in front of the shop. Out of nowhere a NPC starts punching me in the face. I have no idea how this happened as I was looking at the map. So I hop off the bike and lay him out flat on the boardwalk. How you like me now!

Seconds later I look around and Oden's gone. I say hey where'd you go and he says he's running from the cops. How did that happen lol?

At the end of the session we are standing on a street corner shooting the sh!t and farewells and Oden hauls off and slugs me right in the face! With friends like that and yada yada.

Anyway, good fun and lots of laughs. We are still looking for one more player. PM me or post. I'll even sweeten the deal for anyone who signs up and figure out a way to give you money or something. A new player can rank up fast and get their bank roll going just by hanging around us. As long as you're in, you'd be ranking and rolling just by hanging back in cover or whatever. Advice, sightseeing tours, helicopter rides, top-stripper lists and more are yours for the asking

With the 250k per weekend bonus they are running right now, a new player can get set up in a hurry.

After Oden split I got back to business sourcing cars for the I/E bizness. Brought in more cars for about 18 in all now. I manage to turn most of these missions in to mayhem. Some failures which kinda sucks as the time is gone with nothing to show for it, but it keeps me on my toes.

There is one source mission where you have to beat a time trial, and if you do you get the car owned by the guy who set the time. When you cross the line he is standing by his car, and is none too happy about some punk breaking his unassailable time. The first time I got this mission I walked up to the dude not expecting anything and he pulls out a baseball bat and whacks me with it. So I pulled out my Glock and popped him. Picked up that bat too.

Later I got this mission again, and when he came after me with his bat, I pulled the bat I stole from him and knocked him out cold. How you like me now!

Haha you really are a trouble maker!
Great Times!

I was on for a little while yesterday, twice actually. I must've missed you guys. Maybe I'll catch you next time.

I have no idea how I could have missed you as I was on almost all day. AFK for some of it, but logged in anyway.

Let me know the next time you'll be on and we will see if we can hook up. Were you saying earlier you'd fly cover for my source missions? That would be swell. I've been doing it mostly in solo public, but ran a few in sparsely populated servers as well. Is it possible to do the suspend process trick to clear the lobby and then have a friend join?

Oh yeah, Oden, the hatchet requires 25 kills for a 250k reward, just like the revolver but half the required kills. It also activates Tevor's rampage mode from what I can tell.

You need at least one other person as a CEO in the session otherwise the NPC's come out in full force. Usually just having a few ppl in is no problem. I find there are a few low level players who seem to have way too many toys and that IS usually the ones who will grief you. I will usually be online for a little while each day before I go to work at 3:00 pm EST

are you guys on PC ? i'm almost tempted to go back reading you guys

We are, first person driving all the way.
Join us Blade, we need you

just to go reddit, there is a post with direction for servers that allow a leisure play with no agressions.
there are some discord groups too

I saw you come on Oden, but I was getting ready to log off. Bong and I hooked up for some action earlier. Did some I/E for my company, thanks for the help Bong. Did a little racing, and ran a weed delivery for his business. The rest was running from the cops with lots of stars lol.

This I/E business is proving to be good fun. I'm enjoying it, and it's quite profitable. But that crap I was spouting about 240/k per hour is hogwwash. Players say this, and it's true if you only count sales. But it ignores the whole import side of the business. And it assumes no delivery damage, which actually isn't difficult to do, but sooner or later is inevitable. I would reckon that the business has cost me about 30% of the gross in overhead. Repairs, ammo, armor, modifications and calls to Lester to remove the heat add up. I probably average 3k in repairs after nicking the car, plus the 20k in upgrades to sell to the Specialist Dealer.

So it's a money maker, but claims of 240k per hour are misleading. The best thing is that it's fun for me. The office computer says I've made 750k in I/E sales, but if I factor in the overhead it's probably closer to 525k. I've spent much more time acquiring cars than selling to this point, as that's what you want to do to start farming certain makes. Once I have the roster full the money will pick up significantly.

Bank account is looking good once more and I'm considering what to do for a next major purchase. Pretty much narrowed down to a hangar, bunker, or sick supercar.

Thanks, I had worked it out. I like to use that for source business. But for selling I tend to go public and test the temperature of the server. If it's cool I deliver there, since no NPCs. If it's mayhem, I use the suspend process trick and deal with the NPCs, which are at least predictable and finite, unlike the nutjobs online. Or if one of my friends is in as a CEO that works great too (assuming they don't come after me lol) That's what Bong and I did today and I got several full commission deliveries done with zero hassle.

What I was asking Bong was once I clear the lobby can a friend join, not how to go about clearing the lobby which I do know how to do. Anyway, this is what we did yesterday, so question answered.

Hopped back on for a session last night, moved a few more supercars for commission. Mostly though just more sourcing. Got the Nasty Business source job again (the one I talked about as my first source gig) and this time it went flawlessly, didn't take any damage which means didn't cost me any money. Actually, virtually all of the source missions I ran last night went well. Sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug eh? In the long run these smooth jobs will pay off with higher profits.

The only job to go tits up was the cargobob one where I picked up the wrong car! And then ran out of time to get the right one. Derp

A couple more thoughts.... I'm done with stunt racing, and if we are on and that's the choice I will politely back out. Stats are fun for me, and one I was tracking was my highest speed in a land vehicle. It was a way to keep track of the effects of the upgrades I was making. My record had been 131.39 MPH in the Elegy. Then I did a stunt race/ custom race and now it's 200 MPH which is a speed I'll likely never match in normal play. I'm certain I won't, so this is no longer something I can track. Stunt races also gave me a ridiculous jump distance of 2200 meters so that can no longer be tracked either. Give me street racing. That's my thing and I'm sticking to it

Or helicopter racing. Like that too.

I mentioned I want a supercar. Now normally I'd say this is not what you want to be spending your hard-earned paper on. In some ways it's a waste of money. There are plenty of excellent sports cars that cost far less and are nearly as fast and many look and sound fantastic. But still.... I am styling myself as a street racer lol and I would like to have a supercar to use, one that I can modify and run a custom car. But the choice is far from clear. I want it to look awesome, be really fast and have superior handling. Handling in GTAO is a mixed bag no doubt, with the handling flag nonsense. Difficult decision. Suggestions? T20, Vagner, XA-21 and Zentorno are the leading contenders. The Vagner has been tested to be the fastest car around a circuit (not straight line). Maybe buy a Turismo-R (500k versus 2 mil for others) and start modestly? It looks great (Bong's green one is sexy) and has a good first person view and I am a sucker for Ferrari influences (like LaFerrari) with a dash of McLaren P1 thrown in for good measure.. T-20 and Xa-21 have a good view too.

Have you heard a Turismo when you start it up? Oh goodness gracious....



So I was browsing the interweb after a mission and saw that the Armored Karuma is on sale. This was on my list, and the price was right so I bought one. Initially, these cost 700k, but after doing the Fleeca job and with the discount I got it for around 370k. One more tool in the toolbox. It's my only four-seater, and will make a good heist car and mission-runner.

Pfft, I'd rather drive a Volvo.



(no I wouldn't /tears )

Like this?




Having played with you for a bit now, I can see Oden that you are a man that appreciates the finer things. You dress well, like the more luxurious cars and always go to the best strip clubs.

So I see you in something like this....

Shafter V12. A nice blend of refinement and rage



(There is an armored version too in case the standard version cannot contain all of the rage)

if you havent bought already i would recomend waiting on the turismo R, its always on promotion because it sthe entry level equalizer super car for everyone, but the bugatti car is much faster and not much more expensive (i forgot the name in game)

The Adder? Thanks for the recommendation, but Bugattis are err, unappealing to me. Oden seems to like it though. He kept picking it for our races.

Turismo R. Supercar looks and performance with a sports car price. 500k ain't much, a couple of nights play at most. Hell I'll get half of that just for logging on last weekend. No, the Turismo R it is!

When we first met up with Bong he showed us his empire, and despite all of the cool stuff, the thing I was most impressed with was his office garage. I had no idea it would be two floors, with windows and such. Filled with amazing whips it was even more impressive. This became my goal at that moment lol. I am on my way now (aside from the garage part)

If it was the Adder (looks like Veyron), then it's twice as expensive as the Turismo and has worse stats. Not sure how accurate those in-game stats are though.Maybe you meant a different car?

Common wisdom doled out by GTAO vets is simple

"Don't waste money on supercars"

Hold my beer.

So after deciding yesterday that I would get a Turismo R, I logged on with the intention of giving it another go to be sure it was a good car for me. I did some hotlapping in the Cutting Coroners race to get a feel for it. It's a pretty good car, especially for the money, and it looks and sounds fantastic. But the result of my test showed it feels unbalanced a little bit, like a car with too much weight on the front wheels. It had noticable entry understeer, yet still wanted to step out on exit. After a number of laps I could turn a time of 2:04 over two laps. Good cockpit view.

After that I thought I would do the same sort of testing for all of the supercars I would consider. Vagner, XA-21 and T20 were the main contenders for my next car purchase, although a steep step up in price. The XA-21 is a great car, but it has two problems. It doesn't sound mean enough. No rage in that machine, but it's quite fast and I was able to turn times of 2 minutes flat with it. The steering wheel also blocks the instruments in first person view.The Vagner proved even faster, but it has the worst view. I could turn times of 1:59 in the Vagner. This car also has a blocked instrument cluster.

The T20 though, fit like a glove. Not only was it fast, matching my Vagner times, but it handled so much better for me. Just the right amount of entry and exit oversteer. Every player will be looking for a different feel, and the T20 hits that spot for me. It has a better view than the Vagner, although there is still a touch of front fender limiting the view, but not as bad, It doesn't sound quite as vicious as I would like, but still sounds great. After my testing I knew I had 'my car' and went to Legendary Motorsport to see how much it costs. ON SALE.

On sale? Seriously? I had just spent nearly 400k on the Karuma and had 850k in the bank. Sale price for the T-20 was 1.3 mil, marked down from the 2.2 mil it usually costs. That was really attractive. So I immediately set about raising the funds. The thing was that this sale should end on Thursday, when the new set of events is out. And I was thinking that Rockstar is based in the UK, and their Thursday starts early, and I didn't know if I would have the time to raise the capital before the sale ended. Over the next two hours I ran export/headhunter/export/sightseer. There is a 20 minute cooldown after an export sale, so the headhunter/sightseer missions fill that time and keep the money rolling. In those two hours I made 600k. And that was enough to buy a T20 and modify it. The sale hadn't ended yet and the T20 was soon delivered to my garage. So I came for the Turismo and left with the T20.

After modifying it to the extent that my now-depleted bank account would allow, I was able to turn times of 1:55-flat in this car, which is 4.5 seconds per lap faster than I was doing in the unmodified Turismo. I will still add a Turismo to the stable down the line, but it all worked out to give me one of the very best cars in the game, and one that fit my driving style to a T.

It came from the factory in yellow. I immediately began running easy missions to gain some bank. Clearly heavily influenced by the McLaren P1. Sweet car. Skipped right on past supercars in to the hypercar strata. Exceptional acceleration, good top end, good view, sounds great, awesome handling, AWD. Twin-turbo V8 hybrid. Also has a dynamic spoiler that raises at speed and under braking.





Took it to LSC and painted it and did some performance modifications. GTAO is the only game I can think of where I would consider aesthetic upgrades before performance lol




And she looks good in my modest, but growing, stable.



This paint job was limited by my reduced spending power haha, and I used the cheapest colors. I'll revisit this at some point. Splashed the cash on those sick rims though

Rebel radio? That's always my favourite.

Hey there DM, you still play?

Rebel Radio is on the playlist for sure. Mostly though I listen to West Coast Classics and the Los Santos one. I was a teenager in the 80s, and music like NWA and Public Enemy was the soundtrack of my youth. I like listening to gangsta rap when cruising around Los Santos

Well, when I say play I mean I just wander about marvelling at the environment I think the gameplay world all by itself is a stunning achievement. Although I own a hardcopy of the game (with map :)) I was forced to actually play a cracked version, and as such it's not updated and probably wouldn't be able to connect (either out of date or an identifiable cracked version). I expect that I could try uninstalling it & installing my hard copy again but it's a kerfuffle with no guarantee of success.

Big points for working kerfuffle in to everyday conversation

Well, if you do decide to fire it up again we would love to have you join us.

Word on the street is that Bunkers are the property sale this week (and double $ income too). Now I have my next goal. Which location do you consider best? Thinking Chumash or Farmhouse. Location, access, proximity to my office, plus unpopularity would be paramount.

New paint, what do you think of this?

For some reason I can't make a screenshot lower than 2mb to post on here

You gotta convert it to JPEG (probably PNG now). Open it with Paint, choose Save As and pick JPEG and save.

Max size is 1 MB

(Although attachment manager say 2MB. Hmm. I think it's 1 MB)

BTW I am going to make a race. It will be a cross country road race with traffic and cops across the length of the map, a Gumball Rally. There may be some alternate routes, shortcuts and jumps, but nothing that you can't do first person. Might even make it a transform race with different vehicles for sections, Supercar, Off-road, Aircraft, Boats, etc..

That sounds good. Maybe I should invest in an off-road vehicle. On the list are the BF400 dirt bike and the Canis Kamacho, Haven't bought either since I have no real practical use for them to this point, and there is always something more pressing in the list. I'm going to need a second garage soon too!

I used the Bifta buggy in single player a little and really liked driving it so maybe one of those eventually too. Probably too open for dangerous missions, but fun to mess around in.

Ran more I/E and other missions and races last night as I attempt to gain enough bank for a bunker. It seems last weekend's log-in money is already hitting player's accounts. That will put me over the top and I can try to take advantage of the double income from bunker sales. I have yet to do any 2X event, so that will be good.

Finally got the warehouse full with all 32 cars and can now choose which cars I will be sourcing. Osiris and T20 mostly since they are awesome to drive .Plus, since I own a T20, each time I sell a T20 I can paint it for 'free' and try out various customization options. Like a test bed for my personal whip.

Word of warning for those who run I/E solo. This got me last night. If you create a solo public server and some one finds their way in to the server and becomes a CEO, and then leaves, the car you are sourcing catches fires. For real though. It maxxed out damage (at least I didn't lose it completely) and that runs 34k. That severely bites in to the profits. The business is fun though and I'm getting close to having made back the warehouse purchase price already. Some of the sourcing missions suck, but most are quick and fun.

If anyone wants to help me deliver a collection let me know. I don't think the people that help me get the extra money though so it only benefits me. But of course I will return the favor for your business.

For the bunker I am planning on buying Chumash. It's the closest to Lombank, and I think it will be best for sales in Los Santos as it sits right off the PCH. It's popular though and maybe I will regret it for this reason, although I play a lot in a solo server so maybe no big deal.

Weapons at Ammunation are 30% off in case anyone wasn't aware. Got a grenade launcher

I have been in sessions where there were a few other players and after sourcing a car they made a beeline for me, So, since it's the car they want and I haven't made an investment I just ditch it with a sticky inside. As soon as someone grabs it and it starts moving I blow it up, Loads of Laughs

What screenshot (s) were you looking to post? Did you try what I suggested?

If anyone logs in let me know if you got your money from last weekend.

I'll be on tonight and probably tomorrow day as well if anyone's around. But I will be looking to focus on business, especially bunker sales to take advantage of the double rewards and of course I/E work while the next supply is building. Up for some racing, combat, missions and golf too. I can't wait to race my new ride. I'm always down for partnering up of course, but even just another player as CEO in the session going about his own business is a big help.

Earlier I was talking about the supercar hotlap testing I did. For what it's worth, I took the modified Elegy out for the same test and it turned the same laptimes as the (unmodified) XA-21. Laptimes are subject to error and driving style and so on, so not definitive. But it showed me how good the Elegy is on a street circuit. And all for free (minus the mods of course)

The Akuma crushed them all for laptimes though. That's a 9k bike! (plus the upgrades). On a technical circuit it's hard to beat. Once I get around to modifying the Bati 801 I will run that through the test procedure as well.

just creat a quick acount on imgur and dump them there like i do.

I'm joining now..

Good stuff yesterday Bong. Enjoyed the racing and the Survival. That's the most waves I have survived so far (ten). Seeing you standing there ripping with the mini-gun is awesome. Your outfit and defiance remind me of those two armed robbers in LA years ago, with their body armor and automatic weapons in the streets. And just playing follow the leader through the city streets in our T20s was fun too.

Oden has broken in to the corporate crime world and bought an office. Congrats, which one did you buy? Maze Bank West? And also a new address for your apartment eh? Nice view? Which apartment number did you buy? Eclipse Towers is very trendy

For the CEO stuff, some missions require public, as you mentioned in the PM. Some do not. The best ones that do not require it are Sightseer and Headhunter in my opinion. Both are much easier with a combat helicopter, but can also be done with vehicles, just take longer is all. Sightseer is the best one to do with vehicles since no wanted level like headhunter. Each of these pays 25k max. In sightseer you need to hit the 10 minute mark to reach max payout. This is the mission we did together in my helo with the briefcases.

For the ones that require public, you can choose to do them there (and there are some advantages), or you can clear the lobby and end up with a 'solo public' lobby. There are several ways to do it, but this is what I do.

Enter GTAO Public lobby
Alt-tab out
Open Task Manager
Click Performance tab
Click Open Resource Monitor
Right click GTA 5 and choose suspend process.
Suspend process for 8-10 seconds.
Resume Process
Return to GTAO

This takes longer to type than to do. When you return to GTA you should see all the players left messages. But you are still in a 'public' server and can now do all of those other missions free from douchebaggery.

CEO missions have a 20 minute cooldown. But 25k for 10 minutes of easy sightseer work adds up quick. Be aware that once you've cleared a lobby, that choosing any contact mission may result in a return to a populated public server when complete (and then you just clear it again). It's also possible that eventually others will be placed in your cleared one. You usually get quite a bit of solo time before this happens. But keep an eye on the players list all the same. Reaching CEO status and having an office is entering on the bottom rung of the corporate crime world, but it's a big step overall. Until you get a warehouse though the money isn't fantastic. better than before, but not as good as it will be. I'd suggest saving up for either a Buzzard or a warehouse at this point, but all that is up to you of course.

Because sightseer doesn't require public, a good method is to start an Invite Only, run sightseer, then one or two of your favorite contact missions during the cooldown, then repeat. This should earn in the neighborhood of 65k+ per hour. Sightseer is great because it costs nothing. No armor, ammo or anything else. Without a helicopter though it requires good driving skills. As a CEO you can now rent a Buzzard for 25k. So just one sightseer will make that back and then you can continue to use it. Once owned, calling the Buzzard is free. As CEO you have other vehicles on call as well.

Good stuff yesterday boys, thanks for the fun.

I made some serious bank. Throughout the day, as I was off and on through most of it, I pulled in a million dollars. I started off by buying the Chumash bunker, which blew the million I already had, leaving me mostly broke once again. Then hooked up with Oden for some missions and a round of golf. Then Bong joined up and we all did some more missions and racing.

After you guys left I tried out my new gunrunning business, which was a complete fiasco. First delivery mission was in the monster truck and I only delivered 3/5, got shot to hell by Buzzards and at the end my truck exploded. A second delivery was an unopposed drive in to town. So I need to work all of this out. I wonder if there is a way to cherry-pick the delivery missions?

But mostly I ran Import/Export. Most deliveries were done in public. A few guys came after me I think, but none were able to get to me before the destination, so it all worked out. I've made a few million off of I/E already, so this is going well, and I have fun doing it. The tension I feel leaving the warehouse with that pimped-out supercar representing my hard work and financial investment, and driving it out in to a world full of armed idiots, psychos and malcontents is worth the price of admission

The thread has run out of gas it seems, so maybe I should let it die. But not just yet...

My effort to get a group together to run the heists has failed miserably. Shame that, I really want to do these, but have little desire to run them with randoms. Oden and Bong are on board, leaving a single solitary slot looking for a player to fill it. I should have known that getting four people together, out of the thousands that hang out here, was a fool's errand

Actually I thought it would be easy. I thought people would be all over this. I realize the game is old, and not everyone's cuppa, but come on, it's one of the most successful games ever. Well, actually, it's THE most successful game ever, but let's not split hairs. And it's fun.

Maybe someone will come on board. Please post or PM if interested.

Beyond the heist disappointment, I've spent the past two days getting the gunrunning business set up. With the double rewards this week it's a good money maker. I was able to buy the bunker (Chumash) and upgrade the staff and equipment. Total investment was 2.5 million (saved 700k with this week's bunker discount). I haven't made all of that back yet, but with the payout bonus it's done well. My single best payout so far in GTAO came last night running guns. The mission itself was fairly challenging. For some reason, GTAO players call the bunker "passive income" which is not even close to being accurate, but whatever.

Here's how it works. First step is to buy a bunker. There are eleven bunkers to choose from, with different costs. I chose Chumash partly for the location (closest to the city and my office) and partly due to price (4th cheapest). There are three upgrades. Equipment (1.1 mil), staff (500k) and defenses (not sure, haven't purchased). Aside from defense, these upgrades serve to both reduce production time and increase value of the weapons being made.

To run the business, the player needs to obtain stock, the commodity used to manufacture the guns. Stock can be obtained by stealing it, or buying it. Stealing means you get it at no cost (minus time, ammo, armor etc). Buying it costs 75k (there's more to it, but for my purposes, since I am running it solo, let's call it 75k). Common wisdom is to buy it since the time you would otherwise spend stealing it, can be put to more profitable use in other ventures such as Import Export. Or steal it, whichever makes you happy

Once the stock is secured, the staff in your bunker turns it in to weapons over time. That 75k becomes 210k worth of guns in 2.5 hours (when you have both upgrades. It takes longer and is worth less if you do not). So I suppose the production is passive, but there's no money in production. Once the product is ready, you need to sell it. You can sell it in Blaine County for less money, or Los Santos for more. I always choose the city.

From the laptop in your bunker you chose to sell. Upon exiting the bunker, your mission is assigned through whatshisface on the phone. These missions vary in challenge level. But basically you are assigned a vehicle like a monster truck, Insurgent or buggy to deliver the goods. Get them there in time and cash in. Some are opposed, some are not. Other players can choose to disrupt you or destroy your shipment. Not so passive now is it? Like Inigo Montoya said "I don't think that word means what you think it means"

With the double money this week, that 210k becomes 420k! Cha-ching! To get that, I had to run a mission in an Insurgent, and at each of five drop off locations you get swarmed by Merryweather. Helos, Insurgents and footsoldiers. Lots of em. But they aren't aimbot like the enemies in I/E missions, and I got through it with only one death. Next time I will remember to restock my body armor lol. So 420k minus the 75k investment is 345k profit. Not bad for 20 minutes of work. Of course, after Thursday the 2X will be gone and this will pay 135k profit. Still good money.

So what's the downside? Initial cost is steep. But Rockstar's made that true of any business venture. Fully upgraded bunker daily fees are high, so you either want to keep it rocking or shut it down. And it requires a public server. That's not much of a deterrent once you've learned the ropes.

Overall, it's a great business to supplement your other holdings. If you're going on for a three hour session for example, you would start by obtaining your stock and let your minions go to work. While they are at it, you play the rest of the game. At the end of the session, run the delivery mission and cash in.

Count me in but I have to figure out what my social club user name is. After that its just the time zone that may interfere (pacific time zone for me).

My game name is HitchHikerHSDWG feel free to add me.

I've seen Californians.



Friday's we try to run a session at my midnight/DBond's dinner so I guess that would be your lunch (or is it your 3pm coffee-break? You mericans do 3pm coffee right? it's by law in Swedenland)?

Haha Oden, that won't play in the US, but I know the skits. If HHF is like that, imagine the directions he will give lol.



Outstanding, and welcome aboard! I will add you (Done, check invites). Are you interested in running the heists? Like Oden said, we usually get together on Fridays (6pm eastern, maybe a little early for the left coast) and we've been getting together Sunday afternoons with Bong as well.

If you want to do the heists, I humbly request that HHF and Bong run the Fleeca job on hard. This would keep the four of us eligible for the bonuses on offer. The Criminal Mastermind one (10 million!) is probably out of reach since it requires no deaths. But the million dollar rewards for doing the heists in order, and with the same crew would be very reachable. Oden and I ran the Fleeca heist, which took about an hour? We made it through in the first run. It's pretty easy. And you get an extra 100k if it's the first time you've done it. Once all four of us have run Fleeca, then we can do Prison Break.

Thanks much HHF for stepping forward. Made my day

I bought a hangar last night, the cheapest one at LSIA. My new goal is the Akula attack choppa. It's mostly like a Commanche, with stealth and sh!t. Hangars are on sale and so is the Akula. This is a multi-step program, but I should have the helo in a few days. From there I will still need the workshop and upgrades before it's ready for PvP. But I want to take advantage of the discount which will save 1.2 million. Saved 500k on the hangar price. That even comes with a plane. So I have a plane. And a new smuggling business. Bond & Son is really branching out lol.

Not sure if it's still up, but yesterday's daily challenge was easy. 3 things...

-- Participate in a non contact race. Set one up, choose non contact. Race. Done

-- Fall 350 feet (or there abouts) without dying. Flew helo to top of tallest building. Jumped off (with 'chute, very important) and landed in construction site lot. Done

-- Complete Flight School Mission. Did second one (engine failure) for first time. Couldn't believe it, but I stopped 2.18 meters from target. Never again I am sure. Haha

Easy money. Took 15 minutes to do them all.

I want to apologize to Oden, and thank him as well

We hooked up last night and started with our customary round of golf to kick things off. After that we ran one of my bunker deliveries, and then an export mission. Unfortunately he got jack sh!t in payouts, while I cleared 300k. Not fair. Isn't there a way to share job payouts? How is that done?

I think if we sell one of my car collections then each player gets a good cut. I have two 3-car collections ready to roll if two of you want to help. Each player would get 135k minus damage I believe if we sell the top-end one (Uninsurable Collection).

With the addition of HHF we finally have four players. I'd like to know if everyone is on board for running heists? Please check in and let me know. Tomorrow is probably too early to run Prison Break, but perhaps we could get Fleeca out of the way? As mentioned, HHF and Bong need to do this as a pair to keep us eligible for the big rewards. It needs to be run on the hard setting, and if it can be done with no deaths even better. I am not expecting we will get the Criminal Mastermind reward, but we will if we can do all the heists in order, on hard with the same four guys and have no deaths we would each get another 10 million. And that would be a game changer. This though, is probably too much to expect. Something always can go wrong

Let's get it rollin'

no worries DBond, I wasn't there for the dollars.

But, I had a less good run today.
Guess I've done something bad and God hates me in general.

Couldn't find a garage at my funds so I thought whattaheck lets go warehouse and start collecting papers until I can afford a garage.
Said and done my secretary (dead sure she's your secretary's sister) instructs me to buy goods and I go easy on a 1 crate 2000 gta-dollars.
"Go get it" she says and I spin off in my stolen vehicle.
Halfway there I get a notification someone got my stuff and I need to take out that helicopter.
Seriously? A helicopter, with my handguns and a rusty land vehicle?
Can't see the challange so I just ignore it.

After some youtubes on warehouse I still don't get it and assumes it was just a one-off bad start.

Second try, 1 crate only, it seems the law enforcement was quicker then I.
So, this time the challenge becomes robbing a police van holding my cargo?

Ok, lets give this a try.

67 532 bullets later and a number of deaths I find myself in a police van trying to evade the whole world heading south from the northern tip of Santos island.
In the general mayhem that ensumes I imagine myself that a random player ona a flying motorbike tries to fend off police cars chasing me, or he tries to steal my stuff killing me, not sure.

Finally I make it back to my warehouse and after secretarian instructions I sell the goods and must go to a plane for delivery fo the deal.

Once there I understand that I also need to pilot this bird and trust me, as a long time Falcon4 pilot, this is not normal flying.
I manage to take off and heads towards some yellow marker.

BoomPowZagaboff and gtaOden is no more.

Someone shot me down and grabbed the goods.

Feels a bit over the top of an effort for a few grand?

I can collect 10 grand sleeping in a pink Zion every now and then.

Feels like I have a wall of "rank 400" players stopping any attempt to move forward.

Oh man, that sounds bad. I didn't go the crate route of course, so have no direct input on how to go about it. I know it can pay very well. But not familiar with the mechanics.

Look back a few posts and find the instructions I wrote for creating a solo lobby and you won't have to deal with the people that want to blow your stuff up.

You might be able to gain some insight and a few tips from this reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/5ucgj5/are_the_crates_doable_solo/

Or this

Lone Wolf Crate Guide

Late dinner, will be there within an hour.
Hope to see you HitchHiker, I'll buy you a virtual beer when you show up

See you then. Anyone willing to help me make a weapons delivery?

The last one I did glitched. When it ended a message popped up that the transaction wasn't valid or something, and the stock went back in to the bunker. Problem is, I had already purchased the next batch of stock and now have more than can be delivered by a single vehicle. So I need a second driver. Apply in person

Thanks for the help Oden, not sure why we lost the 3 weapons crates, but at least I made my money back.

Today I was the player I don't want to be, destroying the car we are looking to steal. With rockets. So dumb

I'll be sure to keep it low key next time

Hmm, I thought I posted in here yesterday but, sorry I was otherwise engaged Sunday maybe this weekend I'll be in there.

You would've been proud of us Bong, the simplest theft ended up in massive mayhem with a brazillion shots fired and numerous demolished vehicles >> Bong-style mission
I had to switch wheels mid-escape and DBond spammed rockets from his helo for my cover - jumped in a brand new SUV that wasn't brand new for very long.
First time I actually shot police officers right in the face on purpose - felt bad but I just had to survive as they start to show up SWAT style riding on the side of their vans.
zig-zagging on dirt roards over the mountain back into north parts of LS wrecking even more police cars and general sunday drivers I finally made rid of the last cop-star in the city streets.

I had to change t-shirt for real after that.

Yeah, a bit of a mess, it was. Totally me. Like we were running a contact mission to steal a truck. Some NPCs were in cover and giving us a hard time. And I am all like hey, I haven't used this grenade launcher. Plomp! Boom, up goes the truck we were to steal.

And then later, I said hey Oden, run some of your business missions and I will fly cover in the Buzzard. It actually went well. Then, we did one of my car source missions with the same idea, I would fly cover, while Oden drove the mark back to the warehouse. I decided I would help thin out the opposition on the ground as we moved in on it and managed to blow up the car we were to steal.

But anyway, despite my blunders, I had a ton of fun flying top cover

I made some good progress over this past week. Took advantage of the sale to buy a hangar. And bought the Akula on sale as well. Then saved to buy the hangar workshop and weapons, armor and stuff for my new helicopter. The smuggling business that comes with the hangar has been cool. It's crap money, but fun. The airport can be a bit chaotic at times, but patience is a virtue.

The hangar is awesome, but this is the sort of thing you only buy because..

-- you already have everything else, or

-- You want personal aircraft.

You do not buy it to turn a profit. The real financial advantage to it is the fact that as you run source missions, you unlock the 'trade price' for various aircraft. So if you are in to the aircraft in GTAO, this can save millions upon millions. If you do not care about owning personal aircraft, spend your money elsewhere.

I also started getting in to the PvP a bit more and now have a respectable K/D. Early on I avoided this whenever I could, but still got wasted regularly, resulting in a pretty deep K/D hole. An 0-fer as they say in baseball. So it took a good run to get this respectable. I am becoming that rooftop sniper that we all hate

With the hangar and the Akula in the organization, the next goals on the list are an office garage like Bong's and a Turismo-R cause it is so sick looking. After that? Frankly, I have no idea.

Our heist action has gained no traction. I'll await developments.

Double $ and RP on all Contact Missions this week. That's pretty good. Not only is it double money, it can be done in Invite. Offices, Cargo Warehouses, Nightclubs, Hangars, Bunkers are all on sale I think.

https://gtaforums.com/topic/925755-play-7-new-rc-bandito-races/

Oden should like the contact mission bonus

2X Associate pay as well.

If you haven't lost interest by now that is.

I have to conclude that the heists just are not going to happen with a SimHQ crew. Posts and PMs have gone unanswered. Getting this done takes a little commitment and some coordination, and that's not happening. I've been cast to the randoms pool. Plenty of other ways to make money, but this is content I don't want to miss. I cannot bring myself to invest the time to try heists with random fools. Just too many ways for it to go wrong. After five weeks of trying to work it out I admit defeat.

On the plus side I ranked enough to get the heavy sniper. That goes well with my sniping

Even better with explosive rounds, just crazy OP

Yeah, but you need a bunker and what, a MOC or Terrorbyte?

I admit I'd like to have these rounds for flying griefbags.

But neither of those vehicles is in my near future. Office garage is next, then I want to blow my money on supercars lol.

The contact mission bonus meant a nice change of pace. I didn't go public all night, just stayed in invite and ran a variety of contact missions. Good money, and the RP is hard to beat. Fast ranking with these at the moment. I played a few I hadn't tried yet. Mostly I wanted to see which contact missions were good to do with a Buzzard. One that is, and that I ran several times is called Hit 'em Up. It's an assassination mission with four targets, all of whom are outside so can be done with an aircraft. Takes 10-15 minutes and was paying 38k with the 2x bonus. The best paying mission I ran paid 45k and though I cannot recall precisely which one it was, I think it was Chopper Tail.

In leisurely play over a couple of hours I cleared 400k. At this rate my office garage will be installed this evening. I'm gravitating toward simply focusing on whichever activity is on bonus this week. I don't have all businesses, and probably never will, but for example I shut down my bunker last week. I may not run it again until 2x for gunrunning. Once you have a diversified empire, this is probably the way to go. I have been filling my air freight business in anticipation of the next smuggling bonus week.

GTAO players always talk about 'profit', but like my ex-wife, never seem to consider or mention how much things actually cost. I talked about this when describing the import/export mechanics earlier in the thread. Gunrunning is the same. Let's break it down.

You can steal the supplies, but I will ignore that and focus on buying them, which is what most players do.

The supplies cost 75k. As a solo player you want only enough to fill a single vehicle, to make the delivery mission manageable as a lone wolf. So you spend 75k. Assuming you have an upgraded bunker, these supplies will be ready to sell in 2.5 hours. When ready, the sell mission will gross 210k, for 135k profit. But my bunker costs 8,600 per 'day' in operating costs. So during that 2.5 hours while production is underway, it costs 26,900 to run the bunker. So profit is closer to 110k. And this fails to factor in any other costs such as ammo, armor and other incidentals incurred during operations, or the fact that you may lose some product during the mission, plus bunker costs incurred when no production is actually going on.

During a 2x bonus week, this profit though jumps to almost 320k. So it makes sense (to me) to diversify as much as possible, then concentrate on whichever one is the focus of the weekly event. Simple enough, but you need the assets and infrastructure to take advantage of it. A player like Bong, who has virtually everything, can cash in no matter which direction R* goes any particular week if he is so inclined. That's the path to becoming a crook with mountains of cash (or a fleet of supercars, as the case may be)

Spent another evening running 2x contact missions. The goal is the office garage, and I made enough to buy it, but when I went to do that I saw that I failed to consider Rockstar would gouge me for interior design. Only the most expensive will do for this particular structure. The polished marble sort of look. So that meant I was still half a million short doh! Back to work.

Made about 600k running contacts. The great thing is you can do them in invite, and can do them without being a CEO and avoid the daily fees, so it's straight up bank. Plus it's no grind since you can mix it up with so many choices for missions. The one I was running most is Lester's Denial of Service. You need to destroy a few trucks. The way I'm doing it is to go to a Pegasus spawn point, call my Buzzard, then just fly around lobbing rockets at the targets. So simple, there's little opposition (occasional wanted level from collateral damage, and NPCs on foot) and was paying 40k. Gotta get Oden to ride along for the extra 10% plus he can operate the secondary weapons for additional mayhem and destruction.

Another one I ran a few times was Defender, where you fly escort in a Buzzard for another NPC helicopter. Escort him from LSIA to Sandy Shores for 40k. Need to fight off a number of NPC helos, but it's pretty easy.

Chopper Tail has been the highest paying one I've run, at 45k. Even better, it was giving over 9000 RP. I went from rank 94 to 100 just running contact missions last night. And now I get the turbo option for my cars and bikes. Zoom zoom.

$15 on Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/271590/Grand_Theft_Auto_V/


I'm buying it if I can talk my best bud to do so. Might/probably will buy it even if he doesn't

It's a hell of a lot of content for 15 bucks I tell ya. You have the whole single player side of the game which I think is excellent. And then throw in the online side and I've gotten even more play time out of that, with no signs of slowing down. YMMV.

If you get it and want to hook up let us know. Your east coast status dovetails nicely

Have a friended a few of you guys and look forward to meeting up with you at some point. Gaming time has been a little sparse for me lately, coupled with being pacific time zone. Hopefully will see you online at some point this is an outstanding good time with friends online! And technically I'm a transplanted East Coaster, born in Brooklyn, NY not East LA!

My Name in game is KurtBong, I'm usually on in the morning and sometimes after Midnight EST due to my work schedule I make a lot of races which can be found on the social club webpage

I stopped playing beginning of March since I couldn't find enough people to play with. I wanted to do the heists but getting four people together proved beyond my abilities.

I just built a new PC this week so reinstalled GTA and have been having a go in story mode once again. I changed the name to smokeless6 so that's me in case it wasn't clear.

If we can get 3 plus me to do heists I am in.

I hear you DBond, always tough getting the right people online at the right time. In addition to my Social Club name my steam name is HitchHikingFlatlander if you guys want to add me there too. KRT_Bong, I think I've d/l'ed your races, I'm a big fan of the stunt tracks!

The game is a lot of fun, I've had a great time with it both story mode and online. Managed to get my online level almost to 120 which is the final unlock level before I stopped.

For me I want to play with players that have the same mindset. Some folks play with sirens and explosions as the background music. I like more chill. I also despise the Jetsons stuff which has no place in this game for me. Deluxos, Oppressors, Up and Atomizers and that sort of thing ruin the game. Normally I would dismiss such claims. "Ruin" the game? But yeah, these things suck and I would play in a server that locked these things out in a heartbeat.

Online, I want to run missions, do business stuff, keep a low profile. Love flying helos on this map. Love the cars and the bikes. The properties. I bought a gorgeous office garage and filled it with amazing whips and have no one to show it off to

Big fan of street racing, but hate stunt racing. Enjoy the golf. Amazing game world in GTA 5. Finding someone who wants to play this way isn't easy. Folks seem to gravitate toward the flying motorcycles and general mayhem which just makes me roll my eyes.

Heists are what I have missed out on so far. Still holding out hope to run these with a group that actually wants to do them well. I'll keep tabs on this thread just in case....

Over the past couple of weeks I've been playing some GTA. I wanted to check out what's new with the Casino update. That was released in the summer, but I just got around to having a look. There is a ton of new stuff, but after checking it all out there isn't much for me, at least as long as I have no heist crew.

I completed the single player mode a second time, and approached it a bit differently so the three mains would end with more bank. It's possible to end up with a couple of billion if you save Lester's assassination missions for after the big score at the end. I saved two of them, kinda playing it both ways, so that my characters had some paper while playing through the campaign, but also had some serious money for afterwards. Doing it this way resulted in each character ending the campaign with around $150 million but still having a few million on hand during most of the run.

When I finished the story mode the first time, I went straight over to GTAO so having a bank roll for the single player characters didn't matter much. This time though I wanted to see if I could get the 100% achievement, and still working on that (81%). There is a lot to do in GTA. Most of it is fun. Having the money to roll with after the main story is done is cool. I've bought movie theaters and helipads, supercars and aircraft, airfields and garages. This makes the game more fun as I run down the 100% checklist.

On the online side I was eager to check out the new casino. It's cool and all I suppose, but not for me really. I do stop by each day to spin the wheel. Free stuff in GTAO is always appreciated, since most everything costs an exorbitant amount of money. I've mostly gotten RP and casino chips out of it, and an ugly orange sweatshirt. But free is free. The main attraction for me is the Casino heist, which I would love to do. Until that is possible with non-randoms, the other content like arcades and penthouses has no value for me. Would be cool to have, but money is precious in GTAO, and at this point I see it as a poor way to spend it.

There are a bunch of new cars, and maybe I'll have to look in to a new one as my T-20 is slipping from it's perch. Last week was 2x Contact Missions and this week it's 2x Land Races. It's slow money, but all adds up. I've still never done any online heists aside from the Fleeca job I did with Oden a year ago. This is where the money is, and I'd like to run them, not that you wouldn't know this already having read through the thread, but with another year gone by perhaps some folks might be willing to give it a go?

I am sitting on a measly 2.5 mil at the mo, but it's enough for an arcade (needed to run the Casino job). This week the casino heist has boosted take and lowered cost for accomplices, but that ends Thursday. So if a few of you are interested let me know and we will run this thing. And the other heists too if so inclined. Or if anyone has an arcade already and wants to host it I'm in. I need money, and lots of it, to feed my supercar habit. I have too much empty garage space and that's just not right. Need to fill it with sick whips

This week's rewards are not too exciting for me, as I don't do the stuff featured, nor do I have any of the sale items on my wishlist (except maybe the Shotaro motorcycle, as I love riding bikes in Los Santos)

But.... there is another cash give away. A year ago, they gave out 250k per week for four weeks if you logged on to GTAO during each week. So a cool million just for logging on. This week and next, it's 1 million per week. So that's a cool 2 million just for playing. I thought I'd share a heads up. Money's always useful in this game, and for a new player, that's the sort of windfall that can kick it off in style. I wish I had 2 million handed to me when I started!

https://gtaforums.com/topic/945212-the-albany-v-str-sports-car/

i only play SP with MODS, GTAO lost it appeal to me, it became saints row (that i love), with all the flying cars with rockets and a space laser, SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HEKK. and they said the previous titles are not cannon because they are going for a realistic setting ? yeaj,right...
i wish it was more focused on gang wars, turfs and trafficking..your know, cars and goods, like one update did. also they completely let go of the heist idea. i fear the next GTA will be online only, with different cities as different hubs

I agree with that quote. GTAO is a mixed bag for me. The Jetsons stuff like the Deluxo, Oppressor and Up and Atomizer sort of ruin it for me. But then again only some of my time is spent in 'open' GTAO.

I can make more money in a public server, especially with the car import/export business. Running these sell missions in a populated server is easier, since no AI spawns. Actually all of my businesses (I have the hangar and the bunker too) fare best in a public server. And a public server is required for most of it. The trouble is that other players may choose to intercede. And since this is broadcast to the entire lobby, and your position is shown on the map, it's easier than it should be for rivals or griefers to find you.

But it's easy to quickly eject everyone with a network trick (technically I'm removing myself) and stay in an empty public server. So the businesses that require public still function with no one left to ruin your day, aside from the NPCs. When I first started playing GTAO I found it a sh!tshow. I would have probably stopped playing if it weren't for the Invite Only option. Playing it this way early on was great. I had a blast with all of the new (for me) content and levelled up and made paper in peace. I could opt-in any time for head to head racing, or a shooting range match, a parachute jump or essentially all of the content aside from businesses. When done I could just return to my private lobby. There are a ton of ways to make money, and to have fun in this game outside of the PvP arena.

As I got in to the 40's levels though, I had enough money to afford an apartment, office and a helicopter. My character skills had improved, I had armor, good weapons and some fast cars and bikes. I started playing in open a bit more. Since I could now spawn safely in my apartment, instead of out on the street, it gave me the chance to test the temperature of the server. Sometimes you land in a lobby with a dozen players just going about their business, sometimes it's 30 all playing deathmatch with flying armed motorcycles, some of which I can watch from the window of my high-rise apartment while listening to country or gansta rap. Depending on the server temp and my mood at mo, I could choose to head out in to the city, or do the network trick or Invite Only. I think with these options I'm able to enjoy the best of what this game offers while minimizing the worst of it. I like the street racing, with motorcycles especially. I like the cars and heists, the golf, parachuting and stunt jumping. I absolutely love flying helicopters in Los Santos. The flight model sucks sure, but I forget all of that and just have a hell of a good time. I play it full time first person.

I would also like the PvP or open public with two changes. Remove the Jetsons stuff and remove the map blips showing player locations. As it is I mostly just play there to run my I/E business, since the sell missions consist of driving a super car a few miles to delivery. I don't get messed with much, I think there's not much time to intercept (aside from aircraft and flying bikes). I also have fun ripping though the streets on the Akuma while others take potshots. Sometimes that stuff is fun too. I don;t actively seek out PvP but I'm equipped now to defend myself. Not long ago I had just dropped off a super car to a buyer and went out to the street to use my phone and call for my helicopter to fly back to the office. I was standing with my back to the wall surrounding the car buyer's house and on the phone when a car came around the corner and floored it straight at me, to crush me against the wall. I saw it just in time and jumped to the side as it slammed in to the wall.

I looked for cover but none close, as I fumbled away my phone and drew my combat MG. The car had two players in it and the driver threw it in reverse, stopped after 50 feet at which point the passenger got out and the driver gunned it to hit me again. I shot the passenger dead before he got all the way out which freaked out the driver who decided to split. But he panicked and went over the hill and got stuck on a staircase leading down to the dock. With his wheels off the ground and I guess his doors jammed by the stair railings he just stood on the gas while I took aim through the rear window and gave him the good news. Called my helicopter and flew back to the office. Sometimes it's just a really fun game. Sometimes. Well, most of the time depending on how you're managing or filtering the stuff you don't like.

you found yourself a noob, everyone has armored car level, or an armored akuma, or that one military that drives like 4x4 semi, cant shoot windows with those.

Yes, they do, and I have an armored Karuma myself, but these vehicles aren't what players are driving around in, noob or not. The Akuma is a motorcycle and there's even an Akula, which is a Commanche-style helicopter (which I also have)

Karmua, Akuma, Akula. Not uncommon to mix 'em up.

GTA V is $15 on Steam at the mo. Combined with the free 2 million giveaway it's a good time to try it if thinking about it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/271590/Grand_Theft_Auto_V/

Tried a few short runs last few days but no gta$ yet, is it a delayed payment when week is over?
Also noticed life online is still horrible trying to survive flying cars and motorbikes spamming missile-rockets all over you.
Did manage to complete a 3 zone delivery drop though so a few bucks earned, good times.

Oden! What's up man?

They said the money should be in your account within 72 hours, the first million. I didn't have mine as of last night.

Don't forget you can use the suspend process trick to give the others the boot and conduct your business in NPC-flavored peace if so inclined. For my I/E business I tend to do the source missions this way, and the sell missions in populated public.

If you aren't aware, be sure to stop by the new Diamond casino everyday and spin the wheel for free stuff.

Does this game feel alive for a change? Every GTA I've played in the past felt really dead and lifeless and you could tell all the NPCs were cardboard.

Hard for me to judge for you Blastman, but for me? Los Santos is one the most convincing game worlds I've ever seen. Single player is very alive, with pedestrians, traffic, aircraft, animals and more. That said, it is a 2013 game at it's core.

Online reduces the NPCs to a certain extent. less traffic for example (which is nice for street racing!)

But yeah, GTA really blew me away with the world, and I didn't start playing until it was a few years old. I still love it hundreds of hours later. NPCS will walk by having conversations on their phones (walk along and listen it's often a hoot), they will get defensive if you get too close or bump them. They might place a bounty on you for nicking their car. Everywhere you turn it's populated. Not sure where your standards fall, and GTA may not meet them, but for me I reckon it's one of the best.

Here's a video in first person of some of the early Story Mode gameplay. While it's mostly showing missions, the driving parts show some of the gameworld (traffic/pedestrians) though I don't know if reveals enough to determine how alive it is?

Well, can you go inside buildings, etc.? Random ones? Not just the stock shops.

No, cannot do that.

The Steam page description doesn't mention multiplayer?

Online's included.

From the description

Grand Theft Auto V for PC also includes Grand Theft Auto Online, with support for 30 players and two spectators. Grand Theft Auto Online for PC will include all existing gameplay upgrades and Rockstar-created content released since the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online, including Heists and Adversary modes.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online features First Person Mode, giving players the chance to explore the incredibly detailed world of Los Santos and Blaine County in an entirely new way.

Finally received the 1 million log-in bonus. Having logged in last Thursday, I should have received it on Sunday, but didn't. It finally came through yesterday. New week begins tomorrow, so be sure to log in today at the latest to get the first week's money. That means a new set of weekly rewards. I didn't care for most of this week's, but 2x CEO/VIP work was nice. I ran a lot of Sightseer and Headhunter and each one pays 50k when doubled, so I made some good bank over the course of the event.

But ya know, I've a problem. And that's because there's really nothing I want to buy. I'm saving it up and maybe down the road something will trigger a purchase.

Arcade? What for, no one to run heists with so it's a waste.

Casino Penthouse? the only thing I do there is grab my free 1000 bucks everyday and spin the wheel for free stuff. Don't see any reason to buy in.

Nightclub? Nah.

Motorcycle Club? Ditto.

In the end I'll probably blow it on supercars and helicopters, but only on sale!

New week, new rewards

https://gtaforums.com/topic/945838-the-declasse-drift-yosemite/

Once again, not much in it for me, but I really want that podium car, and I am due to win one.

Decent discounts on some good vehicles and upgrades. Don't care about stunt racing, which if I can avoid it I will never do again. No good money makers for me (aside from a free million, so yeah). I'll visit the casino every day in hopes of adding that Furia to my stable though.

New week, new rewards

https://gtaforums.com/topic/946257-...-get-the-gift-of-diamonds-in-gta-online/

It's a bit of a recurring theme that the weekly rewards hold little appeal for me, but there is double heists payout. Who's up for it? hahaha

Discount on high-end apartments. I have one, but might just buy a second for the convenience of having a second safe haven elsewhere in the city. The price on these is already reasonable before the discount. Something downtown like Alta Street or Integrity way, or maybe a penthouse at the casino. My current apartment is next to the golf course on the west side of Los Santos (Richards Majestic 51), so maybe another one downtown or on the east side might be a good idea. More garage space anyway. With the free 2 million for logging in the past two weeks I've a bit to burn.

And for what it's worth I did not win the Furia on the lucky wheel. I don't use glitches or exploits to spin repeatedly. My GTAO empire is straight up legit. And looks like it too

I did however get probably the worst possible spin yesterday. It was Mystery prize "All snacks will be refilled", which is bad enough on the face of it, but more so when your snacks are already full. Here's to better luck this week.

Edit: I ended up buying 3 Alta Street, Apt 57. It cost just 145k on sale. Same exact interior of my other one, 2-floors with clear bedroom windows. Location is right downtown, near the construction and that tunnel you used in the Vangelico heist in story mode. Gives me a second place to crash or evade, and another 10 garage spaces, even though that makes 40 or 60 now, and I have nowhere near that many vehicles.

I haven't been in GTA a lot recently it kinda died off after RDR2 which I have as well, But I do occasionally drop in and tear around a track or two. If you go to the Rockstar games social club page you can look up all my Races under KurtBong https://socialclub.rockstargames.co...platform=pc&sort=date&title=gtav
you have to be signed in to see the page

Hey Bong, how's things?

Yeah, I check you guys out just about every time I log on, to see if you've gained any levels lol. Your wall is not shared though. I've got you, Oden and HitchHikingFlatlander on my friends list. Hey, that is exactly the number of players needed to run heists. Just sayin'

I've run some of your races, Cyprus Flats, Pacific Rim and Desert GT come to mind. Good stuff, though as you know I don't like stunt races. But off road and street racing is my groove. I like air racing and skydiving races too.

I actually haven't made just a straight Air race, transitions car to helo to dump truck, that sort of thing. I'm going to hop in today and muck around a bit

Cool. Helicopters are more my style, even with the controller I still have some difficulty in fixed-wings. The R*-created Chopper Cruise is a good example of the type of helicopter race I find fun. Through the city, down among the high-rises and under bridges, that sort of thing is good fun, especially at night when the city looks so amazing.

Motorcycle street racing, especially point to point, is what I run most often.

New week, new rewards

https://gtaforums.com/topic/946670-the-dinka-blista-kanjo-more/

The podium car is one of the new open-wheel F1 or Indy Car style race cars. That's worth a few spins. It says 2x VIP work, which I assume includes CEO work. Gotta find out, because that's right up my alley. I didn't play much this week, after buying the second apartment I ran a few races and then bought Hitman 2. But if CEO work is 2x I'll play a bit more this week.

2x cargo if you've a warehouse.

No car discounts on my list, but I'll buy a Kamacho if they ever go on sale. But hey, there's 40% off yachts!

New week, new rewards

And new stuff too

https://gtaforums.com/topic/947167-san-andreas-prix-open-wheel-racing/

R* rolled out a bunch of racing circuits to go with the introduction of the open wheel, F1-style cars. Pretty cool. I failed to win one on the Lucky Wheel this week. Actually, I only logged in twice during the week as my gaming time has been filled with Hitman 2 contracts. I can't see purchasing one of these cars since they ain't cheap. Maybe they can be rented like you can do for other racing modes?

Import/Export is +50%. Why not double, come on! At least this one is for me.

Two new T-shirts and the usual parade of discounts that don't interest me, but I might upgrade my hangar. No Kamacho discount this week either.

I stopped giving weekly updates because clearly no one cares

But this week players get a log-in bonus of 500k. Plus, Buzzard attack choppers are 50% off. So if you log on and buy one, it's a net 375k spend for one of the best tools in GTA Online. That's like a really good deal, Jake from State Farm.

Weekly rewards this week center around aircraft and hangars.

I log on every so often but the lobbies are always filled with hackers or menu users who can drop money or blow everyone up simultaneously or any number of irritating things to ruin the game play, I like to do some of the missions, races or just drive around making some money but it's been ruined by these kinds of idiots.

Yes, that's true. Open public is a mess, most of the time. But every now and then it hits the sweet spot and is a lot of fun.

I haven't been playing much, logging on a couple times a week to get my motorcycle and helo fix, and running the Headhunter-Sightseer loop, and Lester's Denial of Service mission in my Buzzard. I spin the wheel at the casino. Deluxo on the podium this week and I don't want one of them, but there's no chance I'll ever win a car it seems so no danger of actually getting it.

I'm mostly in invite or solo public.

I bought a second high-end apartment a few weeks ago, 3 Alta street. I hit a discount on the wheel a couple days ago, 10% off Dock Tease. So I bought a jet-ski lol.

Got my 500k log-in bonus this week. I have about 7 mil in the bank but nothing I really want to buy.

I'm not going to crank up the weekly notifications again, but this week is 2x Contact Missions,which is always one of my favorites.

Pariah on the podium at the Diamond, and that's worth a few spins

2x weed sales as well, but I don't have a clubhouse

All Benny's stuff on sale too, but not for me


https://gtaforums.com/topic/952627-save-on-bennys-custom-vehicle-upgrades/

Spin your envy guys

Dammit Oden, you know how many times I've spun that wheel for a car?!

Congrats, it's a good one. I want it too. You've inspired me to log in today and have a spin, maybe your luck will rub off on me.

Sweet!

20,000 chips for me.

One time I walked in for a supercar and got a snack refill when my snacks were full.

The cashier chick is creepy.

This weekly update is worth it!

New missions! Not sure what they are about, but new Gerald missions. That's pretty cool. Folks are saying on the GTA boards that the missions are fun.

Contact missions are 2x again, and also VIP/CEO are 2x. Not bad, not bad at all.

Podium car I don't want, but I never win those. Karin Sultan.

Offices, warehouses and upgrades on sale. Still no Canis Kamacho. I've been waiting for that to go on sale for a year. I could buy 20 of them, but I only buy stuff on sale lol.

Garage upgrades on sale too.

https://gtaforums.com/topic/953180-geralds-lets-play-more/

Is there a way to sell off a nightclub?
Not that I really need the cash but the girls refuse to date me, something about looks and smell, I dont know.

When did you buy a nightclub?!

No way to sell it straight up. If you bought one of the more trendy locations, you might be able to trade down and get some of it back. But there might also be a cut taken out of it and there goes whatever money you would have saved. Bong owns a nightclub. He might be able to tell you what you can do here.

Maybe you can close it down to allay the costs. That's what I did with my bunker.

Maybe you could trade it in on something other than a nightclub, like the cheapest garage for example?

New week, new rewards.

https://gtaforums.com/topic/953709-...th-discounts-on-futuristic-weapons-more/

Nightclubs on sale so Oden can buy another one

Reaper on the podium, worth a few spins. Kinda like a Lambo Huracán. Nice looking whip.

Log-ins must be starting to fall off on this seven year old game. R* are again giving a log-in bonus. 500k this time for playing during May. This is the third one this year already by my count.

Kamacho still not on sale.

This is free through the next week on Epic.

And then what happens? Does it end unless you buy it? Or does it mean you can get and keep it for free if you download it over the next week?

If anyone goes for it and wants to get a heist crew together I'm in.

You keep it forever, even if you don't download the game. You just have to place the free order.

Good deal. All DLC is free in GTA so that means a fully up to date GTA for free.

All DLC is for GTAO, there has not been any single player DLC.

"403 Forbidden"

Seems everyone is trying to get GTAV

By the way, new week new rewards

https://gtaforums.com/topic/954742-...l-missions-and-increased-research-speed/

2x Bunker business

Free pistols at Ammunation

Bunkers were actually 3x, but R* discovered the players were happy so they cut it to 2x, the bastages.

Grotti GTO on the podium, worth a few spins. I still have not won a car in probably 50 spins. Kamacho still not on sale.

For any new players thinking of going for the free deal this week, there is also a 500k log-in bonus during May (GTAO-only, not story mode). So you'll have a cool half-million very early on. That can help get you on your way. It takes a few days to hit your account though. 500k is enough to buy a high-end apartment with plenty left over to arm yourself (and pistols are free this week!)

If you register with Rockstar Social Club you'll have access to a free Elegy, which is very much like a Nissan GT-R and one of the best sports cars in GTA (can be used in story mode or online). I still drive mine a lot.

Just checked it out and it appears it's the Premium edition for free. That gives you another 1 million in paper. I'd jump all over this. Again, this money is for GTAO, not story mode.

Not sure this link will work since you need to approve the mature content opt-in.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/grand-theft-auto-v/home

But wait! There's more!

The Premium Edition gives you:

-- $1,000,000 in paper. That's good money, and added to the log-in bonus in May would start a new player with 1.5 mil in cold hard cash.

-- Maze Bank Office. This is huge, and gets you in to CEO territory from the start

-- Other Properties

Paleto Forest Gunrunning Bunker
Senora Desert Counterfeit Cash Factory
Great Chaparral Biker Clubhouse
1561 San Vitas Street Apartment
1337 Exceptionalists Way 10 Car Garage

This is a hell of a kickstart. None of these are prime locations, but they are free. Actually, the locations kinda suck, but you can always trade them in on better ones.

-- Weapons

Compact Grenade Launcher
Marksman Rifle
Compact Rife

These are good ones and you would have to play for quite a while to unlock them without the Criminal Enterprise Starter pack


-- A fleet fit for a gangsta

Dune FAV
Maibatsu Frogger
Enus Windsor
Obey Omnis
Coquette Classic
Turismo R
Pegassi Vortex
Huntley S
Western Zombie Chopper
Banshee

Wow, that's all free? Only one in that list I have is the Turismo R. That cost me 500k. You get it for free. The Frogger is a helicopter. So there are supercars, aircraft and motorcycles in that list.

That's a heck of a deal. I was level 40 before I had an office and helicopter, and started homeless, on foot with no car. Whippersnapper thugs don't know how good they got it


Turismo R. It's like a mash-up of a LaFerrari, a McLaren F1 and a Lambo Aventador to my eyes. Nice whip.

https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/epic-games-store-crashes-gta-v-free-1234607129/

Two factor authentication required.... oh this is going to be a goat rope

EDIT: actually no big deal. downloading now

I think the single player campaign is worth it too. I know some folks won't have any interest in online. I made a post earlier in this thread about how I enjoy the best of what GTAO offers while avoiding the worst of it. The upshot is there are several modes for online that remove the d-bags. Even so I had a lot of fun in the story mode, I've played through it twice now. It's not everyone's cuppa, but I found it fun and funny too.

There is so much to do aside from PvP. If anyone is up for the following activities, give me a shout

-- Street racing. Especially bikes
-- Helicopter racing
-- Skydiving
-- Golf
-- Darts
-- Tennis
-- Heists
-- Missions
-- General gangsta stuff like hanging on the corner, crib or strip club shooting the sh!t

GTA is not a model of realism, not that you needed me to tell you that. So things like physics are less than accurate. Flight models and vehicle physics will not remind you of your favorite sim. But the street racing is a lot of fun, and flying helicopters around Los Santos is great. Sometimes I just hop in one of my helicopters and just have a bash through the city, buzzing skyscrapers and under bridges. It's a lot of fun.

Racing down the mountain tracks on mountain bikes is a lot of fun too. A decent VR implementation would make this a must-have.

Yeah, I play in first-person full-time. VR would be cool too.

Logged on last night to run a couple missions in my attack chopper and spin the casino wheel to win the GTO. I failed to win the car, of course. Can you overspray these custom liveries? That thing's got some crazy paint on it. I won 25k in chips. Always chips, clothes or nonsense.

Oden, if you're around, can you re-paint the one you won a few weeks ago?

There was a mod for VR, wouldnt try using online though. you can use the epic game to your current acount, you will get all the bonus except the 1 mil, but honestly, 1 million in gtao is the same as nothing.....and the apartaments also suck, but its a leg up on the CEO stuff

As it was free thought I'd give it a whirl. D/L and installed this morning. Still waiting for Rockstar to send a verification email out so I can play as it seems you must be online and in the rockstar social club. Still, it's only been 10 hours or so, can't rush these things!!!

Ahh, that sucks. Looks like you're not alone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rockstar/comments/gk72rg/no_verification_email_at_all_when_trying_to_make/

Skimming through that reddit it looks like it is widespread, and that some players are getting them, but after a long wait in most cases. One guy said same thing for him so he used the website instead of the launcher. Maybe that's an option?

But it would be worse to reset your request if you were just minutes away from getting it. These are things I struggle with

I'm in, not sure it was worth the wait.

Same feeling here

God, that Epic launcher is aweful.

It takes forever to browse in it, and them limiting bandwidth for no good reason caused it to take almost a day to download the game. Also, why does the Rockstar Social Club take a full 1 GB?

No wonder people pirate games with this bull going around, second and last time I buy a Rockstar game on PC

Going to give it another whirl, it's such a huge hit game I think it must be me.

Are you playing single player or online?

There's a way to ease yourself in to GTAO, by starting an Invite Only session. Some businesses can only be run while in public, and there's even a way to remove other players from that. But for just getting in and having a bash without worrying about PvP and griefers and hackers, Invite Only is a good option.

To do this start GTA in to story mode. Once it's loaded, hit escape and click Online and Play GTA Online. this drills down to options like solo, invite, etc. Start Invite Only and you have GTAO all to yourself. This is a good way to test it out and level up, gaining rank and the weapons you want so that you aren't in the public arena before you're ready.

Single player story mode. Almost a bit fed up with multiplayer stuff! Will try out your advice mate, thanks.

I have been playing this first person view only, and am having fun.

I do wish, however, that there was a texture mod to remove all markings from every NPC in the game. I prefer people "80's clean." Yeah, I'm a prude.

Yeah, first person is the way to go for me too. Matter of fact, it was the thing that made me try it in the first place as I said in the OP. It's a disadvantage in PvP, since the first-person player has less SA, you can see a lot less of your surroundings, or over cars and walls and that sort of thing. But I don't care about that. I play full-time this way, driving, flying too. This means some cars are not ideal if they have a long bonnet, so I always make sure to test drive one first before purchasing. You can try any type of vehicle in the racing.

Are you playing online or story mode Blastman?

For new players trying out GTAO, one of the best things to do to gain rank and cash is the contact missions. These are usually quick 5 to 15 minute missions. To find them, hit escape, click online, jobs, Rockstar created then missions. As you rank up, more unlock. A mission like the rank 5 Where Credit's Due is really easy and quick. Oddly, the longer you take to do it, the more it pays. Take the full 15 minutes and get the most money. All ya gotta do is steal a pink Zion and drive it to Simeon's dealership, evading the fuzz along the way. Evasion is easy once you realize the key is to kite them, not just run at high speed. Just stay out of their vision cones. If you're in Invite-only you can do all of these solo.

With pistols free this week be sure to pick a couple up. The AP pistol is my favorite and makes a great weapon to use while driving. I'm not sure if rank-lock applies to free stuff. I've gone past the last unlock which is around level 130.

Story mode for the time being.

I played through story mode to the end before venturing in to GTAO. I had no desire to play GTAO, but after finishing single player I liked it enough that I wanted more so checked out online to see what it was all about. Honestly, if it weren't for invite-only mode I probably would not have stuck with it. By playing that way I was able to rank up and kit-out in peace, so that when I go public now I'm prepared for it.

I really enjoyed the single player. The vibe, the satire, the action, the music, the heists and so many different activities. But I didn't like two out of the three characters, Michael and especially Trevor. Michael's a complete loser with anger management issues and Trevor is a psychosciopath. I liked Franklin though and wished that single player was just him. Since you can freely switch between them, I used Franklin for everything that wasn't related to missions tied to characters. All the free-roam stuff was Franklin.

If anyone is playing story mode and wants to maximize his profits, be sure to look in to how to play the stock market in conjunction with Lester's assassination missions. Doing it smartly will result in your characters having enough to afford anything in the game, even the golf course!

New week, new rewards

But meh

https://gtaforums.com/topic/955333-triple-rewards-in-hunting-pack-and-daily-objective-gta1m-bonus/

Nothing in it for me really, other than a 1 million bonus for completing 10 daily objectives between now and May 27th. Might be worth a go, depending on what the objectives are.

Free Firework Launcher and Firework Ammo. Didn't even know this existed. Might be worth it since it's free and I like fireworks

The half-track is on the podium, Kamacho still not on sale.

Sale on hangars, bit I've got one of those.

I decided to take advantage of Epic Game's offer and pick this up for $0. I was interested in the online portion of the game but after failing to even complete the first mission (get the drugs) I feel this game is not for a gentleman of my age. The driving is horrible with the keyboard so I dusted off my X-Box controller, that at least made it bearable but I can't do the FPS stuff with a controller so I'm swapping between the 2 like a demented loon.

It looks heaps of fun though

I'm an old dude and it works fine. Are you in first-person or third?

I use the X Box controller for driving and flying, skydiving and the like, and KB+M for everything on foot.

Stick with it and you'll get accustomed to it I'm sure.

Power went out the other night and I had a nice little adventure. Started out bland, I jacked a car, took her for a spin, headed up through the hills to a quaint convenience store on a hill. Looked peaceful enough so I mosied on in and shoved my hot piece up beneath the clerk's nose and demanded the money. With trembling hands, the dark brown sod complied, and filled my bag with dirty bills. Small haul, nothing big, maybe 500 bucks but not bad for a smiling gas station on a balmy day. Of course, second I walked out the door that shaking douche behind the register called the cops and I heard sirens in the distance. I should have iced him. Whatever.

In the car I jumped, tires screeching, I burned rubber tracks across the asphalt as I floored it through the mountains and valleys and canyons, dodging flashing metal beasts and saps that got in my way. I hit a few, maybe, ran over some shrubbery, drifted a few turns sideways as we tangoed through the twisties until I lost the last pig when I crested a ridgeline... And there I spied it. A dusty dirt road. Bam! Nailed the power slide and I was off in natural splendor, so I cut the throttle and rolled with the faint crackles and pops of pebbles beneath my tires and came to a halt, hidden in the trees.

I waited.

Stupid cops, they were persistent, but I heard them roll by several times until their sirens grew distant and they were gone. Whew. Only one problem--my car was made. They knew my make and plates and I had to ditch this sled like a hooker with a bad case of crabs, so on foot I went. Not far though. Soon thereafter I stumbled across a mountain bike of all things! A few patsies were milling about babbling of centennial hotties like they were goddesses and they weren't worthy. Stupid beta male kids. Chumps. All of them. So I waved a socially awkward greeting so as not to alert them, moseyed on over to those two rubbers on a frame, and before they could whine like the babies they were I was sailing over a grass crested berm and off into the bushy jungle.

What a downslope!

By the time I made it back into town the sky had cracked and rain had begun to fall. I swerved through puddle slicked streets in the late afternoon sun, glinting golden flecks of fireworks as I made my way home.

Home.

"Honey, I'm home!" Right? Nah. After I stashed my new friend in the garage I noticed two tennis rackets leaning on the wall next to the front door. Cool, coach was there, only when I went inside, guess who I found hopping around like a monkey in animal print speedos on my soiled matrimonial bed? With the missus.

Son of a beeyotch.

But that's a story for another day. Let's just say his... house, his home, his entire world came crashing down around him, later that evening. I survived another run, and didn't do anything stupid. Dough is dough.

Or did I?...

Drive it like you stole it!

Haha great story. I know just the mission you are talking about. Wrong house is just collateral damage

On the plus side it leads to the first heist and for Franklin anyway, the first real money.

1st person for walking,3rd for driving although 1st person in the car looks nice.

I just need to invoke my 'thug life' and I'm sure I'll do fine.

Thugs are called "chavs" where you live right?

Haha Blastman, thank you for that write-up - made me laugh a lot.

It does not matter how you play, the most important thing is that you like
it this game is made for fun:) That's what my older brother told me. My brother and I have been playing GTA 5 for 5 years, and we also like to play on the phone when we are out of the house. I go to training and I love Boxing and I don't have much time for games. My brother plays every day and knows all the news about the GTA series of games. lol, look, my brother plays a lot, he even FORGETS that there is me!! he plays all day and forgets to eat.....I think he's crazy. But the game is really cool. I can share the site GTA 5 MOBILE here is information about the mobile APK file with the game GTA on the phone is also available on IOS. thanks to this site, my brother knows about all the latest news. Play - it's always fun and therefore useful:)

I don't agree, and for me it does matter. Open public servers are a sh!t show most of the time, although there are times when it all aligns and public can be a lot of fun.

GTAO public is mostly ruined by Oppressors, Deluxos, orbital cannons and all of the Jetsons stuff combined with psychopaths and the fact that there are player location dots on the map that act as come shoot me beacons.

Private lobbies are so much better but of course you miss the emergent gameplay and interaction with others. For me the best way to play is with like-minded players in a private lobby.

Public could be transformed by a couple of changes. One, make it a server option to remove all futuristic stuff like flying armed cars and bikes. Two, remove the dots. GTA is best with a gritty street crime vibe using facsimiles of real-world gear, weapons and cars/bikes/planes. The Oppressor is the worst of the lot. I rarely give in to hype and the notion that a single thing 'ruins' a game. But the Oppressor does. It's ridiculous.

A server without these things and without beacons would be awesome and I would play more, especially in public servers.

Ha ha great after action report lol, yeah the public lobbies are made for griefing. I haven't been on in a while, Racing can be a lot of fun if you can find a few people Planes Boats Cars and a few that include all three, I've made a pile of them. Some can be serious F-1 or GP style while others resemble a Hot Wheels track.

Yeah, I have a great time with the street racing, and helicopter racing too. And skydiving, err racing.

Not a fan of the other types, like the fantasy tracks, and the morph racing or whatever it's called. Full circle to the 'real world facsimiles' thing. I like the GTA stuff that's grounded in reality. Motorcycle point to point is my favorite.

And as I mentioned before in this thread I just love flying helicopters around Los Santos. The flight model is terrible, and I'm using a controller and not the Cougar, but that aside, I love it. Never gets old and sometimes I log in just to have a bash around the city in my Buzzard.

Big update dropped yesterday! So out of the loop, had no idea.

https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/61840/out-now-the-cayo-perico-heist

A lot of new stuff. A new island, a big submarine, new weapons, aircraft and vehicles. new missions and even a new heist. Now normally something like this sub would get a glance from me and nothing more. This isn't how I spend my money in GTAO. But I've heard the associated heist is SOLOABLE!!!

If that's true I just might buy me a sub. Anyone who has read through this thread has seen the anguish I've endured just trying to get three people to want to do heists together. If this new update does indeed allow solo heists, and all it takes is buying a 2 million dollar submarine, well then, maybe I will! Not sure what the payoff it though.

I like the new helo, called the Sparrow. Might have to add one of those to my hangar at LSIA

May just have to go play a bit, I love it when we get snow. I think I already have a one man sub, I got the submersible car..

Yeah, I'll be giving it a go too soon. I want to check the new stuff out. Seems the payoff for the heist is around 1.1 million, and even though it is doable solo, it's a b!tch to do it that way. Sounds like mass frustration, but I will probably attempt it anyway. I do not want a submarine so hopefully that isn't needed to do the heist but I think it is. Need to learn more. Player reaction to the new update is mixed.

With Cyberpunk now out I'm not sure when I'll get around to it, but my business closes Saturday for a month and I'll be having plenty of gaming time coming up. I do want to try out the Sparrow. Hopefully you can select it in races to give it a test.

Holy crap!! I can't see getting through it real easy unless I
get some special tools

But if we did it together.....

I've read quite a bit about the new heist. The keys seem to be to do all of the preps, and to not get detected. They say if you get detected it's nearly impossible because of all the aggro that unloads on you, and there is no way to get it back to unalerted state. Many players say that they just kill themselves once the alarm sounds and try again. The payoff is good, but I'll have to see how much effort goes in to the prep work. Might not be worth the hassle, especially solo.

A SimHQ Heist Crew would be great, still holding faint hope. To this day, the first heist is the only one I've done. Oden and I did it together, the details of which are earlier in this thread. I hope to do them all before GTA VI. The window to submit applications remains open

Need three professional gangster mf'ers, with their sh!t wired tight to roll some paper, fool!

Hey DBond, I don't know if you still play GTA V online or not but if you do take a listen to what Muta has to says about it and beware.
I'v been watching him for quite a while and he knows his stuff.
He gets a bit sweary but don't let that put you off what he has to say.

My reaction to that is old news. He is right that Rockstar are cheap bastages by not providing dedicated servers despite their riches and putting the burden on the player base with the peer to peer structure, and in effect cultivating a hacker's haven by doing it this way. But it's been this way since the start, which was 2015 on PC. So that's five years. Most players who have been in GTAO for any length of time are well aware of how it works. Not a fan of this dude's style, and it's not the language. But that's neither here nor there. He is right, but none of this is news.

A year's passed since I last fired up GTA 5. But I did it anyway haha.

Man, a lot has been added in that time. I didn't do any of the new content, but I intend to. Instead I fell in to old habits, taking my Akuma out for a bash around Los Santos, getting back in the groove, with West Coast Classics cranked up. Then I ran some Sightseer/Headhunter in my Buzzard.

There are many new vehicles, and I'll need to sort through them to figure out which ones are worth looking at.

A year ago I said I would give the Cayo heist a go solo, but I have yet to even start it. Anyone want to run some heists?

Maybe the most intriguing thing I saw is the Auto Shop business, and I plan to buy one. Actually I was going to buy it yesterday, but thought I'd wait until Thursday for the new week's discounts. Maybe Auto Shops will be featured and I can save 40% or whatever. Longshot, but if it could save a few hundred grand that would be good. If they are not included this week I'll buy one at full boat. Anyone here have an auto shop? Which one did you go for?

It feels like it's been years since I bought a new business. Probably has. But this one seems well suited to me, and it appears it can be a good money maker. The payouts are relatively small, but the time it takes to do them is low, so in the long run I think it could be quite profitable. Much more so than the bunker I bought and never use. Plus you can mod and paint your own cars there. Cost ranges from 1.6m to 1.9m for the five locations.

I have about 7.2m in the bank, so it's affordable.

I own these businesses

Import/Export Warehouse
Gunrunning Bunker
Hangar Smuggling business
CEO Office

I've made a lot of money from the import/export, easily my biggest source of income aside from log-in bonuses. The CEO VIP missions have also paid well, but that's because I do so many of them. They don't pay well per job really. The smuggling business is not a money maker, I got it because I love flying helicopters on this map, and this business unlocks some better pricing for aircraft. I wouldn't recommend it for turning a profit, but it's good if you like having personal aircraft.

I've ignored the nightclub, the crate/cargo business, motorcycle club and arcade. Maybe there are a few more I don't even know about?

Truly you should try Shakedown Hawaii. I can't stay into GTA games--the graphic realism of innocents dying is just too much for me to bear. Shakedown though, is fantastic, has a 16-bit art style and is great for 10 - 15 minute bites of gaming.

Yeah too bad, I could use a partner in crime.

Thanks for the recommendation. I just checked it out on Steam, hadn't heard of this game. But ya know, it might be worth a go. Comments are 'very positive' and brings back a Nintendo/Sega era vibe. I'll add it to the wishlist and maybe buy it on sale, even though full price is just $20.

Yeah I fired it up for about 20 mins the other day and it's still full of, (well if you can call a dozen full) Cheaters using menu hacks. I was only into creating races and I have quite a few, but after all this time there hasn't been any real additions to what you can do in the editor for racing (R/C cars comes to mind) people still just want to spoil your game with stoopid cheats.

That's why 3/4 of my time is spent in Invite. It sucks yeah, I'd like to play in Public more. But so it goes.

I waited for this morning's change of weekly rewards, to see if by chance Auto Shops would be discounted. They're not.

But that's OK, because it is much better. The Kosatka submarine is discounted 35%. And that's needed to start the Cayo Perico Heist. If you've skimmed through this thread you know I've had some difficulty putting together a heist crew. But this heist, out since last December, is doable solo! Payouts are around a million or so it seems. Right up my alley, a heist that can be done solo in Invite.

So I got a message to meet Madrazo Jr at a new nightclub at the casino. I put on my best clothes, a snappy suit with no tie, and took the Turismo there in style. I ran in to a roadblock at the elevator, which said I needed to purchase a penthouse to gain access to the club. Unforseen complication. Those aren't cheap, so I left. Around the side though I could see an icon on the map for the nightclub, so I went back in through a side entrance and talked to the woman at the desk who let me in for $150. Boom. That saved a hell of a lot of cash, and I didn't want a penthouse anyway. This will be expensive enough to get started. Talked to madrazo who said I need a submarine to pull off the heist. But those are now on sale. I bought it, plus the weapons shop and the helicopter. Gave it a new coat of paint and now I own the finest in late Soviet-era submersible tech. Total cost was about 2.8m, saving about one million. Perfect. I'll probably buy the submersible secondary craft plus the sonar later, the discount lasts a week and if I can pull off this heist then the money will be rolling in until I burn out on it. The music was pumping, so I stayed and danced for a bit, then went to see my new sub.

It's cool. I took the Sparrow helicopter for a quick spin. It handles nicely, a little more stable than the Buzzard. The weapons shop is a great bonus. I never wanted to buy the MoC, Terrorbyte or that sort of thing, so I've never had the ability to go Mark II on my weapons. But now I do, and that's great. That was a 275k option on the sub with the discount, and well worth the investment. Cool.

I now have everything I need to do the heist, although I have no idea what needs to be done. I'll roll with it, the first go at these things is always a trip. Part of this week's bonuses is the Panther Statue, which I guess is limited event-timed loot for the heist. Good timing. None of the rest of the weekly rewards are for me, but this discount on the sub and upgrades is great for unlocking the best money making thing in GTAO for solo play.

This week also has a 500k log-in bonus.

I kicked off the heist, well the preparations anyway. I completed everything up to the finale. Solo's no trouble, and in the end is probably the best way to do it actually. I still have the heist proper to negotiate, so I'll hold off on judgement until it's over.

The update that introduced this heist is over a year old, so anyone here that plays GTAO and is interested in it has probably already done it, but I'll give a rundown anyway. The only thing you really need to start it is the Kosatka submarine, although as noted the game suggests you need a penthouse to access the nightclub to get the mission, but I talked about a way around that. The sub's a couple mil, aside from discounts. Having done the preps I'd highly recommend getting the Sparrow helicopter too. There's a lot of travel to and from the sub during the preps and having the helo on board is a big help.

Spoilers ahead, but I doubt anyone goes in to one of these heists blind.

The first step is to meet Madrazzo Jr at the nightclub in the Diamond casino, who gives you the mission to start the heist and the ability to buy the sub from Warstock. After buying the submarine and visiting it for the first time, and meeting Pavel (who serves aboard the sub), you gain the ability to kick off the heist from the planning board in the control room. You must register as a CEO, VIP or MC President to access the planning board.

The second step is to fly to Cayo Perico, a tropical island, ostensibly to attend a party thrown by the criminal mastermind who owns it, El Rubio. This is cover so you can have a look around and case the joint, gathering intel. After sneaking away from the party, you make your way across the island to hack CCTV networks and snap photographs, learning the layout while avoiding detection. The 'flight' to the island is just a cutscene, you don't actually fly there.

Then it's back to the sub to start the prep missions, a series of fairly simple tasks to gather the tools you'll need, like a cutting torch, fingerprint duplicator, plasma cutter and so on. It's not necessary to do all of them, just the ones that will apply to the plan you opt for, which is partly dependent on which entry method you go for. Players are fond of saying '15 minutes per prep mission', but I can say I invested more time haha. Things would go faster having done it I'm sure.

But it's all fairly easy to do solo. Oddly, you must also choose a weapons loadout from several preset options, which, once chosen, you have to go steal. I chose the Conspirator loadout, which consists of a military rifle, AP Pistol, brass knuckles and sticky bombs. You want to suppress the weapons going solo. There are other tasks available, such as setting up disruptions and hiring support crew, but those won't be needed in a solo stealth attempt so I skipped them.

To kick off the finale you finalize all plan options such as entry vehicle, entry location, loadout, time of day and so on and then return to Cayo Perico to execute it. That's where I am now, but had to cut it off as it was late and back to work this morning. Let's see how it goes, hopefully smoothly

By the way I got a couple free vehicles. Not sure why they are free or if they are for everyone. But I browsed through all the vehicle sites and saw the Kraken submersible was free, and also a single-engined prop floatplane called a Dodo. 'Bought' them both and they go in to the Pegasus menu. The Kraken's a $1.3m value, so that's a good deal even if I would rarely use it. The Dodo's priced at 500k. I'd say I'd rarely use this one too, but it could come in handy when I need to travel to my sub since I can land right next to it. Anyway, free is free, so I snapped them up.

I pulled the heist off solo, but I did not, in fact, sail through it. The first dozen tries all failed at some stage, usually by triggering the alarm because I was spotted or more likely failed to kill the target, who dropped still alive, and sirens blaring. Restart from checkpoint.

But each time I learned the patrol patterns a little better, worked out a good route through the compound. There was a painting in the office. In the successful run of course things went off-plan. Instead of restarting from a checkpoint I had to start over as real life intervened. But this time instead of exiting the sub close to the drain pipe, I was far up the coast, close to North Dock. That's a very long swim, so I came ashore next to the docks, and grabbed some cash there, which was a mistake, because it filled my duffle so much I couldn't fit the painting later.

After clearing the area around the docks I stole a boat and did the drainage tunnel entry as planned. Raided the office safe and the vault safe and despite having my loot bag 2/3 full I looked to get out of dodge, hoping to finally finish after so many tries. Exited through the gate, and killed the guards along the road, stole a dirt bike and took off through the hills looking for a route to the sea. But I went flying off a hill and crashed in to a tree with the bike up in the branches. Gunned down by Rubio's helo. Checkpoint, and this time I headed straight to the sea. Made it to the water under fire and tried to get deep enough that I was safe, but the helo was overhead and firing the entire time. Took some hits which lowered my take, but with very little health left I made it out.

In all I made 1.9m. 1.4m for loot and I guess some first-time bonuses? Transaction log showed two 200k 'refunds' and one 100k refund, or 500k in all, which I guess are the bonuses for doing this the first time? Not sure what that was, but I'll take it. I did start a new heist within the 48 minutes to get the 'hard' version of the heist (and better payouts), but left it at the planning stage. Obviously I could have done quite a bit better, but at least the first one is out of the way, and I've made back 3/4 of what I spent to get in to the Cayo game.

I then used some of that money to mount missiles on my new Sparrow, and to upgrade my carbine to Mark II.

So having done it I'd say the heist is great. Especially so because I can do it solo, as often as I please. This is the ticket to mad stacks. The preps are pretty straightforward, with maybe the first intel gathering stage a bit challenging to complete while avoiding detection. The heist itself is harder mostly because of the attack helicopter that takes off as you leave the compound. It sort of sucks that this happens even after perfectly stealthing the heist, but it's so Rockstar to do it like this. Having done it once I can see being able to run the Cayo heist in two hours or less start to finish. So this is a great way to make money, but as always, all in moderation so I don't burn out on it.

The free vehicles I mentioned in the previous post were free for 'returning players'. Not sure how long you need to be away to rate a returning player, but if you haven't played in a while log in to grab the free stuff.

Once you finish the Cayo Perico heist Pavel contacts you and says let's hit it again! He says that Rubio will be angry about getting ripped off, and defenses will be alert. If you start the heist over within 48 real-time minutes of finishing the last one, you lock in 'hard mode' for another run. This gives a boost to payout and makes the heist a little harder, with additional security steps to overcome, no extra lives and more guards. So I gave this a go. This time I got the panther statue that's part of this week's event. It's worth 2 million. I repeated the heist, using the same entry point as before and cleared about 2.1 million after paying off Pavel, the fence and other fees. Not bad, not bad at all. Having done the heist once it went much more smoothly, and was less than two hours in all, including all preps and the heist itself.

So two runs, and a total take of 4 million. That easily paid off the investment and got me some new toys. Nothing I've done in GTAO can compete for return on time investment with the Cayo heist. It is heaven-sent for solo players.

-- Bank account grew by a net 500k
-- Own a nuclear powered submarine (with weapons workshop and new spawn point)
-- Armed helicopter (love helos in GTA, and this one is great)
-- Mark II weapons
-- Canis Kamacho (offroad vehicle I've had my eyes on for ages, and finally pulled the trigger as a reward for making mad stacks)
-- Plus I got the Kraken submersible and Dodo floatplane, but those are free

It would have taken a long time to get all of that with normal money-making methods. This heist is a great addition for players like me.

That bank account has receded once again as I made sure to snap up the Kosatka submersible, the Avisa, while it's still on sale. Quite a rig this thing. On sale for a cool million.

How do you figure the lucky wheel got it's name? Because I have no luck with it. I have never won the podium car, despite many, many spins. The last two days I got RP. Which is useless really past rank 130.

Next on the list is the auto shop. I'll try to hold off until Thursday again in the remote case it may be on sale for the next event. But the 'mini-heist' missions that come with it sound good.

If anyone wants to get some GTAO co-op going let me know. We could run the Cayo heist or anything else. Racing, golf, skydiving, missions, whatever.

If you haven't played in a while, it's a good time to check it out again. I've now done the Cayo heist three times, and cleared $5.3m. In the three years I played GTAO (off and on) I had made about $25m. In three days I made 5m with this heist. That's awesome. Practice makes perfect, and while I'm a long way from perfect, I can get everything done in about an hour and a half. Here's how it works....

To start the ball rolling you need to meet with Madrazzo Jr at the new nightclub at the Diamond casino. You can do so by owning a penthouse, or using the side entrance and paying a $150 fee as I did (wear nice expensive clothing to get in). Then you need the Kosatka submarine, as this is the 'heist room' needed to plan it. The sub's on sale for one more day, and normally costs $2.2m. You can also buy guided missiles, sonar, weapons workshop, Sparrow helicopter and Avisa submersible. I bought the last three, but only the Sparrow is something I would highly recommend. There is a lot of to and fro from the sub to complete the preps, and the helo helps a lot with this.

Once you have the sub you can launch the heist from the control room. First step is to 'fly' to Cayo Perico, to attend a party. After a bit you sneak away and head out in to the island. Your objective is a communications tower where you hack in to their CCTV network and use the cameras to scope it out. This reveals the loot stashed in various rooms and vaults. There is always one primary objective and many secondaries. The first time you do the heist the primary will be Madrazzo's stolen files he hired you to steal back. After that, the primary loot changes, from a Pink Diamond valued at $1.3 to a bottle of Tequila for 900K. You carry a loot bag with limited capacity, and while you're on the heist you can grab various secondaries like cocaine, artwork, weed, cash or gold. Each replay changes these so you need to scope it all out during the intel phase to know what is there and where in order to come up with a plan.

Returning to the planning board after gathering the intel, you are presented with a series of prep work. You need to obtain the tools and weapons to carry out the operation. Depending on how thorough you were while casing the island, you'll have a number of infiltration points to choose from. You can fly in to the airport, come by zodiak-style boat, HALO jump and more. So far I've used the Kosatka each time for a stealth approach.

Each prep mission is fairly straightforward. Go to a location, kill the guards, take the thing you've come for, such as a plasma cutter (if the primary is behind glass), safe codes, cutting torch and so on. If all goes well these take about 15 minutes a piece. Then back to the sub to turn it in, and off to the next one. It doesn't all have to be done together. You can spread these out over days or weeks if you want, there's no timer. Just let it hang until you're ready for the next one. But if you do them all in sequence you can do everything in a couple hours or less.

As a solo player I've opted so far for a stealth approach. It's the best way to do this alone. That means infiltration on the sub, and as long as you've found it during your intel, you can enter the target compound through an underwater drainage pipe. I've used this approach each time. Once in the compound you must make your way to the vault house. The grounds are heavily guarded, but the guards have short vision cones. Just take your time, work out a route, and kill those in the way with headshots. Any mistake here will sound the alarm and it's probably best to just get killed and restart the checkpoint and try again.

Once you reach the vault room you can raid the safe in the office, take artwork off the wall (if present) and then head for the elevator down to the vault. To enter you have to do a hacking mini-game, which is a fingerprint cloner where you need to arrange some pieces to duplicate Rubio's fingerprint. Not hard, and there's plenty of time.Once done, you descend to the vault where you use the cutters to gain entry and then the plasma cutter or safe codes to steal the primary depending on where it is kept.

Once done you need to escape the compound which I do through the main gate. Take out a couple more guards in the way and to the gate, where you trigger a cutscene. This is important because it creates a checkpoint, so if you die getting off the island you can go back without having to do all that sneaking and stealing again. Once out of the compound you have a couple options. You can continue to steal, filling your bag with loot at various guarded locations, or you can just get out of there. To do so you need to get in the ocean and move a certain distance from the island, and the heist ends.

I have yet to fill my bag. There are two ways I could approach this. I could land away from the compound, grabbing some loot before going to steal the primary. Or I could do it in reverse, hitting those spots after escaping the compound. But I've only tried the latter so far and haven't had any luck. Rockstar set it up so once you escape the compound, Rubio gets wise regardless of how well you nailed the stealth, and soon there are choppers in the air hunting for you. So I've ended each run by just going as fast as possible to the sea. The last one I did I stole a dirt bike and rode right off a cliff to the water below, and still wearing the scuba gear I came in with, make my way out underwater. I want to do one where I come in somewhere else, fill half my bag, and then hit the compound. But the primary is the thing, as the other stuff you'll fill your bag with is worth a couple hundred grand. Up to you if it's worth the time to do this, or if you'd rather just start a new heist.

And that's the scoop. A solo GTAO player's dream, big money with moderate effort in a relatively short time. All of this can be done in Invite, no need to go Public. The buy-in for me was about 3.8 million (sub, helo, workshop, submersible), but only the sub is required and I got all that on sale during this week's event (which ends tomorrow so grab it while it's hot!). So in just a couple days I made all that back and a cool million and a half on top. Now I'm looking at the Grotti Itali RSX, an obscenely expensive hypercar that for some reason R* classed as a sports car. But I now have a way to get the mad stacks needed to afford this sort of stuff. Big plans!

Crap week this week.

https://gtaforums.com/topic/978197-...ring-this-gunrunning-event-2nd-december/

Nothing in it for me, aside from the 3x Bunker work, but my bunker's been shut down for ages and frankly I'm not keen to kick it back in gear. If the Cayo Perico heist didn't exist I'd force myself to run some guns for the stacks of paper. But it does exist, and I completed run number four last night.

This time I got the least valuable primary, the tequilla, which is worth 900k, There were no secondaries I could access in the compound, so this time I mixed things up. I did the sub infiltration at the west beach, came ashore and moved to the north docks, where I methodically headshot the guards and actually filled my loot bag with cocaine. That was worth nearly 500k, and I moved on to steal a boat to head for the compound. But as I did so a vehicle came around and I guess spotted one of the bodies in my wake. Alarm went off and it all went to hell. Dammit.

So I did it over but skipped that stuff and swam to the compound, nicked the booze,and split. Only cleared 870k for this run. But that's still good money in GTAO. Total take from the four runs is now $6.2m. Started run number five, and yep, tequilla again. But at least this time there's a painting in the office, so if I pull it off I'll clear about a million. Left it hanging after the intel phase

I've run in to so much trouble trying to fill the bag with secondaries that I'm thinking fook that, just run the compound and go. Doing the heist this way takes about 15 minutes. So even though I'm not maximizing loot, I can run it more often. I still need to do the preps over again, but you only need to do five at minimum (depends on your approach). All this can be done in about an hour and a half including the finale.

I'm up to about $10m in the bank now, all the Cayo buy-in requirements have been covered and then some. Good stuff.

i have no patience for online, i only play SP to mod and make custom maps for fun. WIP

That's cool, looks like fun, and I'd like to see some of the touches in the game, especially the stuff like workers on the wing/engine, or more aircraft at LSIA.

What is it about online you have no patience for? The gameplay or the people?

If you don't like the gameplay, fair enough.

But if it's the people, you can remove them easily. That's what I do most of the time. I dabble in Public, when I'm either in the mood for it, or when I want to run one of my businesses that require it. I do enjoy going balls out on my bike through Los Santos, with randoms taking pot shots as I flash by. That's good fun. And even the businesses that require it can be run on 'solo public' using the suspend process trick. There's nothing outside of PvP-centric stuff that can't be done solo in GTAO.

But most of my time is in Invite, especially now with the Cayo heist. I estimated last year that 25% of my time is in public, but the heist is eroding that percentage quickly. It's the way to experience the best of what GTAO offers while removing the worst of it. There's just so much to do, such a broad activity set, that's it's hard to believe someone can't find things to like.

For example in about four hours last night I ran

-- Contact Missions
-- Time Trial (failed)
-- Skydiving
-- Motorcycle Racing
-- Casino games
-- Cayo Percio heist
-- Off Road Racing
-- Supercar and Sports car racing
-- LS Tuners Test Track
-- Golf

And still found the time to shift my vehicles between my garages as I try to organize it all, go clothes shopping, restock armor and ammunition and even found time to sit on top of my office building admiring the beautiful sunset while listening to gangsta rap on West Coast Classics. And all of this was without any other players in the game.

its the grind....i honestly expect a lot more heist even if simpler ones, like banks and stuff, and i expected a turf war mechanic like we had in SA but with factions (being the players bosses) for every area, so you would get bonus for shipping and stuff. But just like any mmo.....you have to do actions while you are online...so if i do a coke facility and it needs 12hours to make a product, i need to be logged 12 hours, and then ship that product that may be target by folks in a flying bike with rockets.....so in 1 second you wasted half a day....screw that. when i starte playing there were a lot of trolls from ps4 transfer acounts, just using harrier to hazard new players, so much that rockstar unlocked the anti air for everyone.

i really wanted a role playing with bosses and stuff,so you either get locked into risking wasting a day (days) of playing or safe zones where no one attacks anyone so you can make product in peace ( is this really gta ?). Rather than destroying the cargo wich players should be punish, the focus should be on stealing it...that way there would be incentive for coop, and the amount of time to produce them should be much shorter...

the closer to this feeling i got was when i was joined by randoms who became soldiers and helped me move a cargo.

i not even interested in money, i got my favorite ap from the get go (maj 51) and the car i wanted zentorno, that now is almost given as a gift every now and then. doing heist was a pain too, with people disconecting, die so quickly and then waiting in lobby forever. Also i modded my game and tuned all my cars myself....going online and driving the sliding bathtubs is hard.

i just did racing and the team death match events. those were fun and closer to what i expected in coop vs other players.

OK, fair enough, it's not for everyone. But you should try Cayo Perico. Quick and relatively easy money, no need to rely on others.

But yeah, if you object to the gameplay then it's not the game for you. Totally understand.

Heist run number five in the books. This is great. Total take to this point is 7.2m as I cleared $1.03m on that run (tequilla, office safe and one painting). One million a pop is fantastic. Blade mentioned the grind, and it's in the game no doubt, but the Cayo heist makes a mockery of it, even if it is a grind in itself if you do it over and over. One of the things I do to grind, if you can call it that, is the Sightseer/Headhunter VIP work. That pays $25k per mission, or about 150k per hour and a half. Cayo heist is 1 million per hour and a half. That's like, way better! And can be done repeatedly, solo, in invite. It's so lucrative I'm honestly surprised Rockstar has left it in like this. Can't have the players making a lot of money, there are Shark Cards to buy!

When I got back in to the game a week or so ago (after a one year hiatus) I had 7.4m in my bank account. Now I've cleared more than that in a week. It's pouring in so fast that my paradigm has shifted. Properties, supercars and aircraft are now much closer in reach. Before, I would set a target, say a Buzzard helicopter or a CEO office or whatever, and then work and save for a week or two to get the stacks together. Now I can make enough in a couple hours to afford these things. And solo to boot!

There are three main purchases on my radar right now

Casino Penthouse (bear with me)
Auto Shop
Grotti Itali RSX

I don't really want the penthouse. It will be cool, but I don't need it. I have two high end apartments, plus the submarine to crash in. There are two reasons however why I am considering it. One is, it will open up the poker tables to me. I love poker, and while I don't know if it's any good in GTA, as I haven't tried it yet, how bad could it be?

The second factor is that you can unlock the RSX trade price by completing a couple missions that are only available to penthouse owners. The Itali RSX has an obscene sticker price of $3,465,000. The trade price is 2,598,750, a savings of 866k, which is significant. So if I buy the penthouse and the car, I can get both and save some money doing it. Of course just paying full retail for the car is less expensive in an absolute sense, but I'd end up without another property and still couldn't play poker.

Penthouses were on sale a week ago when I didn't have this plan dammit. If I go for the bedroom and lounge basic layout it will cost about 2.1m for the penthouse. Does it come with a garage?

if you mean the casino i think you need to buy the garage.

Yeah, looks like you're right. And I looked at a video and the lighting in the penthouse garage is all wrong. Who designed this thing? Good lord. The lights are not above the car spots, but above the little access paths in between, placing your whips in the shade. I'll skip it if costs extra. I think I have 40 parking spots at the mo, 20 at the office garage and another 20 between my two apartments. The office garage is glorious, so if I need more parking I'll add the second level there. I do not need more parking at the moment, but with the stacks rolling in, this could change.

Grotti is GTAO's Ferrari obviously, and I'm a big fan haha. I would like to eventually own every Grotti. The Turismo R is one of my favorite cars in the game, and might be the best value in super cars in GTAO at just 500k, and sounds amazing

Turismo R



Itali RSX

i ahve the grotti, handliing is bleh without mods. except for the look its not really worth it. Yeah the office garage is much better, i like the view to the city........i like my apartment specially because i think its better looking then the other two in majestic and because its the office from the pc trailer. i didnt even know that when i bought it, i just wanted the highest penthhouse so i could see the beach

I drove the RSX in some races to test it out. I think it's great, but has a problem on uneven surfaces, very likely to induce a spin, like the suspension is too stiff or something. But performance-wise it's superb, a really nice blend of top speed, acceleration and traction. Plus it's gorgeous. I'm getting one for sure. I'm hoping I can make it better with some LSC modification, like a higher ride height.

Which apartment are you talking about? I own Richards Majestic #51 which overlooks the movie studio lot and the golf course. This is my weekend crib. The other one is 3 Alta Street # 57, overlooks downtown and the construction site. This is my business pad.

My office though has the best views, Lombank West. Those big windows in the garage look out over Del Perro pier and the beach.

I don't have a shot handy of the view toward the beach from Lombank, but this one is looking east? You can see the arena in the distance.

These shots, these are in single player modded, but this are the ones i own. aparently the modded version no longer disable to go online and i dont have two versions of the game anymore,

Which ones, what's the address? Do you ever play in first person?

first one is majestic 51 ap, the second one is lambark west office. i wanted to replay the game in first person, but never did. i noticed that i crashed a lot lol.

OK, cool thanks. I own the same ones.

Here's the view on a balmy summer Los Santos evening from the office garage (Lombank West)




I bought the casino penthouse. Did the custom option, with the bedroom and lounge, a cool 2.1m. Bah, it''s only money. The poker angle turned out to be a dud. I though for sure it said there was a Texas Hold 'Em table, but all I see is three-card. I'd buy a DLC that simply imported RDR 2's poker in to GTAO. Penthouses were on sale a couple weeks ago and I could have saved 800k. It's rare I buy this sort of thing off-sale, but with the stacks rollin' in I decided to live a little.

I stopped counting how many Cayo heists I've done now, but I think it's 9 or 10. I did it twice yesterday. In all I've probably made about 13 million so far from the Cayo heist, all solo. The last one I did I actually managed to fill the loot bag for the first time. I've worked out a good plan to ghost the compound, then head up the road to Main Dock and raid one of the buildings there. It could contain any secondary (except gold), so the take varies a bit by what actually spawns there, but we're just talking 100-200k difference.

Where's Oden? As a new penthouse owner I've now access to a series of penthouse-related missions, that if I complete them I get a free car, but I need another fool to help me.

Reporting for duty Sir.
But you need to teach me how to do heists in solo as payment.

Hey man, how's things?

You have a deal.

I can lay it all out step by step. But have a look here first

https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4586252/re-so-i-decided-to-play-gta-v#Post4586252

We can also do it together. We can grab more stuff as a team, but since there's still just one primary target, the take for each player is less than you'd make doing it solo. Have a look through that post I linked for a rough outline, and then let me know if you want more specific detail.

Minimum to start is the Kosatka sub, and I recommend splashing the cash on the Sparrow. Don't make the mistake of buying a Sea Sparrow as some players have done. The other stuff for the sub isn't needed and might be a waste of money. I already regret buying the Avisa submersible, but it looks great in the moonpool. I see you've got 2.5m which is enough for the sub, but not the helo too, which is another 1.8m. Any helo will do, but the Sparrow makes it easy because it is already stored on the Kosatka. You could use any transportation to get around, but with the sub out at sea, you're hoping to avoid a swim and keep up the pace.

If we get together to run my penthouse missions no reason we can't do a heist. If we split up to do the preps it would go pretty fast.

Just did another Cayo heist. Did the intel and one prep yesterday, then the rest of the preps and the heist today.

Some of it is luck of the draw. What I mean is each prep has a few different variations, and it's random which one you get. Some are harder than others. And I've mostly done it the same way every time. Same infil point, same weapons, same insertion vehicle, so I get the same sets of preps. There are a lot of options with their own preps I have yet to see. But for solo players who want to try and ghost it, this is the best approach. Kosatka to the drainage pipe entrance. The first time you do the heist, while you're still working for Madrazzo and are at the island party to get the intel, be sure to get in the sea near the compound to unlock the drainage tunnel as an option. Without that you either need to blow the gate, or grapple hook over a wall, HALO in, and none of these are exactly stealthy

There are a lot of options for insertion vehicle and entry points. But each needs to be discovered during the intel phase, when you come to scout it out and are unarmed. But once you've found them they are unlocked for all future attempts. Still need to do preps over, but the planning options don't need to be found again. So only need to go for a swim once to find the tunnel entrance, and then can use it over and over for new runs. In the first run Pavel will walk you through it and show how to send the photos back to add this stuff to the planning board.

I wanted to use the longfin as a vehicle which would be good for allowing me to land on the island wherever I want. But the prep mission was to steal a trailer from the middle of the police impound lot and it sucked. If you own a Phantom Wedge then yeah, maybe. But I just said screw it and went back to the sub infil. For the first few finale runs I was happy to get through the compound, so I just jumped on a dirt bike and launched off cliffs in to the sea for a scuba exfil. But now I've worked out a run to the main dock to fill my loot bag and then scuba out. The best possible scope is to have two paintings in the office when you use the CCTV cameras. There's also a wall safe in that office that is easy to miss. Two paintings fill your bag, so you can grab those and the primary in the vault below and just skedaddle off the island, I just shoot the nearest guard in the head after leaving through the gate, steal his dirt bike, and go left (west) avoid the patrolling guard,and then right off a cliff and escape under water.

This link is a good overview of the way I've been doing the Cayo heist. Check the image to see where to go to find the tunnel. I do the same broad strokes here, but use a different route through the compound

https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/gta-online-how-to-make-millions-with-the-cayo-perico-heist

Some stuff I should have added and a couple tips.

For weapons I've gone for the Conspirator option each time. I'd bet most options are viable, but be sure to add the suppressors in the planning phase. Using Conspirator also unlocks the military rifle at Ammunation. It's a good assault rifle, especially at close range. But not a standout compared to other assault rifle options either. But it'll be for sale anyway. I use the .50 pistol for the headshots in the heist. Be sure it's suppressed or you'll wish you had. With the route I use, and if I just do the compound and go, it's eight headshots needed to avoid detection. The suppressed military rifle is good too, but you have to be careful a miss doesn't fly downrange and hit a wall near another guard, which alerts them, and alarms and gunfire and you'll just want to start over.

Speaking of which, if you die or just get detected, and you will at first, I think, choose the quick restart option to keep going from the last check point. These are wherever you had a corona to enter, at the drain tunnel, and leaving the compound by the main gate if you follow the same sort of plan I use. The Continue option takes you back to the streets of Los Santos. I learned this the hard way so just paying it forward haha. At this point if I trip the alarm at any stage other than right when getting off the island I just let them shoot me until the quick restart option appears. Taking hits reduces your take and it's better to just give it another go in stealth.

When you're ready to start the preps, fill up your armor inventory. I read about a bug if you go in to an Ammunation while on a prep. It might just mean your element of surprise is gone (detected by camera trigger/bug), but better to start full on armor. I can carry ten armor plus the one I'm wearing (the final slot unlocks at rank 130 I think) and those ten can carry me through all the preps and the finale. But you'll take some hits so armor up.

All the secondaries (gold, weed, coke, cash) shown on the cameras in the compound are only accessible (I think) with at least two players since they require two keys cards to open the gates. Scope it all out, but when you're ready to go for secondaries and fill your bag (if the office did not have two paintings, and I have yet to get two in 10+ runs), then you'll need to move out on the island and hit other locations when solo. More guards, more patrols and a helicopter in the air. So yeah, first few times I just did the compound and exfil'd with a partially full loot bag. The primary is the thing.

Any guards you decide to take out kill with headshots. If they don't die instantly keep filling them in until they do. Otherwise the alarm will trip. All you need to do is avoid vision cones. There are guard uniforms you can find and put on, but I've not done this. With the disguise you can move through blue cones, but can't fool the red cones. When dropping a guard be sure it can't be seen by another guard or a camera. It seems guards will step right over a fallen comrade, but if a camera sweeps and spots the dead body the alarm trips.

My first run netted some bonuses. You and I got some of that for the Fleeca heist we did. It was an extra 500k for Cayo and I cleared 1.9m (one office painting, office safe and Maddrazzo's files + first-time bonus). You can expect a similar haul depending on what spawns for your scope and there's a good chance you could pay for a Sparrow with the take. Heist start up fee is 25k, after the first one, and I always drop 2 grand to fast-travel the Kosatka for the Kosatka prep mission. Add a few thousand in armor, 5k for the suppressors and it runs about 35k. Small investment for such a payout (if you ignore the several million spent on the sub and helo!).

I kicked off yet another heist. It's hard to resist. After finishing the previous one, I wonder what will spawn for the next one I do. So I think, well let's just run the intel and have a look. What I'm hoping for is to see two paintings in the office when scoping the cameras. In about a dozen runs so far I've yet to see this.

But this time, there they were. This gives me a shot at the Elite Challenge. This challenge requires no restarts, full loot bag and less than 15 minutes to complete it. Because two paintings exactly fill the loot bag, it's the ideal set up. No need to go out beyond the compound to top the bag off. So the key is not to foul it up and get spotted, so no restart is needed. I did the intel, weapons and cutting torch preps, and I'll do the remainder this evening. Primary is ruby necklace, so if all goes well the take will be about 1.3m. Mad stacks fool!

I was looking around the social club site and through the awards section. That revealed the bonuses I thought were for doing the heist for the first time are actually for completing these award requirements. I got 500k, and it breaks down like this

Cayo Perico Heist (200k) -- Complete Cayo Perico Heist for the first time
Going Alone (100k) -- Complete Cayo Perico Heist with one player
Cat Burglar (200k) -- Complete Cayo Perico Heist without alerting guards

I see a fourth one I completed

Professional Thief (150k) -- Steal all variations of the primary target

This one might be hard to get, since one of the variations should be the Panther Statue, which is only available during events, and it was last week. That has ended, so a player would need to wait until R* got around to doing it again. The panther's worth like 2 million. It's worth knowing that you have to pay both a fencing fee and Pavel's fee at the end. So your final number gets reduced a little bit but it's not much. For example if your take is 1.5m, you'll clear about 1.3m with 200k covering your costs and associates. Pavel's a good dude, his cut is modest, so I don't mind. Hard to find a good first mate these days ya know?

Oden, one other sub extra you might consider is the weapons workshop for the Kosatka. Wait a while if money's tight. But this is the thing that lets you upgrade your weapons to Mark II. I paid 275k for it on sale so it's probably close to 400k full price. But it's good to have if you want to make your weapons a little better. So far I've done the special carbine, combat MG, marksman rifle, sniper rifle and maybe one or two more. Costs a couple hundred grand to upgrade them, but weapons that hit harder and shoot faster/straighter are always a good thing.

By the way, a new update is set to drop in the next week or so. Rockstar has remained tight-lipped about it but expect an announcement soon. It could be anything... new heists, new businesses, cars, aircraft, who knows?! Look for it around the 14th or 15th.

meanwhile im busy making stories only in my head.....im amazed at how detailed the game engine is. they could had done so much more....a bunch of stuff is in the files but never used in the game.
All that stuff is hand placed by me, and the animations choose, as well as i found out dialogues too. So many thanks for the russians hackers who first tooled gta IV and opened the gates to gta V mods.


Edit: about the stuff not featured in the game, in case you are wondering. police was suposed to know you stole a car, give you tickets on acidents instead of just busting you. the helicopter swat was suposed to react to being shot, track you to ground units....you were suposed to have a wanted level AFTER the wanted level. by description.
swat have a bunch of animation they dont use, taticual visual cues, something that most milsim games dont even feature. pedestrians were suposed to be more engaged with the player. in the game you can see people calling the cops when you do stuff. but they were suposed to be confrontational with you as well, like threatinng to call the cops and even calling you bluff when you pull the gun or beging for their life.
police was also suposed to react when you have a gun, and say wich kind. (when i mean react i mean audio cues to go with action).
so many audio,animation and props are not used in the game.that is a whole lot of work to cut for time.

Good stuff Blade.

This shot captures the essence of public GTAO I think




Those shots also show how well the graphics have held up on a game that was released in 2013 (2015 for PC). It still looks good. GTA 6, when it comes, will be amazing I'm sure.

And the DLC announcement duly arrives...

https://www.rockstargames.com/newsw...-gta-online-story-featuring-franklin-cli

https://gtaforums.com/topic/978383-gta-online-the-contract-coming-december-15/

Not sure yet exactly what this is, but I'm glad to see Franklin. In Social Club it shows the percentage you've played as all three characters in story mode. I played through story mode twice and for me the percentages are 66% Franklin, 17% Michael and 17% Trevor. So I'm happy to see Franklin getting some love. Now to figure out exactly what this is....

Oden's going to have to break out his ghetto slang decoder lol

considering all 3 actors were brought back 2 or 3 years ago.....and only now we see him.....i guess michael is next, to link with GTA VI, since he bought a ticket to vice city at the end of the game.
i expent more time with michael with franklin following close by, but at the end of the game i realized, I NEVER USED FRANKLIN HABILITY....

Yes, I think most believe Michael's next. Franklin was the only one I liked in story mode, so personally I don't care if we see Michael or Trevor, but I'm happy for any additional content and things to do. So yeah, by all means.

Looking at the update announcement I'm not really sure what it ill be. But new cars, a new business (Agency), reworked and new radio stations. Not excited for the new content, and not against it either. I need to see what the agency is all about, and if the missions can be done in Invite.

Oden's bank account is looking about one Kosatka lighter Good luck man rakin' in the long dollars!

Finished the preps for probably my 13th Cayo heist. This was the first one I've had with the two paintings, so it's a perfect setup for the Elite challenge. Full bag, no restarts, under 15 minutes. Over all those runs I thought I had crafted a pretty good plan. Work out the route, know which guards to kill, where and when, which way they'll turn on patrol, where they walk, and when they return. Which guards are likely to hold the gate keys I need. So I thought if I could just nail it first time I'd be under the time limit and there ya go. Did the standard sub and scuba infil to the pipe, came up and methodically went through the steps, and boom, out in 10:44. Nailed it. Felt good since you only get one shot at it and it has to come off.

You get 50k bonus for Elite, which is pretty weak, and then I got a 200k bonus I guess for doing Elite first time. I'll have to look it up but I bet that's it. So in all cleared 1.5m. Not bad at all






One of the preps players could run in to trouble with is the Kosatka prep, which is necessary for the way I did it. You are tasked with stealing a sonar deflector or somesuch from another submarine, which is submerged. My tip is to avoid all the aggro above the surface by fast-traveling your sub to the nearest spot, submerging, and then following the depth contours to approach the target sub underwater. Once you get close, hold E to set depth hold, and exit the sub after donning the scuba gear near the helicopter bay. The mission itself can be challenging. There are three possible locations for the thing you need to grab. If it's in the control room that's best. You can be in and out quickly with just a few guys to take out along the way. It can also be in the torpedo room or what I think is the engine room. Both of these take longer, with plenty of guards to take out. I use a combination of the assault shotgun and the grenade launcher, which clears the far end of the longer passages.

Anyway, if you try to do this mission coming in above ground you have boats and helos to contend with just to reach the sub. But if you use your own sub you can avoid them completely. Here's me parked up along side. You can see the corona and it makes the mission a lot faster and easier.

I was hoping to hear a report from Oden by now. He may be wondering why I said to buy the sub and spend all his hard earned stacks on such a waste! I hope not. How you gettin' on Oden, old chum? In case you're wondering, I know how much you've in the bank as it is visible on Social Club

Learned a little more about the new update, but not much. I'll be happy with some revised radio station playlists, good to mix it up a bit, but I hope they don't strip West Coast Classics of all those old school beats. Add to it, but don't take too much away. Commercial rights are part of it too I reckon. They hired Dr Dre for this DLC, so there should be some of his music.

The Agency seems to be a music studio sort of gig. I expect it'll cost around 2-3 million to get in, hopefully a garage is included! If the related missions sound fun and lucrative, and if they can be done in Invite, I'll probably invest in the agency. I'll wait for the early returns from other players. The Cayo Heist has stuffed my bank account, but I'll still be careful about how I spend it. I want that Itali RSX as I said, and I could afford four of them right now, but I'll still wait until I can get the trade price on it. Hell I didn't buy the Kamacho for almost two years because it never went on sale and it only costs 345k! One cheap bastage I am.

Hey Oden, are you free Sunday? I need to watch the F1 title decider, and after that I should be free. I'll either need to celebrate or drown my sorrows depending on how the race shakes out.

I was thinking, if you haven't done the Cayo heist yet, I could actually do all the preps, and when we hook up we could just run the finale and get paid. Depending on the scope it could put 800k+ in your pocket if we split the proceeds. Or if we have the time and inclination we could do it start to finish including preps. But if we just ran the finale you could see how my plan works. Just stick with me and do what I do and we'd be through it in 15 minutes if we don't foul it up.

I'd like to do some more racing (land, helicopters or parachute) golf, contact missions. I want to try one of the rally races too. That could be a hoot. I'm up for just about anything. I bought a penthouse if you'd like to check those out. Nothing special really, at least the basic setup I have. But maybe you'd want to see it first in case you'd ever consider owning one.

And of course I'm hoping to run some of the missions I mentioned to get my free car, an armored Paragon which isn't available for purchase.

Logged on last night and I think it's the first day in two weeks I didn't do a heist haha. 14.5m in the bank now and I just raced and jumped out of helicopters. Well, racing isn't it, actually hotlapping since I'm doing it alone. Here's a target... I did a 2:42 on my Akuma in a race called Dockyard.

I think I'm close to unlocking the trade price for that Itali RSX I want. To do so you have to do some missions that are given by a dude called Tom Connors, who you meet when buying the penthouse. There's one where you have to rescue the DJ Moodyman. If you do you get the trade price. But I'm yet to be offered this mission. I've done four others, all pretty easy and they pay in casino chips. They only come every 8 hours, so I just have to wait for it to come up.

I think with some suspension modification I can turn that whip in to a really good street racer. Stock it's too skittish over bumpy tracks, but I think that can be tamed.

Got the Moodyman mission I needed for the good Itali price. Tom Connors calls and asks you go pick up Moodyman, who was down by the pier. I go get him in my Turismo, and he says that the car the casino loaned him was stolen and would I mind helping him get it back? Sure why not, Moodyman? So we set off toward the marker and when we get there the Itali RSX takes off and we chase. I'm taking pot shots with the AP pistol trying to take the driver out, but failing to. We approach the airport and he shoots my tire and blows it out (should have gone bulletproof!), i lose control a bit as he veers off a ramp, and i go straight and lose him. By the time I get back on track he's gone, heading north on the highway at a high rate of speed. After several minutes of high speed driving on flat tires I catch him and finally hit him through the back window and he glances off the median divider and comes to a stop as I slide alongside, gunning down the passenger who is attempting to climb out.

We both hop in the other car and head back to the casino and complete the mission. Good thing there's no timer on these or I would have failed. Unlocked the trade price, and snapped up a Grotti Itali RSX for just under 2.6m. I drove to the office to pick it up and straight to LSC for customization. Got that done and hit up the Cutting Coroners race to test it out. My best four-wheel two-lap time was 1:57 in the T20. I did 1:56 in the Grotti and it was sloppy. A better lap should bring that time down even more. But it showed the new car is faster. And the kicker is it is classed as a sports car, not super.

With a 3 million dollar hole in the bank account I ran yet another Cayo heist, got the pink diamond and a little weed and cash from the main dock to clear 1.4m and earn some of that cash back

And here she is, rolling out of Los Santos Customs. I noticed I hadn't gotten the unlocks for modifying every single component of a vehicle. That means the plates, the side mirrors, the hood, splitter, the works. And I have no whip more suitable for the full treatment then my new Itali RSX.





Took it back for a few laps of the Cutting Coroners race, dry no traffic and turned a 1:53-flat, with a few bobbles. A clean lap would be in the 1:52s. This car is fast, but tail happy and prone to exit oversteer. Modding the suspension helped some on rough pavement, but it's still more skittish than some of my other cars. First-person view is good, but the dash has a circular-shaped bit above the steering wheel that it would be better without. Slightly restricts the view and can cover some of your turn-in markers or braking points from this PoV. Still, a looker, fast and sounds vicious

I know right? What a nice whip!

I turned a 1:51.5 in Cutting Coroners, just 2 seconds off my Akuma time! This thing is fast. And still some bobbles, there is time to find yet.

So last night I was counting all my Cayo cash -- I've now done the heist at least 16 times -- and decided to have a look at Legendary's web site to see if the new week had rolled in and with it new discounts. I saw the Grotti Stinger was on sale. I talked about my shadow goal of owning every Grotti.

Usually, when I am interested in buying a new car I'll test it first in a race. I play strictly in first person, and I want cars that perform well, and which look great, and sound awesome too. But I need to test them to be sure the first-person view isn't lousy and will be OK to drive in this mode.

When I spotted the Stinger I realized I hadn't tested it, but it's a 250 GTO right? The world's most expensive car isn't it? Well, that's all fine. It's a Grotti, and it's on sale. That's enough, so I splashed the cash and sent it to my office garage, the marbled halls and exquisite lighting fitting for such a magnificent machine. I had only just acquired another Grotti, the Itali RSX which I was driving at the time, and I drove it to Lombank to check out my new whip.

Hopped in and took it for a spin. This is niiice. Straight to LSC for the works, and back out on the streets to put it through it's paces. I fell in love. It's not a fast car in the normal sense, but it does get up and go. Snappy acceleration, but lacks top end of course, and the brakes are lousy. But the handling is superb. I immediately thought about what a great get-away car this is. Perfect for having a bash through the city streets. The handling is so predictable, with a touch of exit oversteer, so easy to catch, control and countersteer. Being down on power surely contributes to it's fairly docile behavior, but it's still enough to break the rears free and slide around the corners in a controlled drift. No fear of snap oversteer like some of the cars I own. This makes high speed traffic-running a delight, just flick the wheel and she responds but doesn't disagree, ya know?

I bought the topless Stinger, in red of course. And beyond the sublime handling it's fantastic in first-person. A narrow front windshield frame, nothing on the sides of course. And the rear view from first-person is actually great, you can really see what's behind you. The steering wheel does not obscure the dash gauges. On top of all of this it sounds vicious. I'm sure the view advantages are shared by just about any convertible, but for first-person players it really is a treat.

I know this car has been around for years, and I am acting like I just discovered it, but of course I did! This is now my go-to city runner. It's on sale right now for about 550k. I liked it so much I now want to add others like it to my stable. Of all the cars I've driven in GTAO, none has felt more like I was in a Steve McQueen movie than the Stinger.


This is a Stinger. I took some shots, but don't have access at the mo, so ripped someone else's. Mine is like this but no soft top and different wheels. What a fun car



(Courtesy -- without permission -- of GTA Forum member DanDaFreakinMan)



On a different note The Contract DLC dropped. The early word is mixed of course, but from my viewpoint not something I am looking to get in to, at least right now. The property is 2m+ (and then all the upgrades) and some or most of the content needs to be done in Public. There's really no hook here for me so I'm going to pass for now. I'll buy more Grottis probably.

I have not seen this week's discounts, aside from the few cars on Legendary. There's a Pfister on the podium at the Diamond. I spun and did not win. I think that is now 792 spins without winning a car

Spin number 793 however....

I won a podium car. Hard to believe. I've gotten a lot of RP, cash and casino chips from that wheel, but I finally won a car. This week it's the Pfister Growler (if you ran that through a Brit slang converter I think it would be naughty), which looks like a Porsche Cayman. Pretty good car, priced at 1.6m so to get it for free is great. Of course I took it straight to LSC for the works and a new paint job as it was pretty ugly. Must be a Tuners car because low-grip tires are an option. Guess I could have a drift car if I wanted. Not a standout whip, but it's free and I have a lot of garage spaces to fill.

My good session continued as I actually beat a time trial! Also hard to believe. This week it is LSIA II time trial, drive from the airport to the observatory in 2:24. It took about six attempts as it's not easy, but finally managed a 2:20 on the Akuma. You really need to commit to it, and just hope you don't encounter traffic at the worst spots. This one is mostly right through the heart of the city, and then the twisty and blind bits of the Vinewood hills, so traffic is a big factor. Sometimes it works out. Mostly it does not.

It wasn't all good as I also started yet another Cayo heist. I wanted to run the scope and see what was on offer. To start the intel phase you have to travel to one of three or four spots on the map to steal a Velum prop plane from some drug dealers and then fly that to Cayo Perico. Not hard, there are just five dudes to take out. This time though GTA crashed to desktop twice when I got out of my helicopter and went to draw my weapon. Exit the helo, draw the sniper rifle, crash to desktop. Restart, pay for the heist again, exit, draw, crash to desktop. So I went and did other stuff for the session. This game is ultra stable, I don't ever recall it crashing, but it did twice yesterday and I hope was fleeting. If I couldn't do Cayo any more that would be a problem.

You will all be happy to know the crashing issue seems to be resolved. I ran Cayo heist number 17 last night. Easy isn't the right word for it, but it's not far off either. Manageable, perhaps.This time the scope showed only the tequilla (least valuable possible primary target) and no office paintings, so I needed a different sort of plan if I was to make a good haul. So I took more time in the intel phase, casing more of the island to identify the locations of more secondaries. Cocaine is what I'm looking for ideally. I found one pile of coke at the airfield.

So this time I did all the preps and same sub and scuba infil, and ghosted the main compound, grabbing the booze and slipping out the front gate. Then I did my standard dirt bike ride to the Main Dock, but not to fill my bag as usual, but to steal a boat. I made it to the dock, but found the boat was watched by two guards. This isn't the end of the world, after all I need to take out two guards together on the way out of the compound. But you run the risk of not killing the second one fast enough, setting off the alarm. Not wanting to risk that having come this far, I just slipped unseen in to the sea, careful to avoid the prowling helicopter and patrol boats. Scuba'd my way north along the coast and came ashore near the airfield. This is the first time I've gone to the airfield during the finale, and I took my time to snipe out the guards and cameras in my way. Grabbed the coke, some weed and some cash, to fill the bag and clear 1.2m and quietly escaped under water.

Total time spent on this, two hours. Too bad this wasn't around when I was starting out. If I'm clearing an average of 1.3m per heist, then that's 22m I've taken out of it so far. I can remember early on when I wanted to buy my Office, attack helo or T20 supercar, how I'd nickel and dime it, saving my pennies over the course of a couple weeks to afford it. Millions, 25k at a time. But it was fun, I have a good time with much of the content in GTAO. That didn't make it go any faster, even if I didn't mind at all.

But now, this is mad money. I can buy whatever I want. The Cayo heist seems so out of place with such a dripfeed economic model in the game. On the other hand, it's brought me back and is keeping me engaged, so well done to R* for making this update and making it able to be done in solo. This heist is why now is a great time for a player to get started. Mad solo stacks sure grease the skids.

After the heist I spent the rest of the time hotlapping land races. With the Itali RSX in the stable I've been able to improve some PBs. On some of them my best is in the top 700, and considering the fact that there are hundreds of clearly cheat laptimes (like a 10-second time for a two lap race that takes two minutes), then my lap times are right up there. First person might be a detriment in combat, but it's surely an advantage in racing.

Rockstar have announced that GTA VI is in development and 'well underway'. Heady times indeed! I have faith that the new game will be awesome. Just please stop the peer to peer structure. Something has to be done about hackers. No excuses!

I hadn't played in about a month, since my Cayo-a-thon buried me in cash. I always have a few things on my wishlist, such as businesses, properties and vehicles. But, being the temperate and self-abnegating gangsta that I am, I wait for sales. $20 million in cash on hand, but I'll wait weeks or even months to save 300k. Even though I wasn't playing I still checked in each Thursday morning to see the new weekly event and discounts.

The auto shop was the only property/business on the list, and I'd been waiting since November, but this week it's on sale, 30% off. I bought the Burton shop, it's in a good spot, but the real draw was the parking lot is sized just right to land my helicopter there. The discount knocked about 700k off the top. While I was at it I bought a Vagner, which is like an Aston Martin Valkyrie, and one of the top cars in GTAO. My office garage is filling up with sick supercars

Is anyone here playing? Do you have an Agency? What's your take?

im done with gta V......im tired of little updates messing with the mods,now that steam force you to update automatically.....and i have no patience for online......im chilling waiting 5 years for the next gta.

So no Agency then

I still have fun with it, in smaller doses these days

Looking forward to the new one, but I'll still log in from time to time until then I imagine.

Usually Valentine's week is a good one, and I was expecting some log-in bonuses, which they've done the past few years. But not this one.

https://gtaforums.com/topic/980365-...-modes-february-10th/#comment-1071793659

They say the pink diamond is at Cayo, but it always is, at a percentage-based chance. I guess they've boosted the chance?

I've ignored the new Agency, Contract content. But every week that's the focus with the event. I guess not many players went in on the Contract, so they dangle those carrots every week to get more to buy in. Dangle harder R*

Free tommy gun at Ammunation


New Content

Baller ST ($890,000-$667,500)
Prize Ride: Roosevelt (Place Top 1 in a Street Race for 3 Days in a row)
Login Unlock: 'The Many Vides of Alfredo Smith' T-Shirt
Valentine's Content
Increased chance of Pink Diamond appearing as loot for Cayo Perico
Free Valentine's Day Massacre Special & Be My Valentine Clothing
Free Gusenberg Sweeper
Free Weapon Tints (Pink Tint)
Free Select MK II Tints

Bonus GTA$ And RP Activities

3 x GTA$ and RP on Casino Story Missions
3 x GTA$ and RP on Casino Work
3 x GTA$ and RP on Till Death Do Us Part
3 x GTA$ and RP on Shotgun Wedding
2 x GTA$ and RP on Short Trip Missions

Discounted Content

40% off Roosevelt Valor ($589,200)
30% off Drift Yosemite ($915,600-$668,700)
30% off JB 700 ($245,000)
30% off JB 700W ($1,029,000)
30% off Peyote ($26,600)
30% off Peyote Gasser ($563,500)
30% off Retinue Mk II ($1,134,000 - $850,500)
20% off Casino Penthouse (+30% off Renovations)

Wow, I haven't played since February. That's the longest layoff yet for me, even if I run hot and cold on GTA. I enjoy the game, but GTAO tests my patience at times. And not just the psychopaths and hackers, but the development direction doesn't always align with what I want to see, like the Contract/Agency DLC that I've ignored. And with GTA 6 in development maybe it doesn't matter much any more.

At the time I set it aside I had just bought an Auto Shop, the Burton one. I'm not big on businesses, but I have a few. I own

-- CEO Office. Of course this is needed to then acquire businesses. I have Lombank West with a nice view of the pier and the beach, and a helo pad on the roof.

-- Hangar at LSIA for the smuggling business. This one isn't a good money maker, though you can cop some paper during the special events, especially if you've stocked it up between events and have cargo ready to roll. I didn't buy this one to make a profit, I bought it because I really like aircraft in GTAO, helicopters in particular, and you need a hangar to store personal aircraft. And for folks who do, the hangar missions are what unlocks special pricing for new aircraft. It's not the money you make from missions that is the attraction, but the money you save on new purchases that makes this business profitable, in a sense.

-- Import/export vehicle cargo warehouse. This is a clandestine chop shop, where you source (steal) high-end whips to repaint, modify and re-sell. This was the main money maker for me in my early days. I don't use it much any more, partly because Cayo is far better way to earn money, and also because it required a public lobby to do the sell missions. I say required (past tense) because there's been a big change which I'll get to in a minute.

-- Gunrunning bunker. I bought Chumash on the coast, and not sure why. Well to make money, but in the end it was wasted as I don't like the source and sell missions all that much so I keep it shut down most of the time unless there's a triple pay event. Live and learn.

-- Auto Shop. I bought the Burton location because it has a perfectly-sized parking lot to set down my whirlybirds. But after making the purchase I went to check it out and my 'associates' -- in typical Rockstar style -- tap danced on my last nerve. I show up and these hoods are berating me! Yo cuz, it's my cash that financed this operation. You work for me! Respect mofo, or you'll find your ass out on the curb. Except I can't actually kick them out and I'm stuck with these characters who act like they're my bosses. So I didn't actually do any of the auto shop content yet.

So this means, unless I'm forgetting something and I probably am, that I've ignored the nightclub, motorcycle club, cargo warehouse, arcade and all the rest. With the Cayo money I can afford anything, I'm sitting on 20 million plus. But most of this just doesn't interest me.

So now the thing I said I'd get to in a minute....

The Criminal Enterprises update which hit at the end of July. One of the best changes from my point of view is the CEO computer can now be run outside of public lobbies. This is big and means you can now fully conduct your business with no fools trying to ruin it. So those import/export deliveries cannot be griefed. I'm sure there are NPCs to deal with, Rockstar wouldn't let us go peacefully. But this is a big change.

Another change I noticed is the property limit has been expanded, from 8 to 10. I'm not too close to this now, but that's a good change for many I'm sure. I have two high-end apartments and maybe one stand alone garage. I should play again and check out what I actually own! Two more things that I noticed

"An extensive rebalancing of the in-game economy and payouts for various activities to give players more freedom and choice in how they climb their way up the criminal ranks" Not sure what this entails, but more money made faster is good.

"A recalibration of the weaponry and countermeasures on the Oppressor Mk II" Yeah, whatever. Unless by recalibration they mean removed from the game entirely. There are no oppressors in private lobbies

In the leak thread someone mentioned that GTA is popular around here, and I wondered if that was true. I get it, the game's old now, and even then it will only appeal to a certain subset of players. A love it or hate it very much, type of game.

But it's still going, with regular GTAO updates as mentioned in the post above. Story mode has never been updated in any meaningful way.

I was impressed enough with the Criminal Enterprises update to fire it back up and see what's what. And I have to say, not bad, not bad at all.

There are new businesses and properties, more ways to make money. New weapons, motorcycles, aircraft and cars. New missions and other playable content. New music, and I swear while riding around Los Santos yesterday I heard a lot of new dialog from the pedestrians. More map icons and a general improvement to the UI and the info the player is given. More notifications, making the myriad of options more accessible and easier to decipher.

I want the old West Coast Classics back, but otherwise it's all a solid improvement. The change to allow the CEO computer in private sessions is great. I wish RDO would follow the lead and give us private play, and I'd jump all over that.

So yeah, the game is in its golden years so to speak, but there's plenty still to do, the lobbies are still mostly full and I still have a blast having bash through Los Santos in a whirlybird, supercar or bike. Cruising down the boulevard, head bobbing to the beats. Looking forward to 6, but there's still enough here to keep me going for a while yet.

Since giving the game another look recently I've found that the auto shop content isn't too bad. Some money to be made here. Mayhem and money, a good GTA combination. Auto shops are on sale so I took advantage and tricked out the shop, made it look like a proper place to do business. Which is all aesthetic of course, but looking good is the point. So far I don't regret this purchase (unlike the gunrunning bunker which is 3x this week and I still didn't fire it up)

Having dropped a few hours I'm noticing all the new stuff. New commercials, radio and pedestrian chatter. New music. I like that we finally have some new cars out on the streets to nick. That was way overdue.I almost always start a new session by stealing a random car off the street and selling it at LSC.

Even though I ignored the Agency, the stuff I'm reading on the boards (not here of course) suggests that it's actually pretty good and I think I'll splash down on that next time it goes on sale. I buy everything on sale.

The change to allow the CEO computer in solo play is great. I'm surprised Rockstar made this change quite frankly, but they did indeed. I had a look and noticed my car warehouse was 85% full, and I am sure I left it 100% full. It looks like maybe the cars that comprise the list changed, so cars were removed. Because now that I am sourcing them again there are new types. Not sure what happened here, but filling it back up has never been easier now that I can do this solo. I'll fill it back up and wait for an event to start selling.

I'm after some opinions about new bikes and some of the cars, but since I'm the only one who posts in this thread I won't bother typing it out. If by chance there's anyone still playing who cares to discuss it let me know!

GTA 5 MOBILE - harmful resource Only apk with annoying ad

Oh look, the bots are having a conversation

This is just a warning.

How's it going these days over in Ukraine?

Finally some discussion in this thread!

Happy days

Sometime it might be fun to get some of us who have this to do some racing, I have a few Custom Tracks and it would be a blast to get some peeps together for a session

Sometime it might be fun to get some of us who have this to do some racing, I have a few Custom Tracks and it would be a blast to get some peeps together for a session

Hey man, as always, I'd be up for any racing that isn't the looping stuff. The stunt racing just isn't for me and I know you make some cool stunt tracks. First-person doesn't work well either on those tracks.

But point to point, ovals, street racing and that sort of stuff I like. Especially on motorbikes. Helicopter racing would be cool too. I like all of this in GTAO.

I haven't played in a while -- since Cayo made me all fat and happy -- but I've been thinking of checking it out. If we can get a few guys to race I'm up for it for sure. I've worked hard on my stable of sick whips and it would be fun to have a reason to race them. Of course it pales in comparison to your insane collection, but I like it

I had so much fun in GTA street racing when I was playing a lot. But it was just missing something, it was unsatisfactory in a few ways. That's when I took a look at Forza Horizon as an alternative and that has done a nice job of giving me this sort of fun street racing I want. Drives better. But I like GTA too. I'll probably log in soon to get back in to the groove and see what cars and bikes are new since I last played.

I logged in for the first time since last September. Had to jump through hoops for 15 minutes which kind of sucked. New launcher, new password and an array of things to prove I am a human. One of these actually makes you listen to three songs and pick the one that is most sad. Seriously. Thought I was being punked.

Eventually i got in to the game. And quickly realized I cannot drive with my current gamepad. Can I use the full wheel and seat setup? Might have to try this. Seems overkill for GTA though doesn't it? I had been using a different controller that was perfect for driving, but that developed a spike on the right trigger so the throttle pulses. The current one has a huge deadzone on the right stick that makes small course correction impossible. So I will need to find another solution if I am to race with the gang. I don't suspect we will have any takers here at SimHQ, so probably not a big deal in the end. But if it looks like it might happen I will find a solution.

There is a lot of new stuff since a year ago. I got so many phone calls from characters that are new. I want to check this out. What's good that's new?

Were the three songs from "The Wall" and "The Final Cut"? If yes, then that would be a #%&*$# hard test to pass!

Lol, no. Just three stanzas played on a piano. Better or worse than spotting traffic lights?

Hopefully I checked every box that would remember me as I wouldn't want to go through that again. But the new content intrigues me. I have a lot of fun with this one. We'll see how it goes.

I did blow 3.6 million on two F1 cars. They were 50% off so why not? First open wheel cars I've bought in GTAO. I was sitting on 20 million and with GTAO in it's twilight now I may as well start spending it. Won't carry over to GTA 6.

I have to get into the editor and add all the new content cars to make them available in my races, that means I have to race every one of them to save it. Hmm F-1 cars, I know a couple tracks that will work on and I have a mini Helo race in there too.

Not sure how well they will race, I have yet to see them. Had them both delivered to my office, but have yet to go check them out. Bought the BR8 and the Progen, is it PR4?

The BR8 looks rather like the cars before we went to the current V6 hybrid era, so maybe 2010? The PR4 looks like a 90's McLaren, Senna's car.

Can these be driven around town? I never see anyone out for a cruise in one.

I don't have one, but they handle well but not too terribly fast though. Definitely not good on the stunt races they break on hard landings

No, can't have my car breaking!

I still have yet to take one out for a spin, have only logged in that once so far. Once I can conjure up some sort of objective or goal I'll get back in to it.

I want to know more about new stuff. Like after I left the casino I got a phone call from some cat who was talking about how he wanted to make me team leader and give Merryweather the good news. What is this? Got a few calls from new characters and so I need to see what is attached to this. What sort of content, missions and rewards these are.

Has Cayo been nerfed in some way? I also heard there are new weapons so I'll stop by Ammunation when I log in next. I do need some solution for driving and flying though.

The thing I'm asking about is called San Andreas Mercenaries and man, it is quite the update. I'm late to the party as this came out in June.

Mercenaries Thread @ GTA forum

Hangars have been expanded and updated and that might be good. I have a hangar for storing my personal aircraft, but the business side has always felt a bit bare bones, and not very profitable. So maybe this has been improved. Looks like it.

Is it fun? Worth the time and effort? Mad stacks?

Do I need an Avenger to run the missions? It acts as the mobile operations center? That sh!t's expensive. Bong, have you done any of this? What's your take?

You know I really haven't done lots of missions, I still get calls from the guy who sets you up with them from the very first one. I did go and update most of my races, I want to create a Go Kart track or R/C cars but I see there are still people using hacks in the game, giving out money or griefing everyone, no one is really interested in racing

OK, no worries, was hoping to bounce off some of your previous experience. The hangar stuff no one does anyway, which is probably why they updated it. I'll check it out and report on it when I do.

For the mercenaries stuff, I don't know. If I have to drop 5 mil just to get in the game I might ignore it. Need to learn more. But it's an ambitious update. And Merryweather's got it coming.

Game on. I plugged in the old X Box controller that I used to use, and the one that developed the spike, and it was perfect. With one controller I crash in to everything. With the other I'm blasting through the streets, threading the needle, in control. It's a world of difference between the two.

The upshot is, as long as this controller behaves, that I'm good to race if it comes to be. Oden's gone a while now, hope all's OK. HitchHikingFlatlander never got started with us. He had signed on at one point, but that was the last I heard. So I doubt anyone will pipe up but you never know.

With a good controller I just spent a couple hours blasting through the map. Took out the Buzzard, did a few contact missions like Denial of Service (in the helo), visited my various properties and businesses and ran some races. There are a hell of a lot of new races since I was last logged in. There's a lot of new stuff all over the map and I'll be checking it out over the next couple of weeks. Looking good.

I did take out the BR8 open wheel car around the streets of Los Santos. Amazing acceleration and really good on the brakes too. All cars and bikes in this game have low top end. I don't think any car or motorbike can go over about 130 mph on level ground. So the main differences are in how they accelerate, stop and corner. In a street race, the open wheel cars would be excellent. Can brake very late, and once you're back on the throttle the thing is like a banshee. Very quick. Doesn't handle the bumps all that well though.

The trailer for GTA 6 has lit me up. Very excited, even if it's probably two or three years away on PC. Can't wait to hit it up.

In GTA 5 I've been hopping in to online a bit over the past week, checking out what is new. I ran some hangar source missions, and did my first auto shop delivery. I bought this business months ago. But I despised my 'associates' and ignored it. I got a call that a customer had dropped off a whip at the shop so I modded it up and delivered it for some decent money.

I also splashed some cash on my hangar, giving the interior a makeover and some spiffy floor paint. Also added living quarters as hangar renovations are on sale this week.

One of the biggest changes since I played last is the businesses and business activities that formerly required a public server can now be done in Invite. Massive change, this. The final wall has been brought down and those of us who want to play away from the griefers now have no compelling reason to join public servers. This is a surprising change, given all we know about Rockstar. But a very welcomed one at that.

Rockstar also did a pass over the game world cars. I see a lot of models that never appeared on the streets previously. GTAO has never been in a better place than it is right now, especially for players like me who like to play in peace. I can still opt in to public play, but I no longer have a need to.

i think a year , maybe 2 if they do DLC, but previous guy said they werent going to do expansions anymore. i will say this, it looks great but i will be VERY surprised if the game isnt short and over reliant on online content, to me gta o was a testing water, and the found sucess there. so they know singleplayer doesnt make as much money as online,wich is the reason they never did a dlc for V

I would love to have the cars, planes and vehicles from GTAO in the SP game.

If there is one thing this thread has taught me is not to try and get people here to play.

So I am totally not thinking you should try GTAO, not even close. For real though.

However, you can play GTAO completely solo now. And you can run races where you can try out every car without buying it. Same with the aircraft.

It appears the racing thing is dead in the water. Totally expected

New business just introduced with the latest update to GTAO, the Chop Shop

I like the premise, the concept. But not the cost, nor I think, the actual missions involved. Have not done it, but I read about some of them, like stealing stuff from Zancudo with endless attack choppers fouling it all up. Maybe it's not so bad but it is high cost to get in. I don't do much with my businesses these days. Maybe an occasional car theft and delivery (import/export and auto shop).

Anyway, if anyone's keen, have a look here to see the basics

GTAO new chop shop business

You have the odds heavily stacked against you in this case. First of all, I'd say about half of the people who post regularly on SimHQ don't even game anymore and the other half mostly play flight sims and strategy games.

I own GTA V. I've never completed any missions/heists etc. I have spent several hours driving the fastest thing I could get hold of as fast as I could all over the map. And several more hours with a cop mod chasing down and inevitably getting into a shoot outs with wrong doers

My favorite was instigating a shoot out with the Asian gang that hung out across from the gas station

Which, of course, is why it was totally expected. It hadn't been my proposal, but I was keen, even if I suspected it would not happen.




It's a playground for sure. I've done hundreds of missions and a few heists. Need a crew to do the others. Cayo Perico was heaven sent, a full-blown heist that could be done solo. Best thing ever in GTAO, quite honestly. I made 25 million from it in just a few weeks.

One of the recent updates removed the requirement to do some activities in public servers. Everything can now be done in Invite. So anyone who thought they might like it but were put off by the hackers and griefers can now play it all in peace. So you no longer need to run your sell missions in public and that sort of thing. You still can, but don't need to.

The Cayo cash has allowed me to just play, ignore the businesses as much as I want and spend my time skydiving and racing while having enough cash to buy whatever I want. The game's old yeah, and GTA 6 has captured attention. But GTAO has never been in a better place. It's still lots of fun, and Rockstar has made it so you can play the entire thing single player.

Yeah it takes like 2.5 mil to get the scrap yard. I'd be up for playing if we had some way of all getting on and joining up my name online is KurtBong

Lets do it ! is there a Discord or TS can we get 4 or 5 to play? I have played some jobs by myself but I need cash and I can make 24k by myself and I have races and can make them pretty easily especially since we can do invite only so hey lets make some stuff

Thanks for asking. It is very hard in many kinds. We are fighting and waiting more support from US and other allies. By the way, i want to express gratitude all the people who support us.
For about 20 years i have hobby project about GTA game. One of community members already in army, some others preparing to go. But... you know. GTA 6 is on the way... so maybe it is not bad like it feels...