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THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Wolfsheim posted:

Already miss the snow :(

On a side note I dabbled with some of the MC businesses over this winter break and its unfortunate that they're basically designed not to make money. There's a nice simplicity to 'go kill these five bikers and steal their van to bring back to this little counterfeiting office' versus every gunrunning resupply or sell mission being an intense military op where you kill like 50+ people.

The MC businesses can make money, but they absolutely are designed by Rockstar not to.
-Basically worthless without purchasing the expensive upgrades
-Stealing supplies is a trap, you don't get enough supplies with the missions to justify the time they take.
-Gameplay is designed around having a group of players but only the owner gets meaningful rewards
-Most players won't spend enough time with them to break even, which takes 30-50 hours.

That said I did spend a lot of time last week solo grinding with a Vehicle Delivery warehouse and upgraded cocaine lockup and I liked being able to switch and do a MC sale mission every once in a while, I think I will upgrade the bunker and most of the other MC businesses.

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THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
If you are delivering cars from the warehouse to a buyer in a session without other players it will spawn hostile NPCs who will damage your car. I usually just look for a session with only a couple of players and keep an eye on who is killing who. For the most part people don't interfere with buying/selling cars, you'll be delivering supercars only a few miles so it's much harder to gently caress with than an MC delivery garbage truck that has to travel halfway across the map and make 5 stops.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I haven't played but you tires wear out, you can choose between soft/medium/hard tires with varying degrees of grip and rate they wear out. Stopping in the pit can builds back up the wear level (tires don't actually get swapped by a crew, the longer you stay stopped in the pits the more the gauge fills) and it also repairs damage to your car, most importantly replacing your front/rear spoilers if they get knocked off.
Broughy who does lots of car ranking/comparison videos has a quick video on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAW_l5zafY

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
If you have a CEO office you can register as a CEO indefinitely, you can register as a VIP for a certain number of hours if you have a bank balance of like 50k.
If you are registered as a CEO or VIP and own a Buzzard you can spawn the Buzzard directly from the interaction menu for free with some hilariously low cooldown of like 3 minutes. Unlike normal aircraft spawns it will appear on the street next to you immediately rather than on some random runway/helipad.
Anyways because of that my recommendation for what new players should target is
-High End Apartment for heist planning and 10 car garage
-Buzzard for getting around
-CEO office for unlimited VIP/CEO

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
You really want the bunker upgrades because it makes it profitable to buy supplies rather than do the source missions. The security can be put off or skipped.
The bunker is great because with upgrades you buy supplies and go off and do other stuff for a few hours. Once your bunker supplies run out you order another batch and do a sell mission which will be 1 vehicle. The missions are also light years better than the MC business sell missions.

I wouldn't bother doing anything with the bunker until you had upgrades, but it could be worth buying earlier for its interaction with the nightclub like IOwnCalculus said.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Look Sir Droids posted:

I don't have a nightclub yet. I have a CEO Office and an MC Clubhouse (both free).

So the fastest way to passive income will be Buy Bunker -> Buy Nightclub? I have around $2.5 million right now. If passing on the Nightclub for now and waiting on having enough for bunker upgrades leads to a substantially higher rate of passive income, I'd rather do that.

The nightclub should be one of the last things you buy unfortunately, it's great passive income but you want it pulling in from 5 other businesses.
The best businesses to tie it to are
MC: Coke
MC: Meth
MC: Counterfeit Cash
CEO: Crates (warehouse or hangar)
Bunker

You don't need the businesses upgraded or active for nightclub to work. I would try to pick these up when you see them on sale, Rockstar changes what is on sale every Thursday.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

KoRMaK posted:

Is there a word for the anxiety you get when you don't wanna run cayo alone but you also don't want to coordinate or talk to people and you are also worried about being bad and causing the heist to restart several times?

The checkpointing of Cayo Perico is very forgiving when you're learning it. If you trigger the alarm anytime before you are just about to escape just die.
If you die before getting into the Compound you start at the beginning, alarms off. If you die inside the compound you restart inside the compound alarms still off. If you die escaping you start at the exit of the compound with the alarms off.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
The Longfin is the best approach, I never do Kosatka anymore.

The setup is a lot easier and you can make it trivial if you just buy the Phantom Wedge. You go to the police station, spawn it your phantom wedge, back it in, and then leisurely drive it to the docks launching any cops into the stratosphere.

You should scope out the airport secondary spawn locations though. They are right there when you zone in totally unguarded and there are 4 potential spawns. If the loot is good there you can drive over there in the beginning to fill up your bags, then take the boat back down to the normal drainage tunnel entrance. On your escape portion if you have full loot bags you don't need to go to the main dock, you can just go off to the SW immediately, drive the motorcycle into the ocean and swim for ~30 seconds and escape. (Also a good option if you go in with a buddy and are loaded up with gold)

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
More of a difficulty issue than a time one, I've gotten murked by a guy around a corner or from the deck below on the Kosatka setup. It's one of the few missions I switch to first person for which helps though. I don't have the heist and setups down to nearly the same degree of precision so the extra time for me is going to be a smaller percentage of my total time.

How do you do the Kosatka approach typically? I saw someone recommend taking your sub there and using periscope missiles to clear out the hostile helicopters then scuba-ing over, or do you skip the aircraft altogether?

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
If you do the sewer tunnel escape for the casino heist (and you should) don't drive along the east highway even if your GPS tells you to, if you get too close to the casino it will automatically retrigger a 5 star wanted level.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I've given up on MC businesses like most others here but the bunker I still do.
With upgrades 1 resupply will always give you 1 delivery vehicle and isn't enough to trigger a raid so you don't need to keep an eye on it.
The sell missions themselves are exponentially better than MC businesses, actually fun vehicles like the phantom wedge, insurgent, and monster truck to drive.
The research component of it sucks though. You basically are shoveling money into a livery furnace hoping for the handful of useful weapon attachments/ammo to come up.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
Neon lights do affect your car "by a pretty significant amount" according to broughy1322 who does a ton of GTA car testing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I-vYo1GUpc
They bring it closer to the ground and therefore more stable (in most cases, the Jester RR seems like a weird edge case) and can also adjust the center of mass more to the front or back.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

Who is the guy in Rockstar that thinks people want graphic tees and graphic hoodies?? Nobody wants this poo poo.

Their marketing department and youtubers who can post misleading stuff like LAST DAY TO LOGIN FOR FREE REWARDS

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Medullah posted:

So with the new update what all still requires a public session?

I saw a comment saying sourcing crates from your terrorbyte does. If it is exclusively from the terrorbyte that's probably an oversight.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
The Casino Heist is excellent with 3 very unique approaches, Heat style Aggressive, Ocean's 13 style "Big Con", and Mission Impossible style Stealth.
Preps are done in the regular open world, some preps work is optional, and within those three approaches you still have some choices that matter.

They also added the Cayo Perico heist. Less variety than the Casino Heist and there isn't really an incentive to do it other than the optimal way, but you can definitely have fun with friends with this as well.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

explosivo posted:

I keep loving up killing the guys at the main gate, either I just miss the shot, alert the two guys talking by shooting one of the other guys, or fail to kill those two guys fast enough and once I get caught there I just end up sprinting to the cliffside lol.

If it's for the getaway you can equip a pistol, sprint directly to them, and pistol whip them both in the face without setting off the alarm.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
Because you're approaching them from the side you don't enter their cone pretty much until you are cracking down on their face. The pistol whip animation is very short, not sure if it would work with a rifle.
Here's a video of someone doing it in 1st person, (I've done it fine in 3rd person). Timestamp is 9:30 if that doesn't come through.
https://youtu.be/m0IiFaA0Al0?t=570

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I don't bother resetting the follow the helicopter mission. You're not guaranteed to get the skyscraper next. You can look on the map to see what direction the helicopter is going, fly straight down its path until your lock on missiles target the merryweather guys and start clearing them out while you wait for the helicopter to actually arrive and land.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
So I'm still discovering all sorts of hidden useful things the game never tells you, figured I'd list some of the ones I know. Some of these are pretty commonly talked about, but no harm posting them again.


  • The buzzard helicopter can be spawned for free through the CEO interaction menu if you own it. It will appear right next to you and will not replace your currently active personal vehicle. Your hired associates can also spawn it through the menu, which is a great way to do heist preps and things with a newbie friend.
  • Similarly, the Sparrow helicopter can be spawned through the services-> Kosatka interaction menu if you own the Kosatka submarine and the Sparrow helicopter. It can be active simultaneously with your personal vehicle and the CEO buzzard.
  • The batmobile and Toreador can be taken on the OG and Doomsday heists, and their rocket booster and incredibly accurate missiles work. The Insurgent Pickup Custom can as well, but in practice I've found this usually just gets whoever is on the gun killed and isn't as useful as you'd think.
  • The armored karuma is nearly impervious to NPC bullets and can still be used to trivialize a lot of heist preps and other missions.
  • You can quickly throw an explosive by pressing left on the dpad while aiming down gun sights.
  • The agency SUV and Tony's car from the Nightclub are available to call in and are decently performing and can take a few rocket hits. Useful if you need a car quickly and don't want to replace your currently active personal vehicle.
  • Completing all the Doomsday Heists as the host will permanently make Lester's ability to erase your wanted level free.
  • Completing the level 2 bunker gun range challenges will permanently boost the amount of explosives you can carry
  • Melee kills are extremely effective and a reliable way to stealth. It one shots NPCs as long as you have a gun equipped, if you use your fists they'll fall over alive, alert everyone and set off alarms.
  • In the cayo perico heist the fingerprint mini-game is trivial if you know this trick. The pieces you are cycling through via left-right are ALWAYS in the correct order for top down. If you're looking for the 3rd piece down and find the top piece, you can just tap right twice and it will ALWAYS be the correct 3rd fragment. If the piece above is correct and you find the same fragment just tap right once and it will be correct. You can solve the fingerprint puzzle quickly and reliably and don't even need to look at the print you are trying to match.
  • The Akula stealth chopper actually has a useful stealth functionality. When you turn it on you are off the radar to other players for free, and you also will drop your current wanted level to two stars. This works on missions/heist preps where calling Lester to drop your wanted level does not.
  • If you can equip a spoiler on a car, do it. Having any spoiler selected (which the game treats as any spoiler modification besides the top default option) will make the car more stable in a simple binary "Yes/No" way.
  • Strength stat reportedly decreases some types of damage such as fall damage and the damage you take when you are thrown from a car/motorcycle. It also makes you climb ladders faster. It's annoying to increase normally, you kinda just need to grind it out on some specific missions where you can punch NPCs endlessly without triggering cops.
  • After completing the weapons step of the Casino heist you will be able to use the basement of your Arcade as a weapon workbench to upgrade weapons to MK2, replace specialty ammo, etc. I find this a convenient location so I always get the casino heist back up to this step after completing it.
  • Snacks can be replenished for free at your Agency, CEO office, Auto Shop, and Facility.
  • Owning an airfield at the military base gives you permanent access to the base without triggering a wanted level
  • You can alt+f4 or find new session if your CEO crate, Air, bunker, or MC delivery mission is getting attacked, you will lose a very minor % of the total when you come back online and can try again. You CANNOT do this with the nightclub delivery missions, it'll be gone.

Some more I remembered and edited in
A scuba suit will let you breathe underwater permanently and I think make you swim faster. You can buy one and save it as an outfit, and equip it through the interaction menu in the rare occasions you need it.

THF13 fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Aug 19, 2022

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Baron von Eevl posted:

Good news, 201 isn't the cap anymore! I think it goes up to 501 now?

Anyway I'm still at something like 140 contracts but I also only really do the recover valuables or liquidize assets ones, or the protection ones if I'm running low on molotov cocktails. I used to use the mk2 for gang elimination contracts but haven't since it got nerfed. I did the monkey one once, I really dislike the recover vehicle ones.

Still working my way towards this, but pretty sure 201 contracts for $20,000/day is still the cap.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

namlosh posted:

Yeah getting those gun pieces took foreeeever. Glad it’s done

What’s the deal with smuggler caches? Not the ones where you follow a crashing plane, but the one I found was just a flare on the beach near paleto and I could only “inspect the flare” using the action button.

Another flare appears nearby that you need to go to, and after doing that a couple of times you find a cache.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Arsonide posted:

So I haven't played in a few major versions. I heard they allowed people to grind in private lobbies finally. Did this kill public games or do those still exist? (I'm legitimately asking, I haven't updated and popped on yet.)
Just from the amount of people playing GTA you'll definitely still find populated lobbies.
In the same patch they made that change they also boosted the "high demand" bonus for completing deliveries in public lobbies. I think it's 2% boost per player up to a maximum bonus of 50%.

On PC trying deliveries is still a significant risk just because of hackers. I still try it every now and then but usually only if I've been in the lobby for a bit and it seems chill.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I think the cooldown might just be to encourage players to vary up their grinding with different things.
I think the Acid Lab business is actually really good for new players. The missions get you the vehicle for free and almost covers the acid lab install, so it's a very low barrier of entry. The 50k matches the payout of the "extra" sale option they added for office and bunker business last big update that I think becomes available at the same rate.
As an experienced player I will probably never do the fooligan missions again once I get 10 done for the upgrade.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I forget the exact terminology but the CEO missions you can start from the quick menu are equal payout for the boss and associates. Activities like "Sightseer". They're an OK option for helping brand new players get some money while learning the ropes.
And related, remember that CEO associates can spawn vehicles from the interaction menu as well. In particular the Buzzard. The cooldown is shared organization wide, and if it's summoned while already out it will move the existing one to their location with the same level of damage. For Motorcycle clubs if you promote a member to Road Captain they can summon a unique buzzard but it doesn't have missiles.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
The arcade scaling is literally the number of arcade machines you can fit, but some of the bigger machines can take up multiple slots and result in you getting less money. There are some big spots where only 1 machine can go so you can put a few in.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I only briefly tried them, but they added new options to the Hangar business and that's supposed to be pretty solo friendly now. Specify "Land" based sourcing/delivery and you'll get the new missions they added and most (all?) are apparently easy and quick. Deliveries supposed to be guaranteed 1 vehicle even with a full hangar.
I also use the NPC sourcing of regular cargo crates until it gets to like ~70ish, and try to hop on and sell them when there's a week where they're worth double. Private lobby for that because you'll be leaving delivery vehicles unguarded behind a lot of the time.

Nightclub/Bunker delivery missions are the only ones I will even attempt to do in a public lobby, and on PC that's probably not even worth it. I do nightclub deliveries pretty early most of the time when they're worth like 400k and if either of those get blown up, oh well. I would never attempt a regular crate warehouse in a public lobby.

I forget about the Acid Lab most of the time but I think that's pretty doable solo as well. Do you still get the camper for free doing the associated missions or was that time limited?
MC Business are ignored. At least the random drug dealers that spawn on the map to sell to give a reason for those to exist.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
You can actually steal the Sultan and register it at a mod shop, I haven't in ages but used to have any new players steal that in their "steal your first personal vehicle" tutorial. They show up in the parking lot of the prison pretty often.
Assuming it's the regular 4 door version, there's about 5 Sultans now in the game

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
With the cargo warehouses on the East side of the map it's basically a straight line south to the docks and the delivery vehicle for it is surprisingly fast and agile, I usually make it down without even seeing the NPCs that spawn. For bunker the 50k delivery the destination is random and the truck sucks. I quickly stopped bothering if you have any other reasonable options.

With all the upgrades, 1 set of purchased supplies will fill your bunker stock only enough to get 1 vehicle delivery, one of the reasons why it's considered a good solo business. Gerald's daily crate you can find out in the open world can potentially screw up your guaranteed 1 delivery vehicle. You can quit out of the game if you get a bad delivery mission for bunker and when you load back in you'll have like 95% of the stock you had previously as a penalty, which gives you a different chance at a 1 delivery vehicle mission or can lower you down to the 1 delivery vehicle threshold.

After buying a couple of businesses you want, I would focus on buying things as they come up on sale, which rotates every Thursday. CEO offices and upgrades are discounted atm.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

namlosh posted:

Not sure what snack menu you mean... but definitely learn to use snacks in the weapon wheel. It's a change made in the last year or so and I'm still not good at it, but it's worth getting good at.
what level are you currently?
e: ^^^^^^^^^^^

pretty sure strength doesn't affect health. it only decreases fall and fist fighting damage. Also you can jump over higher walls.

If you need to level up fast, crates are (or at least were) the way to go. grab some, then sell some.

Crates get a bad rap because they were the only way to make any money that wasn't doing heists with 3 other people for the longest time. People used to run crates, then do VIP work. Rinse and repeat until it really got grindy for some.

I've grinded my share of crates; and have the diamond trophy on my office desk to prove it. I didn't really burn out on them unless I went for a goal (like said trophy) and even then it was only short term. It can be fun to know all of the different scenarios and tricks to each one. I also used to be able to do any of the sell missions solo no problem and enjoyed the rush of selling a full warehouse for ~2 million.

That said, something changed in the last couple of years...
I may be wrong, but I swear it used to be that the "E" in PvE would almost never use explosive ordinance. So buzzards would only use the machine guns. Even when a Savage would show up, you'd have guys hanging out of the side shooting at you.
That changed... and I think it had a profound effect on one of the crate sell missions.
I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure there was always a sell mission where you get ambushed by a fully manned Valkyrie heli. They'd shoot at you... maybe use the miniguns. I'm not imagining that, right? I can't imagine :rockstar: added a brand new crate sell mission 5 years after the fact.

But the change above now meant that the Valkyrie could use it's cannon against you.
I have never been so spawn-trapped in this game as I was by that fuckin' thing. It's like the guys in Sultans that come after you when selling an export vehicle in a solo lobby... but with a cannon. Like literally killed before you had control.
I was able to kill it and complete the sale... but it was absolutely luck.
I can't really recommend crates anymore for that sole reason.

I haven't played this game in a while... maybe I'll fire it up tomorrow.

For crate delivery missions, if you get the plane delivery vehicle, there is a chance there will be enemy choppers waiting to ambush you. If you get that one, there will be 3 choppers total, 2 buzzards and one Valkyrie that will gently caress your poo poo up. They won't be together, just 1 chopper at 3/10 drop offs.
This can still be done solo, you have enough time to scout out the drop locations and shoot down the choppers with a buzzard that will spawn automatically next to your delivery plane, come back, and still make all the deliveries on time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR3iNZP3pk8

I think that fuckoff Valkryie can also gently caress your poo poo up on one of the cayo perico setups where you need to follow a Merryweather helicopter. I think it's because it's technically a cannon with explosive rounds and not firing rockets.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.

Ainsley McTree posted:

regarding the acid lab: does it work the same way as the MC/bunker business do, where the value of the stock increases per unit the more you have? or is like the nightclub where it's just a set price per unit no matter what, so you can basically just sell whenever you feel like it and not worry about profit maxxing too much?

I tried doing some math and it looks like it's the latter, but it's hard to tell because it's difficult to calculate the fraction of the stock bars just by eyeballing them

The bunker doesn't work this way, the value of 0%-20% is the same as 80%-100% afaik

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I don't remember about the biker businesses, for sure the CEO crates do. I think hangar crates do as well but only if the type matches?

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
I haven't done the hangar much, but it's apparently pretty good now since they added land based sourcing/delivery options.

THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
The master control terminal in the arcade is neat, but it's dealing with some probably back end game limitations. You need to be a CEO/MC president to check your businesses, and you can't check your MC businesses while being a CEO or vice versa. You need to back out of the terminal, stand up from the terminal chain, quit/resign from your current org/MC, register as a CEO/MC, sit back down in the chair, and go back into the terminal.

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THF13
Sep 26, 2007

Keep an adversary in the dark about what you're capable of, and he has to assume the worst.
The land delivery and sourcing missions for the hangar business are all single vehicle and intentionally soloable, according to a youtube video I saw.

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