OK so I have played GTA in every guise from modding to LSPDFR to GTARP.
However for many they can use a few tips that makes life a little easier and saves you time!
In 2024 with many Elite Challenges under my belt here is my best advice!
TOP TEN TIPS from a longtime player!
- Always wear a wetsuit as you can see in my case (above) it is pretty smart but when you fall in the water you are auto equipped with a breathing apparatus that does not run out. So say a Smugglers plane crashes into the reservoir, you dive to collect the booty. The cops are alerted. You just sty at the bottom until they go… If you surface you get shot at! Also handy under say the pier. Just wear it you will thank me!
- Buy the Armoured Kuruma for Everything but PVP! For PVP use something that can take a missile or 3 (The Kuruma cant but the Buffalo with Imani Tech can. But for heists and side missions (apart from Convoy that needs a Insurgent) the Armoured Kuruma remains the best vehicle in the game! But for free get a Duke O’Death, not only is it free for a newbie it can take a few missiles. But it is not as nice to drive as the Kuruma(!) and it only has 2 seats. For a crew of 4 Kuruma is better!
- Buy an Oppressor Mk 2 as soon as you can. Not for griefing but for cargo missions! Its fast, most people will leave you alone as they know what happens if they dont! And it will pay for itself in 2 days!
- Buy a Kosatka Submarine and do the Cayo Perico Heist solo and make as much as you can, even though its been nerfed a little lately it still makes the best money in the game! You can make millions a day just follow my videos here! That will show you 3 ways to make millions! Once you buy the Sub you can then buy the SPARROW helicopter. This is unlike any other copter. 1. you can land it in the Sub (again see my videos) 2. It has unlimited rockets without cooldown! 3. It will land near you anywhere (apart from say side of a mountain). I have sometimes called the Sparrow to fly to my spawned vehicle 🙂 The sub also has the ability to spawn you a dingy anywhere on water. This is handy if you crash land into the sea and dont fancy swimming for miles. This is especially useful on the east side of San Andreas where the roads are far from the beaches. One last thing you can crash the Sparrow or bail from it and you get it back without any costs.
- Drive on the opposite side of the road when Peds/NPCs panic! Listen, most people hate Los Santos traffic. When you are being chased by the red dots the traffic is designed to make your life a misery by almost magnetically pitting you crashing into you timing themselves to pull out from junctions to hit you. However, if you drive into oncoming traffic this is avoidable. The code just doesnt know what to do now. It cannot time impacts on intersections/junctions or traffic lights. Most traffic coming towards you does not turn to hit you it just slams the brakes on. So yeah, its annoying you have to do this when Rockstar could improve traffic in the same way modders have in LSPDFR. But it is not going to happen. Red lights are pointless nobody adheres to them, however, they are handy if you are stealing cargo vans, as this allows you to car jack them as they will not stop for you if you park in front of them but they will stop for the lights unless you alert them.
- The best 3 weapons in the game are the Sniper, assault shotgun and the spray and pray Micro SMG (Perfect for in car driveby). I use an Assault Rifle with fmj rounds for mid range. The reason these are good is because they are cheap and the ammo is cheap. If you only have one gun I would take the Micro smg all day long as it can do everything except long shots and this is why the sniper is a good second choice! I have the Heavy Sniper with explosive ammo but only use it for cargo at sea when a heli spawns or to shoot the Heli in Convoy setup mission. So its not really necessary!
- To calm the crowd panic in the Pacific standard heist stand on a table and hold a RPG, no need to fire it just stand on a table with it! Always steal a helicopter for the Pacific standard finale and collect your friends on a hill. And fly to the boat! You can find it on the Vespucci Beach PD roof if it is not there turn away shoot at a cop car and it will spawn when you next turn around! Pacific Standard – Signal setup again steal a helicopter from the roof of the Vinewood Police Station and take the guy to the drop off in the copter. One of your team stay behind and hide in the island shed as a search copter will appear when the copter team arrive at the drop off. EZ!
- Buy one supercar! Benefactor Krieger. DONE! It is also 4wd which is rare so can even handle offroad. Or when R* put the snow on the roads for Xmas! I own every car in the game (see my garage tour video here!) and every plane and all the garages everything upgraded they are all just some collection I show off with. I never use any of them! I used to recommend the Toreador for missions until Rockstar nerfed them in January 2024! :/ Now all you can use is either the The Grotti Vigilante (Batman car) which is a mess too big and clumsy, I never use mine. Or the Weaponised Tampa which I now use instead of the Toreador. Great for killing the Bus driver in the Prison Break setup. But I do miss the Toreador! :/
- Avoid busy lobbies! Try and get into solo public lobbies if you can there are ways to do it but you will need to look into that elsewhere. Those players will stop you earning money unless they are all cool so join crews if you can? If you see Oppressors flying about leave immediately if you want to make money rather than shoot at them and find another!
- Try and avoid getting too stressed. Go into every session like you are gonna be griefed! If you are targeted just leave and join another session. Make friends you play heists with you like as you can see how good they are. Remember people with high RP can be trihards and take over rather than help you get better so do not always trust high RP. You will soon build up a good crew you can trust not to ruin your day! If you use a gamepad go back to storymode and change your aiming settings to Assisted Partial! As you get better you wont need it as it will restrict what heists you can play in as the hosts may have free aim. But for Deliver the EMP (Humane Labs Raid) if you have assisted aim partial you can do this solo! The reason you need it is simply because its sometimes hard to see in the dark on monitors and gamepads can wear out or be loose and wobbly unlike say a KB and Mouse! This will help!
So thats my advice for now. Listen I could probably do 100 top tips but these are what I needed to know many years ago. And they still stand good today. Dont be too quick to spend you money read what I have said! It will make you money but save your money and invest in the right things. Later when you have millions buy what you want!
Have fun and Happy Days
Surfwidow (I am Surfwidow in game (PC Steam version) so feel free to friend me! I will show yu around my garages and I am happy to help anyone make money I even will take a minimum percentage cut in any heists as I literally have 150m and nothing to spend it on! LOL).