Great tips guys, thanks for writing these up!
Adding some of my personal recommendations:
It's not that hard. With a good team who can communicate and be patient you are well on your way to victory.
It should go without saying, but make sure that your team can can communicate! It's recommended that everyone have a microphone, for easy and instant communication; but that being said, one player on our very successful team had no mic, and it wasn't really a burden.
NoDo provides us with a Teamspeak server which is much better than the in-game voice chat. It's more likely to be used by PC players but everyone is welcome. It provides text chat and voice comms that won't be broken in loading screens or lost in the clouds. There are even dedicated Heist Rooms for your team!
nodo.freeforums.net/thread/5458/client-nonchalant-dominance-teamspeak-serverResearch. Read, watch, ask, experiment, like and subscribe if you really have to but make sure you know what you're in for. Preparation is the most important thing to make this go as smoothly as possible, and keep everyone alive.
Have a 'kill switch' for your internet like unplugging a modem or be prepared to quickly terminate the game. In case of imminent death. You can shut down the game by hitting ALT+F4 and waiting for the Confirm option while you spam Enter (not recommended). Or if your machine can quickly shift focus from GTA, press CTRL+Shift+ESC to bring up Task Manager, right-click GTAV.exe process and type E, then hit Enter. You can also use the keyboard, typing GTA or maybe just G depending on your process list, hitting the right-click key (good luck on laptop) and pressing E, then Enter (maybe twice depending on OS version). If you know more elegant or sophisticated means to kill the process (Autohotkey) then you didn't need to read any of that :o) Our team never even got close to dying so this wasn't an issue but it is worth considering.
Don't be afraid to cheat! I don't mean using a trainer; getting banned won't help your bank account. Unless you are really after some sort of personal challenge, we are all here for the money and will do anything we can to make sure we get it! Use every exploit and easy-peasy-oh-so-cheesy method you can find on the web. If you have a controller, make sure that the lobby your Host is in has auto-aim turned on. While I personally still prefer mouse + keyboard for aiming, you can also use a hybrid setup, using the left trigger to lock on and the mouse to adjust slightly for that perfect headshot. Works great as a passenger in the Kuruma. Thanks for this tip, Caesar!
Don't start this unless you know your team is committed, and has the time. Figure out whether you are going to try it all in one go, or over a couple of weekends. If you have to go to bed in an hour, say so before the middle of a mission and if you are never going to come back, please don't start! If your computer has had a history of crashing or poor performance with GTA, try to get that sorted or at least warn your team.
Use Expanded Radar. This gives you a much better view of the surrounding roads, your team's and the enemy's locations, and most importantly
alternate getaway routes. The GPS route is often terrible.You are not invincible in the Kuruma.
Bullets will still penetrate the glass parts of the windows.
If you are driving, try not to let enemies next to the car as the blast from their shotgun is most likely to hit your passenger right in the face - bad day for everyone, especially the upholsterer.
Drive smoothly for your gunmen
I am thinking particularly about missions like
Prison Break - Plane and
Series A - Steal Meth. Obviously during high-speed chases we are going to be hanging on to the oh-shit handles and keeping our heads down. (Duck with 'A' on XB, 'X' on PS, and whatever you set it to on keyboard)
If you are driving an armored Kuruma with gun-toting maniacs inside, the best thing you can do is to
concentrate on driving smoothly, with consistent speed, mostly in a straight line. This makes it much easier for your passengers to shoot people in the head. Imagine a drive-by shooting in any movie - the driver is not going 50mph in a figure-eight pattern. It's incredibly fun to drive like a maniac but we are all here for easy money, fun can come later when we can afford those dollar rims.
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PC Gamers
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Keyboard and Mouse: Consider re-binding your Exit Vehicle key to something other than 'F'. If you've ever accidentally hit this key during a race or high-speed chase you'll know why. I set mine to F1. If you've ever been annoyed by any particular key, take the time to change it in the Key Bindings menu - you'll thank yourself later.
Disable your Steam overlay and your streaming software and your antivirus pop-ups and your automatic tweeter display and the fireplace burning on your second screen with automatic marshmallow toaster, anything that may interrupt your game at a terrible time as these things tend to do. Many antivirus/security programs have a 'Game Mode' which will prevent some of their own pop-ups. If there's something you can't do without that may pop up and interrupt your game, try playing in Borderless Window(ed) mode to minimize the time it takes for Windows to shift focus. Search the web to learn more.
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This has been said before but cannot be stressed enough and I'm surprised how many good players I've heisted with did not know this:
Heavy Utility Vests and bulletproof helmets save lives! The vest alone provides about 50% damage reduction. On Hard difficulty, at full armor I can take seven or eight rounds in the torso from an assault rifle from close range and still have about half health.Buy this outfit at Ammu-Nation, where the hunting vests are hanging against the wall. Save it in your outfits in this same shop menu. Set all your Heist setups and finales to Player Saved Outfits.
The vest with the pouches, pockets and many zippers does nothing. Neither does the light armor style combat outfit.
You want the 'Heist Gear - Heavy' outfit.The vest will keep you from running but you can make up a little speed by spamming jump. Looks silly when you're all hopping in unison down the alley by the bank but it's worth the effort.
Also, you will move more slowly while carrying a two-handed weapon unless it is a grenade launcher. If you need to run away, swap out your rifle for something smaller.
Having maximum strength lets you land on your feet and roll from a greater height, makes you take much less damage from falling, being hit by cars, crashing in a vehicle, flying off a bike at 60mph and smacking into a tree, etc. You can play golf or just beat your friends' faces in on top of Mt. Chiliad - these methods were fun ways for me to max my Strength.
Not everyone may be familiar with the same tactics for any given mission, i.e. jumping across the shipping containers on the Prison Break: Station setup. If necessary, do a 'dry run' of any heists or setups that someone maybe hasn't done before, or isn't confident with - even if just on Normal mode, for practice. i.e. learning exactly where every trash bag is for a quick getaway with Trevor's latest haul of stolen illicit drugs, and knowing exactly who is driving the truck and where they are going to park and when it's safe to get off so they don't run you over and ....sorry, I could go on. That mission has given a lot of people a lot of issues that would be avoided by either communication, or just listening to reason. The team that I did the CM with got through it very quickly, we had at least three veterans who had thrashed heists for a while. Thanks MCaesar and misssnuggles and nrainier ! (I hope that's right, I'm terrible with names and worse at finding screenshots.) No real troubles and even the trash truck mission went exceedingly well. (We used the method I give below for the gas station stop.)
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Tips for specific missions,
with quotes from Archer and Ajaxel:
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If anyone on PC would like me to show them the methods I mention below, on a practice run or just need help with a heist in general, send me a PM here on the forums please - I will probably not notice a RGSC message and a random friend request will probably be denied if I don't have a message - catch 22, thank you NoDo for the forums!
Prison Break
Station (Police station and cargo ship):Ship team: My personal safe route:
Drive right up to the boat in your Armored Kuruma. You can just push the two enemies standing by the stairs into the water. If you fall in yourself, there are ladders toward the front and the rear of the ship to get back onto the dock. Prepared to be swimming for a good minute.
Occasionally you will get cops once you start shooting but it's not likely. My guess is that sometimes there's a security guard nearby.
Back up enough in the Kuruma to get a line of fire on the enemies aboard the ship - if you're quick you can take them by headshots while they are running along the railing. When these 5 or 6 enemies are dead, board the ship and continue going up the next set of stairs in front of you. Careful, there will probably be someone waiting with a pump shotgun to blast you. Walk toward the shipping containers and turn right between a wall and the containers. At the far side of the deck you will see a place to get on top of the containers. Once at the top level, CAREFULLY jump across the gaps (don't aim and accidentally roll off, you'll take some damage) and take out the two enemies who are up there on your way. Or, have your partner pick them off from behind with a sniper. There will be three more enemies guarding the target container, one to the right (back side), one in front and one probably just around the corner.
Once you get the Casco, your partner can follow you in the Kuruma to provide support. Set a waypoint for your destination (if you get cops, you'll lose the GPS route). If you don't fire at the enemies chasing you, the cops should not interfere. I usually drive straight along the suggested route until I get into the desert, at which point I go off-road and easily lose any remaining baddies.
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Police team:Losing the cops:
If you use Apartment: Integrity Way 28 to run the Heist you will be right next to the tunnels leading to the subway (where you come out onto the highway for the Lester mission Sinking Feeling, under Integrity Way). These tunnels are a great place to dive into and quickly lose your wanted level. Just drive in a couple hundred feet, down (or past) the ramps and toward the subway.
In the police station:
Don't barge into anyone while running through, they may get pissed/see through your disguise and open fire.
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Too risky for the CM I think unless someone is very experienced and confident with this method. You don't have to fly OVER the prison to get blasted - you aren't really safe unless you're pretty far from the fence (near the roads) and low enough so that you will not get locked onto.
Best to just use the Kuruma trick for the prison interior. Look it up, you can get your Kuruma inside the prison.
While losing cops in the plane, if you fly over the ocean it's likely to take a lot longer for stars to drop. I always stay just over the coast.
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Humane Labs Raid
(my favorite!)
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Great tip, as an option I use a slightly different route:
I always get on the lower set of train tracks directly after leaving the quarry. After they curve north toward Grapeseed, just before the tracks go under the road, I climb that hill ahead and scoot across the desert on a beeline for the destination, getting on the road only near the airport.
Don't forget about the guy in the tower, he can do some damage if you're not quick. If someone quickly gets on the left gun of the Valkyrie before takeoff they will have a clear shot on the Buzzard as it rounds the side of the building.
I can never remember until I'm there, but the order for the nearest incoming buzzard is always the same - I believe it's north, followed by west, then east. (Center, left, right as you face Sandy Shores and the destination across the lake. Feel free to correct me! Don't jump out of the chopper unless you are prepared to use your parachute.
The landing is a little tight but as long as you get your skids down you should activate the cutscene and be a-ok (I landed but ended up sideways in the tree once, cut scene and we are walking away with our pay.)
Yup, just be careful of stray rounds hitting walls, this can alert nearby enemies. The guards go down easily despite looking like they wear armor - I usually take out the two at the truck with one suppressed shotgun blast apiece. This is usually easiest if only one or two people who've memorized the enemies and triggers do it. The scientists who come out of the alley when it is approached can be taken out from above, by whoever goes upstairs to take out the welding NPC (recommended to kill everyone - if you make too much noise while escaping in the box van, this merc will be alerted.)
Alternatively, you can land the chopper on a nearby mountain and take out the Buzzards with miniguns or rockets.
Yeah, that beach slants pretty dramatically toward the ocean - sinking the chopper won't fail CM but it's still a drag, to say nothing of chopping up your teammates. If you don't have a good pilot, the chopper can land on the broad grassy area above the beach, and the ground team can scale the cliff.
Ground team:
Assault shotguns work beautifully inside the Labs. The enemies are always in the same place so you can literally get through this unharmed if you're quick about it.
I find it convenient to swim the tunnels in first-person, simply holding shift and steering with the mouse.
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Series A
(my favorite characters)
======================
My personal tactic for this mission is to do it as quickly as possible.
Ignore your GPS - use those one-ways and alleys! If the baggers are quick, each stop can be completed before more than a couple of enemies spawn; the rest are easily left behind as they will not give chase. For all stops, the passenger does not even have to exit the truck if the driver knows where to park.
Baggers should
let the driver know as soon as he can leave. He will be busy providing covering fire and might not have a good view behind him.
The gas station and the chases are the main clenchers for this run, and where people most often die because the enemies are approaching from all angles and firing on a concentrated spot where our team has to be standing, possibly exposed on the back of the damned garbage truck. Skilled players can kill them all but shit does happen and again, the bags can be collected and the team gone before most of the enemies even get there.
You can go to Ammu-Nations during this mission to re-stock body armor if necessary. There's plenty of time if you don't dawdle. The gas station is right next to an Ammu-Nation, and there is another midway between two other pick-ups.
Drive around behind the gas station (after getting the yellow chkpt), you can back the truck into a well-protected alley between the gas station and the abandoned Auto Shop behind Ammu-Nation. Just be sure there is room between the back of the truck and the concrete barrier (placed here just for this mission) for the baggers to do their job. The bags are all close to this location:
learn exactly where they are and how far you can be from the truck to toss them in, ideally the Operators can provide covering fire and the Baggers can quickly load up before most of the enemies arrive.
Take the farthest bags first because the enemies will not spawn until you touch them.
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Pacific Standard
Pac standard Signal:Yup, I love this method. Occasionally this chopper will not be there, if you wait a bit one may land; although if a low-level player is in the group it seems to never spawn for me. You can also find a chopper at the hospital during this mission. Obviously you want a good pilot who can touch down quickly before the chopper gets shot up; alternatively you can drop people at the beach and they can storm the island, distracting enemies so you can make a safe landing. You can also just leave the chopper at the beach and take the police boat to it.
You will not be told to lose the police until you are almost touching the final checkpoint; sometimes you can just land at this point but usually you will have to lose stars as intended. I usually head into the mountains where you can easily lose choppers by getting out of their line of sight or just because they're so damned slow. Passengers can be looking around for police choppers "six o'clock low!!" because they will be visible on camera before they pop up on radar.
Yup, great tip.
The game gives you a TERRIBLE getaway route on your GPS which is of course littered with enemy spawns. I usually drive straight across the road from the parking lot, jump over the stairs and over the small cliff, then stay straight on this road until the last couple of turns to my destination.
The most dangerous thing on this mission for me is usually the traffic, use short boosts from the KERS past enemies but be very cautious of traffic - the game is programmed to throw stuff in front of you (I once had two buses spawn from side roads and block off a whole intersection.)
Also
if you find yourself lagging behind, be aware that if you are following someone's exact route you will run into all the enemies which spawned for them and the cars which are out of their lane and crazy from the motorcycle gunfight that just went by. If everyone can stay together (but not too close!) most enemies will be left behind the group. If someone goes down (you will see them separated from their bike on the radar) make sure they need help before you get yourself killed by your pursuers trying to 'save' them.
If you get thrown off your bike and you're about to die, blow up the bike if possible or tell your partners so they might do the same - this will fail the mission but avoids restarting the entire challenge.
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Pac. Stan Hack:
Driver of the black van during escape: don't take the first left suggested by yellow route, go past and the route will change to a much straighter one with broad streets for an easier getaway.
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Pac Standard Finale:
The Kuruma can explode from a single fall!
If you choose to go through the mountains to reach the boat, rather than taking the highway, be careful when descending the mountain. If the Kuruma falls juuuuust right wrong from a great enough height it will explode. Obviously this would be unfortunate on the very last few moments of a pass-or-fail exercise lasting several hours.
If you want to maximize take from the bank, the money carrier can just stay inside. As soon as the street is clear, have the other three move out and have the money carrier step outside, and then right back in. This will trigger the first, invsible checkpoint (when Lester yells for everyone to exit).
There is a small chance that a cop or two will try to get in the bank while the others are getting to the car, just be alert.
Don't run into the alley across the street until everyone is there. Have one person protect the rear, facing backwards as the other two clear the first police in the alley. If you are looking toward the street, there are a couple of cops that won't ever spawn (because the devs don't want to break immersion having them suddenly appear). Two more will spawn around the corners, if you are quick enough they will never get a shot off before you are safely past the fence and jumping over the walls.
Hopefully everyone knows the safe route to get to The Kuruma Apartment (Las Lagunas blvd I think) by now i.e. jumping over the wall, off the building, continuing on just close enough to the checkpoints to trigger them. Have someone just blow up the bikes once near the apartment, quicker than everyone jumping on for a second. Destroying the bikes will spawn the boat and give you the next checkpoint.
Once you are in the car, just drive back to the bank to pick up the money man. Then, drive him through the alleys near the checkpoints (have him verify that he has got them), and you are on your merry way. I usually head to the western Highway along the coast, from there it's a pretty straight high-speed burn to the boat.
Don't shoot once you get in the boat, you'll probably lose money especially if shooting flares - there is no friendly fire but for some reason you almost always lose cash.
Take it slow on the river, the last thing you need is to hit a rock and get the boat stuck on land at this point. Yes, I've done it.