Time to level up your criminal game

Welcome to the wild world of GTA Online, where the streets are mean, the guns are loud, and the opportunities to make big money are plentiful. But for those just starting, the game can be overwhelming, confusing, and downright frustrating. 

Fear not, dear gamer, for this article is your guide to all the best tips and strategies for beginners. From mastering the basics of the game to building your criminal empire, this article covers it all.

25. Stack up on snacks and armor

As soon as you step your first foot in Los Santos, you’ll be at the very mercy of other outlaws in the city. Once other players find out that you’re a rank 1 player, expect to get ragged by them. 

It’s highly important you keep your snacks and armor supplies in check. They’re going to be your best bet to resist some damage. 

You should:

• Head over to the convenience store and buy all the snacks.
• By the time you own an Agency, Facility, CEO Office, Auto Shop, or Kosatka, you can get your snacks for free from there.
• Get as much armor as possible from the nearest Ammu-Nation.

24. Use the weapon wheel to use snacks and armor

One of the worst feelings in the game is to get shot continuously while you struggle to regain your health by eating snacks or equipping additional armor. Deep down, you shamefully start begging for mercy from the other player shooting you.

A handy feature, that was added quite late in the game with the Criminal Enterprises DLC, is using your snacks and armor directly from the weapon wheel menu rather than painstakingly navigating through the interaction menu.

To do so:

• Keep the weapon wheel menu open.
• Press the “C” key to eat a snack and the “V” key to equip armor.

23. Find the Gun Van to get locked weapons

The Gun Van was added in GTA Online as part of the continuation of the Los Santos Drug Wars update. It’s a grey Speedo that randomly appears parked across the map with a seller sitting in it. 

The choice of weapons in the van is limited, but the collection of weapons the seller has are worth checking out. A lot of them are definitely going to catch your attention. Another cool thing about the Gun Van is that it allows you to surpass the player ranking criterion to unlock different weapons in the game. So, as a low-rank player, you can expect to purchase a rank 90 weapon through the Gun Van.

To find the Gun Van:

• You can look up the various daily locations of the Gun Van on GTAWeb.
• Once you find the van, approach its rear and purchase weapons.

22. Get the Micro SMG

Although the Micro SMG is not a powerful weapon by any means, it sure is pretty decent for a beginner’s drive-by weapon. Its best use case is when you’re trying to take out targets while driving; you will need weapons with a high rate of fire for it and the Micro SMG fits that criterion.

For a beginner, it’s most probably going to be the first choice for an automatic weapon. You can hide behind cover and spray your enemies with bullets to buy yourself some breathing space.

Get the Micro SMG because:

• It’s the cheapest machine gun in the game.
• Its default clip of 16 rounds can be extended to 30 rounds. Additionally, it has other useful attachments and some cool-looking tints.

21. Shoot the car window to steal it faster

No one wants to get caught up breaking into a car while running away from unwanted heat. Breaking into a parked car should be as simple as getting into your own legally owned supercar. 

A useful tip for breaking into a car much quicker is to shoot the driver-side window first before you approach it. This way, you’ll save a few precious milliseconds which would’ve been otherwise spent watching the animation of the player breaking the car’s window before getting in.

To do so:

• Run towards a parked car and shoot the window before you access it.
• Press the enter key and your character will straight away open the car door and start hot-wiring the car.

20. Get the Elegy RH8

A must-have vehicle for beginners is the Elegy RH8, a Nissan GT-R (R35) rip-off that is going to win you races and get you around the map fast. Once you do get some extra cash piled up, you can even convert it to the Retro Custom variant at Benny’s, which is another great customizable vehicle in the game.

It’s a great beginner’s vehicle because:

• It costs zero dollars!
• It’s a brilliant Sports car.
• It has considerable customization options.

19. Use the interaction menu to spawn your vehicle

Rather than spending an eternity scrolling through your phone’s menu to call the mechanic, you can just use the interaction menu to get your last used vehicle quickly delivered right next to you in a few seconds. 

This is especially useful when you’re in the middle of a shootout and have no time to pull out your phone to make calls.

To do so:

• Open the interaction menu by pressing the “M” key.
• Scroll down and select “Vehicles”.
• Select “Request Personal Vehicle”, and your active personal vehicle will spawn next to you.

18. Use the interaction menu to buy ammo

Another great use of the interaction menu is to restock your ammo for all weapons. This is especially useful when your weapons with limited ammo capacity run empty. So, by knowing this, you won’t have to keep running back to Ammu-Nation to buy more sticky bombs that you were using earlier trying to blow up an aggravating griefer.

To do so:

• Open the interaction menu by pressing the “M” key.
• Scroll down and select “Inventory”.
• Scroll down and select “Ammo”. From there, you can buy ammo for the weapon of your choice.

17. Shoot the back rotor of helicopters

One of the most annoying parts of having wanted levels is the endless chase you have to engage in while escaping a police chopper. The pilot of the police helicopter is stubborn and doesn’t give up, and the officers shooting at you have a tendency to not miss their shots very often.

Rather than struggling to get an aim at the pilot or blowing up the enemy helicopter with an RPG, you can just shoot the back rotor and watch the heli go down in no time.

It’s a useful tactic because:

• It’s quick.
• The helicopter loses control and falls to the ground.
• You get that much-needed breathing room.

16. Use the sewers to lose the cops

Probably one of the annoying parts of playing GTA Online is the miserable fact that you have to constantly run away from stringent cops chasing you. Sometimes, even hiding in the back alleys isn’t enough to evade their line of sight. 

What many new players in GTA Online don’t know is that you can lose the cops at any level of wanted stars by simply just accessing the Los Santos sewers and staying there until you lose the cops’ sight.

To do so:

• Enter the sewers from the two most common entrances. One is below the Alta Street flyover on the Del Perro Freeway, and the other is from the LS River just off of the spillway beneath Mirror Park Boulevard.
• Enter the sewers and go farther inside a good distance away from the entrance. 
• Make sure there aren’t any police cruisers following you inside from the entrance.

15. Get yourself a high-end apartment

By the time you have around GTA$ 200,000 saved up, you can buy a high-end apartment. It’s going to be your ultimate prized possession as a beginner in the game. Not only does it come with a luxurious space for living, but you also get a 10-car garage to store your favorite cars.

Plus, the best bit about owning a high-end apartment is the option to plan heists with your friends. They’re really fun and a great way to make money as a beginner.

To buy a high-end apartment:

• Log on to the Dynasty 8 website, or approach one of the property sale signs outside the respective apartment building and interact to purchase.
• On the Dynasty 8 website, you can filter all the apartments available to only “High-End”. 
• Click on your apartment of choice and purchase it.

14. Get the Armored Kuruma

As a novice criminal in Los Santos, your priority for the acquisition of an armored car should be the Armored Kuruma. This bulletproof vehicle will single-handedly carry you through the ranks of a feared gangster.

The key feature of owning the Armored Kuruma is its ability to protect you from getting shot. The windows on this vehicle will make you immune to taking any damage whatsoever while getting shot by NPCs and other players.

Here’s why you should be its proud owner:

• It’s a well-rounded Sports car that performs exceptionally while trying to outmaneuver your rivals.
• The affordable price tag makes it the best value-for-money vehicle in GTA Online.
• The safety it provides against bullets is unmatched.

13. Hide excess contacts on your phone

The number of in-game characters that will pile up in your phone’s contacts list, over time, is just insane. Most of those contacts are those who you won’t even be calling anytime anyway. What’s worse is that you’ll have to painstakingly scroll through their names on your phone just to find the person you want to call.

A neat little trick added into the game as part of the Los Santos Drug Wars update is the option to hide contacts. This way, you can filter down your contacts list to the characters you contact often.

To do so:

• Open the interaction menu by pressing the “M” key.
• Scroll down and select “Inventory”.
• Select “Phone Contacts Favorites”. Uncheck all the contact names you don’t want to see on your phone.

12. Complete all one-time quests

Once you enter GTA Online for the first time, there are three different quests you can do to earn money pretty easily. They are Bounty Hunting, Los Santos Slasher, and Treasure Hunt. All three missions reward you with a weapon, with which you need to complete a challenge to receive a hefty bonus. With all three missions fully completed, you’ll receive an accumulated amount of GTA$ 825,000.

You might say: how is it easy to earn money through missions that make you travel all over the map? Well, the best thing is you can easily find the locations with a guide or a labeled map.

To carry out the quests:

• Use the interactive map here: GTAWeb. This will help you find the location of the clues.
• To complete the weapon challenges for the weapon you’ll get by completing the respective quest, it’s suggested you start the mission “Pier Pressure” and take out NPCs at Vespucci Beach. This way, the cops won’t chase you.

11. Do time-trials

A great freemode event in GTA Online is the Time-Trial. What most players don’t realize is that it’s an easy way to earn GTA$ 100,000+ in just a few minutes. Although it’s a weekly event and you’ll have to wait for an entire week for the next Time-Trial, you shouldn’t just let the opportunity go to waste as a beginner. 

The Time-Trial is marked with an icon of a stopwatch on the map. 

To complete the Time-Trial:

• Go to the location of the Time-Trial.
• Start the event and familiarize yourself with the ending location of the run. Mark it with a location marker.
• End the event through your phone and start again. This way, you’ll have the ending point marked on your map before you start the second time.
• Make sure you have a fast bike to complete the Time-Trial. The Pegassi Bati 801 is a great beginner’s bike for it.

10. Call your assistant to release impounded cars

By the time you become an established criminal and own an Executive Office, you’ll get yourself an office assistant who’ll take care of all your matters tied to CEO work. 

A useful perk of having the Assistant is that they can help you release any of your vehicles impounded by the police. It saves up a lot of your precious time and the vehicle gets delivered to your garage as well.

To do so:

• Call the Assistant on your phone.
• Select “Recover vehicle from impound”.

9. Complete daily challenges and objectives

Once you log in to GTA Online every day, you will have three daily objectives to complete. By completing these objectives, you will get cash and RP. The objectives are random and quite easy to complete. 

If you complete all three objectives, you will earn GTA$ 30,000 and 5000 RP. Completing them for seven days straight will get you GTA$ 150,000 and 20,000 RP. If you decide to complete them consecutively for 28 days, you will get GTA$ 750,000 and an astounding 50,000 RP.

To complete Daily Objectives:

• Open your Interaction Menu.
• Scroll down and select Objectives.
• Complete the given objectives.

8. Complete events and activities paying bonus money

Every week in GTA Online, there are selected events, races, missions, etc. that pay you double or triple the normal amount. Getting tied up in doing these missions and activities is a lucrative way of experiencing the game. Not only will you be enjoying what you’re doing, but you will also be earning a lot of money.

The best part is that most of these events are fun to play. On some days, adversary modes will be paying you triple the money, and once you start playing these, you just get sucked into it. By the time you get tired, you’ll realize your account balance is loaded too.

To play events and activities with boosted payouts:

• Hop on to Rockstar Newswire and find out which events are paying 2x and 3x.
• Log in to GTA Online and start playing those events.
• Continue playing them back-to-back to make the most money.

7. Get the Buzzard

If you’re a beginner looking to purchase the first flying vehicle that will aid you in grinding and ranking up quickly, then you should consider getting yourself a Buzzard without even thinking twice. 

One of the best things about the Buzzard is that it’s a CEO vehicle. Once you own a Buzzard, you can call it in for free while registered as a CEO, and it will spawn right next to you like any other personal ground vehicle.

It’s a great vehicle because:

• For a relatively affordable price tag, the Buzzard won’t put a deep dent in your wallet.
• The ability to call in the Buzzard practically anywhere, while registered as a CEO, makes earning money way much easier than having to take the road to travel.
• The fast & agile handling coupled with the armaments on the Buzzard is sufficient for you to get yourself out of hairy situations. 

6. Do VIP Work

As a VIP of an organization, you can start VIP Work and complete simple and straight-to-the-point missions to earn decent money. There are a total of 17 VIP Work missions you can do, mostly solo, but a few that require a friend to start. 

To become a VIP, you will need to have at least a million dollars in your Maze bank account. Depending on the mission, you can earn anywhere from GTA$ 10,000 up to GTA$ 35,000.

To work as a VIP:

• Start an organization by registering as a CEO/VIP through the interaction menu. Select SecuroServ and register as a CEO or VIP. Keep in mind that you can register as a VIP for 4 hours only. 
• Scroll down and select VIP Work.
• Start your desired mission.

5. Sell in lobbies with a High Demand Bonus

Once your MC businesses or Bunker are piled up with stocks to sell, you can avail the benefits of selling them in a populated lobby. What it means is that you’ll get extra cash depending on the number of other players in the lobby you’re selling your cargo in.

Keep in mind that for every other player in the lobby, you’ll get an extra 2.5% of the original amount you were selling your cargo for. The bonus amount will cap at 20 players, so you won’t be getting more money if the lobby has more players than that.

This is a risky strategy to make good money; however, there are Discord servers you can join, like GTA Online, TGG’s Gorilla Gang, etc., to find other players looking to populate lobbies just for this purpose. 

To do so:

• Find a lobby where there aren’t any griefers.
• Sell your business goods and enjoy the extra cash.

4. Use invite-only sessions for grinding

Earning money in Los Santos is not as simple as it sounds. You need to spend countless hours of hard work in order to enjoy all the luxuries of the city. Doing that requires a lot of grinding and hustling. 

The last thing you’d want to attract while running errands is a tryhard griefer. So, instead of getting your mood upset, you can just take care of your business matters in an invite-only lobby.

To join an invite-only session:

• Open the Pause menu and select “Online”.
• Scroll down and launch an “Invite-Only” session.

3. Use the MOC cab to resist griefers

If you’re looking for a vehicle that’s an absolute juggernaut, then the Mobile Operations Center (MOC) is your answer. The MOC is one of those must have utility vehicles that’s going to uplift your status as a certified Kingpin in Los Santos. 

The MOC consists of two parts: the trailer and the cab. However, the real deal of the MOC is its cab. Once you detach the trailer, you will have a severely powerful vehicle at your disposal. What makes it so powerful you may ask? Well, the ability to withstand 65 rockets and 22 RPGs should clarify that doubt of yours. 

Get the MOC because: 

• Its on board missions help you unlock trade prices of various weaponized vehicles in the game.
• The turrets on the trailer can cause a disaster on the streets.
• The cab is one of the most armored vehicles in GTA Online.

2. Join other players’ heists

What many new players don’t realize is that there’s a shortcut to gaining heist experiences while making a great deal of money in tandem. It’s through joining heists of other players looking for a crew member. As a crew member, you won’t necessarily have to run all the setups of the heist. You can straight away join heist finales. 

Here’s the best way to do it:

• Join one of the popular Discord servers for GTA V and GTA Online. To name a few, TGG’s Gorilla Gang, GTA Online, and GTA Series Videos are quite active.
• Scroll down to “Looking for Group” or “Looking for Players” channel in the servers. From there, you can find players looking for others to help them out with missions and heists. You’ll be surprised how many people actively look for crew members to help them with the Diamond Casino Heist finale.
• Request the respective player to invite you to their heist. Just make sure you know the ins and outs of the heist they’re seeking help for.

1. Buy the Kosatka

The Kosatka is your go-to option once you decide that you want to live your life underwater and diet on red caviar and navy wine. Well, that’s what the onboard engineer, Pavel, keeps mentioning all the time.

Aside from the deadly armaments on board, the best part of the Kosatka is that it’s also the launch platform for the Cayo Perico Heist; the most lucrative method for earning money, as of now. Plus, it can also store your Sparrow and Toreador; two of the best vehicles in GTA Online.

Get the Kosatka because:

• You can launch the Cayo Perico Heist with it and make tons of money.
• It has the option to let you fast-travel to the opposite end of the map. 
• It’s got lock-on missiles, torpedoes, and tracking missiles.

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