Subject: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Mobile
Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Aug 16 23
A replay of a classic game I had played a couple of decades ago, this time on a mobile platform.
Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Aug 16 23
A replay of a classic game I had played a couple of decades ago, this time on a mobile platform.
48 replies. On page 1 of 3 pages. 1 2 3
brm50diboll 
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Getting a new post in this rarely used section has proved to be more difficult than it should be - even when I confirm I am in the Video Games section, hitting new posts seems to abruptly switch over to the General Section automatically without notice when I am in the standard mode (mobile mode) of my cellphone. So I had to specifically change the mode of my phone to "Desktop site" to keep it from doing that. How annoying (and tiring). But it seems to work now, so I will do more after resting a bit. Sorry to the moderators who see my post on the General Section - that was *not* where I wanted it to post. Reply #1. Aug 16 23, 7:39 PM |
| brm50diboll
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Many years ago, when it first came out, I played Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on the PlayStation 2 platform, eventually reaching 100% completion of the game. I was impressed by how wide and deep that "universe" was, even then when technology was far less advanced than today. About 2 years ago, I installed the mobile version of San Andreas on my cellphone. I expected the mobile version to be much less detailed than the old PS 2 version I had, but I was wrong. It is amazing how much the mobile game is like the old game I remember. Yes, there are a few differences, but not many. Most of what I did and what appears on the Internet and YouTube videos still applies - even the secrets. So when replaying the game from scratch, I decided to adopt a completely different strategy from what I had originally used those many years ago. Instead of directly playing through the story line missions, I decided to see how much I could accomplish in "free roam" before actually progressing through the story missions. So when starting a new game, your player that you control, Carl Johnson, or CJ, is dumped off in a dangerous neighborhood near a bicycle with instructions to get on the bike. Obviously that is what I did as a newbie years ago. If you get on that bike, there will be prompts to pedal to the Grove Street region of the Ganton neighborhood, where CJ's home, the Johnson house is located. If you do that, you will be prompted to get off the bike and walk into the red marker at the door of the Johnson house. Doing that will trigger the first story line mission, "Big Smoke". But what if you don't get on the bike and instead wander around Los Santos in free roam mode, doing other things, like collecting weapons, money, and vehicles? Well, after awhile you will tire and want to save your game progress. But the first big problem you encounter is that the only Safe House you have obvious access to at the beginning of the game is the Johnson Family house, but entering the red marker triggers the first story mission, which I was trying to avoid. Is there a different way of saving the game without doing the first story mission? Turns out the answer is yes. There are actually several Safe Houses in Los Santos which are available for purchase at the start of the game. But they cost quite a bit of money, and you start with only $350. You need a minimum of $10,000 to buy the cheapest available Safe House, and picking up cash from the NPC's in the game is tedious, as most of them carry less than $100 on them. But in the gang areas of LS (Los Santos) are occasional dealer NPC's that carry about $2000 each. They are armed with pistols though, so it is best to pick up a few weapons and body armor first before confronting them. At the beginning of the game, these spawn infrequently (later they will become very common, but again I am avoiding story mission progression.) If you successfully confront about six of them, you will get about $12,000, more than enough money to buy a cheap Safe House and still have a little extra money left over. At this point, it takes about one "day" of gameplay (24 "hours", which are actually minutes in real time.) The cheapest Safe Houses do not have a garage to store vehicles, but that isn't important at this point. The choice for me was the Jefferson Safe House, because it relatively close to where I want to go for Part 2 of my strategy. Anyway, after accumulating the money, I purchased the Jefferson Safe House and saved my progress. When I exited and reloaded my saved game, the save file was saved as "In The Beginning" which means I was successful - I found a way to save the game without triggering the first story mission. Now I used Internet and YouTube videos on the subject to achieve a lot of what I wanted to do - and it is all readily available and applicable to the mobile version of the game. Another goal of mine was to always save at points where I had no "wasteds" or "busts" in my stats. Ultimately, I did many "virtually impossible" things (without using any "cheat codes", I should add) that I will describe in future posts. Step 1 - raising enough money to buy a Safe House and store the game without playing the first story mission - is enough for this post. Reply #2. Aug 16 23, 8:57 PM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 2 - Getting Rich Quickly Money isn't actually all that important in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. You use it to buy food, weapons, uh ... certain services, and properties. Of the properties, buying safe houses is the most expensive, but even that isn't too bad, once you know what you are doing. Once you pass $1 million, you aren't really limited at all by money anymore, and it is actually easy to become a millionaire in SA quickly, before the story missions, without any "cheats". Assuming you did what I described in Step 1, you have a game saved as "In The Beginning" set at the Jefferson Safe House you purchased with a little over $2000 in money. (You had just over $12,000, but you spent $10,000 of it to buy the Jefferson Safe House.) Now trying to earn $1 million doing what I did in Step 1 would take *ages*. Fortunately, now that you can save games at your Safe House, there is an extremely quick way to get almost infinite amounts of money. You can become a multimillionaire in just a few minutes of actual game play time now. So after loading your saved game, you head over to North Los Santos near the Mulholland intersection to the Inside Track Horse Racing Betting Parlor. There you bet almost all of your roughly $2000 on the *longshot* horse. Now the odds are you are extremely likely to lose. No problem. If you lose, as is probable, just exit to game *without saving*, then reload your previous saved game and you will be back at the Jefferson Safe House with your $2000 still intact ready to try again. This strategy of exiting without saving and reloading is central to anything that goes wrong for you in SA. If you are "wasted" or "busted", just exit without saving and reload and try again. No troublesome "wasteds" or "busteds" appearing *ever* in your saved game stats. You may have to repeat things a few times, but it works. Eventually, your longshot horse will actually win its race. Now you have over $20,000 and, since you won, you do things a bit differently now. You head back to the Jefferson Safe House and save your game, *overwriting* your previous saved game. When you reload now, you will have over $20,000, not $2000. Then, once again, you head back to Inside Track and bet almost all you have on the longshot. Yes, again you will probably lose. But you get back your $20,000 by reloading and repeat. Eventually your longshot horse will win and you will now be over $200,000 and ready to head back to the Jefferson Safe House and overwrite your saved game. Do this sequence once more time and you are now a millionaire with around $3 million. You could keep on going, eventually maxing out your money stat entirely, but about $3 million is more than enough to do whatever you want to do with money for the rest of your gameplay. The whole sequence of going from $2000 to over $3 million, even considering all the lost horse races and reloads, takes less than two hours of gameplay. Now that you're a millionaire, the first thing you are going to do now is buy all the remaining purchasable Safe Houses in the LS area, including the very expensive Mulholland Safe House, which costs $120,000. The Mulholland Safe House is very important to later game strategy and I plan to devote a whole post just to it. There are a few safe houses you now own which have no garages and a few others (including the Mulholland Safe House), which *do have* garages that you can save vehicles in. And you are still at "In The Beginning". At this point there are actually *five* garages you can save vehicles in now: Verdant Bluffs near your future ally Cesar Vialpando's house, Santa Maria Beach, Mulholland, and two other ones you may not recognize. You can actually save vehicles at the Johnson House garage on Grove Street as long as you *never* enter the red marker in front of the House that would trigger the "Big Smoke" story mission. Unfortunately, saving vehicles there *will* trigger the "Grove Street - Home" verbal animation from CJ, which is up to you whether you want to do that. Just remember that if you put vehicles in the Johnson House garage, you still have to go to a different Safe House to actually save the game, since there is no way of saving the game at the Johnson House without triggering the "Big Smoke" story mission. The fifth garage, which surprises many that it actually usable at the start of the game, is the Doherty garage in San Fierro that you will use as a base much, much later when you are doing the San Fierro story missions. Strangely, you can actually store vehicles there now (for free, even, as it doesn't need to be purchased), but there is a *SEVERE* drawback to doing that, even though, as an expert player, I do it. That drawback is an immediate four star wanted level that you can't get rid of as long as you're in San Fierro with huge numbers of cops on the ground and in helicopters and planes and even boats out to kill you, and kill you quickly. In a later post, I will describe how to deal with the wanted levels that come with visiting the "locked" islands this early in the game. It definitely can be done. There is also the possibility of storing vehicles at "Police Impound Lots", but you don't actually control those, and that is an expert-level technique I may get to later after I have talked about lots of other things. Anyway, that is enough for today's post. Congratulations on becoming a San Andreas millionaire while still being "In The Beginning". Reply #3. Aug 17 23, 5:41 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 3 - Collecting Rare and Useful Vehicles Subchapter A - The Most Useful, "Easy" Ones At this point in my discussion, I should point out that it is no longer necessary to do things in the exact order that I describe here. I myself combined what I am talking about today with elements of what I will be talking about for the next several days, pursuing multiple different goals simultaneously. But it is easier to understand if I pretend that things were done in the order I described them, and there are good reasons for putting off some things until other things are done first - so today's topic, vehicle collection, has a high priority. Since I will stay at "In The Beginning" for quite some time before I finally do the first story mission, I should point out it is not possible to purchase vehicles at this point in the game. Instead, they are obtained by doing what the title of the entire game series suggests - Grand Theft Auto. There are many available vehicles even at the beginning in SA. Most aren't particularly special, you get them to get from point A to point B and abandon them and grab another random vehicle to get to point C. After much experience, you get a feel for the hundreds of different vehicles in the game and their properties. But I only think a handful are worth describing, and even fewer are worth saving in one of one's garages. I want to focus on a few, extremely useful vehicles I think one should save in one's garages very, very early. I will begin with the vehicle I consider *the most* useful in the game - the NRG-500 motorcycle. It is actually available from the very beginning of the game and easy to obtain - somewhat unusual for the GTA series, which likes to hold back access to useful vehicles. The NRG-500 is a racing motorcycle, the fastest motorcycle in the game, and it can be found parked in a parking garage tower in East Beach, Los Santos. It is actually two places there, one on the second floor and one on the roof. The second floor one is more accessible. If you take one and leave the neighborhood, a new one rapidly spawns in its place, so this vehicle is dependably available at all times without waiting, unlike some other vehicles. There are multiple reasons why it is my favorite vehicle: extremely fast, highly maneuverable, small and easily fit into "overstuffed garages", pretty durable for a vehicle, and useful for the "Fallow Bridge" trick I will describe later. It is the best choice for most of the "Unique Jumps" in the game. I make it a point to have at least one of the NRG-500 motorcycles in every one of my garages, even as I accumulated garages through story mission completion all the way to the end of the game. "Garage stuffing" is easy with the NRG-500. The internet says, for example, that the Johnson Family House garage will only hold two vehicles, but it actually will hold (and save) four, especially if some are motorcycles. If you have two cars already in that garage and then drive up to it on an NRG-500, a message will appear saying the garage is full and will not hold any more vehicles. A lie! Get off the bike and push it to the door, which will open. Push it inside and let the door close and open again and you will see it successfully stored your motorcycle along with the previous two cars. You can even do this with another motorcycle for a total of four vehicles in the garage. Now, if you try to go for five, it will fail to successfully store one of your vehicles, which will appear to get "eaten' after the door closes. The next very useful vehicle is another motorcycle, the police motorbike, the HPV-1000. Not as fast or maneuverable as the NRG-500, but it can do the "Vigilante" side mission which I will use later. Yes, other police vehicles also can do "Vigilante", but the motorcycle is the best choice at this stage of the game because it is more maneuverable and less easily damaged than the cars. The tank ("Rhino") would be the best "Vigilante" choice overall, but it is not available at the beginning of the game except with "cheat codes", which I never use (and aren't readily available to use in the mobile version of the game anyway). I'm not really interested in trying to complete all 12 levels of "Vigilante" at this point, just have access to Level 1 of it - which I will describe why in a later post. There is no fixed parked position in LS for the HPV-1000, but motorcycle-riding cops are pretty common in LS, so it isn't that long a wait for one to show up just about anywhere, and they are pretty easy to jack, though you will get a one star wanted level when you do, two if the cop is killed. It is useful to have at least one HPV-1000 stored in one of your LS garages at all times. One might think the really fast, expensive sports cars would not be available at the beginning, and you might especially think that if you mostly hung around the gang areas of LS, where they never spawn, but, in reality, several (not all) of the fastest cars in the game are available from the start in the rich areas of West LS near the Rodeo Drive area. The famous Infernus, the fastest car in the game, can be obtained in the Rodeo area with a little patience. There is no fixed parked spot for it, but NPCs driving it around Rodeo will appear eventually if you are patient. It, and the other sports cars, seem to spawn more frequently if you drive another sports car not quite so highly prized, in the area. When one shows, you drive in front of it and stop to block the driver, then get out and jack the car from the NPC and speed off. It may take to close to a full "day" or 24 "hours" (actually minutes in real time) for one to show, though, so you do have to be patient. Since the customizer shops are not open at the beginning, you might think you don't have any control over the color of the sports car you get, but that is not 100% true. If you want a red Infernus, for example, but the one you jack is blue, you can take it to a nearby PayNSpray to get it to change to a random different color. If the vehicle is undamaged, the change in color will be free. If it changes to a color you don't want, just pull out, pull back in, and it will spray to a different random color. If you are persistent, it will eventually paint your car red as you want and you can then drive it to one of your garages and save it. Now, of the various types of sports cars available in the Rodeo area, only three are interesting enough to me to want to save in my garages: the Infernus, the Cheetah, and the Banshee. Other people may have different tastes. The Bullet is a great sports car, but that one *will not* spawn around Rodeo, so a different strategy for obtaining it will have to be used, which I will describe on another day. So two types of motorcycles and three types of sports cars, and that is enough for today. Reply #4. Aug 18 23, 10:13 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 3 - Collecting Rare and Useful Vehicles Subchapter B - Rare Vehicle Collection What constitutes a rare vehicle in San Andreas? Depends on your definition and there is a great deal of discussion about this topic, including the perennial debate on what is the "rarest" vehicle. For one thing, the availability of a particular vehicle may greatly depend on the stage of the game one is at. The FBI SWAT tank, for example, does not appear (without "cheat codes") until the very last mission of the game, but it is pretty easy to obtain then. But for my purposes, a truly rare vehicle is a vehicle that is hard to find and obtain even late in the game. I want to talk about four of these vehicles today: the Hotknife, the Euros, the Phoenix, and the Patriot. Each is different in terms of how their "rareness" is defined, but all four are actually obtainable "In The Beginning", though with some difficulty which I will explain. The Hotknife is a 1930s model racecar, very unique in appearance. No other car looks anything like it. It turns out to be the award you get for getting all gold medals in the San Fierro Driving School missions midway through the story progression. That is how I got it in my PS 2 era of playing the game, and it spawns right on the Driving School parking lot after that last, very difficult, Gold medal is earned. It also spawns as an NPC-driven car on the Las Venturas Strip, but very, very rarely. Since I don't use "cheat codes", what then is the strategy for obtaining it "In The Beginning"? Same strategy as I will describe for the Euros and the Phoenix, but I want to discuss those two cars before I discuss the strategy. The Euros was a small sports car I originally obtained in the old days doing the Import/Export San Fierro missions where, in one part of that, it spawned as a parked car at the Camel's Toe casino in Las Venturas. Other than what I am going to describe later, I never saw it anywhere else at any other time, but in my review of the Internet on that topic, some people said they had seen it driven by NPCs without cheats or mods, but others disputed it. Certainly after the Import/Export missions, it is easy to obtain as you can then purchase it. The Phoenix is a muscle car that is very prominent in Grand Theft Auto Vice City. But in San Andreas it is vanishingly rare, although it looks just like the common Vice City one. I encountered it years ago in one particular San Fierro racing course race, where you are the driver of one. It also appears in a couple of story line missions, where a mission character drives one. Other than that and what I am going to describe, I never saw the Phoenix anywhere, either parked or NPC-driven. But all three (Hotknife, Euros, and Phoenix) can be obtained "In The Beginning" in Level 1 of the "Vigilante" side mission, but it requires *extreme* patience and tenacity. A few words about the side missions in general first. Some purists might argue you aren't really at the beginning of the game if you attempt a side mission. It certainly will count on your stats as a mission attempt, even if you don't pass it. Some people hate having failed missions on their stats, and there's nothing I can do about that except to say if you want these rare cars at the beginning of the game without cheats, you're going to have to fail quite a few Vigilante side missions, deliberately. But even if you passed all 12 Levels of the Vigilante side mission and earned its bonus of extra Body Armor, I would still argue that if you did this "In The Beginning", you are still at the beginning of the game because, when you do the overwrite save after passing Vigilante, your save file still reads as "In The Beginning". Certain side missions, Vigilante among them, do not change the title of the file designation when you save them, so I consider those side missions fair game to play at this early stage. Other side missions, such as the Los Santos "8-Track" racing mission, *will* change the filename upon saving after successful completion of the side mission, so those types of side missions I would avoid for now. But although I personally have (with extreme difficulty and close to fifty tries, I might add) passed all 12 levels of Vigilante "In The Beginning" using the police HPV-1000 motorcycle, I am not suggesting you attempt that now. Just do Level 1 over and over and over, because *if* one of the rare vehicles I mentioned is going to spawn at all in Vigilante, it will spawn in Level 1. Later levels of Vigilante tend to spawn more common cars. So get on an HPV-1000 and click the check mark for Vigilante, then follow your radar until you get close enough to the target vehicle to actually see what the target vehicle is. There is greater than a 95% likelihood that the target vehicle will *not* be a rare vehicle, but a much more common, boring one. If you see your target vehicle isn't a rare vehicle, cancel the Vigilante mission, then immediately restart it again and a new target vehicle at Level 1 will spawn somewhere else in LS for you to track down and identify. And every time you cancel and restart, it counts as a mission attempt (but not a mission passed) on your stats, so if that bothers you, you are going to be bothered because your stats will look bad doing this. But with *extreme patience*, eventually, when you get close enough to identify your target vehicle, you will see that - YAY! - it actually *is* a Hotknife, Euros, or Phoenix. Now you don't cancel. Instead you tail the vehicle as closely as you can as it drives randomly across LS and you absolutely *do not* shoot at it, because you don't want to damage the vehicle, you want to jack it. Since you are in Level 1, it is perfectly safe to tail it closely, because the NPC driver can't shoot at you. The NPC driving style is random and unpredictable. You hope you will get an NPC that is a sloppy driver that gets stuck somewhere, but there are no guarantees. Some NPC drivers drive extremely fast extremely well and such drivers are almost impossible to successfully jack. But the majority will eventually run into a wall or something and get stuck. You get off your motorcycle and run to jack the target car as fast as you can and drive off even faster, because you don't want the NPC to have time to get unstuck and drive off when you have left your motorcycle, or to rejack the car from you after you briefly took it. If you do this right, you will eventually be able to jack a Hotknife, Euros, or Phoenix successfully. One you are in full possession of your prized rare vehicle, you can let the Vigilante time clock expire (failing the mission yet again), and drive your prize to one of your garages to store. Congratulations! Now as to the Patriot. The Patriot is basically a Hummer. The game considers it a military vehicle, but it does not have a Vigilante option. It does have truly wonderful handling, so it's a great vehicle to have. Technically, it isn't truly rare as it has a fixed parked site at the Easter Basin Naval Station in San Fierro. But at this point of the game, going to San Fierro gets you a four star wanted level, and even if you do manage to jack the Patriot there, it is virtually impossible to drive back across the blocked bridges to Los Santos. There is the so-called "undrowning" approach that works on PS 2 and PC, but I was never able to get it to work on mobile, so I won't describe it further here. But even waiting until San Fierro is "unlocked" through story mission completion doesn't actually help much for getting the Patriot, because the Easter Basin Naval Station is a restricted area that usually gets you an even worse five star wanted level (except for certain "exploits" I will describe much, much later - but I digress too much). No. The way I originally got the Patriot in the old days was to wait until the Import/Export missions, where it spawns at the Easter Bay Chemical Plant, a much, much safer place to obtain it than the Naval Station. The Patriot does not spawn as a target vehicle in Vigilante (at least in the 300-odd tries I made, anyway), but it *does* spawn as a target vehicle in the "Firefighter" side mission Level 1, and quite regularly there as well. So you go to the Fire Station in Downtown LS and jack the Firetruck there, then start the Firefighter side mission at Level 1 and drive until you see the burning target vehicle. It probably won't be the Patriot, though. If you see it's not the Patriot, you cancel Firefighter then immediately restart it and drive to the next target, and keep repeating that until you get lucky and you see that your burning vehicle is indeed the Patriot. Firefighter is very different from Vigilante though. If you see the burning vehicle is indeed the Patriot, you *absolutely do NOT* either get out of the Firetruck or cancel the mission, because if you either, your Patriot in front of you will immediately explode! Instead, you use your firetruck water cannon to put out the fire of both the Patriot and the Patriot driver. *After* you see the message that you successfully finished Level 1 and are now in Level 2 (not before), then, and *only then*, do you get out of the Firetruck and get into the Patriot to claim your hard-earned rare vehicle. The mission will automatically end when you exit the firetruck, but the Patriot will be there for you intact to take because you took care to put out the fire first! Drive your new Patriot to one of your garages to save. When you save your game, it will still be "In The Beginning". But by now, your "Missions Attempted" stat may read 40 or 50 while your "Missions Accomplished" stat will still read zero (0). But the reward for your patience and your persistence will be having a Hotknife, a Euros, a Phoenix, and a Patriot in your garages while still being "In The Beginning". Reply #5. Aug 19 23, 10:42 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 3 - Collecting Rare and Useful Vehicles Subchapter C - The Mulholland Garage Glitch and the Sea Sparrow Helicopter When I originally played San Andreas years ago, I was disappointed after I purchased the Mulholland Safe House. At a price of $120,000, it is the most expensive property in the game. The internet said four vehicles can be stored in its garage. But its garage looked tiny. My opinion was the only way four vehicles could fit in that garage was if all four were motorcycles that had been crammed in. But I was wrong. I was unaware of the Mulholland Garage Glitch and its ability to save a helicopter there. The developers of GTA SA really didn't want players to have access to helicopters at the early stages of the game. They even made it difficult to even find airplanes to fly at the beginning, and airplanes are much less valuable than helicopters. Of course, the jetpack is the *ultimate* flying "vehicle" in SA, but the jetpack is not available until quite late in the story progression of the game. Even an expert like myself who can get into and out of the underground part of Area 69 "In The Beginning", discovered that, after all the trouble of getting all the way to the bottom of the complex where the jetpack will eventually first appear in the late mission "Black Project", there is no jetpack there (or anywhere else in SA) at the start of the game. There are also no helicopter spawning sites in Los Santos at the beginning of the game, although there eventually will be much later in the game. You can always attract police helicopters to yourself with a three or four star wanted level, but police helicopters don't land, shoot at you, and are extremely difficult to jack. Even if you did manage to jack one from a ledge, there still is no place to save one at this stage of the game. Verdant Meadows, where you eventually will be able to store aircraft in, is ages in the future at this point. The only fixed spawn sites for helicopters at this point are in the "locked" islands of San Fierro and Las Venturas. Even if you braved the four star wanted levels to get to one of those places and successfully jacked a helicopter and flew it back to LS and shed your wanted stars without getting busted, wasted, or shot down, you still have no place to save that helicopter you went to all that trouble to get. (Technically, there are YouTube videos that show Maverick helicopters *can* be packed into and saved in the Doherty garage and the Johnson Family House garage, but the technique for that is extremely complex, time consuming, and the garage becomes useless for any other vehicles and still extremely difficult to extract the helicopter from later - so it is so horribly inconvenient as to be pointless to try, anyway.) If you go to the pilot's entrance of Los Santos International Airport, the attendant there will try to deny you entry. Of course, it easy enough to jump on top of the building the attendant is in and jump over to the other side and enter the runway area of LS International, but at this stage of the game, after you've done that, you will find no helicopters in the LS airport, only two planes, the Dodo and the Shamal, and planes are not anywhere close to being as convenient to fly as helicopters. Yes, helicopters will eventually spawn at the LS airport and other places in LS much, much later in the game, but not "In The Beginning". But the Mulholland Garage Glitch changes things. It turns out that the *roof* of the garage can be used to store one of the two smallest helicopters in the game, either the Sparrow or the Sea Sparrow. Other helicopters, such as the Maverick and Police Maverick, will not fit. The Sparrow is not available anywhere in San Andreas at this stage of the game. There are two spawn sites for the Sea Sparrow "In The Beginning", but both are located in the "locked" areas of the Desert and will incur the dreaded four star wanted level if you try to get one. The more accessible of the two sites for the Sea Sparrow is just below the Dam, but even that site is extraordinarily difficult to get to, jack the copter, and safely fly back to LS, and shed the wanted stars. Nevertheless, I have done it (several times), and I have a Sea Sparrow Helicopter stored on my Mulholland Garage roof. I am not ready to describe the advanced technique for jacking the Sea Sparrow yet. It involves several subtechniques I haven't discussed yet: How to use the NRG-500 motorcycle to cross the blocked Fallow Bridge, how to elude a four star wanted level and get a minigun and minigun ammunition, how to elude a a four star wanted level and get to the spawn site for the Sea Sparrow and jack it without getting killed by the cops, how to fly the Sea Sparrow back to LS without getting shot down by air force Hydra planes shooting missiles at you, how to shed your wanted stars if you do manage to get to LS without getting shot down, and finally, the proper technique for storing the Sea Sparrow on the garage roof so that it will successfully save. Each part of that is a post in itself, so I won't go into the details of that yet except to say it definitely can be done by an expert player, and having access to a stored helicopter "In The Beginning" is wonderful and opens up all kinds of opportunities at this stage of the game that otherwise wouldn't be available (not without cheats anyway, and again, I don't use cheats.) It turns out that the Sea Sparrow isn't the only vehicle that can be stored on the Mulholland Garage roof. Other vehicles can, as well, but to get them up there requires using a Packer truck as a ramp for the vehicle you want to move up there. Packer trucks are huge, slow, and not very maneuverable, so they are very difficult to even get up to your Mulholland Garage, but they can be found in the Ocean Docks region of South LS where they are fairly easy to jack. So far, I hadn't put any Internet links or YouTube links into my posts. I plan to do so very sparingly. Interested players are encouraged to look up the ample available material themselves, as I did (and still do.) It is a great resource, but I don't want my posts drowned in that material. Nevertheless, some people may not believe a helicopter can be obtained and stored in Los Santos "In The Beginning" without the use of cheats. And so, for the first time, I am posting a YouTube video as proof this can be done. It is amazing! (Even more amazing is that I have done it, but I don't upload videos to YouTube.)  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LSqTfqeoICc&t=136s&pp=ygUoZ3RhIHNhbiBhbmRyZWFzIG11bGhvbGxhbmQgZ2FyYWdlIGdsaXRjaA%3D%3DZMOONCHILD is a legendary GTA San Andreas player. He can fly planes 1000 × more skillfully than I can , and I consider myself an expert player. Having the Sea Sparrow on the roof is great. It is a copter that can land on water, and can also shoot bullets with its own built-in infinite ammo. A wonderful vehicle to have "In The Beginning". Reply #6. Aug 20 23, 12:21 PM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 3 - Collecting Rare and Useful Vehicles Subchapter D - The Bullet and Locked Island "Raids" As I had mentioned in Subchapter A, the Bullet is an excellent sports car, but it doesn't spawn in the Rodeo area of Los Santos, or anywhere in LS to my knowledge. It also doesn't appear to spawn as a target vehicle in either Vigilante or Firefighter side missions. If I am wrong about that, it wasn't for lack of effort. I did hundreds of these side missions and never saw it, and my internet search of the topic failed to find a report of one. In the old days, I encountered the Bullet as the reward for all Silver medals in the San Fierro Driving School missions. It has one fixed parked spawn site in San Fierro, and NPCs drive in frequently on the Las Venturas Strip. But "In The Beginning", both San Fierro and Las Venturas are "locked". All the bridges to the locked islands are blocked by barriers. The bridges get unblocked and become open to traffic later in the game from story mission progression. Now you can still visit the locked islands "In The Beginning", through a variety of techniques such as bridge jumps, swimming there, jacking boats, flying airplanes there, etc. But while in a "locked" area, you get a four star wanted level that can *not* be gotten rid of until you leave the locked area. PayNSpray and Police Bribes have no effect on the wanted level while in a "locked area" and the police pursuit with a four star wanted level is fierce and relentless. They will bust you, but they really want to kill you, and they shoot at you with ground cops, police helicopters, cops that rappel down from police helicopters, police boats, and Hydra planes that shoot missiles at you if you are airborne. It is tough to stay alive for more than a few seconds with a four star wanted level. Your only real chance is to have a really fast vehicle and be an expert driver with a thorough understanding of the map. So what *isn't* locked "In The Beginning"? Los Santos and the countryside area north of LS known as Red County. Red County is safe to visit "In The Beginning", and its PayNSprays and Police Bribes will work, but the safe houses that are in Red County are not available to be purchased yet and their garages are therefore unavailable to you. As mentioned earlier, there is a fixed parked spawn site for the Bullet in San Fierro (even "In The Beginning", well before the Driving School opens). It is in the Doherty neighborhood, near a police bribe (useless to you as it is in a locked area) and a railroad spur track that crosses a coastal road over towards where the ship where the Import/Export missions will much later occur. The boundary between Los Santos and the locked region known as Flint County is at the far western end of LS, the Santa Maria Beach area. A bridge crosses fro Santa Maria Beach to Flint County, but "In the Beginning" it is blocked. It is easy enough to swim across the water the bridge lies over, but when you make landfall in Flint County, you get the four star wanted level, and on foot your chances of survival are extremely small. It is, however, possible to jump a fast vehicle over the water and keep on going once in Flint County by driving on the sidewalk just to the right of the bridge approach. It is also possible to jump back in a fast vehicle from Flint County back to the Santa Maria Beach area by driving up a hill you can use as a jump platform located just to the left of the bridge approach. The jump back, however, is *much* more difficult to successfully do than the jump into Flint County, and, if it fails, you are stuck in the water with a four star wanted level and police boats shooting at you before you can swim to land, so you will probably die if you fail the jump back. I used a lot of internet research, review of YouTube videos, and multiple attempts which failed at various points before I finally successfully managed to complete my "raid" on San Fierro to grab the Bullet and bring it back to LS. Basically, the procedure for the successful Bullet raid was as follows: I took an NRG-500 into western Santa Maria Beach driving at top speed on the right sidewalk (and angling slightly leftwards because the sidewalk bends left and is not straight), jumped across the water into Flint County where the four star wanted level and the police pursuit begins, then sped on my NRG a little north to the nearby railroad tracks, where I turned left and followed the railroad tracks northward. The reason I followed the railroad tracks, despite their bumpiness, is to make it difficult for police pursuers, because the tracks are also bumpy for the police vehicles, so they have a hard time keeping up with the NRG-500. If they do manage to knock you off your motorcycle though, you will probably die before you can remount your bike, so you need to be going full speed. You also need to be careful not to hit the trains that run on the track, either, because that also will likely result in your death. But there are a couple of tunnels on the railroad tracks that are useful in helping to protect you from the pursuing helicopters, another reason following the train tracks is useful. Eventually the second long tunnel ends and you emerge in San Fierro. From there you speed to the Bullet spawn site, jump off your bike, quickly enter the Bullet, and speed off the way you came as quickly as you can. Even in the few seconds between when you leave the bike and enter the Bullet, the cops have enough time to start shooting at you, so if your transition is even a bit slow, you will be killed. Even with perfect execution, your Bullet is going to take some damage from police fire as you head out from the spawn site. If the Bullet is "smoking" even slightly from the police fire, you are well advised to head north a little bit to the nearby PayNSpray. Going to the PayNSpray won't help you shed your wanted level, but it will repair the damage in your Bullet. Then you return to the railroad tracks and now follow them southward to elude the police pursuit, as the Bullet is a very fast car. As you approach the Flint County intersection, you leave the railroad tracks and speed back on the bridge approach, swerving leftwards to hit the hill to the left of the bridge at its highest point for the return jump. It is very difficult, even with the extremely fast Bullet, to hit the hill just right to successfully make the jump home. The return jump is much, more more difficult to make than the original forward jump was. If you fail, your Bullet will go into the water and you will lose it, and probably get killed by the police boats a few seconds later. I failed the return jump something like ten times before I finally managed to clear it to land on the Santa Maria Beach side. But when I finally did make the successful return jump, I wasn't technically home free yet, as I still had the four star wanted level until I could shed it. But the worst was over. After the successful return jump, I sped in my Bullet ahead of the police pursuit to the nearby Santa Maria Beach PayNSpray, where I was finally able to clear the wanted level. Then I leisurely drove my newly acquired hard-won Bullet to the Mulholland Safe House Garage where I saved it the usual way (not using the Glitch on the roof, but just the regular "ground floor" garage). My prize Bullet is still there today, a trophy from a successful San Fierro "raid". Reply #7. Aug 21 23, 11:16 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 4 - Weapons Collection Subchapter A - The First Four Slots As I had mentioned earlier, I actually perform several of these activities simultaneously, even though it is easier to understand them when I describe them one at a time. So while I am traveling to collect vehicles, I also collect weapons. In fact, the collection of weapons began extremely early, because in Chapter 1 of my story, I explained that one should get some weapons and body armor before confronting a dealer. The exact weapons and number of them at that point were not particularly critical, but I think it is time now for a more systematic discussion of the weapons collection topic. For the most part, except for a few noteworthy exceptions, I am not going to exhaustively list all the weapons pickup locations. That information is widely available on the Internet. I certainly consult it often, and any player should look up where particular weapons can be found and go there often enough to basically memorize the locations. I will point out that "In The Beginning", the stores that sell weapons and ammunition, known as Ammunation, are all closed. They do not open until you reach the Doberman mission of Los Santos in the story mission progression. For that reason, early weapons accumulation requires finding them at pickup points, some of which are more easily accessible than others, but maps and videos on the subject are abundant and easy to find on the Internet. Before I get into weapons proper, I will note that on the upper right of the player's screen are horizontal lines representing "health" (in red) and "body armor" in white. The longer those lines, the more of them CJ has and they are needed to endure the encounters CJ has that deplete them. At the exact start of the game, you have little health and no body armor at all. I will discuss health on another day, but at this point I will note that activities CJ does gradually increases his available health over time from what he started with. Health that has been depleted shows up as dark red on the line. If the health meter reaches zero in bright red, CJ dies ("is wasted"), and respawns at a hospital with a restored health meter but missing his weapons. It is impossible to avoid CJ being "wasted" from time to time, but when it happens, I make it a point not to save the game. I exit without saving and reload my most recent save. This my "number of wasteds" stat always reads zero. One could save after being wasted, but being wasted sets you back considerably, so it is better not to save when that unfortunate event occurs. Same with getting "busted". Body Armor is technically not a weapon, but it has pickup locations like weapons do, and is on many of the same internet maps that the weapons are, so I am discussing it here. Having body armor let's CJ take more damage before being wasted, so it is a high priority to keep the body armor line as long as full as possible. Partial depletion of the body armor stat appears as a dark grey region on the otherwise white body armor line on the screen, but if you have no body armor at all, the white body armor line won't show. Before even confronting the first dealer in Chapter 1, a player should go to a body armor pickup point and get some by walking into the icon for it. A particular body armor pickup point spawns once every six "hours" (actually minutes of real time), so once you pickup body armor from a particular location, you cannot use that same location again to get more body armor for the next six "hours". But there are lots of body armor pickup locations, so it isn't that big a problem usually. As a side note, if a player reaches a four star wanted level (the highest possible "In The Beginning", although five star and six star levels become possible later in the game from story line progression), then large police vans called Enforcers are part of the pursuit of you. If you enter an Enforcer for the *first time* (if your body armor is absent or depleted, it will reset your body armor stat to the maximum you have available at that time. If you had already entered or drove an Enforcer, reentering it does nothing.) Police officers guard the Enforcers with powerful weapons, so trying to enter an Enforcer to get body armor is very dangerous and I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner player, but be aware that it *is* an option when you have a four star wanted level and Enforcers show up. Better just to get your body armor from fixed pickup locations. No police shooting at you near those, at least not usually. Now to weapons proper. There are 12 "slots" CJ can scroll through shown in the right upper corner of the screen which show what weapon CJ is actually carrying at that time. You change which weapon CJ is carrying actively by scrolling on your weapons icon, but any weapons you are not actively carrying at that time are still available to be used, you just have to scroll through the slots to the one you want. CJ can only carry one weapon at a time, but he has access to a bunch of weapons he has collected. Technically, not all of the 12 "slots" are for weapons. For example, one of the slots, called the "Gift" slot, carries things like Flowers. Nevertheless, for simplicity's sake, I will call all 12 of these "weapons" slots. At the exact start of the game, only Slot 1 is available to CJ. To get the other slots, CJ must pickup weapons belonging to those slots. Slot 1 is CJ's fists. CJ can fight hand-to-hand, but if his opponent, like a dealer or cop, is armed, he will likely get killed, so fists aren't much of an option. There is an upgrade for Slot 1 that is available though - the brass knuckles. There are two pickup locations for brass knuckles in LS, one under an overpass near the Johnson Family House, and one in the Commerce neighborhood of Central LS in an alley next to Roboi's Food Mart. Having the brass knuckles increases CJ's punch damage as compared to his bare fists. Slot 2 is for Melee weapons, weapons that inflict damage on NPCs through direct contact (not at a distance) and also can damage or destroy vehicles and some other structures. A variety of different things can fit into Slot 2, but only one such item can be carried in any Slot, so you canni have two Slot 2 weapons at the same time. If you go to a pickup point for a Slot 2 weapon that is different from the Slot 2 weapon you already possess, you will be given the option to "switch out" Slot 2. If you select the switch out option, you will lose your previous Slot 2 weapon and get the new one. There is no "ammo" associated with a Slot 2 weapon. You either have it or you don't, and it doesn't get consumed with use. Slot 2 fits a variety of knives, swords, clubs and other battering items. There are more options for Slot 2 than any other Slot, but the most powerful Slot 2 weapon, the one I prefer, is the chainsaw. You can destroy a parked car with a chainsaw quite quickly. The one drawback to the chainsaw choice is you can't sprint with it, so I wouldn't even scroll into Slot 2 unless I am already in direct contact range of whatever I want to use the chainsaw for. Strangely enough, the chainsaw has *no* effect on trees in the game. Trees are invulnerable to damage in GTA SA. Slot 3 is for pistols. These are weapons that have ammo, and the available ammo is displayed in your Slot icon as a number. As you shoot a pistol, that number decreases. If you use up all your ammo, the whole Slot will disappear. There are three different kinds of pistols available for Slot 3: the regular pistol, the silenced pistol, and the Desert Eagle. You can only have one of the three, and for pistols the ammo is not interchangeable, so if you switch out your pistol type, you lose any ammo your previous version had. Also, pistols have "skill level stats" which can be found on your stats page when you pause the game. At first, all weapons skill levels are listed as Poor. As you use a particular weapon, the stat slowly gets upgraded. Next comes the Gangster level and finally the Hitman level when you reach the maximum skill level for that particular weapon. Skill levels for one type of pistol do *not* apply to the other types, they each have to be earned separately. Higher skill levels result in greater accuracy, faster shooting, and quicker reloads. So it is definitely better to get to Hitman level as fast as you can. Pistols aim automatically. There is a manual aim feature, but I rarely use it. The default for pistols is automatic aim on the closest target, which is useful and faster. Of the three types of pistols, the Desert Eagle is the best. There is only one pickup location in LS for the Desert Eagle (others are on locked islands). That one location is in the southeast corner, near the beach behind a fence. You can sprint with a pistol, so that is nice. Slot 4 is for shotguns. There are three varieties of shotguns: regular pump action, sawed off, and combat. Oddly enough, there are no outside pickup points for the regular shotgun in LS. The only one is *inside* Los Santos Police Department Headquarters. And if you carry a weapon inside LSPD HQ, you immediately get a two star wanted level and all the cops there are shooting at you. Nevertheless, there is a "trick" to picking up the regular shotgun in LSPD HQ: Enter the building actively carrying flowers (I'll discuss flowers another day). You get no wanted level with flowers inside LSPD HQ, so the cops leave you alone. But when you walk through the shotgun pickup icon, you "silently" pickup the shotgun into Slot 4 without it showing on screen , so the cops still ignore you. When you leave LSPD HQ, you can switch out the flowers to Slot 4 and you will see you got the shotgun. Also, if you have no shotguns or if you already have a regular shotgun, entering a police car cruiser for the *first time* (not reentering), gives you either a regular shotgun or more regular shotgun ammo if you already had one. But this does *not* work if you already have a different type of shotgun in Slot 4. Unlike pistol ammo, shotgun ammo *is interchangeable*. So if you switch out from one shotgun to a different type, you do not lose your old ammo, you actually add to it, which is nice. The sawed off shotgun is available in several places in LS, and is probably the easiest to acquire "In The Beginning". The third and most powerful shotgun type, the combat shotgun, is not available in LS. There is a pickup location for it that is functional "In the Beginning" in the locked island of Las Venturas, and going "on raids" to LV to get the combat shotgun is a favorite activity for me, but it is an expert-level technique I would describe later. Like the pistols, you start with Poor skill in each type and can work your way up to Hitman level with enough activity. You cannot sprint with the regular or combat shotguns, though. Shotguns have limited range, so you need to be closer to the intended target than for pistols, but they do great damage, and shotguns will destroy vehicles in just a few shots at close range. Be careful, though. An exploding vehicle in close proximity to you may severely damage your own health and body armor meters, even possibly killing you if you are too close to the vehicle you are destroying. Once you have a particular weapon, you deplete the ammo number by using it (some weapons like the brass knuckles and the chainsaw do not have ammo and have no ammo number to deplete), and if the ammo number gets to zero, you lose that entire slot. There are other, worse ways, of losing weapons though. If you are wasted or busted (with a few exceptions related to "girlfriends" I will discuss later), you will lose *ALL* of your weapons and body armor. All of them. That is a major reason you don't want to save after being wasted or busted. It can take weeks of play to build up a high amount of ammo in your weapons, and they instantly will go away when wasted or busted. Remember, a particular weapon pickup slot can only be used once every six "hours" of gameplay, and traveling across LS from pickup point tp pickup point takes time, so rebuilding a lost weapon and its ammo to a high level is a very time-consuming process. Also, even though this is not an issue "In The Beginning", be forewarned that certain story line missions will delete your previously accumulated weapons and ammo, a very unfortunate thing for you if you weren't expecting that in advance. Most notoriously, *successful* completion of a key story mission known as "The Green Sabre", results in loss of all your weapons, with CJ left with nothing but a camera, believe it or not. That was a scary thing to happen to me in the old days. That was *successful* completion of the mission. I naively thought in the old days that successfully completing missions always made things better for CJ. But San Andreas is a very complicated game, and there are several places in the game where successful completion results in bad things happening for CJ. "The Green Sabre" mission is one players' definitely need to be forewarned about. It takes weeks to rebuild a lost arsenal after passing "The Green Sabre". Reply #8. Aug 22 23, 9:41 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 4 - Weapons Collection Subchapter B - Slots 5 through 8 Slot 5 is for submachine guns. This is probably the most versatile general use type of weapon in the game, and for that reason, it is my "default" slot, the slot I keep CJ in unless there is an overriding reason to use a different slot, and even when I do switch to a different slot for a particular reason, I switch back to Slot 5 as soon as that reason passes. There are three weapons that can be fitted into Slot 5: the mini-SMG, the Tec-9, and the (full sized) SMG. The first two types share a common skill level stats. The third type, the SMG, has its own independent skill level stats. All three share the same ammo, which is good. The SMG is a little better than the other two and therefore is my "default" weapon. Why? You can sprint with it. When you reach Hitman skill level, which doesn't take that long, it has a rapid rate of fire, good accuracy, automatic aim, short reload time, and decent range. It also is the only weapon class that fires out of a vehicle. If you are in a car, you can fire through the left and right windows with a Slot 5 weapon, but not forwards. But if you are on a motorcycle like the NRG-500, you have the side options *as well as* the option to fire straight forwards. All the Slot 5 types have multiple easily accessible pickup locations in LS, so you can build up a tremendous amount of ammo rather quickly. There are three pickup locations just for the SMG. In fact, the SMG is the first weapon I acquire in the mobile version of the game. In Chapter 1, instead of getting on the bicycle, I have CJ head a block north to the Jefferson Motel. There is an outdoor staircase at the back of the motel which goes to the roof, where an SMG pickup is located. Almost immediately upon starting a brand new game, CJ is armed and ready to fight. Slot 6 is the assault weapon class. Two varieties can fit there: the AK-47 and the M-4. The M-4 is slightly better than the AK-47, but the AK-47 has more pickup locations in LS and is easier to obtain. But their ammo is interchangeable, so it doesn't matter much. I generally carry the M-4. The only pickup location in LS for the M-4 is at the end of a runway in the LS airport. CJ is denied entrance to the runway area by the attendant (for not having enough flight skill at the start of the game), but he can easily climb on top of the roof of the attendant's building, go to the other side, enter the runway area when the gate now opens from the backside, and proceed to the M-4 pickup point. In the "old days" it took me awhile to figure out that trick to get into the airport, but it is old hat now. And if you fly your prized Sea Sparrow Helicopter that you have at the Mulholland Garage a lot (as I do), you quickly build up your flight skill to become a Pilot, and then the Pilot entrance airport gate opens automatically for you and you are still "In The Beginning". Both types of assault weapons have longer clips than the SMGs, a higher rate of fire, and a longer range, and automatic aim, so they are useful for taking out large groups attacking you, as in the later "Gang Wars", but you cannot sprint while carrying an assault weapon, nor can it be fired from a vehicle, so I prefer Slot 5 to Slot 6 as my default. Slot 7 is the rifles, which have the longest range in the game, but shoot only one bullet at a time and have a slow reload. You use them only for sneak attacks from a great distance. They are useless against anything that moves fast, and you can't sprint when carrying one. The regular rifle has no pickups in LS proper. There is one in Red County which is accessible, but it is clearly inferior to the sniper rifle, as the sniper rifle has a scope that lets you "zoom in" on a distant target, and the regular rifle doesn't. The sniper rifle has only one easily accessible pickup point in LS, found near the Rodeo Drive area in West LS at the InterGlobal Studios site at the top of a staircase landing. In the old days, I didn't know about that pickup location, but it is very good to know and I use it often now. I don't even bother with the regular rifle, but carry only the sniper rifle in Slot 7. Their ammo isn't even interchangeable, furthermore. There are actually two other pickup locations for the sniper rifle in LS besides the InterGlobal Studios one I mentioned, but the other two require aircraft to reach, which is another reason my Sea Sparrow copter is so useful - I can load up on sniper rifle ammo much quicker now. Slot 8 is the heavy weapons - "Say Hello to my leetle friend!" (From "Scarface"). These do *not* have easily accessible sites for pickups, but I have mastered the art of picking them up anyway. The three weapons that fit into Slot 8 are very different from each other, and do not have interchangeable ammo. The first is the Rocket Launcher. There is a building in downtown LS that has a Rocket Launcher on its roof, but no stairway or ground entrance to get there. It is actually possible to parachute there from the nearby LS tower (the tallest building in LS, which *does* have a ground floor entrance) , but that is an advanced technique that requires building up your maximum health stat first. I enjoyed using that method to get the Rocket Launcher, but the Sea Sparrow Helicopter makes getting to the Rocket Launcher much easier. The second option for Heavy Weapons is the Heat Seeking Rocket Launcher, the best option for shooting down planes and helicopters, but it has no LS pickup location. The only pickup for that one is in Easter Bay Airport in San Fierro, so you need a "four star raid" into SF to get to that one. The final option for Slot 8 in the minigun. The minigun can be used to shoot down aircraft, but the other two options are better. However, for all other purposes, ground attackers, ground vehicles, and boats, the minigun is *by far* the best option. Its automatic aim and unbelievably high rate of fire literally annihilates attackers on the ground almost instantly. You can't sprint with it, and you are very slow, but it doesn't matter - it's such a powerful weapon. But the minigun has no LS pickup points. There are three points in locked islands available "In The Beginning", but two of them would be difficult to access even *if* you didn't have the four star wanted level to deal with - the Area 69 one and the Las Venturas construction site one. The one that will eventually open on the San Fierro bridge is totally inaccessible at this point due to an "invisible wall" and the Toreno Ranch one hasn't even appeared "In the Beginning" and won't, until much, much later in the game. So the only "reasonable" site for getting the minigun in Las Venturas "In The Beginning" (for me, anyway, the legendary ZMOONCHILD has no problem going to the other open sites) is in the basement of a parking garage in far northeast LV. Getting there is quite an exciting "raid", but I enjoy it. It involves using an NRG-500 motorcycle to cross the blocked Fallow Bridge (a trick I will explain sometime later), then speeding all the way ahead of the police pursuit to the parking garage pickup point, getting it, speeding southward back to a boat landing on the south shore of LV, getting into a fast Jetmax boat there, speeding off to a boat landing in East LS ahead of the coast guard boat and helicopter pursuit, running to the East Beach Parking garage tower and hoping you have enough body armor to survive the gunfire you can't possibly avoid, then grabbing a new NRG-500 motorcycle there and speeding off into the dry aqueduct region to go the PayNSpray, where you finally can shed the wanted level. Exhilarating! You only get 200 minigun ammo per "raid", but I built up over 10,000 minigun ammo with multiple raids because they were so fun. Yes, I got CJ "wasted" numerous times, but when that happened I didn't save, I exited and reloaded and tried, tried again. Now my CJ can wipe out a four star police dragnet easily in short order. And the minigun in the later "Gang Wars" mows the enemy gangs down in almost no time. "Say Hello to my leetle friend" indeed! Reply #9. Aug 23 23, 11:34 AM |
| brm50diboll
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Addendum: There is a fourth weapon in Slot 9 (Heavy Weapons) that I neglected to mention: The Flamethrower. I consider the flamethrower the weakest weapon of that slot, and don't bother with it except in certain story missions where you are required to use it. You cannot sprint with any heavy weapon, and, if your goal is to start fires, there is (in my opinion), a better option for that purpose which I will discuss with tomorrow's slots. Reply #10. Aug 23 23, 2:41 PM |
| brm50diboll
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Correction to last post: Heavy Weapons are Slot 8, not Slot 9. Too bad we have no edit function on these boards. I hate careless mistakes. Reply #11. Aug 23 23, 2:43 PM |
| brm50diboll
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Chapter 4 - Weapons Collection Subchapter C - Slots 9 though 13 Slot 9 (unlike my typo yesterday) is for explosives. There are four items that could be used in that slot, and they are *not* interchangeable. Switching out from one choice to a different one results in the loss of all "ammo" (actually number of items of that weapon) and a reset to the base number of items of the new weapon. The four possible items for Slot 9 are: tear gas, Molotov cocktails, grenades, and satchel charges (also called "sticky bombs"). Tear gas is useful mainly for delaying pursuing cops as you are trying to take off in a helicopter with a high wanted level. ZMOONCHILD has a number of videos demonstrating the proper use of this technique, but I find the use of teargas to be too limited in its usefulness, and therefore would rather have a different weapon in Slot 9. Grenades is the first weapon I got for that slot in the old days, because its pickup point is the most easily accessible. You can sprint while carrying any one of the explosive weapons but you do have to manually aim them. Using grenades effectively without taking damage yourself requires some practice. There is no "skill level stats" for explosives use. Probably the strongest weapon in that category under "normal" conditions is the satchel charges or "sticky bombs". But there is no pickup location in LS proper for it, you have to travel all the way up to Red County to get it. First you throw the satchel charges to the target you want to destroy (NPC or vehicle). It will stick to the target, but *not* immediately explode. You remain in Slot 9 and can throw more charges to more targets if you wish. You could have *many* charges stuck to potential targets all at the same time if you wish. (I will call these charges "deployed charges", as they have been thrown and stuck to the target, but *not* exploded.) When you deploy one or more charges, Slot 13 becomes available to switch to. This is the *only* time in the game that Slot 13 appears. Slot 13 does not appear for any of the other weapons in the explosives Slot 9, and it goes away immediately when used. Slot 13 is for the detonator for any deployed satchel charges. If you have more than one deployed satchel charge, they can only be detonated simultaneously. They cannot be detonated individually. When you switch to Slot 13 and press the detonator, all the deployed satchel charges are detonated at the same time and Slot 13 immediately disappears. You can take your time between when you deploy your charges and when you actually detonate them. You could be in a completely different neighborhood when you choose the detonate them and they will still go off, although you can't see the destruction you have caused then. Now, as I said, under *normal* circumstances, the satchel charges are the most useful possible Slot 9 weapon. But CJ has the ability to become "Fireproof" through successful completion of all 12 Levels of the "Firefighter" side mission (which will *not* change the filename of an "In The Beginning" save if you overwrite a save after completing "Firefighter", so I consider "Firefighter" a useful side mission to play while still "In The Beginning".) Anyway, if you complete "Firefighter" and save, CJ becomes fireproof, which means he can run into areas that are burning without taking any damage (as long as he is not too close to any vehicles that might explode from the flames.) Fireproof CJ is fearless, and can start fires with impunity. In that situation, with fireproof CJ, I consider the Molotov cocktails more useful than the satchel charges, and therefore I prefer the Molotovs for Slot 9, even though they are the weaker choice ordinarily. Also, there are several easy-to-access Molotov pickup locations in LS (unlike for the satchel charges), so building up huge amounts of Molotovs quickly isn't a problem. CJ can go after crowds of cops or enemy gang members by running straight at them after throwing Molotovs in their vicinity, and they will all burn to death while CJ takes no damage running through the flames. This "fireproof" feature is also why I said I didn't bother with the flamethrower for Slot 8. You can't sprint with the flamethrower, but you can sprint with Molotovs, so having the Molotovs is a much faster way of starting widespread fires (assuming fireproof CJ) than having a flamethrower. Slot 10 is for "Handheld items". These aren't really weapons, although they will inflict *some slow* damage on NPCs if used on them, but that isn't their intended purpose. There are three non interchangeable items that could be used in Slot 10: the spray can, the camera, and the fire extinguisher. The spray can is used to overspray gang tags in the LS area (100 in all, and if you get all 100 of them, you get a special bonus). The tutorial for spraying gang tags is in the Story Mission "Tagging Up Turf", but, in reality, you can start spraying gang tags "In The Beginning" without having to wait for "Tagging Up Turf". It is a little tricky to do the spraying "In The Beginning" though. This is because the easiest-to-access pickup location for the spray can is in the upstairs bedroom of the Johnson Family House after the "Tagging Up Turf" mission is complete. But there *is* another pickup location for the spray can available "In The Beginning". It is on the roof of the Pawn Shop building directly behind the Johnson Family House. But CJ can climb onto that rooftop without too much difficulty (once you know it is there). One "armed" with the spray can "In The Beginning", you can start spraying the gang tags. You can even complete the spraying of all 100 gang tags while still "In The Beginning". Unfortunately, the primary reward for doing that is four weapons pickups *inside* the Johnson Family House, which is not accessible until you enter the Red Marker and trigger the "Big Smoke" story mission. However, the secondary reward, the upgrade of all Grove Street Families gang members' (they are dressed in green) to SMGs and Desert Eagles, *is* noticeable while. "In The Beginning". Oddly enough, if you do get all 100 gang tags sprayed while "In The Beginning", the "Tagging Up Turf" story mission later is still playable, because it automatically erases the six tags that you are supposed to spray in that mission so that you can respray them, while leaving all the others still sprayed, so that when you complete "Tagging Up Turf", you will again see the message "All Gang Tags Sprayed". The second choice for Slot 10 is the camera, used in certain story missions and in the "Snapshots" collection in San Fierro. The only LS pickup point is in the upstairs bedroom of the Johnson Family House, so it is not accessible without triggering the "Big Smoke" story mission. Nevertheless, there are several cameral pickup locations in San Fierro, so if you go on "four star raids", you can get the camera "In The Beginning" and even do the San Fierro snapshots. I find four star raids exciting and at this point in time, I am actually doing the San Fierro snapshots while "In The Beginning" just for the fun of it. There are 50 of these snapshots, and when you do all 50 of them, you get $100,000 bonus and four weapons pickups appear at the Doherty garage in San Fierro. The final item that can be obtained in Slot 10 is the fire extinguisher. In the old days, I first encountered the fire extinguisher in the story mission "Burning Desire", where you meet your first "girlfriend" Denice Richards. But if you are willing to go on "four star raids" there are pickup points for fire extinguishers in the locked islands available "In The Beginning". The primary purpose of the fire extinguisher is to extinguish fires, of course, but it will inflict slow damage on NPCs, and the animation for that is pretty funny. Having both the Molotovs and the fire extinguisher is a nice combination. I typically hold the spray can in Slot 10 until I am finished spraying all the gang tags, then I hold the camera in Slot 10 until I finish all the snapshots, and, after that, I carry the fire extinguisher in Slot 10. Slot 11 is for "Gifts". This isn't really a weapon at all, although, believe it or not, you can assault an NPC with flowers and they will take slight damage, but that is not an effective fighting strategy. No, the Gift Slot is for giving to "girlfriends" later in the game. Girlfriends are not available "In The Beginning". Well, technically, it is possible to *meet* certain girlfriends in four star "raids" on locked islands while "In The Beginning" (meeting them gives you a 15% relationship completion level stat with them), but you can't date them while "In The Beginning", so the Gifts are not helpful, except for disguising weapons pickups in Los Santos Police Department Headquarters. There are three possible choices in Slot 11 (not interchangeable) and, unfortunately, you can only carry one of the items, so later, if you give a gift to a girlfriend, you will not have Slot 11 available afterwards until you go back to another gift pickup point. Too bad. You'd think the game would let you load up on several gifts, but it doesn't. The three choices are flowers and two other "joke" gifts (and the creators of GTA SA have strange senses of humor), the dildo and the vibrator. Furthering the joke, the dildo has pickup locations in the showers of various police department headquarters. Slot 12 is for special use items. There are three of them, not interchangeable: the parachute, thermal goggles, and night vision goggles. Neither the thermal goggles nor the night vision goggles are available "In The Beginning", even if you do "four star raids" to the locked islands where the pickup locations for those will eventually appear, they just aren't there "In The Beginning". I know, I've tried. So only the parachute is available for Slot 12 "In The Beginning". There is a parachute pickup point found in LS at the top of the LS tower, the highest building in Los Santos. Other pickup points elsewhere in San Andreas tend to appear likewise at the tops of tall buildings or mountains. Like the Slot 11 flowers, the Slot 12 parachute only lets you have one of them at a time. It would be more convenient if you could collect multiple parachutes, but you can't. So if you use a parachute (jumping off a tall building or out of a flying aircraft), you won't have a Slot 12 again until you can collect a new parachute at a pickup location. This is actually an issue if you are using a parachute to get to the Rocket Launcher pickup on top of the tall LS building by jumping from the top of the LS tower. You use the parachute to get to the building roof where the Rocket Launcher is, but after you pick up the Rocket Launcher there, you have no parachute and you are still on the roof of a tall building with no stairs down, so the only way down is off the side of the roof, and you will take a *lot* of health damage from the fall. At the exact beginning of the game, you don't have enough maximum health to survive the fall. But you can build up maximum health through activity while "In The Beginning", so eventually, you will have enough health to be able to survive the fall from the Rocket Launcher roof, at which point your priorities become regaining your list health and getting another parachute of the top of the LS tower. When picking up the parachute off the top of the LS tower, if you don't want to use the parachute immediately, don't jump off the tower, just go to the stair entrance and you will find yourself back at the ground floor entrance of the building with your saved parachute in Slot 12 intact. One other thing, if you fly aircraft enough to build up your "flight skill stat" to 20% or higher (easy enough to do "In The Beginning" with a stored Sea Sparrow Helicopter at the Mulholland Garage), you will receive a "pilot's license" and the gates at the pilots' entrances at the airports will automatically open for you, but you will *also* automatically get a parachute in Slot 12 if you don't already have one, when you fly an aircraft to a sufficient altitude. So getting a parachute isn't tough, and it certainly has its uses. Slot 13, as previously mentioned, only appears as "the detonator" *if* you have deployed satchel charges from Slot 9. As soon as you use the detonator, Slot 13 disappears. Otherwise, you will never see Slot 13. OK. A final listing of my preferred choices for each slot "In The Beginning": Slot 1: Brass Knuckles Slot 2: Chainsaw Slot 3: Desert Eagle Slot 4: Combat Shotgun Slot 5: SMG Slot 6: M-4 Slot 7: Sniper Rifle Slot 8: Minigun Slot 9: Molotov Cocktails (assuming CJ is fireproof) Slot 10: Fire Extinguisher (after spraying all tags and taking all snapshots) Slot 11: Flowers Slot 12: Parachute Slot 13: Empty (doesn't appear) Reply #12. Aug 24 23, 12:56 PM |
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Chapter 5 - Managing Health and Other Allied Stats As previously mentioned, in the right upper corner of the main screen is a bright red horizontal line representing CJ's health. The length of the bright red part of the line is how much available health CJ has, and the dark red part of the line (if present) represents health CJ has lost. The total length of the two put together is the current maximum health CJ possesses. "In The Beginning", the maximum available health CJ possesses is relatively short, only about one third of the maximum available health CJ *could* have later in the game after he fully develops his health stat through a variety of activities, like exercise. Periodically, as CJ exercises, his maximum health stat increases and the total red line gets longer. When CJ is damaged in some way, the bright red part of the line gets shorter and the dark red part of the line gets longer. If the bright red part of the line disappears altogether, CJ dies. This is called "wasted" and that word appears on the screen A few seconds later, CJ is respawned in front of a nearby hospital with his bright red line restored, but he has lost a lot, so "wasted" is very, very bad, and, as I've said before, I choose never to save after CJ is "wasted", but to exit without saving and reload my most recently saved game. Picking up body armor helps CJ defend against *some* damage, but *not all*. Damage from falls, drowning, or fire bypasses armor altogether (the body armor line remains undamaged), but immediately eats into the health stat. So protecting CJ's health is a high priority in the game. In addition to the main health stat, there are some other stats associated with health that appear on the "Player Stats" page: Stamina, Muscle, and Fat. These three stats also need to be managed along with Health to allow CJ the ability to do the things he needs to do in the game. Stamina allows CJ to run at maximum speed while on foot on land, or to swim at maximum speed if in the water. As CJ sprints, a green color spreads from the bottom towards the top of the lower right icon on the main screen. When that green coloration reaches the top of that icon, CJ has run out of available energy and can no longer sprint or swim rapidly. As CJ rests, the green coloration goes back down, and CJ can resume sprinting. The Stamina stat affects how rapidly that green coloration rises. At the very start of the game, CJ's stamina is low, and the green coloration rises rapidly, so CJ exhausts quickly. As CJ exercises, periodically, his stamina stat will be increased a bit towards its eventual maximum level. When CJ has a high stamina stat, and the green coloration rises considerably more slowly than it does at the start of the game, so CJ is able to sprint longer before exhausting. It takes a whole lot of exercise over time for CJ's Stamina stat to reach its maximum possible value - weeks of play, actually. In addition to this, there is also the possibility of CJ gaining "Infinite Sprint". If CJ gains "Infinite Sprint" , then the green coloration never rises at all and CJ can sprint (or swim rapidly) infinitely without having to rest. "Infinite Sprint" is a capability CJ can earn by completing the "Burglary" side mission in a specific black box truck vehicle that allows you to start the side mission of the game in the night hours of the game clock. Although the necessary vehicle for that Burglary side mission is available "In The Beginning", and its mission button can be pressed at night, the actual burglary side mission won't start "In The Beginning", unfortunately, as you cannot access the interiors of any of the houses to burgle until a certain Ryder story mission has been completed that allows you to do the Burglary side mission. Too bad. But that Ryder story mission isn't too far into the future, so "Infinite Sprint" becomes available in a fairly short time. Until then, you will have deal with CJ getting exhausted from time to time. Two things you can do until then to maximize CJ's available sprint times: increase CJ's Stamina, and, when sprinting or swimming rapidly, tap repeatedly on the sprint icon rather than press down on it constantly. Back to the main Health stat. As CJ exercises, as stated before, his maximum available health stat will slowly increase from time to time. To get it to its ultimate maximum value will take many weeks of exercise, or can be accomplished in one fell swoop by completing all 12 Levels of the "Paramedic" side mission in an ambulance, easily accessible at any hospital in SA. This can be done while "In The Beginning", and involves rescuing patients and taking them to a hospital in your ambulance within a given time limit. It does take practice, but it one of the easier side missions to do, so you may want to make doing it "In The Beginning" a priority, as having your maximum height available line as long as it possibly can be, (about three times longer than it was at the start of the game), really helps. But what about restoring lost health CJ gets by incurring damage? Assuming the damage isn't enough to kill CJ, the dark red depleted health can be replaced by bright red available health in several ways: Saving the game restores the bright red and eliminates the dark red. Eating causes an increase in the bright red and a decrease in the dark red. "In The Beginning", restaurants are *not* open yet, but CJ can still eat, at certain vending machines, soft drink machines, and vendor locations ("corn dog" and "hot dog" vendors) in various places throughout San Andreas that can easily be found in numerous places on an internet search. There is one soft drink location just outside the "Little Brown Jug" bar on Grove Street itself that I have my CJ visit often ($1 per drink). Later in the game, but not "In The Beginning", heart-shaped health icons appear during Gang Wars that CJ can pickup to restore lost health. One way to exercise quickly is by visiting gyms. There is a gym in the Ganton neighborhood just off of Grove Street that is accessible at the beginning of the game. The last two allied stats to concern yourself with are Muscle and Fat. These two stats actually affect how CJ looks in the game, as well as what he can do. At the very start of the game, CJ has 0% fat and 10% muscle, and he looks very skinny and his punches don't have that much impact. As CJ exercises (if he has more than 0% available fat), his muscle stat increases and he looks more "buff". His punches have more impact when muscular, but his running will begin to actually slow when he sprints if he is quite muscular. I find around 25% muscle stat to be optimal. Some girlfriends later will really care about the exact stats, but you can make that irrelevant by collecting all 50 "oysters", after which all girlfriends available to you will always date you regardless of your muscle and fat stats, but as girlfriends aren't available "In The Beginning", that isn't really a priority right now, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind. If CJ exercises while having greater than 0% fat, his muscle stat slowly builds up, but if he exercises while *at* 0% fat, his muscle stat will slowly "decrease" with time. This is how you get rid of muscle you don't want. As for the fat stat, it is 0% at the start, but will slowly increase every time CJ eats or drinks if he has no "depleted health" (dark red). Eventually, when fat gets around 30%, his appearance becomes visibly fat. His running is very slow even when he sprints, and he looks downright awful as his fat stat gets close to 100%. Reaching 100% fat doesn't kill CJ, but you really don't want to be anywhere close to that, because CJ's abilities are so impaired when he gets obese. Both muscle *and* fat can rise at the same time, a consideration to be aware of. CJ with 100% fat *and* 100% muscle definitely does *NOT* look good. I try to keep CJ's fat stat below 20%. If you exercise with greater than 0% fat and less than 100% muscle, your fat stat slowly decreases while your muscle stat slowly rises. But if you overeat while you are periodically exercising, *both* fat and muscle will go up, and that can be hard to reverse. You can only lower the muscle stat by exercising with 0% fat. In that case, the muscle stat slowly goes down over time with exercise. But with even a little fat, the muscle stat *rises* with exercise, so if your CJ is both too fat and too muscular, you have a serious problem. You need to lose the fat without increasing the muscle, which is tough to do, though there are certain exercises in the gym that can help you there. But if you want to lower both fat and muscle quickly, you need to take drastic measures: starvation. If you go more than 48 "hours" (minutes of real time, actually) without eating or drinking *anything* (not even so much as one soft drink), and also without *saving*, a message appears on screen that says CJ is hungry and he needs to eat. You have now officially entered starvation mode. While in starvation mode, CJ's fat stat begins to decline rapidly even without exercise, but faster with exercise. If CJ's fat stat reaches all the way to zero, then CJ's muscle stat and health stat will begin to decrease. Exercise while in starvation mode and 0% fat causes CJ's muscle stat to decrease rapidly and his health stat to decrease slowly. If both fat and muscle reaches 0%, then CJ's health stat will begin to decrease rapidly, and he is at risk for dying of starvation. But it's easy to end starvation mode: just have one soft drink or one vendor food and starvation mode ends, for at least the next 48 "hours". You can also end starvation mode by saving the game. As drastic as it sounds, starvation mode is the fastest way to deal with the problem of CJ having too high fat *and* too high muscle at the same time, and I have used starvation mode several times to quickly fix those stats. I like to keep CJ around 25% muscle and 10% fat, but if you don't pay attention to those stats, they will both drift out of control over time and have to be dealt with. So after each save, I make it a point to see if I need to fix one or both of those stats. Reply #13. Aug 25 23, 3:54 PM |
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Chapter 6 - The Fallow Bridge "Trick" I have mentioned this before, but now is the time to get into the details of how it works. The Fallow Bridge is located in western Red County and crosses over to the desert area just west of Las Venturas. There are other "blocked" bridges "In The Beginning" that can also be circumvented using somewhat similar (but not identical) techniques to what is described here. First, a video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EBxNW1B2gm8&pp=ygUlZ3RhIHNhbiBhbmRyZWFzIGJsb2NrZWQgZmFsbG93IGJyaWRnZQ%3D%3DThe technique I prefer over the one shown in the video involves squeezing past *both* the first and second set of barriers on the bridge from a left inner rail approach. The video uses that technique to bypass the second set of barriers, but for the first, it shows a right outer approach using the "invisible wall" to get past the barriers. I have a hard time getting on top the invisible wall without falling off, so I prefer a left-sided approach using the left inner bridge rail just as shown for getting past the second set of barriers. You will note that the four star wanted level does not begin until you get past the second barriers, so you have time to plan your approach: about a 45° leftward angle just past the upward beam before the barrier, then a sharp turn of the wheel rightwards once the motorcycle hops up onto the bridge railing. Without that sharp right turn on the hop, the motorcycle will go straight over the bridge rail to the outside on the left, and will likely end up in the water. Only the NRG-500 motorcycle is really right for this purpose. I've tried others, and they fail because they either lack sufficient power or flip over too easily. I wish I could have found a video demonstrating my exact technique, but I just couldn't. My technique for passing the first set of barriers is almost the same as shown in the video for the second set: an inside, left sided approach. The second set is more difficult to pass, however, so there is a "learning curve" as you will need practice to get it correct and often you will fall into the water on the left of the bridge trying to get through through the second set of barriers. Once across, I usually turn right and follow the road parallel to the water to Las Venturas (at maximum speed because of the four star wanted level) and head to the pickup sites in LV for either the combat shotgun or the minigun, which was my reason for using this trick in the first place. When I am exiting Las Venturas, however, I do not cross south on the Fallow Bridge. You have a four star wanted level then and don't really have time to get your alignment right to do the trick in reverse. Instead, I head to the south boat landing in Las Venturas, where a very fast Jetmax boat and a body armor pickup are located. If getting my weapon caused CJ to take damage from police fire, he can repair it with the body armor pickup just before getting into the Jetmax and heading left (east), past the railroad bridge, the turning right (south) to head southward in the water just east of East Beach, Los Santos. There is a boat landing about midway south one can get off on and run up to street level, then sprint across the road to the East Beach Parking garage where CJ can grab a new NRG-500 motorcycle to speed into the dry aqueduct first south, then turning west, then up a ramp that leads straight to a PayNSpray, where he can finally clear the wanted level after a successful weapons raid into Las Venturas. One really need to study the map using internet sources very carefully before executing the "raid". If there is any doubt, pause the game and look at the map to make sure you are going exactly in your planned direction while in Las Venturas with the four star wanted level; you don't have time to waste getting lost or stuck - you will get killed if that happens. Reply #14. Aug 26 23, 12:15 PM |
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Chapter 7 - Managing Weapons Stats For certain classes of weapons - pistols, shotguns, SMGs, and assault weapons - there is a weapons skill stat that appears on the Weapons Stat page. I referred to this when I discussed the weapons. When CJ has not used a particular weapon before, his stat in that weapon is 0%, described as Poor. As CJ uses a particular weapon, the percentage skill gradually increases and the descriptor changes from Poor to Gangster and finally at 100% weapons skill to Hitman. The rate of fire increases, reload time decreases, and accuracy increases with each promotion, and this is reflected in the shooting animation. Three of the weapons, the regular pistol, the sawn off shotgun, and the Micro-SMG, become double fire upon reaching Hitman. That is, CJ carries two of the guns, one in each hand. It is helpful to achieve Hitman status in all of the weapons that have skill levels, even weapons you don't plan to carry in your slots because you have a different preferred weapon for that slot. The reason is that certain missions in the game "force" you to use certain weapons, and will take away the weapon you may have in a slot and replace it with a different weapon, so it helps to have Hitman status in thst weapon, even if you'd rather have a different weapon. Since the Ammunation stores are not open "In The Beginning", you do not have access to their shooting ranges and side missions, which are good for improving weapons skill. So you will have to increase your skills in each weapon through practice shooting it, an activity that can definitely draw return gunfire to you and wanted levels, so you have to be careful. The amount of time required to progress from 0% skill all the way to 100% skill (Hitman level) varies depending on the weapon. Some can be maxed out in just a few minutes of real time practice, while others might take a few hours to max out the skill level. My approach to working on the skill level for each of the possible weapons choices in each slot is to start with the least useful weapon in the slot, then the next more useful weapon, and finally the most useful weapon. That way, when you end, you will have the weapon you prefer in that category. So for pistols, first work on taking the regular pistol skill from Poor to Hitman, then switch to silenced pistol and take that from Poor to Hitman, then switch to the Desert Eagle and take it from Poor to Hitman. At the end of that sequence, you have the weapon you prefer in the slot (Desert Eagle), but are already maxed out for every option for that slot. For the shotguns, the progression is first regular shotgun, then sawn off shotgun, and finally the combat shotgun. For SMGs, the skill level of Tec-9 is shared with Micro-SMG,o either will work. Do that first, then do "full" SMG last. For the assault weapons, do AK-47 first and then finish with M-4. It is probably easiest to practice by firing at NPC's (because the automatic aim feature kicks in), but you will get a wanted level doing that, and you will have to break from your "practice" periodically to shed your wanted level. You *can* practice on firing at vehicles using manual aim, but if any NPCs are nearby, you still will get a wanted level doing that. Some players have fired at vehicles in one of the garages. When the vehicle catches fire, step back and let the door close, then step forward to reopen the door, and the damage will be fixed. Nevertheless, your garages are in neighborhoods where NPCs are around (except the Mulholland Garage), so you will still have wanted levels to deal with, and stepping backwards and forwards to repair vehicle damage does take a little time, but the shooting at vehicles in your garages method of practice is probably a little faster at maxing out skill levels than shooting at NPCs if your technique is good. Having to clear wanted levels regularly also prepares you by forcing you to learn the locations of police bribes and PayNSprays and the fastest, most efficient ways of getting to those locations from wherever you are doing your shooting. You might as well take the time to get to Hitman level in every possible weapons category while still "In The Beginning". It will help your play later in the game. Reply #15. Aug 27 23, 10:46 AM |
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Chapter 8 - Managing Vehicle Stats For several different vehicles, there is a skill stat that starts at 0% and works its way to 100% with use of the vehicles in its class. There are stats for cycling (bicycles), biking (motorcycles), driving (autos), and flying (planes and helicopters). There are a few minor perks associated with maximizing vehicle skill stats, but not a lot. For cycling, high cycling skill allows a player to do higher "bunny hops". The most useful perk is the "pilot's license" which is given when flying skill reaches 20% and the gates at the pilots' entrances of airports opens automatically upon approach. To bring up skill levels rapidly, one must ride the vehicle (preferably at a fast speed) for a long period of time. This can be difficult in high traffic areas, so finding a place to ride around without traffic speeds things up a bit. A couple of useful spots: the dry aqueduct just to the east of Grove Street and the runway area of Los Santos International Airport. These are good spots to go around in circles very fast without worrying about traffic. Because I use the NRG-500 motorcycle so much, the biking stat is the first one I get to 100%. The cycling stat can be maxed out quickly with just a few "hours" of uninterrupted cycling. The driving stat takes quite a while to bring up. It works best in a fast sports car driven at high speeds. Even so, it can take weeks of play to get the driving stat to 100%. The flying skill is very hard to bring up, mainly because of access problems to suitable vehicles for flying. Planes don't bring up flying skill as quickly as helicopters do, so having the Sea Sparrow in the Mulholland Garage is the best tack to bringing up flying skill while "In The Beginning", but getting that copter, as I previously mentioned, is extremely tough. You have to be careful in a plane not to accidentally fly over a "locked area", because that earns an immediate four star wanted level which brings Hydra jets armed with missiles after you to shoot you down, even if you are back in LS airspace. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, I have managed to bring flying skill all the way up to 100% while "In The Beginning". Reply #16. Aug 28 23, 11:07 AM |
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Chapter 9 - Gangs and Spraying Gang Tags Your character CJ is a member of a gang in LS, and there are rival gangs he will have to deal with. Not every part of LS is a gang territory, but many neighborhoods are, even a few in the wealthier western part of the city. Distributed throughout LS, even in some non-gang neighborhoods, are enemy gang tags that CJ can spray over. There are a total of 100 of these gang tags, and if CJ sprays over all of them, he will earn four weapons pickups inside the Johnson Family House (which you can't enter "In The Beginning" without triggering the first story mission "Big Smoke".) The weapons are a Tec-9, an AK-47, a sawn off shotgun, and a Molotov cocktail. In addition, CJ fellow gang members, who were carrying regular pistols at the start of the game, now carry SMGs and Desert Eagles after all 100 gang tags are sprayed. It isn't hard to spray them, although it is a big time consuming. The hunt for the tags (using plentiful internet sources) really familiarizes you with the LS map. Although the pickup in CJs upstairs bedroom isn't available "In The Beginning", a spray can *is* available on the roof of the Pawn Shop behind the Johnson Family House, and it is easy to climb up there from the awning on the street next to it. The enemy gang tags are in different colors characteristic of the enemy gangs. CJ belongs to the Grove Street Families gang, and their homies wear green as their identifying color. The leader of the Grove Street Families gang is CJ's brother, Sweet. When CJ oversprays an enemy gang tags, he does so with green paint. Gang members, both friendly and enemy, typically roam together in groups of three or four, whereas regular NPCs are generally found alone or occasionally in pairs. Their colors are very distinctive and easily recognizable. Although drug dealers can be found in gang neighborhoods, they are not themselves gang members, but are easily recognizable by the way they stand with their arms crossed in front of them. The main enemy gangs include the Ballas (dressed in purple), with several "sets" - such as Rolling Heights Ballas, Kilo Tray Ballas, etc. - their gang tags are in purple also.) The Ballas have the most territories of any enemy gang in LS and at the very start of the game, CJ is dropped off in Ballas territory. Later in the game after some story mission progression, "Gang Wars" become available where CJ can take over enemy gang territories, but that is not possible "In The Beginning", although the territories themselves are there. "In The Beginning", Ballas members do not shoot immediately at CJ on sight (they will later in the game), but if CJ hangs around near any Ballas members for more than a few seconds, they will start shooting at him. The second major enemy gang is the Vagos, a Hispanic gang with members dressed in yellow. They also are easily provoked to shooting at CJ. Each gang has distinctive cars they drive, tuned to distinctive radio stations that gang prefers. All that info can be looked up on the internet, but I won't list it here. Ballas and Vagos territories are the only territories CJ can later take over, but there are other gangs in the game. The third enemy gang in LS is the Aztecas, dressed in light blue. Although CJ becomes personal friends later with the Aztecas leader, Cesar Vialpando ( who dates CJ's sister Kendal), the Aztecas gang members' themselves are hostile to CJ and will start shooting at him if he hangs around in their territories too long. CJ cannot take over Aztecas territories later in the game, however. Other gangs exist on the "locked islands", each with their own distinctive colors, such as the San Fierro Rifa, but these other gangs' territories are not conquerable by CJ later in the game, although he does interact with them in story missions and they can be seen in groups on the streets of their neighborhoods. A full listing of all these "locked island" gangs can be found on the internet, but it doesn't matter much, so I won't detail it here. It is really just the Ballas and the Vagos that are particularly worrisome threats to CJ. Reply #17. Aug 29 23, 8:36 AM |
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Chapter 10 - Taxi Driver Side Mission I will now describe certain side missions that can be completed while "In The Beginning" that will not change the filename when you save after successfully completing such a mission, this remaining "In The Beginning". The first one to discuss is the Taxi Driver side mission. Two kinds of taxis are available in LS: the older cabbies and the newer taxis. Both are bright yellow colored, plentiful, and impossible to miss. When you jack one, you will notice an arrow on the left side of the screen that allows you to start the "Taxi Driver" side mission. The mission is straightforward: you pick up customers one at a time highlighted, then deliver them to their destination given to you on the map when you pick them up, and you have a set time limit to do it in. If you fail to deliver the customer in the allotted time, the Taxi Driver mission ends. Of course, you can always start a new mission. You can also always cancel a Taxi Driver mission at any point by pressing the X button on the left of the screen. If you get out of the taxi while on a mission, the mission also ends automatically. You have a "tip meter" which appears on the screen and slowly decreases as time passes. If your taxi takes any damage, the tip meter will decrease suddenly. This, it pays to get your customer delivered to his destination as quickly as possible *without* taking any damage as this gives you a higher tip for the trip. So Taxi Driver is a way of making some money, though typically it is a few hundred dollars, not thousands. There are special monetary bonuses in addition to the tips for "Speed" and "X number in a row" (where X is a multiple of five). The is a stat on the stats page that keeps track of the cumulative number of successfully completed customer deliveries. That stat does *not* all have to be in the same mission. You can do multiple different Taxi Driver missions, and the stat keeps track of the total number of successfully completed customer deliveries through all of the missions. So there is no hurry to complete the mission as a whole, you can take weeks if you want and it keeps your place. The Taxi Driver mission as a whole is considered complete (and you will get a notice on your screen when you complete it) when your customers successfully delivered stat reaches 50. At this point, you get a special bonus: all taxis in San Andreas now have infinite nitrous oxide available for use. Nitrous oxide can also be installed into regular cars at the various car modification shops, but those are not open "In The Beginning", so the only vehicles "In The Beginning" that can get nitrous oxide are the taxis and cabbies. When you press the nitro button on your screen, it gives your vehicle a short burst of extra speed beyond the normal capacity of your car. When you reach 50 and officially complete the Taxi Driver mission as a whole, you do not have to stop doing missions: you can keep doing more for the money as your stat meter goes well past 50, it's just that the nitro is the only extra special bonus you could get, and you already have it. Doing the Taxi Driver mission "In The Beginning" really helps familiarize you with the LS map, just as the Gang Tags Sprayed side mission does. Reply #18. Aug 30 23, 12:11 PM |
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Chapter 11 - Roboi's Food Market Courier Side Mission This is the Courier mission for LS, where packages are delivered through red rings in a set time limit. This Courier mission uses a bicycle as the delivery vehicle, so it helps to have good cycling skill before starting this mission. This is a side mission which, when complete, does not overwrite the filename after saving, so you can remain "In The Beginning" after completing this mission. It is also an asset mission, which means that upon successful completion of the mission, a pickup for cash will appear outside the food mart, which will generate up to a maximum of $2000 per day for CJ. There are two other Courier missions located in the locked islands which use different delivery vehicles and are also asset missions, but they should be saved until those islands are unlocked, as it really isn't realistic to be able to deliver packages while trying to evade a four star wanted level. This LS courier mission is straightforward, it is just a matter of showing good cycling skill and a thorough knowledge of the LS map, so that efficient delivery routes can be planned out that allow all the deliveries to be done in the allotted time limits. After successful completion, like Taxi Driver, the Courier mission can be repeated at will to earn more money if desired. Reply #19. Aug 31 23, 12:18 AM |
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Chapter 12 - The Paramedic Side Mission In Chapter 5, I discussed managing the Health stat. The game starts with CJ having only a fraction of the available health that he ultimately could get. Exercise gradually builds up CJ's maximum health, but the quick way to get the maximum health to its ultimate limit is by completing all 12 levels of the Paramedic side mission (which does not overwrite the filename when saved, so it can be done while remaining "In The Beginning".) The Paramedic side mission can be started by getting into an ambulance (found in front of any hospital in San Andreas) and pressing the button on the left side of the screen. You pick up patients and drive them to the hospital in a certain time limit, and the number of patients you must deliver increases with increasing level. A mission can be cancelled by pressing the cancellation button or by getting out of the ambulance. Once Level 12 is successfully completed, CJ's maximum health is set at the highest possible value, about three times the maximum health he starts with at the game's start. Careful driving and a thorough knowledge of the map to planning efficient patient pickup routes are key to passing the Paramedic mission. Also, I have found it is easier to do from the hospital up in Montgomery in Red County rather than in Los Santos because there is less traffic in the countryside. But Paramedic is a pretty straightforward side mission, so finishing it early should be a fairly high priority. Reply #20. Sep 02 23, 1:42 PM |
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