GTA Online Thread (Useful Links in OP)

[rallymorten]

I've been running some numbers just now:

We all know I/E is glory greatest country at some $4,000 profit per minute including selling if done somewhat appropriately.

Gunrunning, with all upgrades and that jazz, can sell 20 "crates" for $210,000 if sold in LS (which, quite frankly, you should at that level) - $10,500 per crate = $1,500 per minute + selling time, or just shy of $1,000 if you choose to buy the supplies.

Spoiler: Only applicable until July 24

Gunrunning can now produce 25% faster. The new maths we're looking at, instead, is $10,500 per crate and exactly $2,000 per minute - ~ $1,300 if buying supplies.

The CEO crates stuff varies an awful lot depending on how many crates you buy at a time and how many crates you have in total, but let's assume it's a one-crate-at-a-time job, in which case GTASeriesVideos have cracked it at an average profit/crate of $18,000.

Let's assume one crate mission and eveything associated with that is about five minutes on average, and the average crate profit is around $18,000. That makes it ~$3,600 per minute + selling.

Adding in the selling times, Gunrunning (unless you get the one with Merryweather) will take but a handful of minutes. Even if you buy the supplies and we say the selling takes ~10 minutes, you'll get a grand profit of $900 per minute ($1400 if you steal, but steal/buy-and-do-I/E has already been talked to death).

Spoiler: Only applicable until July 24

New numbers put this at somewhere in the general region of $210,000 for two hours including selling - ~$1,750 per minute, $1,125 if buying supplies

Assuming you're selling a full warehouse of crates, chances are a single man will have to handle a whole lot of vehicles, so let's assume that's ~20 minutes to sell them again. That takes the total time spent on a warehouse 111 * 5 + 20 = 575 minutes or just over 9 and a half hours. Rounding up the profit of all those crates to $2,000,000 / 575 minutes = $3,478 profit per minute - again, the more crates you're dealing with, the better they pay.

The Cocaine business, with all upgrades etc., can sell for $420,000 after five hours and three supply bars - $1,400 per minute if you steal, $650 if you buy + a few minutes of selling.

According to this spreadsheet, the best money/minute in terms of Contact Missions is Holed Up - Burton, which, when optimised, gives around $2,400/minute.

Money/minute including selling times:

I/E: ~$4,000
Crates: ~3,400
Contact Missions: ~$2,400
Gunrunning: ~1,400 steal, ~$900 buy

Spoiler: Only applicable until July 24

Gunrunning: $1,750 steal, $1,125 buy

Cocaine: ~$1,350 steal, ~600 buy

The long and short of it is that I/E remains the best "business" out there and can make a whole heap of cash in no time. Crates, when filling a warehouse to the brink, isn't too far off, especially considering the freak extra costs of I/E.

Not surprisingly, Contact Mission still pay much better than the passive money makers, but those are quite interesting - if you're stealing all your supplies anyway, there's little to no difference between Gunrunning and the Cocaine Lockup. If you buy supplies, however, Gunrunning is somewhere along the line of 50% more profitable, mainly because it requires far fewer resupplies, at a rate of about 1 resupply every 2,5 hours compared to the Cocaine Lockup requiring one every 1,66 hours.

TL;DR Gunrunning is the easy way to the millions, I/E and crates are the fast way.

 

[SomePlayaDude]

Tunables updated today.

The main headline: You can store your Karin Technical into your garage, and give it upgrades. Upgrade is about 150k, and it's the only way to keep it in a garage.
Along with 3 more researches for it, which I think is a minigun, the bullbars, and armor plating, based on what I did to one with mod menus beforehand.
And you can still use a regular Technical on Pegasus.

Also buffed: bunker product time has decreased, and increased bunker related jobs' payout for associates/bodyguards.

My take on this: So, whenever the Insurgent Pickup is getting this, I'm actually looking forward to that.. I mean, if this is also compatible to the Karin Technical Aqua, I'd be stoked, but boo is the hoo for the foo.

 

[leeislee]

Hmmm. That explosive sniper upgrade is way over powered. I was in a lobby with one hell of a try hard. He was killing me through the maze tower. Yes, through it. Also he was using a teleport glitch thing and was just all over the map griefing people. One shot kills on jets planes, helicopters, jet bikes everything.

Wanted to kill the little idiot but he was too involved. Like his life depended on it.

Also, no new vehicles today?

 

[rallymorten]

Also, no new vehicles today?

Technically, no.

Also discount on Phantom Wedge.

 

[STI9]

My take on this: So, whenever the Insurgent Pickup is getting this, I'm actually looking forward to that.. I mean, if this is also compatible to the Karin Technical Aqua, I'd be stoked, but boo is the hoo for the foo.

Question, if the Aqua could be fitted with those upgrades, why would you own a regular Technical at all? Ability to go into water better than a small increase in on road performance no?

 

[SomePlayaDude]

Question, if the Aqua could be fitted with those upgrades, why would you own a regular Technical at all? Ability to go into water better than a small increase in on road performance no?

True, it does add to the Technical's usefulness.. I mean, it's about time we can bring one on a heist. Either way, the Insurgent Pickup Custom's going to be better in every way except that it might cost a lot more.

And I have the Aqua mainly because Toyboata.

 

[STI9]

True, it does add to the Technical's usefulness.. I mean, it's about time we can bring one on a heist. Either way, the Insurgent Pickup Custom's going to be better in every way except that it might cost a lot more.

And I have the Aqua mainly because Toyboata.

I have one too and its ok, sort of useful but not essential really. It was unclear in your orginal post but CAN you put those upgrades on or have you not tested it....or no?

 

[rallymorten]

Photographic evidence that the Aqua cannot be modified:

Also, just for the record, the two Insurgent Pickups that you may have to use when selling guns. Guess which one belongs to what mission?

Edit: Yep, Gunrunning's down to 5.25 minutes per crate, according to the usual sources and my stopwatch. As a result, the math presented above is slightly off, and has been updated.

 

[Marcus Garvey]

In all honesty, the $/min of passive activities is never in my consideration when outlining my grind routine. The $/min calculations are only accurate if you are there, right at the bunker/business, at the exact moment the product amount hits your target sale point; among other things.

I'm going to spoiler the rest and as always advise everyone not to read it. You've been warned. Don't read it. Don't do it.

Spoiler: I told you not to...

For example, if the bunker produces $140k of product in ~3hrs(I haven't logged in today, so just using those #s...) then yes, it produces ~$777/min. However, not only does this not take into account the resupply delivery time(purchasing has a wait for delivery) nor the sale time, but it also assumes you are at the bunker at the exact moment the product fills. Which, unless you are sitting there waiting for it to do so(and of course losing money doing so, as you could be doing I/E, CEO/VIP work, etc rather than standing there doing nothing waiting for it to fill the last bit,) will likely never happen. For example, if the bunker hits the $140k while you are in the middle of an I/E mission on the other end of the map, it could take you 10+ minutes to finish the mission and travel to the bunker, plus the sale time before the profit is realised. Could be easily 20-25 minutes by the time the sale is complete, turning your 3 hours into 3h25m and the associated $/min changes to $683/min. Boom! Just lost over 12% per min from the rate.

See what I mean? The $/min is only relevant to the amount of time you are active in earning the money, because the amount of time between the moment you hit the 'purchase supplies' button and when the product matures(aka, complete your sale) is nearly never going to be the same. Similarly, whether you get the 1 drop off or 5 drop off missions, which vehicle, etc ALL changes the actual $/min. Accordingly, it should have no impact upon your grind routine.

What is important to consider, is how much time YOU spend ACTIVE to generate income through the various methods available, how you utilise the cooldowns effectively for those activities, and of course which of these activities you prefer. Folks may recall, no matter how you mix and match the top earning activities; profits tend to remain near $200k/hr of activity on average. Some hours(like the one you sell your bunker, for example) will earn greater than $200k, but then some will earn less as you spend time sourcing vehicles to replace ones you just sold, etc. However, most methods still hover near that amount. Going back to my 3-hour grind post the other day(which subsequently and suspiciously appeared, with some more liberal edits but nearly line for line on another forum just a few hours later.....for the second time.....) even the 25% increase in production speed still only produces one sale in that 3 hour grind. The 25% increase means that you will get one extra sale every 6 hours of grinding over the original production speed, and two extra sales every 10 hours of consecutive grinding(the fifth sale would complete somewhere in the 10th hour between 9hr1min after your grind began and completing the 10th hour.) Big time! You still only get one sale in a 3 hour cycle, but now you can get three sales in a 6 hour cycle, and four sales in a 9 hour cycle. Since very few people grind consecutively for that long, it really makes very little difference for most. The practical benefit folks will realise, though; is rather than getting in an extra sale every play session(again, not many people grind for 6 hours...) you should now be able to make two sales in ~4 hours rather than having to wait until just after the 5th hour begins before completing your second sale. Of course, all of this assumes that supply deliveries take ZERO minutes(they don't) and that you are always at the bunker and ready to sell the moment the product hits $140k....so....basically unattainable. The reality, with resupply latency and sale mission completion time is probably closer to one sale in a 3 hour cycle, with the second sale completing near the termination of the 4th hour and the third sale occurring somewhere just after the beginning of the 6th hour. That is still assuming you arrive at the bunker within a few minutes of production reaching $140k.

Now, back to my original point, which is to encourage folks to look at their grind routine in a more practical manner with the reality of what they are doing. As such, when considering these passive earners, the time to fill production(and accordingly, my previous paragraph) should be irrelevant to your decision on what to grind. In fact, without experimenting, the 25% production time reduction has the potential to cause you to actually make LESS in a particular 3 hour grind cycle. This probably confuses some folks, so I'll illustrate. If in that three hour grind cycle you were previously able to sell an average of 2 I/E cars per hour for each of the 3 hours, along with selling a bunker load in the 3rd hour the progress likely looks as follows;

1st hour - Buy supplies, source and sell 2 cars, use remaining 15+ minutes or so(I/E cooldown) to do VIP work and sell a Sentinel, etc
2nd hour - Source and sell a car in the first 10 minutes of the hour, then have 50 minutes to source/sell two more cars plus VIP/Sentinel, etc
3rd hour - Buy supplies, sell bunker, resupply biker business, sell biker, possibly source/sell one car plus limited VIP/Sentinel

And now it may be more like;

1st hour - Buy supplies, source and sell 2 cars, use remaining 15+ minutes or so(I/E cooldown) to do VIP work and sell a Sentinel, etc
2nd hour - Source and sell a car in the first 10 minutes of the hour, source another 20 minutes later, then buy supplies and sell bunker
3rd hour - Resupply biker business, sell biker, source/sell one car plus limited VIP/Sentinel

As you can see, while yes you sold the bunker in the 2nd hour instead of the 3rd, it caused you to miss out on sourcing/selling a third car in the 2nd hour. Being that a biker sale is typically 15-20 minutes, it is very unlikely that you will have time to be able to make that up by sourcing/selling a second car before the 3rd hour terminates. So, naturally you actually made less money because in this 3 hour cycle you sold one less I/E car yet made the same $ amount from the bunker, just an hour earlier. If you get lucky and get the single van biker sale mission, or perhaps the two motorcycles; you might be able to make that time up and get a second car sold in the third hour, but that van mission comes up once in a blue moon and the motorcycles perhaps 1 out of every 6 sale missions(its random, you might even get 3 boxville sales in a row...) the prospect is low.

All of the above is why I don't chase the $/min stuff, because it is all great theory based upon exacting parameters that rarely occur in practice. How many times are you finished sourcing a car, to walk into your bunker right as the number clicks over from $133k to $140k on the display? Probably almost never. Given the choice, my bunker will surely sit an extra 10 minutes while I finish a source/sell mission because the bunker certainly couldn't earn me(and correspondingly couldn't lose me by not doing) $75k in those 10 minutes. And that is my point; in practice the numbers can vary and you have to adapt and constantly adjust your activities based upon what is available at the time. I often resupply, source/sell a car, source another, then do Hostile and sell a Sentinel in the cooldown before doing another source/sell. Sometimes the Titan spawns on top of me blowing up my Buzzard when I'm picking up the Hostile Takeover package at LSIA and I have to walk across the tarmac to steal another vehicle, turning my 1.5 minute Hostile mission into a 5-6 minute project. This could mean that now the cooldown has ended and I skip right to another source/sell rather than sell my Sentinel because $75k>$15k. Now that means I made $15k less that hour. A couple of these mishaps occur in a 3 hour cycle and boom, you made $50k less than you planned, or worse if it means selling even one fewer I/E car in the cycle. That turns your hypothetical $200k/hr into $175k/hr, with nothing more than your luck providing you with the police chase I/E source mission....

Which brings to my overall point. There are many variables. As you'll notice, if you can hit the marks described above every single hour for 3 hours, you will actually average over $230k per hour. Being that I'd wager probably less than 5% of folks can nail that grind every hour, and that 🤬 happens like getting that police chase source mission(and in my case simply finding new session, which also takes up time....) and the fact the despite these ideal numbers you do incur deaths, ammunition costs, pegasus costs, damage to I/E vehicles, raids, etc I'd imagine that most people are actually earning less than that.

So, in conclusion of another long and drawling post; it's not about the $/min that a particular activity earns not only because the same activity(I/E source/sell, biker/bunker sell) rarely takes the same amount of time to complete each time(again, does the 5 stop Insurgent take the same amount of time as the Phantom Wedge sale, or the police chase source the same as the photo clue source mission?) but rather about the $/min of your actual effort. From this perspective, the bunker nets me $187.5k for what amounts to less than 20 minutes of actual effort most of the time. The biker factory earns me $135k for about the same amount of time. I/E nets me ~ $75k for 10 minutes or so. Hostile nets me $15k for less than 1.5 minutes. Selling a Sentinel nets me $15-17k for 1.5 minutes or so. Not everyone has a Buzzard/Hydra at the ready to do Hostile so quickly, nor does everyone have a garage full of Sentinels to sell at all times, and some people are just more comfortable doing other activities or just simply enjoy certain missions. There are also various 'tricks' or alterations to the previously detailed grinds that I employ to increase net gains, and the above is just a more general scenario. As such, I expect if you ask 5 people for their grind routines that you may find 5 very different processes. Diff'rent Strokes.

Now, if your grind consists solely of a single business or bunker alone, with no other activities and as such you spend your time sitting round waiting for that one business to fill; then the $/min becomes relevant. However, that shouldn't be your process. As illustrated, to capitalise upon your income earning ability you must incorporate several different activities at once. Running a bunker and biker business, doing the hostile takeover that is 30 seconds from your warehouse on the way back to your office, selling a sentinel every 48 minutes on the way between two activities, resupplying as you begin a sale mission, etc are all necessary to hit these targets consistently. This process is largely agnostic to the time to mature of the various businesses, and instead treats those sales more like a 'bonus' to your already existing grind. While this is not in disagreement with anything that anyone has posted here and should not be taken as such, it is taking a different perspective to your grind.

My usual disclaimer of late; I haven't tested the bunker today so I am basing the 'new' data on what has been reported here, and as always the numbers above represent a solo grind. I am not attempting to force anyone's hand as to what activities to engage in, but simply illustrate what my process is in the event some assistance or insight can be had from it. As reiterated perhaps several times to avoid any confusions like in the past, these numbers are always assuming the best case scenario(which is odd because it's still more conservative than most others you find and yet still more liberal than most find in practice) and don't take into account those items such as deaths, ammunition, pegasus vehicles, raids, bounties, clowns, the Ferris Whale, rain, R* traffic, UFOs, how many ales you've had, how many your neighbour had, nor the phase of the moon. Please also note that this is not the only method, and should not be inferred as such. There are many options for how you play this game, and while even the grind above can be improved upon(as detailed with various tricks and alterations,) I am a lazy player. This is a video game and I don't tend to turn on the PS4 to go to 'work' but rather relax. My grind method, when done properly and all goes to plan; usually results in just topping that $200k/hr. Where I probably differ from some others is that I do so whilst really only spending 35-45 minutes of the hour active. Folks familiar will recognise this from my penchant for spending hours idle in my apartment, just to emerge for 30 minutes to make over $400k in that time(yep, I can; and I do) only to sink back into the depths of my yacht or drink beers on a bluff for another couple of hours. When you learn where and what to prioritise it is possible to best that 3 hour average and not actually be 'working' for probably 1/4 to 1/3 of that time. To do so you must use be resourceful as in identifying where to stuff in an extra activity, using your hydra to travel, running Piracy Prevention for those 10 mins you need a smoke break, etc.

For further reading feel free to find relevant the various relationships of loss ratios to combined ratios.

tl;dr - You're still at ~$200k/hr no matter which way you skin this cat.

 

[250 GTO]

Essay

Don't you have a couple of billion dollars? Why do you even have a "grind routine" ??

 

[Marcus Garvey]

Don't you have a couple of billion dollars? Why do you even have a "grind routine" ??

Not a couple billion, those players are pretty rare these days on PS4. I do have enough not to need to grind for any given item or DLC, however I have a number that I consider to be a floor that I maintain. So, I often go weeks, and in the past sometimes a few months without actually earning anything. However, when an update comes out I tend to grind back what I spend to maintain my balances at that floor that I keep. This most recent DLC cost me somewhere over $10mil (I haven't and don't plan to buy everything) so right now I am in process of recovering those expenses. I spend a million; I grind a million.

 

[rallymorten]

I have a number that I consider to be a floor that I maintain.

I see you've contracted the same disease as me.

Only I don't know whether the roof is being lowered or the floor is being raised.


As for the maths, all I did what outline some general specs for each business if one was to run one and only one business. Obviously, Gunrunning alone's not going to make the really big bucks, buuuuuut it's a handy sidekick, particularly if you have a couple of hours where you're not going to be active and can leave it to do its thing.

135k every two hours, 67,5k per hour, or nearly an extra I/E car. Assuming one can get through two cars per hour - which is well within possibility - you're looking at, like you said, 200k profit per hour. Throw in a fifth I/E car between Gunrunning sales (which is cutting it close, but should be possible if you're not too fuzzed about losing a minute or two of that) and we're looking at a new Vacca every hour.

 

[Sage Ages]

One shot kills on jets planes, helicopters, jet bikes everything.

Who buys a $2,650,000 motorcycle and doesn't put armor on it?

 

[leeislee]

Who buys a $2,650,000 motorcycle and doesn't put armor on it?

The guy was shooting through the maze tower....I don't think the armour on their jet bikes was helping the people he was killing.

But anyway. Not important

 

[rallymorten]

..all of which is just justifying me staying away from proper public sessions, or at least being in a car in Passive mode.

Seriously. The general playerbase and their murderise-everything-that-even-thinks-of-moving-to-get-a-better-k/d-and-bigger-eBoner philosophy can eff right off (on a related note: please take MrCancer with you on the way out).

I realise that's what tends to happen when you give online players the measures to kill eachother - and that's acceptable in the appropriate game modes - but GTA is on a whole other level of being a :censored:show.


Speaking of :censored:show, Gtamen saying what we've all been thinking over these last few weeks (so yes, there's some NSFW language involved (duh) ):

 

[Sage Ages]

The guy was shooting through the maze tower....I don't think the armour on their jet bikes was helping the people he was killing.

The armor wouldn't really protect you, but I've never been able to destroy any PV with a single shot.

I have heard about the hit detection with explosive rounds doing weird things at long range. I think it might be an issue with how the game loads the environment at a distance.

 

[Silver Arrows]

So...I bought the game and I am now stuck in a snag. I'm low level, nobody wanting me because I am low level, and trying to figure out what the **** to do.

Any GTPers willing to help someone out? On PS4.

 

[Sage Ages]

So...I bought the game and I am now stuck in a snag. I'm low level, nobody wanting me because I am low level, and trying to figure out what the **** to do.

Any GTPers willing to help someone out? On PS4.

I could help you get some cash to get started. Add me.

You kinda picked the worse possible time to get the game, but it can work.

 

[Silver Arrows]

I could help you get some cash to get started. Add me.

You kinda picked the worse possible time to get the game, but it can work.

Cash is not a problem tbh, considering I bought the bundle of the game with the Shark Card.

And of course I did.

 

[ThrasherDBS]

In a night of playing and joshing around, I tend to pull down about $100,000. Saving up for one of those nice Mad Max/Dominic Toretto style Dukes.

 

[Vic Reign93]

In a night of playing and joshing around, I tend to pull down about $100,000. Saving up for one of those nice Mad Max/Dominic Toretto style Dukes.

Take it from me, It'll pay for itself in due time, especially if you know how to play to its strengths.

 

[Silver Arrows]

Sorry for dipping @Custom878, but I got disconnected and I decided it was probably time to pack it up for the night. Still, you showed me the ropes and what to expect (at least, part of it) in the Gunrunning stuff. I'm a pretty good shot with the APC turret. 👍

Also sort of glad I got some money with a Shark card, at least it game me something to play with in the beginning.

Also, if there is anyone else on PS4 that is willing to help me out or even play with me, it'd be appreciated. I really don't want to deal with this merry-go-round ******** with regards to public lobbies forever.

 

[m8h3r]

LANGUAGE WARNING

I mean that too. Possibly the hardest I've laughed in a while on GTA.

 

[leeislee]

The armor wouldn't really protect you, but I've never been able to destroy any PV with a single shot.

I have heard about the hit detection with explosive rounds doing weird things at long range. I think it might be an issue with how the game loads the environment at a distance.

Ah that would explain it. I didn't think about the draw distance being a factor. If that's the case then either the game needs fixing or I need to research the explosive rounds myself!

 

[SomePlayaDude]

I've been focusing on my research to get Oppressor missiles, and I got the vehicle mines, Tampa miniguns and missiles.

Is this a sign? I heard real good things about the weaponized Tampa from most opinions, especially from people who play solo.

 

[Sting]

So...I bought the game and I am now stuck in a snag. I'm low level, nobody wanting me because I am low level, and trying to figure out what the **** to do.

Any GTPers willing to help someone out? On PS4.

Play and get good at Overtime Rumble. It is double $$$ and RP at the moment and if you are regularly on the winning team you can make some good money.

 

[leeislee]

I've been focusing on my research to get Oppressor missiles, and I got the vehicle mines, Tampa miniguns and missiles.

Is this a sign? I heard real good things about the weaponized Tampa from most opinions, especially from people who play solo.

I spent a few hours doing the research random reset glitch to get the missiles.

Basically, you wait until the research bar is full. Initiate a save by changing glasses or whatever. Sit at the computer and when the research is complete quickly look at the next research to be unlocked and if it's something you don't want just close the game immediately and restart.

Repeat until it's something you want. Took me about 2 hours of that to get the oppressor missiles.

Boring but fast

 

[m8h3r]

Play and get good at Overtime Rumble. It is double $$$ and RP at the moment and if you are regularly on the winning team you can make some good money.

Is there 4 other people that would like to play this around this time in the evenings for a few nights. I'm decent at it but keep getting put on the **** teams.

 

[STI9]

I spent a few hours doing the research random reset glitch to get the missiles.

Basically, you wait until the research bar is full. Initiate a save by changing glasses or whatever. Sit at the computer and when the research is complete quickly look at the next research to be unlocked and if it's something you don't want just close the game immediately and restart.

Effectively doubles the speed of research, halves amount of supplies required for $45k

Repeat until it's something you want. Took me about 2 hours of that to get the oppressor missiles.

Boring but fast

I wait till the research bar is almost full then hit fast track at $45k. Don't confirm, once the research completes and the picture changes, confirm.
This gets 1 item crossed off the research list for 45k and it uses 0 supplies.

Effectively doubles the speed of research, halves amount of supplies needed for $45k

 

[Sage Ages]

How to lose $150,000 worth of weapon shipments:

Step 1: Press the horn on the Dune FAV while not moving.
Step 2: Immediately realize that you do not have a horn.