Gta 5 Online Tips and Tricks | a Quick-start Guide
1. Complete the GTA Online tutorial
To get going in GTA Online, you'll first need to complete the tutorial section, and this should be available any time after completing the Prologue of the main single player game. To access it, either hold down to the d-pad to bring up the character selection wheel and select the bottom segment (which represents your GTA Online character), or pause the game, pick the Online menu tab and choose the Play GTA Online option. You'll be taken through a character creator to define your appearance and characteristics, before being launched into San Andreas to meet some familiar faces and learn the ropes.
2. Buy a decent car and a garage
We say ‘buy’, but you can actually pick up one of the bests sports cars in the game for the grand cost of ‘bugger all’. To get an Elegy RH8 completely gratis, just register for Rockstar’s Social Club. Once you do, this two-door speedster (which resembles the Nissan GT-R) will be yours. Thanks to its great traction, it’s a superb choice for races. Make sure you invest in Loss/Theft Prevention to ward other users off nicking your shiny new motor, too. You’ll also want to invest in a garage to keep your cars safe. At $25,000, the Unit 124 garage on Popular St is probably the best bet for cash-poor beginners.
3. Keep cashing in at ATMs
Online Los Santos is a dangerous place. Any cash your up-and-coming crook is carrying on their person can be stolen by other players. To ensure you don’t lose all that moolah from your last job, make sure to cash your coin into an ATM. There are plenty of cash machines located around Blaine County, and you can use the Quick GPS on the Interaction Menu (hold down the touchpad) to direct you to the nearest one. Can't get to an ATM? You can also visit the Maze Bank website via your phone's web browser and make a deposit through there. In GTA Online, prudence pays.
4. Save up, then buy an underground facility
To partake in GTA Online’s Doomsday Heist, you’re gonna need a bigger boat/underground facility to hang your hat. These huge bunkers are one of several key requirements for playing the bonkers robbery (you’ll also need to become a CEO), and as such, they’re expensive. The cheapest can be found at Paleto Bay, and will set you back $1,125,000 from the Maze Bank Foreclosures site – funnily enough, $1,125,000 is just under what a $19.99/£11.99 Great White Shark Cash Card nets you. For that whopping fee, your criminal mastermind in-waiting gets a security room, lounge, and sleeping quarters, among other luxuries.
5. Steal a chopper
Blaine County is one sizeable piece of real estate, so stealing a chopper can be a huge time-saver. Considering one of the cheaper ’copters from Elitás Travel (the $780,000 Buckingham Maverick) will still fleece your finances, your change purse really will thank you for nicking a whirly bird. Perhaps the easiest one to steal can be found at Los Santos International Airport, near the flight school. With skilful driving, you can vault the nearby fence and claim it for your own. Let skyward crime commence!
6. Purchase a high-end apartment
Before you can enjoy GTA Online’s superb heists, you’ll first need to hit level 12. Crucially, if you want to plan these multi-part jobs yourself – and thus have power over how the take is split up – you’ll also need to buy a high-end apartment. These fancy flats come with planning boards that are crucial to heist setups, and the ‘cheapest’ can be found in Del Perro Heights. Visit the Dynasty 8 Real Estate on your character’s phone, and the property can be yours for $200,000.
7. Keep your eyes peeled for Weekly Events
Rockstar does regular Weekly Events, which reward players with double RP and double cash rewards, like the recent shotgun-dodging Battle Week. Keep a beady peeper on Rockstar’s Newswire for the latest on these events, because participating in them often offers weekly discounts on cars and properties.
8. Play nice for Rep rewards
As in life, it pays not to be a dick in GTA Online... well, generally. If you frequently help out other players during jobs, and don’t try to screw them over by nicking their motor/money, you’ll receive a ‘Good Sport’ award. Said bonus usually comes in the form of extra Reputation Points or cash. See, it really does pay to play nice.
9. Complete story missions
Playing through GTA Online’s vast array of deathmatch types and races can feel generic. For something more bespoke, try some story missions. The likes of Lamar, Gerald, and Simeon Yetarian all cross over from GTA 5, and each has cutscene-laden missions to tick off. Most of these thieving tasks feel nicely personable, and finishing them nets you cash and Job/Reputation Points. To access them, bring up the mission list from the pause menu.
These GTA Online tips will help you survive a world that's been around since 2013. While there are always new players dropping in, that's a long time for older players to create an unforgiving experience for the unprepared. Some tips will hopefully make entering GTA Online as a new player far less intimidate. Getting some good guidance will help you can catch up with everything the game has to offer after eight years of updates and expansions. So if you want to see what's going on, cause some trouble or start building a criminal empire then we've make these GTA Online tips to get your started fast and provide a list of must-see activities and events so that you'll get the most from your online experience.
GTA Online Guide: Where to Start
GTA Online is a dense and rewarding experience, but it can also be overwhelming. Rockstar has spent years adding new content to Los Santos, and it can be hard to know where to start. The easy answer to this question is to simply experiment and see what takes your fancy, but new players are often looking for a little more guidance than that.
Fortunately, our GTA Online guide can help. In this section of the guide, we're going to introduce you to a couple of pages that will help you figure out where to start once you've arrived at Los Santos International Airport. We'd recommend you complete all of the tutorial missions to get a feel for the basics of the gameplay, and then click through the pages below.
GTA Online: First Things to Do in Los Santos: This guide acts as tourist information for new GTA Online players. In it you'll find a list of the hottest destinations in Los Santos, which will help to familiarise you with all of the things you can do in the game.
GTA Online: How to Make Money: If you're looking for a more authored introduction to GTA Online, then this guide will show you how you can go from penniless to penthouse. This guide includes checklists and achievable tasks, which will not only help you to see the wealth of activities that the game has to offer, but will also help you to make lots of money along the way.
GTA Online Guide: Money
Money makes the world go round in Los Santos, and if you want to do anything in GTA Online then you're going to need to know How to Make Money. You'll be using your hard-earned GTA$ to buy and upgrade your Businesses, launch Heists, and even splash out on nice things, like the Best Cars and Vehicles to Buy.
For the next part of our GTA Online guide, we're going to introduce the concepts that will make you a millionaire. Whether you're a long-time player looking to maximise your profits or a newcomer trying to write your very own rags to riches tale in the Land of the Free, we'll have your bank balance bulging in no time.
GTA Online: How to Make Money
GTA Online Guide: Businesses
Running an underground business empire is one of the most rewarding things you can do in GTA Online, and it's the answer to one of the game's most common questions: How to Make Money. There are 12 Businesses you can own and manage in Los Santos. They are:
Document Forgery Offices
Weed Farms
Counterfeit Cash Factories
Methamphetamine Labs
Cocaine Lockups
Special Cargo Warehouses
Vehicle Cargo Warehouses
Nightclubs
Bunkers
Hangars
Arcades
Auto Shops
For this next part of our gta 5 online tips and tricks we're going to explain how to get rich with all of the Businesses in Los Santos. We're going to introduce the basic concepts of management, explain how to maximise profit with each organisation, and how best to expand and upgrade your criminal industry.
GTA 5 All Business Guides
GTA Online: Best MC Businesses to Buy
GTA Online: Best Nightclub to Buy
GTA Online: How to Get Rich with Warehouse Management at the Nightclub
GTA Online: Best Office to Buy
GTA Online: How to Get Rich with Vehicle Cargo and Special Cargo at the Office
GTA Online: Best Bunker to Buy and How to Get Rich from Gunrunning
GTA Online: Best Hangar to Buy and How to Get Rich from Smuggling
GTA Online: Best Arcade to Buy and How to Start the Diamond Casino Heist
GTA Online: Best Auto Shop to Buy
GTA Online Guide: Heists
Heists are one of the tentpole activities in GTA Online, allowing you to host and complete multi-tiered missions with friends and strangers which conclude in enormous paydays. Rockstar has released four types of Heist in GTA Online to date: Heists, the Doomsday Heist, the Diamond Casino Heist, and the Cayo Perico Heist.
In this part of our GTA Online guide, we're going to introduce some tips, strategies, and general advice for starting the various Heists and succeeding at them. Remember, that while most of the Heists on this list will require multiple players, the Cayo Perico Heist can be completed entirely alone.
Cayo Perico Heist
GTA Online: How to Start the Cayo Perico Heist
GTA Online: How to Make Millions with the Cayo Perico Heist
Diamond Casino Heist
GTA Online: Best Arcade to Buy and How to Start the Diamond Casino Heist
GTA Online: Buyer's Guide
We've already explained How to Make Money in our GTA Online guide, but with so much content in the game, you're probably going to need help spending it as well. Between the likes of Warstock Cache & Carry and Legendary Motorsports, there are hundreds of items all vying for your hard-earned GTA$, and that's before you even factor in the likes of Southern San Andreas Super Autos and the dreaded Dock Tease.
It's important to remember to have fun, so you shouldn't worry too much about buying things that aren't meta unless you're actively trying to save money. However, in this section of the page we're going to recommend some of the Best Cars and Vehicles to Buy as well as the Best Weapons and much more.
GTA Online: Best Cars and Vehicles to Buy
GTA Online: Fastest Cars
GTA Online: Best Weapons
GTA Online Guide: FAQs
GTA Online is a needlessly complicated game, and Rockstar doesn't always do a particularly great job of explaining how certain systems work. As part of our GTA Online guide, then, we're going to answer some FAQs that should hopefully help you to understand some of the title's more head-scratching mechanics.
GTA Online: How to Avoid Griefers
GTA Online: How to Mute Players
GTA Online: How to Become a CEO
GTA Online: How to Become a Motorcycle Club President
GTA Online: How to Sell Cars
GTA Online: How to Customise Your Radio
GTA Online Guide: Miscellaneous
In this part of our GTA Online guide, we're going to include any other miscellaneous information that may help you while you're exploring Los Santos. We've also included a handful of guides to GTA 5's single player in this section.
GTA 5
GTA 5: All PS5 vs PS4 Differences
GTA 5 Cheats: All Cheat Codes in Grand Theft Auto 5
GTA 5 Money: How to Master the Stock Market and Buy Everything in the Game
Jobs
GTA Online: Best Jobs
Los Santos Tuners
GTA Online: How to Find the LS Car Meet and Become a Member
GTA Online: All CircoLoco Records USB Sticks Locations
GTA Online: All Shipwrecks Locations
Weekly Update
GTA Online Weekly Update
Other
GTA Online: Is It Free to Play?
GTA Online Guide: Tips and Tricks for Beginners
GTA Online Guide: Tips, Tricks, and Where to Start 2
We hope that our GTA Online guide has already introduced some of the game's more complex mechanics and systems to you. However, there are also a number of basics that newcomers should digest and always keep in mind while playing.
Familiarise Yourself with the Interaction Menu
The Interaction Menu is, effectively, Rockstar adding hundreds of additional buttons to your DualSense or DualShock 4 controller. It's not the most elegant solution, but you need to get to grips with it if you plan to do anything in GTA Online. Not only will you need the Interaction Menu to learn How to Become a CEO but it's also where you'll be able to Request Personal Vehicles, see your Daily Objectives, and even set Waypoints. You can access the Interaction Menu by holding down the touchpad, and you should spend some time familiarising yourself with all of its features and functions before you do anything else in GTA Online.
Eat Snacks to Recover
Almost all GTA Online players rue teammates who don't eat Snacks, especially during Heists. But to be fair, Rockstar is to blame here: it doesn't really introduce the concept very well. As you'll probably already know, if you take damage in GTA 5 then you'll only heal back to halfway. In order to fully recover your health, access the Interaction Menu by holding down the touchpad and select Inventory > Snacks. You can purchase Snacks from shops around Los Santos, but some locations like the Office and Auto Shop actually provide you with free supplies.
Don't Get Caught in the Grind
It's all too easy in GTA Online to slip into a routine, like the ones described in our How to Make Money guide, and end up hating the game. While it's fun to earn lots of money in Los Santos, it's always worth reminding yourself why you're doing it: to have fun. So, if you're not having fun running the Cayo Perico Heist over and over or managing your Businesses, find a way to keep things fresh. Sure, not everything you do in Los Santos will pay you the big bucks, but maybe there are activities or goals in the GTA Online Weekly Update that you'd prefer to be doing right now. Time is money, yes, but that doesn't mean every waking moment you spend playing should be focused on inflating your bank balance.
More Fun with Friends
Rockstar appears to have acknowledged that a significant number of GTA Online players are enjoying playing the game solo, and that's great. However, it's worth being social sometimes. The vast majority of the game's content is designed around two or more players, and it can be especially entertaining with friends, especially when you're completing Heists and working towards a common goal from opposite ends of the map. The secret to GTA Online's enduring success is that there's nothing else quite like it, and while it comes with many frustrations, sharing special moments with friends is one of the highlights here.
And that just about concludes our GTA Online guide. We sincerely hope you've found the information within useful, but if you're still struggling to get to grips with Rockstar's social sandbox, be sure to drop any further questions or comments you have below.
