• Put most of your money in a bank. There are physical ATMs (in your Select Menu use the GPS to find ATM) or use your phone to go online (go online, money button at the top, go to bank, deposit there)
• Before you turn off your console, be sure to hard save by switching over to one of the story characters... too many times characters are deleted by not doing this.
• Don't be an asshole. Nobody likes that guy that's just going around the open world and gunning people down. You're costing people money and being an asshole. stop it.
• If there are assholes around and spawncamping you, don't be afraid to pay $100 for Passive mode. It's cheaper to protect yourself than to continually having to respawn.
• There's a helicopter at the airport. Just hop over the fence by going up the stairs to where Flight School is. It's much easier to rob stores when you fly away in a helicopter.
• If you're in one of the Giant Bomb crews, then try to stick together. You get more RP and Money this way. Also be ready for some stupid shit.
• I wouldn't buy any property until the servers are stable.
• Whenever you do rob a store with others, if you get the money, be sure to share it with everybody you performed the job with. Do this by going to your Select Menu, inventory, share money.
• You can sell a car at a Mod Shop every 48 minutes... this will net you a good 2-10K depending on what car you've stolen.

If you're standing in that parking lot and it's "launching session" for more than a minute or two, go to the dashboard and start it again. When it actually does work, it should only take a few seconds. No reason to wait at that screen for hours.

I recently sent a request to join the Giantbomb crew. I hope I'm accepted...

But yes, Passive mode has been a lot more tempting then usual lately...

Look for the mission Violent Ducts from Gerald. You get $9000 and if you have a good crew you can knock it out in under 5 minutes. Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied with the amount of money you've made.

Deposit your money after you do anything.

@turboman: Oh yes! I played some online with you! It was awesome. Btw my id is Jlodla, not sure if you remember. I think you were the dude that jumped on my chopper and we chased some dude who had a bounty on him. I might be wrong.

I got some tips:

• When robbing stores don't stand near your buddies and shoot. You might accidentally pistol-whip him/her.
• If you get sent an invite and don't want to join, reject it. If you don't reject it your kinda occupying a space on the lobby, while other players wait for you.
• Don't wanna hear what the other players are saying? Hit the select/back option and change the chat to whatever you prefer.
• You can wear a mask and you can lower your wanted level by one star.
• You can also change hats/masks/ glasses from your inventory, it's in the menu when you hit select/back button.
• Replenish your health from the food you buy in the stores before robbing them. (It's also in the inventory)
• You can drive in LCS (auto-repair shop) to remove your wanted level as long as you are not spotted by the cops.
• You can decide who enters your car, I always set it to crew/friends. That way randoms won't steal it.
• You can drop your weapon/ammo for other player to pick up. Hitting the quick weapon select menu (L2/ LT), then hitting (∆/Y) to drop the weapon or (O, B) to drop ammo. (Not sure if the button prompts are right, can someone confirm?)

There's also a way to ride the cars from the door side hanging from the bike rack, similar to how the Swat Cops ride, but I'm not sure how this is achieved, any ideas?

@turboman: Good tips man. I managed to have a great time with you on that Top Fun mission. Crazy shit.

That one unlocks at rank 15, right?

Wow, I had no idea you could just jack cars and sell them to the mod shop. I'll have to do this a bit so I can get some spending money for guns/ammo.

Keep a look out for those SUV Baller cars, as they can get you a quick 9K. Most other vehicles usually go for about 3-4K from my experience.

Thanks for the tips. My experiences with it so far have been great, but my limited time prevents me from experimenting and figuring things of on my own.

I learned to hard save after my online session is done by just going to the pause menu and go to exit online. I hope my character is there tonight.

Is there a way to tell if invites are from crew mates or friends?

Any advice:

I botched a robbery, my car is in inpound, but very damaged. I cannot get to the car without a three-star wanted level once I step foot in teh lot, and the gates to the impound lot never open for me if I hop the fence anyway.

I can't get at the car. The first two times the car was inpounded the gates opened and I just zipped out the gate to freedom...now that doesn't happen? WTF do I do?

@monkeyking1969: try calling the insurance company if its your personal vehicle. If that doesn't work hold down the select button on the ps3 then scroll down to "Request personal Vehicle" if that doesn't work. Steal a new one

• In tennis, if you get the power meter at the very top it's an ace no matter what. A guy did it to me yesterday and even though I returned the ball in bounds he was still credited with an ace.
• Golf is fun, and provides a lot of rank up points. I went from level 8 to 9 playing 9 holes.
• Stunt Jumps provide rank up points, so do them even if you did them in single player already. I assume the same is true of Knife Flights and Under the Bridges.
• In the mission where you steal the weed from the hillbilly camper, take an offroad vehicle. You are in the mountains and if your opponents aren't prepared to chase you offroad then it's an easy escape.

• You can send texts to crew members in game with our resorting to sending messages on PSN or if you do not have a headset.

• You can eat snacks while in a mission to replenish your health by accessing the quick menu.

You can deposit your money without having to go to an ATM by going to your phone browser, choosing Maze Bank and using the deposit option.

• The easiest place to get a helicopter, in both SP and MP is on top of the hospital in south-east Los Santos. There's usually two. Also, I have also regularly seen a Cargobob spawn there.
• Passive mode isn't a life saver. You can still take damage while in a vehicle, hit by a moving vehicle, and killed by NPCs (Police, Thugs, etc.)
• Saving up money is easier by using the free things rockstar give you. If you buy a cheap garage, use the vehicle website to buy the free car, and replace it every time it blows up, gets impounded, etc. You can also phone to have it delivered by your mechanic shortly after buying it from the website. This also helps when you are far away from vehicles and unable to travel.
• Wearing a mask helps a lot with wanted levels. An example is to wear a mask while robbing a store, you will receive 2 (or 3, depending if you kill the cashier) wanted level stars. If you then get out of line of sight with the police, removing the mask will bump down the stars by 1. 3 > 2, 2 > 1. I'm not entirely sure if this works with 1 > 0, though!

The way I usually do it is I look through the session list of players and see if the person who sent it is on that list. If not, then he's probably a crew member/friend

Does anyone know if you enable passive mode and you get killed, do you still lose a huge chunk of money? Or does the passive mode makes it so you don't lose any money? I'm trying to figure out this whole passive mode thing, I know you can be killed but do you still lose money...? If so, that sucks.

This doesn't always work, I've tried different variations of this method and it's always sort of random. Maybe I was doing it wrong...?

While in the lobby before a game it shows our Crew's Emblem with a number highlighted next to it. What does that number mean?

Also I know where you can find a helicopter (Maverick) in the online section.

Helicopter Location

• start your online mode from the pause menu in story mode and either use "solo session" or "invite only" if you don't want to deal with assholes. When you're done taking missions you don't have to worry about getting gunned down by some random as you're loading in.
  • so pause > online tab > play GTA online > solo session (or whatever you choose)
• after you get an apartment and finally make enough to buy a more expensive place, you'll get reimbursed half of your original payment to put towards your new pad.
• the only difference between the $400,000 apartment and the $200,000 one is the view. Same interior, same 10 car garage.
• surviving a day with a bounty on your head rewards you with the sum of that bounty and some RP. hiding in your apartment counts towards that total time.
• MOTORCYCLES: the Akuma has the highest acceleration, the Bati 801 has the highest top speed.

@ghostytrickster: there's an option for a "closed crew session" but I'm not sure how that works -- I think maybe others have to do the same to get that lobby going? I just tried it on 360 and was put in a lobby by myself.

Use *Join Random* to get decent lobbies more often. Matchmaking-wise, it's the only thing that works.

Since people seem to be posting good areas to find helicopters, this is the one I use all the time. It's on the ground, so you don't have to climb, and it's not in the airport or locked behind fences so there's no risk of gaining stars when you go towards them. There's also often more than one available at a time.

@uberexplodey: Oh man thanks for that. There's some players flinging around bounties like mad and frankly I got a bit bored with outrunning everyone for no apparent gain.

Worth bearing in mind that Passive Mode is only whilst on foot. I've only used it once but someone kept running me over and I never took any damage.

You can heal yourself by eating snacks via your inventory. It's pretty useful

I'm not sure how it goes up but that is our crew's level. I saw some items that unlock when our crew reaches level 35. I assume there are more unlocks but I haven't really looked at a full list.

@mosespippy: Ohh ok. Makes sense. Thanks!

Whenever you are in danger in free mode from another player, instantly connect to a job. Saved my life many times.

I learned that when heists are available online you need to have a high-end apartment to plan them because it has a planning room. High end is 200k and up. I believe only one person in the crew needs to have this

What happens if I don't share my money with the rest of the guys I rob a store with?
Are they gonna shoot me? Bad sports.
Am I gonna be flagged as "Bad Sport"? well fancy hat for me then

@zeforgotten: yes I'm sure you would be flagged then killed. If you're in free roam with randoms and you still share, you still will probably be killed because they're all assholes

Protip: blowing up dudes cars results in getting labeled as a bad sport

@lord_xp: Meh, if that's it then I don't mind.
"hang on, I'm a bit slow at this, I'm just gonna share the money with you guys"
And then go to the internet and deposit the money into your bank account instead and voila, fooled those fools who are now shooting you and not being able to take your money.

Saw this "tip" today when connecting to GTA Online from rockstar themselves:

I followed all Rockstar's instructions today and still lost my most recent car and every single thing I had a checkmark by on the map. So that's nice.

@mideonnviscera: Sounds like those tips didn't help much :\

The weird thing is my money and rank were exactly as I left them.

At 2k per death in medical expenses you will take a loss. I haven't seen any stores pay out over 2K.

If all you do in the game is rob a store once every blue moon then yeah, I could see you not having way over 2k being a thing.

@lord_xp: I bought a 200k apartment and indeed it has a planning room.

I don't think my previous place had CCTV but apparently any tv will let you spectate the other players. Watching SteveVacation tool about on a motorbike was pretty neat.

Fooling about in the open world I stumbled across an armed chopper instead of the usual Maverick. I could see missiles but cycling the weapons didn't bring them up. Good fun for a bit.

Well the 2k per death can be steep when the game respawns you very near the offending party. I lost 15k in the span of maybe 2 minutes because I happened on a map that had "those" sort of people that just drive around and kill everyone in the open world. I would die and spawn near them, and they kill me again. 15k isn't a ton but you can't make it back super quick until you happen on that 9k payout mission.

You can't make it back until you have a clear period away from 'those' sorts of people.

So yeah, 15k isn't much really but it's also a chunk of time lost in which you were trying to make that 15k. Ah well.

@crash_happy: The death penalty overall is a poor design choice. In a game where money is everything and missions don't exactly pay out in gangbusters it's really unfortunate to lose that much from a single death. I would often earn 3k from winning first place in a 5 minute race - that takes effort to win first in a race - and then you get back into the overworld and before you can even move some guy drives you over and poof, 2/3 of your earnings gone in a second. The worst part about that is that the guy that runs you over doesn't gain anything. I've had people kill me literally just to kill me, not to steal my car or take the meager payout that drops off my corpse - just killing me.

The whole system discourages having fun in the overworld unless you don't care about ever having money. I'd play for a while, doing various races and missions, earning around 20k or so only to see it disappear with two paint jobs and an engine upgrade. The prices and earnings are completely out of whack.

At that point man just activate passive mode for $100 its better than losing the money you did.

@demoskinos: I didn't care too much as I had already bought an apartment - I got the second shittiest one on the list cause it's pretty funny living in a flop house. The only thing I need money for is buying ammo and fortunately the meager mission payouts are enough for that. I just thought it's really stupid cause as I said, the people going around killing others aren't gaining anything but the people dying are potentially losing a lot.

@humanity: Actually I don't think the cash penalty is the problem. If there was any sort of invulnerabilty, or system where you spawn away from other players for instance, then the issue wouldn't exist. Rockstar seem to have managed to overlook human nature and again, this wouldn't have occurred if they'd had any sort of beta.

On the bright side though they could still patch something in. Like being able to select a spawn position from missions.

By the way, is there any way to select what vehicle get's delivered when you request?

@crash_happy: Yes, it should prompt you to select a vehicle. It does for me when I call my mechanic to deliver a car.