Lets see...

[PZ]

Nice pics guys  :-X

Might just try online some time - looks kind of interesting, but I usually only have short sessions of time available - also need to get some kind of microphone hooked up (dumped the old one).  I actually created a character then into LS, but did not know what to do from there.  Forgot the key mapping but no menu appeared when I hit the ESC key.  Eventually just closed the program not knowing what else to do.

[Art Blade]

Thanks for the shots Art :-X

The ones taken or the ones fired? :-()

Nice post, fragger. Apart from what D_B said (by the way @ sewage canal aka LS river) you were also travelling through the subway tubes and you guessed right, it was the same spot where you'd drill a hole into the Union Depository during the last main mission heist (one out of two different approaches contains that part) and yes, they closed the roof. You got out where you were supposed to get in during that heist.

You cracked me up with a lick of paint and all that regarding your car

PZ, I think you were in the middle of creating a character and by that supposed to be going online after that so there was no pause menu for the "creator" bit.

[PZ]

I'm fairly sure I finished creating the character because the game let me go into an online session (I think) because my character had only a pistol and I was able to wander around the city.

[Art Blade]

yes, I can see your online character in my friends list. A little underdeveloped, though :-D There is, however, a pause menu when you are online and hit ESC.

[Binnatics]

[smg id=8539 type=preview align=center caption="Poor guy"]

[PZ]

yes, I can see your online character in my friends list. A little underdeveloped, though :-D There is, however, a pause menu when you are online and hit ESC.

Dang, it must have glitched on me because Esc didn't w@&k.  Will need to try it again some time  :)

[fragger]

Got some advice for anybody playing SP and who hasn't yet attempted the mission for Michael to collect the submarine parts for Abigail - don't even bother. STAY AWAY FROM THIS MISSION!!!

It's one of those missions marked with a "?" on the map (in this case in blue for Michael) at the Sonar Collections Dock. It will pop up when Michael has bought that particular property, which is up near Paleto Bay. There's a woman named Abigail who appears on the dock and offers you this mission, to find 30 pieces of her late husband's private submarine scattered on the sea floor. A motorised inflatable dinghy appears at the dock, you get into this and travel to various places marked on the map, dive in (Michael has scuba gear for this) and use a sonar-type directing-finding thingy to home in on and find the pieces. Abigail promises to make this "worth your while". Naturally I smelled a rat (so many of the people who offer you missions like this in the game try to do the dirty on you later), but I went along with it.

Doing this mission will require you to travel completely around the coast of the entire game world, moving from one location to the next. It's time-consuming - it took me about two and a half hours to do it all.

After finding the last piece, you'll talk to Abigail on the phone who asks to meet you back at the dock. I suspected some sort of funny business so I was ready. After a brief conversation she gave me ten bucks and an autographed photo of her dead celebrity husband, then walked away (there's a little more too it than that, but I won't go into it all here. Suffice it to say, she totally rips you off and it's obvious she was the one who sabotaged hubby's sub to bump him off for the insurance money). You bitch, I thought. So I went after her and tried to knock her out, but the melee key wouldn't w@&k on her. So I shot her instead. Was that worth doing? Nope. So all I got, for all that time and effort, was ten lousy bucks.

If this was some sort of sick joke, I'm not impressed. I'd rather punch out whoever came up with it instead of Abigail.

It gets better. While I was in the middle of that mission, my phone rang informing me that one of my other properties, the bar "Pitchers", was being held up, and it was up to me to get there and stop it (these things are timed, i.e. you only have so much time to get there from wherever you are and do what's required). Great - and here I was out at sea, well off the coast, and in the middle of another freaking mission :D I got ashore but my time ran out well before I was anywhere near finding a vehicle of any sort.

So in addition to wasting two hours for a measly ten bucks, I also lost my income from Pitcher's for that week. Thanks Rockstar, way to make me waste my time. That's two and a half hours of my life I'll never get back

A bit more thought could have gone into how and when some of these side missions are generated, so a timed one doesn't pop up when you're already in the middle of some other mission and you have a fighting chance of getting there in time.

[Binnatics]

s#!t happens JRD I did the same. I also shot her in the face when she tried to leave. I think the only benefit you get from it, is that you will now have that dhingy stationed there whenever you need it. But maybe there's other ways to get that boat...

Anyway; maybe I should warn you for another side quest that is even more time consuming and far more useless and annoying than thisone. It's called the Epsilon Project. You may want to try it, but it really is horrible. On completion you will get

Spoiler

a rusty tractor or 2 million bucks if you steal the money you have to deliver in that last mission they offer you

The rest of them is pretty good though ;)

btw, what's your Social Club Nickname?

[Art Blade]

Binnatics, I like your screenshot of the poor sod whose console blew up.  :-X

s#!t happens JRD

Indeed, it just happened again :-D

Spoiler

JRD didn't say a thing. It was fragger.

fragger, I too played that mission but didn't have a dev at hand so I killed her instead.
[smg id=8540 type=preview align=center caption="RIP (OFF) Abigail"]

[PZ]

Thanks for the head-up, fragger.  There's little worse that indulging in what should be satisfying session of entertainment turn out to be something that might make you have a stroke or heart attack.  Makes one feel cheated - you pay good money only to be pissed off, and realizing that you're pissed, pisses you off even more  :D

[Binnatics]

Indeed, it just happened again :-D

Ooops :-D

Well, keep an eye out for the Epsylon project then, fragger ;)

[Art Blade]

 ^-^

I've never played that "mission" because I knew it would get on my nerves. But I didn't mind the Abigail mission that much. Actually it made me laugh, those 10 bucks and a shabby pic of the late hubby.. so I killed her for ripping off both her husband and me. >:D

[fragger]

I might have laughed if I hadn't spent two and a half hours finding and picking up all that stuff. The whole time I was thinking "This tediously repetitive affair better be worth all the time I'm putting into it". I knew Abigail was going to try something underhanded but I thought it would be one of those chase-her-to-get-your-money kind of things, not just get ten bucks from her and then get nothing at all for offing her. I feel like I totally wasted my time. The mission wasn't even very much fun, I only persevered with it because I thought I might get something good out of it.

I did look into it online and apparently the car Abigail leaves behind in the car park, The Declasse Asea Sedan, is in fact the rarest car in the SP game - in fact this is the only time you can get it. It looks pretty nondescript but there are a couple of unique upgrades available for it from the custom shops. It's now in my garage. After what I went through to get it I'm not parting with it.

The only other goodie from this mish is the inflatable dinghy with the free scuba gear. But how often will that be useful?

I looked into the Epsilon Project as well. That sounds like an even more tedious effort, even if you can get the 2 mil. Thanks for the warning on that one Binn :-X Oh yeah, and classic screenie of the console guy :-D

I'm using the map PZ found to get stuff, I now have almost all the spaceship parts. Man, some of those I never would have found without a guide, especially some of the underwater ones ???? I think you could only possibly find those ones if you just happened to be in the right place and could hear the humming noise they make. There's one on the bottom of a sea-filled cave on the east coast, and you can't even see the cave unless you happen to walk to the right spot. It's also quite a ways from any roads or trails. There's one in a remote cave on a mountain, a couple that you can only get with a helicopter, a couple on off-shore islands, and a few others that are miles from anywhere in unremarkable locations. Unless you just happened to stumble over them you'd never find them. Most are easy to get though, once you know the rough location and you can home in on the humming sound. But that's the trick - knowing the rough location :-D It's a pretty big gaming area.

There's one at Los Santos Airport, and being a restricted area you have cops all over you as soon as you set foot in the place. It's right out at the southern-most extremity of the airport, just inside the perimeter fence. Best way to get it is to go around the outside of the fence. Take a motorcycle of some sort for this as there are a lot of tight right-angled turns involved going around the perimeter, and you'll need something fast and agile for the getaway. Make you way around until you can see the device, just inside the fence. There are a couple of unlocked gates there, and here's another reason why you'll need a bike - a car won't fit through the gates, even if you could turn it around in the limited space available. Ride in, grab the device, then go like blazes to lose the police. I rode straight through the airport itself and escaped into the city. If you try to go out the way you came in, around the outside of the fence, you're almost certain to get clobbered. It's too far around, there's too many right-angles, no room to weave and dodge and there's nowhere to hide. It's a three or four star wanted level (can't remember which, four I think) so there'll be police helicopters popping you from above.

When I was looking for this device I saw the gates and wondered if they were unlocked. I walked into one to see, and in the instant the gate swung open I was wanted ??? So stealth is certainly out of the question, as it usually is in this game. Usually - I have been able to make stealth w@&k on occasion. When I had to steal the earth-drilling machine for the gold bullion heist, I was able to knock out one of the security guards and a couple of the workers without anyone else noticing. But taking them all out by stealth was pretty well impossible. I kept wishing I had rocks to throw to distract and lure them away as in FC3/4 :-()

[Art Blade]

 :)

I didn't know about Abbie's car -- good for you that you got it. Nice one :-X

The Airport.. if I am not mistaken, the UFO parts can only be collected by Franklin, can't they? If so, then you could buy a hangar.. and if you want, buy a plane or a tank. Both of which will be stored in a hangar at LSIA and as you're now owner of a hangar you'll be allowed in at the airport at any time.. which means that you won't acquire any wanted levels anymore when you enter the airport.. innocently saunter over to those UFO parts, pick them up casually and then shuffle towards the exit again :-()

[fragger]

I've been collecting parts as everybody - some as Trevor, some as Franklin. but most as Michael. Same with the letter fragments. I've got all spaceship parts now except for one that's on top of an arch support under a large freeway bridge just south of Paleto Bay. There's no way to reach it from the ground, or from the road way above as the arch is recessed in under the road. I tried to get a chopper in under the road and onto the arch but the vertical support columns are too close together to allow the chopper's rotor to fit through. Only way I can see is to get up high, jump out and try to parachute onto the arch, which will be pretty tricky.

I'm suddenly having probs with the game since that last update. It'll run fine for a while, but then the mouse will stop working, my guy will keep moving forward unstoppably and he won't fire any weapons (I use LMB for move forward and RMB for fire). I have to quit the game (using the keyboard) and then I have to reboot my PC because all mouse functionality, even once the game has been exited, will be completely gone. I've had to do a number of reboots during the last couple of hours. After a reboot, the mouse works fine in the game again - for a while. I'll stay out of the game and do something else for a while, run a bunch of other games and software and see if the problem with the mouse recurs. If it doesn't (and I suspect it won't) I'll be lodging a support ticket with Rockstar. The game was running perfectly fine before that update, and since Binn reported some problems with it I have my suspicions. Granted, Binn's probs were to do with the online game, but SP is still essentially online as well.

Bugger

[OWGKID]

What??? Your mouse won't w@&k??? Goddamit  >:(( You should file a ticket to R* support ;)

[Art Blade]

Wow. Good luck, fragger! I hope it will get sorted out soon.

[Binnatics]

That mouse problem.... I had a weird problem with my mouse too, right after the update. I was in online, and I could only look around for a short moment until it got stuck, and moving in the other direction would set it free again, but only for a short moment. It was as if the movement-freedom of my mouse-looking was limited to a certain reach, which became shorter and shorter after every move.
I restarted the game and it never occured to me again. So it may hahve to do with something in the new update, although I have no idea what it could've been since it randomly hits us, with different intensity.

About the spaceship parts... I'm pretty sure that on the in-game internet there's a page that provides the rough locations of the collectibles. It was there in GTA IV, and I made use of it there, and I heard that in GTA V it is also hidden on the net. So that explains the extreme locations.

You are right about the part under that bridge; I did it with a parachute. Costs a few tries because it is indeed a tricky location. But it is doable. ;)

Reading about your adventure at the airport, I suddenly remembered a tip, but I think it's an online only tip; if you are near deep water and having a high wanted lvl, you can loose the cops by swimming under water. If you dive deep enough you start evading. The problem is that you won't have enough breath to hold it long enough. In online, you can either use rebreathers or eat snacks. I do the last, because I never think in time that there's rebreathers to equip. What I do is dive deep enough (when you have your long capacity maxed out you have plenty of time to browse through the interaction menu) and select eating snacks. As soon as I start loosing health due to lack of oxigen, I start replanishing health by eating snacks. Underwater you can eat snacks the same way as when you are in cover, so you don't have to wait for the eating animation to stop before you eat the next snack. If you have enough snacks in your imaginary backpack, you can stay alive under water long enough to loose your wanted lvl, even when you have a 5 star 8)
Funny, ain't it? Replacing oxigen with snacks :-()

[fragger]

I may have fixed my mouse problem - I changed the mouse input setting in the game's options from "Raw" to "Direct". Played for about an hour and it seemed to be OK - when I was having the probs I'd only get about five to ten minutes in. Strange that I've played with Raw Input up until now without probs. Maybe the update changed something there. Anyway.

I finally got that last spaceship part. As I thought (and as Binn just reported, slipping in a post just before me :-()), I had to use a parachute. I had Trevor fly his chopper above the bridge and then parachute onto the support arch. It's tricky because you have to slip in onto the top of the arch with the underside of the roadway right above you. It also helps to use one of the vertical support columns to crash into so you don't land on the arch and immediately tumble over the other side of it. You lose a bit of health, but that's better than a $5,000 trip to hospital with still no spaceship part to show for it. It took a couple of gos, but I got it.

It doesn't seem to matter who collects the spaceship parts, but once you get them all a mission appears for Franklin. If you become him and go to see the weirdo who asked you to find the parts in the first place (his name's Omega) he shows you the result of an experiment he's been doing with alien technology - a working flying saucer, only it's tiny little model, a few inches across. But he also makes you a present of this buggy that runs on alien tech:
[smg id=8546 align=center width=600]

It looks cool at night!

[smg id=8547 align=center width=600]
[smg id=8548 align=center width=600]
[smg id=8549 align=center width=600]

It makes a sort of flying saucer noise when it runs, actually it sounds a lot like George Jetson's flying car. Hit the horn and it makes a sound like a ray gun from a B-grade scf-fi movie.

I also thought about an underwater approach to getting that spaceship part from the airport, having noticed earlier in the game that the cops can't find you underwater. Didn't know about that snack thing though 8)

[Binnatics]

I think the snack thing is online-only. I always eat snacks using the interaction menu, and that is something exclusively for online. I don't remember if I ever ate snacks in SP :-D

[PZ]

That's funny - eating snacks to replace oxygen 

There was a time long ago I was diving off the Grand Caymans at looking at the changes in the amount of light and sea life going down a vertical wall into a trench.  It was kind of cool - life in front of me and behind, only darkness.  Going down into the darkness at about 100 foot depth I had a slight problem with my equipment - a snack sure would have been welcome at that time  :-()

[Art Blade]

 ??? ^-^

[fragger]

Jeepers :o

I could never do that. I get uneasy at the bottom of a swimming pool. In fact when I was driving the submersible in GTA V to collect the nuclear waste drums, a few of them were way down in deep trenches. As the sub went deeper and the water got darker, it gave me the shudders :-\\

I'm afraid I'm not much of an underwater guy :-()

[Art Blade]

that's what all those guys thought when they were fitted with Italian concrete shoes.

[fragger]

I think Rockstar broke my copy of the game with that last update, I'm having all sorts of problems with it now. Every few minutes I get the Windows sound effect which normally indicates that a program has stopped working or that something's dropped out, a kind of quick "DONK donk" noise (nothing else is running). Whenever I get that, my controls lock up on me for a few seconds and I can't do anything. If I happen to be moving forward when I get the noise I can't stop, if I'm turning I can't stop turning, and if I happen to be firing a weapon I can't stop firing, until I get control back. It seems to happen at the most inconvenient times, like in the middle of a firefight, in which case it nearly always gets me killed because even though I lose control, the game doesn't pause, which means I get hit by enemy fire or drive off a cliff or something before I can regain control. Sometimes I'll get this lock-up three or four times in very rapid succession (DONK donk - DONK donk - DONK donk - DONK donk) locking me out for anything up to about ten seconds, more than enough time for me to get killed or injured or run off the road and into something. I've noticed the DONK donks seem to come much more frequently when there's something going on, like whenever I'm in some sort of fight or chase, but I also get it on and off at other times. Bloody annoying. I've been trying to map out this one stretch or road which I haven't done yet, where a group of hillbillies on quad bikes appear and start harassing me for some damned reason. Every time I try to fight back I get that lock-up thing and I get killed. After no less than seven reloads and still getting killed, I got fed up and I rage-quit.

Noting like this was happening before that damned update. What have you done to my game R*?