Criminal Mastermind

[TerrZor]

Okey, Im here.

[Art Blade]

+1 :-X :-()

[Binnatics]

 ^-^ :-X

[fragger]

 :-D

Hi TerrZor, nice to meet :) Here's your slap kudo for Criminal Masterminds +1 Well done mate! :-X

[Binnatics]

After completing the mastermind challenge, we started focussing on the elite challenges for the heist finales. The first one we pulled off was A Series. Nomad and TerrZor where there to help us (Art and I).

Recently we managed to get Pacific Standard too, with the kuruma, who would've thought that possible? After tons  of ideas on how to approach the final getaway from the bank and how to access the kuruma and which course to drive, we managed, with the help of Nomad and Icy ^-^

We've been struggling on the Fleeca for a long time too. I managed to pull it off a couple of times with Stiku, but somehow never succeeded with anyone else. Today however, Nomad and I managed. Even twice. Funny detail; the first time we started at Integrity way apt. instead of Alta. Our secret; use Akuma bikes to go to the Kuruma. Much faster. You gotta drive one each though, to be fast enough. We had 8 seconds spare on our first attempt, and 5 on our second.

That's 3/5 now. And with the experience of the last attempt on Prison Break, where we were 8 seconds short, we will likely nail that ba$t@rd soon too :)

Word is that the other one left, Humane Labs, is the hardest to get. Still some challenges to look up to ;) 8)

[Art Blade]

 :)

[Binnatics]

Prison Break Elite Challenge:

In the Prison Break Heist you and your crew are being asked to break Rashkovsky out of prison. The one that gives you the job pretends to be a criminal, but in fact he is a corrupt AAI cop. They first send you and your crew on several setup missions to prepare for the final prison break. You have to steal a plane from the Vagos, you have to steal a prison bus, the prison bus transport schedule, steal Rashkovskyis car, an old Lampadati Casco, and execute some guy in a mension and steal some documents from two lawyers.
After all the preparation missions (4 in total) you will be contacted for the actual Breakout, the Finale. There is a ground team and an air team. The ground team consists of a prisoner and a prison officer. They move inside the prison, pretending to be delivering a new inmate in the stolen prison bus. Once inside the prison they shoot the guards and free Reshkovski.
The air team consists of a pilot, who flys the escape plane, and a demolition guy who destroys the real prison bus and steals an attack chopper to give air support to the pilot when he enters the prison area. Normally, when the plane reaches the prison area the N.O.O.S.E. call in fighter jets to take down the plane. The job of the demolition guy is to take out these jets.
However, the pilot has a timer that allows him to reach the area, and it gives him something like 7 minutes from the start until he HAS to be in the area. He can take it easy and fly above Los Santos until the time runs out or until the groud team calls him in. That prevents the jets from being called, and demolition has his hands free to give air support to the ground team that, after freeing Reshkovski, needs to deal with numerous N.O.O.S.E. that storm the place.
This strategy of using demolition for help inside the prison is crucial for reaching the elite challenge.

Once the ground team killed the last N.O.O.S.E. and get out of the prison with Rashkovsky, the pilot got to land the plane and let them enter. The area is crawling with cops though; helicopters, N.O.O.S.E. trucks, normal police cars everywhere. There our demolition also comes in handy to fight off any instorming police presence to give the pilot a small window to land the plane, let the ground team and Raeshkovky in and take off.

Once they are inside the plane, the pilot has to loose the cops and fly to shore. When he reaches the coast the ground team and the pilot jump out of the plane, parachute down to the beach where the demolition is waiting with the helicopter to bring them back to Los Santos.

The Elite Challenge in this Prison Break heist consists of 3 goals; nobody gets killed during the finale, Reshkovki gets a minimum damage of 1% or less and the extraction time (from reaching Rashkovki inside the prison until the jump out of the plane) needs to be in under 4:40 mins.

Nomad, TerrZor, Art and me had a good run a couple of weeks ago. We only came 8 seconds short in the extraction time, which is the most difficult requirement. Back then we knew we would finally pull it off some time. 2 weeks ago we agreed on meeting eachother this week (TerrZor would be away for a week for w@&k) and try again. Yesterday evening was finally time for our second serious attempt.

I hosted the first Prison Break Heist and as usual I was the pilot. Nomad was demolition and TerrZor guided ArtBlade (prisoner) into the prison being the prison officer. After numerous tries we thought we had it done. Art used his stopwatch to check the time and we should be one second under 'par'. We finished, checked, and: No damage to Rashkovsky, no deaths, extraction time 4:40 mins.
1 second short!!!! :o :'(

We decided to do it again. Art hosted the second heist and the roles were the same as ever. We had to try numerous times again, and half our team was almost sleeping on the job; TerrZor saw double because he'd emptied a bottle of wodka, the good thing was he killed all 'pairs of police and guards in prison  >:D
I had killed a few bongs, making my vision blurry and I my head tumble as I was hovering above Los Santos waiting for the call to land the plane.
After a few restarts though, finally I got the call from Art that they were about to escape the prison and they were so fast, that it was almost hard to believe. I landed the plane and lucky us we had no difficulties letting Rashkovsky board the plane (he seems to get lost sometimes, running in circles without entering the plane) and when we took off we had such a great time that we could barely believe it. Thanks to the help of Nomad, who is an excellent demolition, all the cop cars who were on the improvised runway (a small road through the desert giving access to the prison) we could take off almost immediately. I navigated the plane in between the instorming police helicopters and managed to get rid of the cops just before reaching the extraction point above sea. We knew we had pulled it off.
It was only a matter of carefully chute down to the beach and wait for Nomad to pick us up...

[smg id=8339 type=preview align=center caption="Demolition Nomad"]

and fly back to LS

[smg id=8340 type=preview align=center caption="Damaged attack chopper"]

The results:

[smg id=8341 type=preview align=center caption="Rashkovsky damage"]

[smg id=8342 type=preview align=center caption="Extraction time"]

[smg id=8343 type=preview align=center caption="Nobody gets wasted"]

[smg id=8344 type=preview align=center caption="Celebratrion!!!!!"]

Note that our time (4:20 mins) is extremely fast. 20 seconds under par, I haven't seen any videos or screenshots from other crews with such a remarkable time yet 8)

[Art Blade]

It took five hours to pull it off. Exhausting a little but very exciting. The time of 4.20 is extremely good, we received a couple of comments along the line of, "impressive," and, "wow," which showed quite a bit of respect. ^-^

During the entire time, we did not have to cope with team mates dying all the time because of accidents or foolishness. It was a very "professional" and dedicated operation. :-X :)

My favourite scene (here starts the timer for the elite challenge) is when Rashkovsky is looking at the weapon in disbelieve. He might have thought of a mini gun (portable Gatling gun) but we literally brought him a mini gun.  :-()
[smg id=8345 type=preview align=center caption="Rashkovsky and mini gun"]

two Art characters

Oh, I was playing with my 2nd character in case you're wondering, I've got two, with a total online rank of currently 381. :-D
[smg id=8346 type=preview align=center caption="Double Art"]

[Binnatics]

Sometimes you not only have to bribe the cops; you have to bribe your friends too:

[smg id=8347 type=full align=center caption="Charity"]

[PZ]

 ^-^

That's my kind of bribe!

[Binnatics]

Humane Labs Raid Elite Challenge:

In the Humane Labs Raid Heist you and your crew are being asked to steal some info out of Humane Research Labs. The one that gives you the job is the same prick that gave you the job in the Prison Break Heist. I always suspected these two heists to be sort of related. Like that Rashkovsky provides the info needed to get into Humane, or has to do something with the important info being stolen in this heist. I never fully understood what the relation is though, I was basically focussed on the gameplay. Talking about gameplay; I think this heist has the best level design and offers the most diverse and entertaining gameplay. Preparation consists of 5 setup missions in which you first; get 2 keycards to the labs internal lockerroom handed from another AAI agent (It's Michelle, that we already know from GTA IV as Nico's first girlfriend) and to make it more interesting the FIB have somehow got word of the transaction. The send in two special teams to prevent this deal from being done. You have to fight them off and escape with the keycards.
Once you have the ketcards, the next setup has you steal two armored millitary SUV's called Insurgents from Merryweather security. They are testing the vehicles in a Quarry not far from the city, which gives you and your crew the perfect opportunity to steal them. One has a mounted gun on top, making it easier to escape, since Merryweather won't let you go away with it just like that; they send attack choppers and sworms of all terrain jeeps after you to chase you down.
In the third setup you steal an EMP: Electromagnatic Pulse generator. The EMP is hidden inside a Hydra (old fashioned fighter jet with vertical take-off and landing cpabilities) that is stationed on an Aircraft Carrier at sea. You cruise towards it in a boat, get on board, eliminate the millitary prescence and steal the Hydra. Your crew will steal 3 'normal' fighter jets and what follows is a massive air fight above the sea with 10 incoming fighter jets trying to bring you down. When the Hydra is stolen and the EMP is out, they sell the Hydra.
In the fourth setup you are being asked to steal a Valkyrie ( Bell UH-1Y Venom) from Merryweather security. The Valkyrie is an old fashioned attack chopper with two mounted machine guns and one board cannon. With a crew of four it is a devastating weapon against other aircraft.
The last setup is in fact the finishing touch of all the preparation. Now you have to bring the EMP, which is put into one of the Insurgents, to Humane Labs and park it somewhere so that it can shut down security and defence systems during the final raid. This is a stealth mission. Move in, silently kill the guards and park the truck inside one of the lockers and get out unseen.
After that, you are ready for the final raid. Again there is a ground team and an air team. Ground team gets night vision goggles and will get in the vacility to steal the data. Air team provides cover with the Valkyrie.
The ground team consists of two heavily armed soldiers while the air team consists of the Pilot and the Gunner. 

First, the team has to reach the Valkyrie, that is parked somewhere North of the Alamo Sea. They fly with it to Humane Labs and from a very high position the ground team jumps out and parachutes to the facility. In the mean time our principals activate the EMP to shut down any defence (for that reason the helicopter needs to be very high, or it will fall down too ;))
Ground team breaches the facility and fights their way through the labs towards the main locker where the important data is held. They use their night vision to see better in the complete darkness caused by the EMP. They steal the data and then leave the facility by swimming through the cooling tunnel (this is the same cooling tunnel Michael uses in SP to enter the labs).
In the mean time there will be ground troops and helicopters coming in to protect the labs. The air team needs to take them out. There are 5 waves of enemies. Once the enemies are taken care of, the Valkyrie flies to the nearby beach to pick up the ground team that exits the water after leaving the cooling tunnel. Then the united crew flies to the Land Act Reservoir where the deal takes place. On their way towards the Reservoir there will be more attack choppers that need to be taken care of.
Reaching the reservoir we get payed, but not before we take care of the evidence;  we blow up the Valkyrie :'(

The Elite Challenge in the Humane Labs Raid heist consists of 3 goals; nobody gets killed during the finale, the Valkyrie gets a minimum damage of 2% or less and the total mission time is under 11:00 mins.

Worth mentioning is that this Elite Challenge is known to be the hardest of all. It is particularly hard to complete the heist finale within 11:00 mins. In our case, we had the luck that recently the Stilt houses have been introduced; we now have a shorter drive from our starting point towards the Valkyrie. For example; other crews who did this challenge before us and posted helpful info on the net (GTAForums Elite Chalenges topic) stating that we'd have to be all inside the Valkyrie around 3:00 mins total mission time. We managed to reach that point in 2:38 mins and thus had like 28 secs advantage.

Nomad, TerrZor, Art and me had a good dry run this thursday. We came 1 minute short in total time but had a few unfortunate fuckups during the mission so we knew we could be a lot faster. Yesterday we tried again, and this time for real.

[smg id=8420 type=preview align=center caption="Waiting for the Crew to arrive"]

I hosted the heist since I bought the Stilt House that gives is the best starting position. I was the pilot, Nomad was the Gunner and ArtBlade and TerrZor went in as the ground team. We needed a couple of retries due to unfortunate runs towards the Valkyrie and once because one of the ground team failed to land on the Humane Labs terrain, but of course there came a point where ground team entered and started to fight their way through the labs.
Nomad and I had agreed uppon the 'traditional approach' which means we stay airborne and Nomad guns down ground troops and helicopters with the board cannon. There's also a well known alternative where the gunner jumps out of the Valkyrie, parachutes to a high mountain to the South of the facility and takes out the choppers with sniper riffle or rocket launcher. In this approach the Valkyrie goes to the beach right away and waits there for the ground team to reach the beach and get in. Then they fly towards gunner on the mountain top and help defeat the choppers that are left.
In the Traditional approach we just do as supposed, but do that as quick as possible. Defeat ground team, fly towards first helicopter, take him out, fly back to the labs, defeat the second wave of ground troops, fly towards the second helicopter, take thatone out, and again to the lab taking out ground troops, then take out two helies coming in together, and then go to the beach; ground team is about to come out.
While we were waiting on the beach, Nomad changed position so that he could operate one of the miniguns to the side of the Valkyrie. That gave him the ability to kill the last two helies that happened to find us waiting there before the ground team came out (we learned that from our earlier attempt ^-^)
Then ground team popped up and we took off for our final escape. We knew that the benchmark time for picking up the ground time should be 8:45 mins but we were 10 seconds late. Nevertheless we were extremely effective taking out the last 4 helicopters and we flew to the exchange location very fast. I performed a superfast landing on the mission marker (something to be proud of :-D) and it was time to wait for the final cutscene to take place and, of course, check our mission goals. ArtBlade clocked us at 10:45 or something close to that when we landed, so we were confident about the mission time. We were a bit worried though for the damage brought to the Valkyrie since we got hit twice while waiting on the beach.

[smg id=8414 type=preview align=center caption="Humane Labs Raid; Done!"]

During the cutscene we found out that TerrZor, who had gotten in in gunner position (Nomad swapped to the minigun for extra defense on the beach) was picked up by the game as being the actual gunner now. He had the honour to destroy the Valkyrie.  :)

[smg id=8413 type=preview align=center caption="2016 01 09 00003"]

Then we checked if our run had been good enough. Here's the results:

[smg id=8415 type=preview align=center caption="Total Mission time:"]

[smg id=8416 type=preview align=center caption="Vehicle Damage:"]

[smg id=8417 type=preview align=center caption="Nobody Gets Wasted:"]

[smg id=8418 type=preview align=center caption="Celebration!!!"]

We did it!! And for me, it was the fifth and last Elite Challenge to complete. Which means I got the Elite Challenge T-shirt. Definitely one of the most unique items in the game ^-^

[smg id=8419 type=preview align=center caption="Elite V shirt"]

[Art Blade]

it was fun to play on that team, always has been :)

+1 :-X for achieving that Elite challenge trophy  :)

[PZ]

Impressive, BinnZ!  +1

[Art Blade]

yay. Got it (with my 2nd character) too  ^-^
[smg id=8421 type=preview align=center caption="Elite complete"]

[Binnatics]

Series A Funding Elite Challenge:

In the Series A Funding Heist you and your crew meet one of the protagonists of the single player campaign; Trevor Philips. He has a plan to give a massive boost to his TPI company (Trevor Philips Industries) by gaining position in the local drugs economy. His theory is quite smart; "We take the drugs that's already there and add value by stealing it and selling it again". His buyer stays misterious until the end game of the heist, but they want to buy all the drugs that T is able to steal. So he lets you and your crew Steal Coke from some celebrities on a yacht out the coast, steal molly pills from the Vagos, Steal meds from the Lost MC's, steel Weed from the ballas and finally, Steal meth juice from the O'Neills Brothers. The last is meant to get his own meth farm up and running to ensure regular income in the future so that they can live happily ever after. ^-^
The point is, unstable as you'd concider T to be, somehow all these gangsters find out the whereabouts of their stash, shortly before the final delivery to T's buyers is realised. So a freaked out Ron rushes in your heist planning room to tell you that T is about to fight off all drug gangs of the city and that he needs help.
That is the finale if this heist; help T to fight off the gangsters, transport the drugs to the meet and watch him settle the deal with his buyer. When you drive the two trucks full of drugs to the meet (the lighthouse east of the Senora Desert) a number of additional gangster will try to stop you. Two players driving the Technical (pickup truck with a massive gun on top) will have to fight off the instorming bad guys to prevent the trucks from being destroyed.

The roles are simple in the Finale. The warehouse where all the stuff is hidden has two entrances. One to the North, which requires a North Team and one to the South, where the South Team will go to.
After the fighting you need two guys on the Technical and two truck drivers driving the stash. Any of the 4 crew members can pick any position. In one of the trucks T takes place, so if you want to have the honour to sit next to him, you'd steer the first truck ;D
The mission is over once the convoy reaches the light house. T will thank the crew and give them a little advance from his earnings.

Spoiler

His earnings, however, turn out to be very poor. His contact, the mysterious buyer, turns out to be a cop. When T finds out about that, 4 more cops come spawning from behind the building and try to shoot him down. He gets away and all that he's got left from his enormous deal is Mister Impotent Rage, a funny super hero puppet filled with molly pills. That puppet is present in the single player campaign too, where T refers to it as a relic holding precious memories from his past. This is one of the proofs showing us that the whole Online world takes place before the SP campaign.  ;)

The Elite Challenge in the Series A Funding heist consists of 3 goals; nobody gets killed during the finale, the crew kills a minimum of 75 gangsters during the finale and the total mission time is under 6:15 mins.

I think this is the easiest Elite Challenge of all. You don't need much planning and don't have to do certain tricks. It's just a matter of doing everything as quick as possible. You have to start the finale from Integrity way, because it's the closest to T's warehouse. Use Akumas (or other fast motorbikes) to do the driving. The North team should hit the marker where T is waiting for you, and then take position on the North side. One of them drives the technical in position so that the other one, the gunner, can use the massive mounted gun to kill instorming gangsters. The other one equips minigun and does the same. The other two drive immediately to the Southern entrance and use minigun or rocket launcher to defeat the gangsters on the South side. The South team will man the trucks while the North team gets in the Technical as soon as the fight is over.
Then they all simply follow the path to the deal at the lighthouse and all do their best to kill all ballas and Lost on the road. Important for the guy driving the Technical is to stay close to the trucks. The trucks are leading as they have to be in time at the light house, while the Technical can stay on the hoghway and take out the remaining Lost MC's. Anyway, the trucks will trigger all foes to spawn so if the Technical is too far away from them they won't get a change to shoot them.

Nomad, TerrZor, Art and me did this heist as the first of all 4 player heists a long time ago already. But Art and Nomad switched to their other character later on and did all the other elite challenges with that character. All the awards and rewards are character specific so in order to get the T shirt they had to do this elite challenge again. Yesterday we did it and it went quite smooth. 

[smg id=8422 type=preview align=center caption="Calling the Crew"]

[smg id=8423 type=preview align=center caption="Surprise!!!"]

There's not much to describe about our run, everything went quite smooth. We weren't sure about the amount of kills because some bikers got away during the escape, but the results show that our worries were misplaced.

[smg id=8424 type=preview align=center caption="Series A Funding Done!!!"]

The results:

[smg id=8425 type=preview align=center caption="Total Mission time:"]

[smg id=8426 type=preview align=center caption="Enemy Kills:"]

[smg id=8427 type=preview align=center caption="Nobody Gets Wasted:"]

And two more of our members got that desired T shirt ^-^ :-X

[Art Blade]

yep, I like mine :-X ^-^

[OWGKID]

Nice w@&k gents 1+ to both of you  :-()

[Art Blade]

thanks GKID  :)

[Art Blade]

Thanks to Binnatics and TerrZor who already successfully completed the Criminal Mastermind challenge (see start of this topic), Nomad and I finally managed, too. Yay! :) $10M for the CM and an additional $1M for completing the "Loyalty" challenge (using the exact same team for every bit and part of all the heists) which essentially is part of the CM. Loyalty can be achieved even if you die during the heists, though. Since I had never successfully played through all the heists with the same team without interruption (play all heists "in order") I just got both achievements in one single go. We didn't have to start over. :-X

Started on Friday and finished on Saturday, done. It was not stressful at all, despite the money involved. It was the perfect team for these challenges and has been my favourite team for quite some time now. :)

All heist-related challenges complete. On the bottom left are the two recent ones.
[smg id=8739 type=preview align=center caption="CM01"]

We're RICH! :) (Only Nomad and I got the bonuses as you can only achieve CM and Loyalty once, so no bonus for Binnatics and TerrZor.)
[smg id=8740 type=preview align=center caption="CM02"]

On our way to victory, the last metres of the last heist. Already starting to celebrate  :)
[smg id=8741 type=preview align=center caption="CM03"]

[Binnatics]

Congratulations Art! Remember, we are the best! ^-^ :-X

[smg id=8742 type=preview align=center caption="Criminal Matermind; halfway there"]

[smg id=8743 type=preview align=center caption="The Best"]

[OWGKID]

1+ Art :-()

[PZ]

Nice! +1  :-X

[Art Blade]

thanks, chaps :)

I just gave B and T another +1 :-X because they did it the 2nd time (and I believe B even did it three times now  ???)  :) N hasn't registered here (not everyone is a forum fan) so no slaps for him here. We did that kind of thing live on the server, though.

[smg id=8744 type=preview align=center caption="stinking rich 2"]

[Binnatics]

Thanx, nice picture :)

[Art Blade]

thanks, I like yours with the burning helicopter wreck in the background. Looks as if the ground was burning all around us :)