Criminal Mastermind: In-depth guide

[NeoLedah]

Criminal Mastermind is an in-game award that upon completion, rewards you with a delicious $10.000.000 GTA Dollars.

IN ADDITION: If you haven't done the All in Order and Loyalty awards, those awards each give you $1.000.000 and can and WILL add up to your Mastermind reward, resulting in a total of $12.000.000. Those awards have two same requirements as the Criminal Mastermind award.

This award came out in version 1.21 (last gen) of GTA Online, which introduced, after nearly 2 years, the so-desired Heists Jobs. These include a total of 5 Heists (as of yet, it is unknown if more will be added to the game in the future). And each of them contain a number of Heist Setups, very similar to how the Single Player Heists works. You'll need to collect a number of vehicles, eliminate certain Enemy Targets, and acquire certain files/documents required for your heists.

This challenge requires extensive concentration, co-ordination with your team mates, knowledge, and experience. It is HIGHLY adviced that you complete all of the Heists at least once before attempting this challenge. Not only so that you get your own experience before attempting the challenge, but also so that you unlock two bulletproof vehicles that are almost mandatory for the challenge: The Kuruma, and the Insurgent (the normal Insurgent, not the "Pickup" one).

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
To quickly go to a part of a guide you're having trouble with, just hold ctrl and press F to enter the explorer's search mode, and type in any of the following paragraphs:

 

CM-01 = Challenge Rules

CM-02 = Frequently Asked Questions
CM-03 = Safety Measures and Tips

CM-04 = The Fleeca Job guide

• CM-04-A = The Scope Out
• CM-04-B = The Kuruma
• CM-04-C = The Fleeca Job Finale

CM-05 = The Prison Break guide

• CM-05-A = The Plane
• CM-05-B = The Bus
• CM-05-C = The Station
• CM-05-D = Wet Works
• CM-05-E = The Prison Break Finale

CM-06 = The Humane Labs raid guide

• CM-06-A = Key Cards
• CM-06-B = Insurgents
• CM-06-C = Collect EMP (otherwise known as the Hydra Mission)
• CM-06-D = Valkyrie
• CM-06-E = Deliver EMP (otherwise known as the Stealth Mission)
• CM-06-F = The Humane Labs raid Finale

CM-07 = The Series A Funding guide

• CM-07-A = Coke
• CM-07-B = Trash Truck
• CM-07-C = Bikers (otherwise known as the Stealth Mission)
• CM-07-D = Weed
• CM-07-E = Meth (otherwise known as the O'Neil Farm Mission)
• CM-07-F = Series A Funding Finale

CM-08 = The Pacific Standard guide

• CM-08-A = Vans
• CM-08-B = Signal
• CM-08-C = Hack
• CM-08-D = Convoy
• CM-08-E = Bikes
• CM-08-F = The Pacific Job Finale

CM-09 = After-run glitch and fix, and Video Guides

 

 

CM-01 CHALLENGE RULES:

• Complete All Heists and Setups in Order:
  This means that you must complete them in this order: Fleeca Job, Prison Break, Humane Labs, Series A Funding, Pacific Standard.
• Complete All Heists and Setups with the Same Team:
  You must complete them all with the same team of players from the beginning to the end.
• Complete All Heists and Setups on Hard Difficulty:
  All of the setups and finales, EVERY single one of them, must be completed in Hard Difficulty. Including the first mission where you have to drive with Lester to the Fleeca Bank.
• Complete All Heists and Setups without anybody in the team dying:
  If a single player dies while on the Mastermind Run, all the players will receive a pop-up message above the minimap, saying "Criminal Mastermind Challenge has been failed". So, nobody must die.

The Fleeca Job dilemma:
I get this asked a lot so I'm going to inform you now before I go into any further details.
The Fleeca job is a two-person job, but the rest of the missions are for four players.
The team has to split up in teams of two, which do the Fleeca Job together, or otherwise the Mastermind award will not count up for everyone.


I'll simplify it a little more:

Person A, B, C, D want to do the Criminal Mastermind challenge.
Person A and B do Fleeca Job together.
Person C and D do Fleeca Job together.
Person A, B, C, D do Prison Break after all that.



CM-02 Frequently Asked Questions:

Question: If I fail my mission, for example: on the Valkyrie Mission, if somebody accidentally destroys the Valkyrie Helicopter that we need to acquire, the mission fails. Will I need to restart the whole challenge from the Fleeca Job?
Answer: No. Failing missions does NOT mean the end of the challenge. Only player deaths end the challenge.

Q: Is the $10.000.000 split amongst players, or is it per player?
A: It's per player. It's an award that is tied to a single player, but is depending on the co-operation of other 3 players.

Q: Can I get $10.000.000 if I do the Mastermind challenge again, after I already completed it?
A: No. It's an in-game award. As an in-game award, it can only be acquired one time per account.

Q: Is there any way to not having to restart the challenge if somebody dies?
A: YES! As of 31/03/2015 I've confirmed a way.
If somebody dies, all of the four players should IMMEDIATELY, SIMULTANEOUSLY turn off their consoles. Best way would be to hold the PS/XB buttons and select the "Turn off console" option. You can also select "Quit Game" as long as it removes you from the mission, you'll be good. When they come back, there's a very high chance that the award will not have saved and you should start on the same point in which you started the mission. Usually it's the safehouse of the host, or another point in the map where you ended the previous mission.

Q: My Mastermind/Loyalty/All in Order awards are glitched! At some point when playing the heists, one of us got a connection problem and one of our award are either reset from 0/26, or are not counting up properly! Do I need to restart?
A: No. If this happens at a late point, say, the Humane Labs, it is better if your team keeps going all the way until the end of the Pacific Job. Reason being: Only the person that got a connection problem will be affected, and the rest of the team SHOULD have their awards counting up properly. It would be annoying if the team needs to restart just for one person.
After that, you all need to restart the challenge from the Fleeca Job (doing Fleeca with whosoever you did it with). The challenge will not reset from the Fleeca Job, and will instead keep counting up. After that, team up on Prison Break again, and keep going. The award will normally count up until it reaches 25/26. After that, finish the heist finale and you will get the award and money.
Also note: Even if you reach 26/26 on the award before reaching the finale, you will still need to do it. The game only rewards you with the award's money at the result screen of any heist finale.

Q: My team and I decided to pause the challenge and continue/finish it tomorrow. Can I play heists with other people in the meantime?
A: NO! If you do that, your award will be reset and you will need to restart the challenge all over from the beginning. Though, if you do play heists with other people that were not in your team, only your own award will be affected.
The original team's award will not be affected and can continue doing the challenge with you, even if your award got reset.

Q: Do I REALLY need to play on Hard Difficulty? Some of the missions are way too hard and I would like it a little easier.
A: Yes, you REALLY do. If you play a single setup/finale on any difficulty that is not Hard, your challenge will be reset.
Besides, as a fact, the difficulties do not change the enemy AI behaviors in any way. The only thing the difficulties change are the number of enemies, and the number of team lives.

 

Q: If I already completed the Criminal Mastermind/Loyalty/All In Order awards, then if I help a team complete their own C.M. but we paused it, can I play heists with other people while I wait for them?

A: Yes, you can. If anybody has already completed the Mastermind award he/she can safely play with other people. Only the people that have not already completed the award will have it reset if they try to play heists with other people.

 

Q: If I'm on a paused Criminal Mastermind run, can I switch to my account's second character if I want to do heists with other players, for practice? Will that reset the award or is it safe?
A: DON'T DO THAT. Yes, the Mastermind/Loyalty/All in Order awards are shared on the same account. To be more precise, it is shared on the same SOCIAL CLUB ACCOUNT. So if you do half of the heists and decide to play heists with other players and in the wrong order, it will reset your award.

 

The following was pointed by "ThePlake0815" so props to him:

ThePlake0815 said:

 

When you're busy on one device, you MUST NOT do other heists on a different device, as the progress is saved to your Social Club account!

Last weekend, I did all Heists with a friend up until the finale of Series A on the Xbox 360. As I wanted to wait for him, I switched to PC and joined some random heists there, but now i have to restart the challenge on the Xbox 360.

 

Alright! Now, I know not everybody comes on gtaforums. I have my own socialclub crew, with people from many other forums visiting it and submitting their requests and times for a Mastermind team. I advice you to get in the crew, it's public. And if you don't want to, you can always just freely post on it and arrange runs with other people.
http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/crew/heists_masterminds

 

 

 

CM-03 SAFETY MEASURES AND TIPS

 

I will now dictate safety measures and precautions that you should take before you even start the challenge.

Required Rank:120, Adviced Rank: 135:
It is most important to be rank 120, so that you can use the minigun.
And it is best if you are rank 135, because then you can buy the max amount of portable armor, which is a total of 10.
However it is very possible to do this challenge even at the lowest ranks, that is only if the low rank knows what he/she's doing, and has the full Battle Armor and Bulletproof Helmet. And, if he/she always gets the easier jobs and stays in cover.


Microphones:
It is adviced that at least two people have access to a headset/mics for better co-ordination. Since there are a few moments where direct spoken communications are of great advantage and can help prevent serious mistakes.


Wear Battle Armor:
On any Clothing Store, if you go to the "Tops" clothing option, and go to the bottom, you'll see the category "Utility Vests". Buy a Heavy Utility Vest. This cloth gives you a massive defense boost, though I believe it only applies to Heist missions. I do not think it helps you on PvP.

 

Note: Using a Heavy Utility Vest during heists will rob you of your ability to sprint. Even if you rapidly press X, you will not run any faster. Though there is a little workaround, jumping around makes you travel faster, so do that if you're in a pinch or if you really wanna run faster.


Wear Bulletproof Helmet:
On any Clothing Store, if you go to the "Hats" clothing option, and go to the bottom, you'll see the category "Bulletproof Helmets". Buy one. It gives you even more defense against bullet damage. Also worth noting: If you equip this and a Battle Armor, you can even survive one of your own grenades, if you fail to throw it towards the enemy.


Save your outfit:
On your own appartment, you can go to your wardrobe, and you'll see the option "Saved Outfits" if you hit Square. Be sure to save an outfit with the Heavy Utility Vest, and Bulletproof Helmet, so that you can use them at every heist.


Set up the Heist Clothing:
When the host sets up a mission, he can select the Difficulty and Heist Clothing. He should always select the Heist Clothing as "Player Saved Outfits" so that the team can equip their own Outfits, which, as I have already stated, should ALWAYS include a Heavy Utility Vest, and a Bulletproof Helmet, for a massive added defense boost.


Usage of Portable Snacks/Armor:
On the freeroam stores, which you can steal (which is necessary for a trophy/achievement) you can actually buy items from the store owner. Approach him, press right on the D-Pad and you'll enter a buying menu. There are four items that you have to buy: P&Q (max: 30), EgoChaser (max: 15) Meteorite (max: 5), and eCola (max: 10)

Also, on any Ammu-Nation, if you buy many armor items at once, they'll stack up in your inventory. With a max of 10, but the max amount of armor that you can buy depends on your level. The max being 10, which unlocks at rank 135.

Now, to use these items: Hold Select, and the Interaction Menu will pop up on the left corner of your screen. Go to Inventory, and from there go to Snacks or body Armor. There you will see the items that you bought. You can use them for healing health, or restoring armor protection.

You can also leave this inventory menu open at all times. You do NOT have to keep opening the inventory menu over and over. The only drawback is, you will sometimes have to exit the menu to select a weapon, or enter a vehicle.

And I'm not done yet. There's an animation that the character does when you use any Snack. To skip this animation, you have to do any sort of action. Walking, running, aiming a gun, being in cover mode, being in a vehicle, being underwater; if you do any of these things while the inventory menu is open, and you use a snack, it will skip the eating animation and you can just spam the item in question for constant healing, making you an incredible walking tank.


Own Kuruma (armored) and/or Insurgent:
These vehicles are very useful for proceeding safely with most of the missions in which there's armed combat. It is adviced that there's at least one person on the team with one of these cars.

Though I do not recommend the Kuruma. Despite being well protected against bullets, it will still be destroyed with a single explosion if you blow up an enemy vehicle near you, or if you blow up one of those big gas tanks near the car. The insurgent is less protected against bullets, but can withstand up to 4 - 5 explosions, like a Rhino Tank.

At the start of each heist, when you select your desired outfit, you can also select your vehicle, if you own more than one. You can select your Kuruma/Insurgent from there, if you they are not your default vehicle.

It is highly adviced that all the team enters a single one of these vehicles, if they have the assisted aiming option. They will be safe inside the car, and can take down enemies quickly without much worry of being killed. It is also adviced to use the AP Pistol, instead of the Micro-SMG. The AP Pistol has higher accuracy and Firepower, and it reloads faster than the Micro-SMG.


Do not use explosives:
On many missions, it is very easy that one person will get in the way of a team mate's line of fire, if he's firing an RPG missile, thus exploding right on his face. Using explosives should always be avoided, and only used at an emergency situation, and the utmost of needs.


Designate the Pilots and Fighters:
Even by taking all these precautions, there is always going to be somebody in your team that, despite everything, still will not be so good at piloting planes/helicopters, and taking the enemies head-on. You and your team should organize yourselves before the start of any mission, discuss mission plans, how you will go through the mission at hand, and who is the best for each role.

 

Quick Heist Invite:

After some of the missions, you and your team will spawn inside the host's appartment. After he/she starts setting up the next Heist mission, you can all go inside the Heist Planning Room and you'll automatically get in his session without having to be invited. Pretty neat for making the whole thing a little faster.

 

 

Infinite Cop Glitch:
This is in fact an old glitch that has been happening on contact missions since the oldest versions.
If two or more players are in the same vehicle, the cops will not stop chasing you. If this happens, find a safe spot, and the players should get out of the vehicle and run around until their minimaps stop flashing. After that they can safely get back in the vehicle and the cops will still be on "search mode".

Though, if you get seen by the police again, the Glitch might trigger again and you'll have to do the process again.

There's a pretty safe spot that I like to use, it's in the river tunnel below the city. There's two entrances, one on the highway near the Union Depository. You have to use this entrance for the Vangelico Heist of single player, so those familiar with it will know where it is located. And the other one is at the north end of the drainage channel, on the east of the city. You can just enter this tunnel and do the process safely.

 

 

Play Survivals in your free time:
This is entirely optional. If you're currently on a paused Mastermind run and you're waiting for the rest of your team to be available again to continue it, I recommend that you play Survivals.

 

It's not any different from the armed battles that you have to through on the Heists, except that you're more vulnerable because the Battle Armor doesn't have any effect on Survivals.

It's a good practice if you're bored.

 

 

Invite Only Lobby:
To prevent connectivity issues, it is advised that after you're all finished with the Fleeca Job and are about to take on the Prison Break, that you all get into an invite only session together. That way, you will always get back to that lobby upon completing any heist mission.

This prevents any possible lag and connection issues with third parties. Public lobbies always lag, so this way, random players will not interfere with your connection.

 

 

STAY AWAY FROM ENEMY VEHICLES:
In some missions, you'll have to transport certain vehicles. A van, a sports car, a truck, etc. In these missions you'll be chased by enemies in vehicles, and you'll probably have to shoot them down.

Stay away from them. If you're too close and you or your team at shooting at the vehicles, instead of just the enemies inside of them, the vehicle might explode, and if you're too close to them, you'll catch on the explosion, killing you.

 

 

CHECK YOUR AWARDS:
It is important to constantly check your awards. Especially after the team joins up for the Prison Break.
Go to the pause menu, go to Stats -> Awards -> Heists and check up on Criminal Mastermind. If it says 3/26 after you start the first setup of the Prison Break, then you're going the right way. If it's reset, you'll have to start over from the Fleeca Job.

It is also good to keep track of the award after every single setup and finale, but, like I said on the FAQ above, you can still keep going with the heists if you're late on the challenge, like on Series A, and fix it by keep playing the heists all over.


DO A RANDOM HEIST MISSION BEFORE STARTING THE CHALLENGE:
There's a nasty glitch where the Mastermind award gets reset after the four players join up on the Prison Break.

To prevent it, all four players should do one random heist mission together, and the game should register the team as being the same from the beginning of the challenge.

Also do not worry, it has to be a single setup/finale, you do not have to do one entire heist, just one heist mission.

 

 

 

 

CM-04 The Fleeca Job

 

Estimated Time: 30 minutes.

 

CM-04-A The Scope Out:
A very simple mission. When you go out of your appartment, get into Lester's blue car, along with your partner. You must BOTH get into Lester's car, or the mission cannot progress.
Drive him to the bank, and avoid bumping the vehicle too much. It is hard to maneuver and hard to break, so don't go so fast either.

Absolutely do not run people over, and do not fire a gun. Doing so will most likely alert the cops, and end the mission.

After you all get to the bank, Lester will case the score, yadda yadda. Get to Lester's Garment Factory and meet Paige. DO NOT RUN HER OVER. Get into her car with your partner, wait for Lester. His walking disability will make him get in the car much slower than any of you, so it is easy for first-timers to forget about him and leave him behind. Wait for him. After that simple, go to your high end appartment and drive Paige's car on your garage. Mission over!

Mastermind Progress: 1/26

CM-04-B The Kuruma:
Select Player Saved Outfits as Heist Clothing option before starting the mission.
It is also adviced to use a Kuruma (armored) or an Insurgent. Drive to the garage, go to the roof, and take down the enemies. Do not use explosives because there are a lot of cars here, and you can destroy the required Kuruma with a chain explosion, ending the mission. If you want, both players can get into one's Kuruma/Insurgent and the player on the co-driver seat can easily dispatch the enemies with assisted aiming and AP Pistol.

After all tangos are down, both players should get into the required Kuruma. You can kill the enemies when going down to the street if you want, but it's not necessary at all. Get to the Garment Factory. Be careful on your way, enemy vehicles will spawn at all sides, trying to ram you off the street.

 

Mastermind Progress: 2/26

CM-04-C The Fleeca Job Finale:
IMPORTANT: Do NOT select Player Saved Outfit. There's a glitch where the game does not give you the option to wear a mask before you enter the bank, and can trigger a mission failure if you get close to the bank without wearing a mask. You can, however, manually select a mask through the inventory menu, but it may also glitch out.
As for the damage, do not worry. The Armored Kuruma is, well, armored. The enemy bullets will not hit you at all.

Go to the Garment Factory and get into the Armored Kuruma. Do not attract the cops at any point.
Go to the Fleeca Bank. On the way, the Driller will have to do the Hacking, which is basically a Snake Game. You have unlimited tries, so have fun with it. An easy way to do it is just using the D-Pad. The thumbsticks are pretty unreliable for this minigame.

The driver should wait until the Driller is done with the hacking. The Driller can tell the Driver when he's done with the hacking on a mic, but the game also tells you when the Driller is done.
After the Driller is done and they're at the Bank entrance, Driller pulls out the phone (pressing Up on the D-Pad) and select the Hack, it's the bottom right app.

Both players step in the bank, Driver destroys the cameras. Be careful to not shoot any of the hostages. DO NOT kill any of the hostages, or they will trigger an alarm, and end the mission. Keep them intimidated. Try to use a non-suppressed gun as it seems to have more effect on intimidating them.
But do not mindlessly shoot at the windows. If you intimidate the hostages TOO MUCH, they will still trigger the alert. Try to keep the intimidation bar on the middle, never going too low or too high.

The Driller should get on the back of the bank, to the vault. And here comes the hardest part of this heist.
Hold R2 all the way, and only pull the left thumbstick up mid way so that it doesn't overheat. If it starts overheating, pull it, and keep R2 held so that it cools down, and try again. Shouldn't be too hard.

After that both players get out and drive towards the bridge, then drive below the Cargobob's magnet. It might take a few seconds before the magnet pulls your car up, so just keep driving below it.

Sometimes the Cargobob doesn't spawn with the magnet. If this happens, just let the cargobob fly behind Fort Zancudo which ends the mission, and you can try again until it spawns. Mission's over!

 

Mastermind Progress: 3/26

 

 

CM-05 The Prison Break

 

Estimated Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

 

CM-05-A The Plane:
Put Heist Clothing as "Player Saved Outfits".
Select a designated plane pilot. He'll be taking the Velum from McKenzie airfield to LS International Airport. Be careful because he'll have to LAND it aswell. It is not so easy to actually land planes for some people.

Mission starts, everyone gets into a Kuruma/Insurgent together. Insurgent is highly adviced because there are some big gas tanks in the vicinity of the mission area, so it's easy to bump into them or shoot them in close proximity.

The enemies are not really that good at battle, but the thing is, there's a lot of them in this mission. There'll be a total of two more enemy waves after you dispose of the initial enemies. Try to stay together in your team vehicle and take down the enemies from inside, to avoid getting killed.

The Pilot can either take the plane as soon as the team dispatches the first enemy wave, or he can stay, help the team, and then take the plane to LSIA.

Mastermind Progress: 4/26

CM-05-B The Bus:
Put Player Saved Outfits.
This mission can really be simply a two-person job. Kurumas are probably better because the cops will only chase you and/or the members of your team with only 3 Wanted Stars, so they're not so hard.

Everyone gets to the Prison Bus. Team shoots the Bus driver, eliminates the convoy car and police helicopter. For the police helicopter, it'd be better and safer if the team destroys it with the minigun, but they can also use the Homing Missile, since there's not so much debris that can get in the way of your aim.

After the convoy is totaled, ONLY ONE PERSON SHOULD GET IN THE BUS.
Reason being: To avoid the Infinite Cop Glitch. Then the rest of the team should focus on distracting the cops until the designated Bus driver loses them. After the Bus loses the cops, he should tell the team either by mic or by text that he's done so, then the rest of the team loses the cops.

The mission can only be finished if the entire team have lost the cops.

Mastermind Progress: 5/26

CM-05-C The Station:
Select Heist Clothing as "Player Saved Outfits". Be aware that only the Cargo Ship team will be able to use their Saved Outfit. The Station team is stuck with the Police Outfit.
The team will split up in two. One team has to go to the police station with a cop car, while the the other team has to "steal" Rashkovsky's car from the Cargo Ship.

Station Team: As soon as the mission starts, call 911. Open up your phone, go to contacts, press square, and type 911. Select Police.

Wait for the cops to arrive. Sometimes they get out of their car, leaving it nicely for you and your team mate to steal. Do not kill the cops, or it will trigger a 3 Wanted Star, making it harder to lose the cops.

Lose the cops. If you have the Infinite Cop Glitch, just find a safe spot, both players get out of the cop car, run around until the minimap stops flashing, then get back in and avoid the cops until they are lost.

After that, get to the police station. DO NOT ENTER THE STATION WITH A GUN IN YOUR HAND. Doing so will trigger Wanted stars, and since there are so many cops in your surroundings, you'll be shot dead in a second.

When entering the station, be careful. There's a cop that'll come out from the room in which you have to go. If you bump into him, you'll get wanted stars. Just let him safely get out of your way and then get in the room and obtain the documents.

Then proceed with the mission, get in the cop car, take it to the waypoint. There'll be Jerry Cans on the side, so burn the cop car. AND STAY AWAY FROM IT. You don't want to catch fire or get near the explosion that'll kill you.

Cargo Ship team: Get to the Cargo Ship. You can shoot five enemies before you enter it, one above the stairs, one on the first floor, one on the first walkway, and two on the bottom of the stairs.

Be ready to use your snacks. One thing I like to do is, as soon as I climb the stairs, snipe all the incoming enemies on the left side of the ship, using snacks when needed, then proceeding. Get to the back of the ship.

Play Super Mario and climb and jump towards the container where the car is located. Kill nearby enemies and shoot the lock.

AT THIS POINT IT IS IMPORTANT TO: not fire a single bullet when you are inside the car. If you do, you'll trigger Wanted Stars and it seems that at this point you will always have the Infinite Cop Glitch. Just don't shoot at all and you'll be fine. Focus on using your snacks.
It is also a good idea to go off roads, on the grass and the sand. The enemies will rarely spawn, if not at all, if you do this.

Mastermind Progress: 6/26

CM-05-D Wet Work:
Select Heist Clothing as "Player Saved Outfits".
The team splits up again. One team kills the lawyers, collects documents and avoids the cops, while the other team kills the old man and his bodyguards.

City Hall Team: This team should bring in Insurgent/Kuruma. Get to the checkpoint, climb the stairs and get to the vantage point. You can either play it co-ops and kill the lawyers simultaneously, or just kill them both with assault rifles.

After that get down on the ground, and get in your vehicle. Kill the cops safely from inside it, collect the package, and lose the cops. You'll probably get the Infinite Cop Glitch, so find a safe spot, run around 'till the minimap stops flashing, and lose them. Get the documents to the Planning Room.

Mansion Team: This is a good practice for the two other stealth missions later on. You can either play it stealth, or play it dumb. The enemies on this mission only use pistols so if you get caught, don't worry so much. Just as long as you kill the old man, the mission will not end.

If you played Metal Gear Solid games, you'll know how this goes. You can see the enemies' cone of vision on the minimap, so avoid them and kill them with a suppresed pistol, or any other suppresed weapon, and move on to the next target. If they see you but if you are quick enough to take them down, they might not get alerted.

Kill the old man and/or bodyguards and escape the neighborhood. Easy.

Mastermind Progress: 7/26

CM-05-E Prison Break Finale:
You cannot select Player Saved Outfits this time.
The pilot should take his/her time before taking the plane. There's no rush.
When the enemy jets start coming at you, just stay behind it and he can't do a single thing to you. The enemy AI Jet on this mission is extremely dumb.

Demolitions gets the bus, and make sure you follow the GPS direction until the airstrip. Take it down and go get the buzzard. There's only one merryweather sentry there so pop him.

Now, there's no reason for the demolitions to destroy the enemy jets, because they infinitely spawn, and they can't do anything to the pilot if he/she stays behind it.

The Demolitions can, if he wants and is skilled enough, give air support to the Prisoner and Prison Officer. But he/she should be careful, because if he/she gets too close to the Prison, he/she'll start getting shot down by enemy missiles. These are not homing missiles, so they can fortunately be easily avoided.

The Demolitions should also absolutely avoid Fort Zancudo. If he/she gets too close, he/she'll get shot down by enemy jets, and these are homing missiles. They are extremely hard to avoid.

Now, the Prisoner and Prison Officer. The Prisoner starts only with an AP Pistol, so he/she'll have to pick up guns and ammo from downed enemies, which is just SMG and Pump Shotgun.

After they get to the Prison, they can either walk their way to the checkpoint, but be wary because the sentry posted near the stairs will shoot at you when he turns around. Kill him and the first two enemies from behind you. There's also sentry on the walk way above you, so take him down.

They climb the stairs. There'll be an enemy on the rooftop to the left, so destroy him. The Prison Officer can snipe down two enemies from the building directly across. Be careful of the enemy on the tower to the right. Kill all the enemies on the ground, and get to Rashkovsky.

Now, there'll be enemies coming from the right, left, and behind the fences. These have armor, so they'll be harder to take down if they are not shot in the head.

After you proceed, you should see an armor before you enter the area with the two Prison Buses. Pick it up if you need it. You can shoot the Gas Tank to the right of the Buses. It'll push the first Bus to the left, so you can use it as a nice cover. Beat the enemies and move.

There's another armor, and a health kit to the left, so take em if needed.
At this point there's a lot of enemies, and it is the hardest part of the mission. Take them down. There'll also be enemies from the rooftops, so take care. After they're all down. take Rashkovsky and get into the Noose Truck. Be careful because there's always two enemies outside the prison ready to shoot you.

Pilot should land on the airstrip now, while demolitions covers the ground team from any pursuing police cars, and police choppers.

BEFORE THE GROUND TEAM GETS IN THE PLANE: They should both get out of the truck and run around until the minimap stops flashing, then get in the plane. This prevents Infinite Cop Glitch. If for some reason when the team starts losing the cops, but gets spotted by a chopper later on, there's a high chance that the Infinite Cop Glitch will trigger anyway. If so, just fly around for an indefinite amount of time until you finally lose them.

Then proceed with the mission. Get to the jump spot, and parachute onto the beach. BE CAREFUL not to land on the helicopter's rotor blades or you'll die upon contact. The Helicopter should also take care not to land on any of the team mates.

Get to the choppa. Demolitions flies to the city and mission ends

 

Mastermind Progress: 8/26

 

 

 

CM-06 The Humane Labs Raid

 

Estimated Time: 2 hours.

 

CM-06-A Key Cards:
Put Player Saved Outfits.
Team gets to the checkpoint, gets in position and waits. Sadly, after the cutscene is over, all of your personal vehicles will de-spawn and you can't use them.

Dispatch the enemies. Try not to use explosives as there are a lot of cars here and it's easy to chain-explode them all.

The lookout (north) should get down and get in cover on the north alleyway.
The lookout (south) can stay where he/she is and kill the enemies coming from the right side of the street.

One of the other people should get in cover on the alleyway to the right, and the other one can get in cover with a nearby car, stopping enemies coming from the left side of the street, to the front.

After that, simple, get the key cards, pick a car and go to the planning room. He/she should be accompanied by someone because there can be up to 4 enemy cars chasing you.

Mastermind Progress: 9/26

CM-06-B Insurgents:
Put Player Saved Outfits.
Everyone gets into one of your Kuruma/Insurgents (Insurgent preferred), goes to the mission area and kills all the enemies.

As soon as you get into one of the required Insurgents, enemy choppers will spawn. These choppers are deadly because they use their machinegun cannons. Two people should get into the Insurgent with the Turret, and before proceeding, should take them down as quickly as possible.

Simple after that, go to the waypoint. Don't bother so much destroying the enemy vehicles because they infinitely spawn. It is only after you are near the waypoint that the game orders you to Kill all Merryweather enemies, so do that and get the Insurgents to the waypoint.

 

Mastermind Progress: 10/26

CM-06-C Collect EMP (Otherwise known as the Hydra Mission):
Player Saved Outfits.
Get to the Dinghy, and to the aircraft carrier. As soon as you start engaging the enemies, mind the ones that come from the walkways to the left and right, as they can catch you offguard.

Do not use explosives. There are placed missiles that make a huge explosion if explosives are used, easily killing you if you are near.

Get to the back and climb the stairs to the right. Follow the walkway, and take care because an enemy will spawn from inside the room in which you have to go, and he's deadly because he's got a shotgun. Proceed, two more enemies inside. Get out and be careful because there's enemies everywhere.

Get the Hydra, and Lazer jets, and this is where the fun begins. The enemy Jets' AIs are as dumb as the ones in the Prison Break finale. As long as you stay behind them, they can't do anything to you.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING AT THIS PART: Stay away from your team mates as much as possible. To avoid friendly collision.

Also, when you're done destroying the enemy jets, the team mates should not try to land, to avoid mistakes. Only the Hydra has to land on Sandy Shores airfield. And please, DO NOT land with the Hover Mode. Land with the normal mode. Hover Mode is incredibly hard to land with.

Mastermind Progress: 11/26

CM-06-D Valkyrie:
Player Saved Outfits.
Team gets into an Insurgent/Kuruma.
Before you enter the base, kill the first two enemies at the entrance, and go on the train tracks to the left. There'll be an enemy buzzard that shoots missiles, which is deadly. Take it down as soon as you can, with miniguns or homing missiles.

Get to the valkyrie. you can either sprint ahead with the Insurgent/Kuruma and not worry about enemy fire, or you can kill every enemy as you go. Up to you. Kill the enemies in the back, and everyone into the Valkyrie.

The trick to properly flying the Valkyrie is to have the nose of the chopper facing at the enemy chopper, and above it, so that both miniguns and also co-pilot will have a clear shot.

 

IF THE VALKYRIE STARTS SMOKING AS SOON AS YOU TAKE OFF: Do not proceed with the mission. Quickly, get on the roof of the warehouse, tell everyone to get off and get away from it, then, destroy it. Yes, you'll fail the mission for doing so, but it won't matter, the challenge will not get reset. The reason why you should do this, is because the Valkyrie isn't as strong as it is on this Heist Finale. And you're gonna get shot by five helicopters when you start flying it. It might get destroyed with the whole team inside, killing them. At this point in the challenge, it's better to prevent mistakes like those, than be sorry.

DO NOT LET THE ENEMY CHOPPERS CRASH INTO YOU. The Valkyrie is strong against missiles, but will still be one shotted if it crashes into enemy choppers or buildings.

Mastermind Progress: 12/26

CM-06-E Deliver EMP (otherwise known as the Stealth Mission):
It is not necessary to use Player Saved Outfits.
Get to the required Insurgent, and to the Humane Labs. After that, the only real co-ops are the first two guards. One in the back walking, and one posted at the entrance, smoking. Take em down, then proceed.

To make it faster, one person should stay inside the Insurgent and drive it to the left of the lab where there's no enemies, and be ready to bring it to the back.

After you get inside, there'll be one sentry at the top of the stairs. You can safely take him down.

Wait for the truck to get close to the entrance, then take the driver out where no other enemy will be able to see him.

You can safely use a suppressed assault rifle to quickly take down the two enemies fixing the truck. But be careful, if you shoot the truck accidentally, or if one of their guns gets fired accidentally, the two scientists to the right will get alerted and will quickly end the mission. To make it safe, take your time and shoot one bullet to the head to the guy on the left that's standing up. Then immediately switch to the guy bending down to the right and shoot him 3-4 bullets.

After that, DO NOT shoot the scientists. There's one sentry on the middle of the way, to the right, below the staircase. Take him down with a sniper rifle.

Then, kill the scientists to the right.

Wait about 10 seconds. The scientists up ahead on the corridor, to the left, are gonna come out and will head straight ahead. Take them down when they go out.

 

There's a soldier on the second floor staircases to the left. Kill him when he's got his back turned on the scientists and the soldiers down below to the right.

 

Kill the scientist and soldier at the back. Insurgent can get here now.

Start the hacking. Now, there's a Humane Labs truck to the right. You can all use it to get out of the area quickly.

DO NOT SHOOT THE MERRYWEATHER TRUCKS.

Kept you waiting huh? Now that brings some nice Metal Gear Solid vibe to the game.

Mastermind Progress: 13/26

CM-06-F The Humane Labs Finale:
MAKE SURE THE GROUND TEAM'S LUNG CAPACITY IS AT MAX BEFORE STARTING. The reason why you want this is to make sure they will survive in case the game glitches out and does not let them equip the Rebreathers.
Player Saved Outfits.
Get to the Valkyrie. Proceed with the mission, and go high above the Humane Labs. Ground team parachutes and destroys the panel to the left of the metal door.

Now, the Valkyrie team has multiple options. They can either take down the ground enemies and choppers, or they can play it smart: The Gunner parachutes into the rooftops and takes down any enemy choppers with a minigun/homing missiles.

It is NOT necessary to kill the ground enemies, since they in fact do not pose any threat to the ground team.

The Valkyrie pilot can sit the chopper down on a hill and relax while the gunner takes care of him.

Ground Team: Proceed with the mission. Take any enemies, get to the labs and, BEFORE PRESSING RIGHT ON THE D-PAD AT THE ELEVATOR, WAIT 5-10 SECONDS.
Otherwise you might get glitched and the enemies will not spawn when you go down. This forbids the game from letting you equip your rebreathers when you get to the cooling vent.

If the game glitched, it's okay. the team can still swim through the vents, and before their health drains, they can still open the inventory menu and use Snacks for healing. The health does not get drained too quickly. Though be mindful, because since you have to press X to swim, you'll have to close the Snack window before keep on swimming, otherwise you'll end up wasting all your snacks.

Get to the beach on the right.

Pilot and Gunner re-join if they separated, and picks up the ground team on the beach. BE CAREFUL OF THE ROTOR BLADES. After that take down enemy choppers, making SURE they do not crash into the Valkyrie, and go meet Karen.

Why do I care if Karen likes me or not? Mission ends.

 

Mastermind Progress: 14/26

 

 

 

CM-07 Series A Funding

 

Estimated Time: 2 hours.

 

CM-07-A Coke:
Player Saved Outfits.
The Chopper team has a fair number of approaches.

They can just pick the helicopter and land it on the top-most roof, on the middle/back of the ship. There's actually a Helicopter landing area, but do not land it there. You'll get shot dead.

They can also land on the beach and snipe the enemies from the right side of the ship. But they should still be careful of the cops.

Or, they can just fly around the ship with one of them on the back of the chopper, so this person will be available to use Assault rifles, Snipers, Machineguns, and even RPG. But I do not recommend this method because the chopper is very fragile and you WILL be shot down by the enemies. If you choose this and you see your chopper starts to smoke, land it on the ship, or just ditch it.

This mission is still pretty easy though. The enemies mostly use just guns, or SMGs. And they become quite dumb when you're inside the ship. Take them down, and collect the cocaine as you go (they're the green blips). It is a good idea to use an assault shotgun when you're in the ship.

After they're all down and coke is collected, once again you've got a number of choices to complete the mission. You'll have to lose the cops.

If you choose to all get back in the chopper, you'll more than likely trigger the Infinite Cop Glitch, so you should all head to the Drainage Channel's tunnel at the north side, on the east of the city.

I prefer having 3 people go to the Vespucci canal's tunnels that are very close, have them all wait on the tunnels until they lose the cops, then the pilot picks them up at the end of the tunnels, on the street.

 

After all that's done, get the coke to Ron's Warehouse.

Mastermind Progress: 15/26

CM-07-B Trash Truck:
Cannot select Player Saved Outfits.
Oh boy. Hardest mission so far. Get to the Garbage Truck, and there'll be three guards. Take them. You can also get the 4th guard to the back but BE CAREFUL NOT TO DESTROY THE GAS TANK TO THE LEFT.

Everyone into the truck and go to the first pickup. The Truck driver should drive it backwards towards where the trash bags are, but only after the collectors already got off, to avoid friendly crashing.

Collectors grab the trash bag by pressing right on the D-Pad, getting them to the back of the truck, and waiting until the right D-Pad prompt show up. Then immediately press triangle to get back in.

Same method, but enemies start spawning here. DO NOT LET THEM GET CLOSE TO YOU. They're deadly. Especially the ones that have shotguns. Take them down as quick as you can and from as far away as you can.

But, one collector should keep collecting the trash bags to make the job a little faster. There's only a 10 minute countdown after all. And it is not necessary to kill all of the enemies, just kill the ones that are in your way, and the ones that are on the street.

After doing all four pickups, drive the truck as fast as you can. Enemy cars will start spawning and chasing the team. The collectors will have the most danger because they're very exposed. They should have their snacks/armor always ready.

 

Mastermind Progress: 16/26

CM-07-C Bikers (otherwise known as the Stealth Mission):
Player Saved Outfits.
Get to Trevor's Trailer, then after the whole team gets there, get to the nearby Dinghy. Get to Stab City.

This one is much more easy than the humane labs because you have a little bit more time to take down the enemy that saw you, because the alarm triggers and the mission ends.

It is not really necessary to snipe them, it's much faster and safer taking them with a suppressed weapon.

Wipe them all out. The enemies on the middle can only be shot from the top left corner of the area.

Find and take the vans. Do not use explosives. The team should split up, going two on two with the two vans. Before or during the time that you take them, some bikers are gonna arrive from the north. You can eliminate them before or after you take the vans, it's safer if you take them down before but they're not really that tough. Up to you.

WARNING: During the race to Ron's warehouse, there'll be bikers coming at you. DO NOT run them over, and DO NOT run over their bikes. They might explode below your van, triggering a chain reaction and killing you.

 

Get the Vans to Ron, disposing of enemies as you go (but don't focus so much on em, it's not necessary to kill em all)

It's a good idea to go offroads, if you can.

Mastermind Progress: 17/26

CM-07-D Weed:
Player Saved Outfits.
The Ground team should go to the point in a Kuruma/Insurgent, and take down the enemies from inside it, when the lookout team are in position. Needless to say, lookout team must provide Sniper cover.

But these guys aren't really that hard so you can take em down on foot if you want. DO NOT USE EXPLOSIVES.

When you get the Vans and the Technical, do not use the train tracks shortcut. The train spawn is weird in this mission and it can gouranga you all if you take this shortcut.

There's about 4 to 5 road blocks. The vans should wait until the Technical clears them all out before proceeding. After you get into the outer rims of Sandy Shores, you can all just sprint ahead since the enemies aren't too hard. You can still take your time and let the technical clear out before proceeding.

 

Another safe method would be: As soon as you leave the factory, don't follow the GPS. Take the Western Highway. The enemies will only start spawning as soon as you reach Fort Zancudo. The GPS will tell you to go to the left as soon as you pass through the bridge, and below FZ. Do not follow it. Keep going through the Highway. You'll have an extra minute or two by the time you get to Ron's warehouse. There'll be a few enemy spawns, but they're not too tough. And there won't be any road blocks.

There's a lot of time to waste on this mission.

Mastermind Progress: 18/26

CM-07-E Meth (otherwise known as the O'Neil Farm Mission):
Player Saved Outfits.
Bring TWO Kurumas/Insurgents. Insurgent is MUCH preferred because of its vehicle ramming capabilities.

Get to the farm and take down the O'Neils from inside the insurgents, with AP Pistols. The O'Neils for some reason are quite hard to take down if they are not shot in the head, so make sure the target is dead before switching targets. DO NOT USE EXPLOSIVES.

You might have to get out and go inside the farmhouse to kill some of the hiding O'Neils. Use an Assault Shotgun with Snacks ready. There should be 2-3 enemies on the bottom floor, and 1-2 enemies on the 2nd floor.

After they're taken care of, ONE person should take one of the Trucks from behind the farm, then go towards the tanker, and go in reverse so that the tanker attaches to the tanker. DO NOT GO IN REVERSE TOO FAST OR THE TANKER MIGHT GET DESTROYED.

Get in Convoy. One Insurgent, with two people goes on the front, Truck with Tanker on the Middle, and another Insurgent covers the rear. Move FAST because you've only got three minutes before the mission ends.

When you keep going towards the road, you'll reach a point where it splits to the left and right. You can safely go offroads at this point to the right, and take the little shortcut that leads straight to Trevor's Trailer. This sandy shortcut is in between a little water pool to the left, and the lake to the right.

Be careful because the terrain is rocky and you might flip the truck over. Get the truck with the tanker to Chef's Methlab.

Mastermind Progress: 19/26

CM-07-F Series A Funding Finale:
Player Saved Outfits.
Go to Trevor's. The Lookout (north) is the safest part, Wait for the enemies and take em down. Try not to use explosives, but it's fairly safe to use them here. You may have to leave your cover and take the enemies that are hiding on the left or right of the warehouse.

Get the Vans and the Technical. There's an easy way into the highroad by going below the bridge to the left.

This is pretty much a race. Just keep rushing and the technical should focus on the Helicopters. There's only 2-4. DO NOT USE EXPLOSIVES AT THIS POINT.

Technical is faster than the Vans so it can constantly go on the rear at the front, taking down the enemies that are harassing the team. Try to shoot the driver and not destroying the entire car because it is easy to get into a chained explosion.

 

WARNING: On your way to the Lighthouse, there'll be bikers spawning to kill you. DO NOT run them over, and DO NOT run over their bikes. Doing so might trigger an explosion just as you pass above the bike, potentially chaining the explosion into your van, killing you.

After all that, be very careful on the last bridge when you're reaching the Lighthouse. It's very easy to fall off, and very hard to get back up on the road.

Poor Trevor. Hey, at least he kept one of the Impotent Rage statues! Mission ends.

 

Mastermind Progress: 20/26

 

 

 

CM-08 The Pacific Standard Job

 

Estimated Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

 

CM-08-A Vans:
It's not necessary to put Player Saved Outfits.
A single person can do this job. Be wary: Only the Navigators can take photographs of the Vans' license plates.

Use the tracficky app, chase the Vans and take a photo of their license plates. DO NOT SHOOT THE DRIVERS AND DO NOT BUMP THE VANS. Do not even touch the Vans, or the mission ends.

After you paparazzi'd them all, wait a few seconds before Lester tells you which Van you need to steal, then do it. Try not to shoot the driver or you might trigger a Wanted Star. You can just block its road and jack it. Take it to Lester's.

Mastermind Progress: 21/26

CM-08-B Signal:
Player Saved Outfits.
Get to the Seasharks, and to the island. Start by taking down the cop chopper with a homing missile, or a minigun. Take down the cops.

Whosoever is closer to Avi's shack will be the one that gets in the boat with him. NOBODY should step into the boat with Avi and the designated player, because the Infinite Cop Glitch might trigger.

They should get into the Seasharks instead.

DO NOT go drive around San Andreas on the boat in hopes of reaching the waypoint. Go through the rapids in between the mountains, to the east. Navigate through them and get to the Sandy Shores Lake, and to Grapeseed.

BE AWARE: Stay away from the enemy police boats. They are very suceptible to bulletfire and will explode with VERY minimal damage. And it's easy to be into a chained explosion if you're close to them.

One player should sprint ahead and find a vehicle for the Designated player and Avi. But, this player should not get in the vehicle with them, because it might trigger the Infinite Cop Glitch.

Lose the cops before leaving the boat and driving to Paige. Be careful because the Cop helicopter spawn is weird here, so be wary of what happens in the minimap. DO NOT DRIVE THE BOAT INTO THE LAND, OR AVI WILL GET STUCK INSIDE. When you lost the cops, get closer to the land, and leave the boat while you're still on the water. Avi will follow you by swimming.

Get in the designated vehicle and get to Paige.

Mastermind Progress: 22/26

CM-08-C Hack:
Player Saved Outfits.
Bring one Kuruma/Insurgent.
Everyone get to the Van near Lester's, but one person should still drive the Insurgent, if the team knows where to take the Van to. it's near the Pacific Bank, in Vinewood.

Afer they take the Van and Insurgent there, the Insurgent driver gets in the Van, to trigger the mission point. Leave the Van there, then everyone gets in Insurgent.

The enemies here are DEADLY and should only be taken from inside an Insurgent/Kuruma. Wipe them out. There's always an enemy on the top of the stairs to the right, when you enter the alleyway, so take him.

When they're wiped, transporter gets in white van, brings it and triggers the cutscene. Decoys get in the black van, while transporter waits in the white van.

Make sure the two vehicles that spawn outside are following the black van or the mission might end. Afterwards it's a matter of surviving and using snacks until you get to La Puerta, to torch the black van. STAY AWAY FROM THE BLACK VAN so you don't get caught in the explosion.

Transporter brings white van to Lester's.

Mastermind Progress: 23/26

CM-08-D Convoy:
Player Saved Outfits.
Bring an Insurgent. The Kuruma is not strong enough to withstand the enemy Insurgent's turret.
Get to the ambush point. Get off and shoot down the enemy Helicopter in the distance, with a Heavy Sniper Rifle. Don't let it get close. It takes about 10-15 bullets to destroy it.

Then get in the Insurgent. Shoot down all of the enemy vehicles' drivers, then QUICKLY KILL THE TURRET SOLDIER. Take down all enemies from inside the Insurgent. If you need to get out, do NOT get closer to them because they've got machineguns and will rip you to shreds. DO NOT USE EXPLOSIVES.

Get in and get out of the Truck, to trigger the choppers. Be very careful because there's also going to spawn one enemy vehicle behind all of you. Take it down, then again, wait for the helicopters to get close enough so tha you can take em down with the Heavy Sniper.

Get in convoy. Steal the downed enemy Insurgent with Turret, and get in front. Truck in the middle, and one player gets into the friendly Insurgent, to cover the rear. Proceed while taking down the enemies. Don't let them get close to the truck because it might get into a chained explosion. Take the truck to Paige's.

 

Mastermind Progress: 24/26

CM-08-E Bikes:
Player Saved Outfits.
Kuruma/Insurgent for the beginning.
Oh boy here we go. Go to The Lost's HQ and take down the enemies from inside the vehicle. There's always enemies hiding to the left, right and back of the area, so you might have to get out and kill them on the ground.

Take the bikes. It's not a bad idea to split up and one team goes through the GPS waypoint, while the other team goes to the left, but do not get separated. It's easy to fall off the bikes and get shot down.

Make SURE you have your Snacks menu open in case you fall off. Do not get in the bike until you've cleared the nearby enemies, because you'll have to close the window in order to get back in the bike.

Always try to go on the sidewalks. Take the bikes to the escape point.

Another safe method would be staying together, and when the enemies get too close, get into an alleyway and take them all down, then proceed.

 

ANOTHER SAFE ROUTE WOULD BE: Go to the river on the east of the city, go to the tunnel entrance to the north and follow it all the way to the other exit, below the Union Depository. After you get back up on the street, there should only be one spawn of The Lost enemies, and after that there should be no more spawns, making it the perfect alternate, safest way to get through this mission.

 

Mastermind Progress: 25/26

CM-08-F The Pacific Standard Job finale:
Player Saved Outfits.
Get to the bank. Press L3 to go into Stealth Mode, and knock out the guards with your fists. Do NOT kill them. DO NOT KILL ANY HOSTAGES.

Demolitions goes immediately to the 2 steel doors in the back and opens them. There'll be a prompt where he'll need to press right on the D-Pad

Crowd control: One person should keep firing an un-suppressed gun at the windows to keep the Intimidation bar up. but DO NOT fire too much. Keep the Intimidation bar in the middle, and don't let it go too high. If you do, you might be too aggressive with them and they might trigger the alarm anyway, bringing in the NOOSE.

The other crowd control member should stay ready at the bottom of the stairs, because there's gonna be extra guards coming from upstairs. 4-6 guards come down.

 

 

Equip RPG: If someone in the crowd team equips an RPG, the Intimidation bar will always remain full (and you don't even have to aim the RPG, just having it equipped is what does this)
Thanks to "Darth_Perdovicus", ps3 player for the tip :-)

After the 2nd Steel Door is open, be careful. There's two guards down there.
Take them, then Hack starts hacking. It's one of the oldest hacks, so it's pretty easy.

Demolitions opens the 3rd door and they both start collecting.

 

 

Save the money: As a matter of fact, the Hacker and Demolitions do NOT have to both collect the money in the vault. If the team so desires to save the heist money, only one of them can collect it all. One of them can collect the money on the right, then finish collecting the money on the left.

This will be handy if you and your team care for the money. The person that collected all the money will have to stay back and careful not to get hit, so as to not lose any money, while the other 3 focus on wiping out the enemies.


After that, starts the real struggle. If the team cares for the money, then Demolitions and Hacker have to stay back and try not to get hit, or they'll drop some of the money.

It's a good idea to have one crowd control use a minigun to take down cars, while the other one takes down the cops one by one with an assault rifle.

Proceed and get into the alley way. Crowd control should switch to assault rifles. One should take the front, while one covers the rear, because there'll be cops spawning from behind.

The money carriers can help with miniguns and staying in cover to not lose the money. Move forward and go to the right. Careful. There's always a NOOSE soldier on the balcony up front, so take him and nearby cops.

Choppers start spawning. The money carriers can easily take them down.

Proceed. The rear crowd control should keep covering the rear. There's still cops spawning from behind.

When you cross the street, there'll always be an enemy cop spawning on the street to the right, and right before you get to the bikes, there'll be a cop car up front.

Here comes the "fun" part.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS STAYING TOGETHER AND ALWAYS USE YOUR BIKES, DO NOT GRAB A CAR. If you absolutely suck at bikes and need to grab a car, grab an armored NOOSE truck.

HAVE YOUR SNACKS READY ALL THE TIME.

ALWAYS STAY TOGETHER. If one person falls off his/her bike, HEAD BACK AND HELP HIM/HER. If you fall off, DO NOT IMMEDIATELY GET BACK ON IT. Kill the nearby cops and then get back on the bike.

Be aware: You will NOT be making the parachute jump. It's glitchy. Sometimes the parachute doesn't spawn on you, or it fails to open, even if you spam X to deploy it. You'll be going straight to the Dinghy,

And be mindful of your minimap. If you see one cop blip right behind you, DIVE OUT OF THE WAY.

Follow the GPS route until you are right next to the highway. It is at this point that you must ALWAYS stay off roads to avoid getting run over by the cops, and to avoid them spawning altogether. ALWAYS stay on the grass.

After you get to Madrazo's Mansion, you can take down the chopper. If you don't, a lot of cops will spawn at the end when you get to the Dinghy.

Take it down, then keep going offroads. Keep going offroads until you read the Sandy Shores train tracks, then go on the train tracks all the way to the left. When you reach the tunnel, first of all, make sure no chopper is following you and your team.

Drop to the dirtroad on the left and simply go all the way to the Dinghy. Mission over. Congrats!

If for some reason cops are spawning, you can drop to the dirtroad right next to the river, it's easier to avoid the cops on that route.

 

Mastermind Progress: 26/26

 

 

CM-09 After-Run Glitch and Fix, Video Guides

If your Mastermind/Loyalty/All in Order awards got glitched in the middle of the run and did not count up properly, or got reset, but you decided to go through with it for the sake of the rest of your team, you can still have acquire it without going through the whole thing again.

You'll have to restart the Fleeca Job with whosoever you did it with.

Then, you and your team will have to start over from the Prison Break and go all the way through the setups again until the finale. If it still doesn't pop, do the Humane Labs, and so on.

Be aware: You only get the reward at the result screen of any heist finale. You will not get it at the end of a setup.

Also, it is random if the Loyalty, All in Order, and Mastermind awards get glitched. They can get glitched separately and you might get Mastermind normally, at the end of Pacific, whilst the Loyalty and/or All in Order will probably be at 23/26.


Videos with alternative guides

The Helicopter method seems to have been patched, which sucks. Now the safest way on the bikes would be the one as shown on this video.

(Thanks to youtube user ItsFade for letting me share his guided video on this guide, and for making the video himself)

 

 

 

As you probably know, the Parachute Jump is incredibly glitchy for some people.

The parachute might not spawn at all even if you hold on a few seconds when you're already on the air, before jumping off. It's too unreliable.

So it's best to directly go to the Dinghy as shown on this video. Be wary that if the minimap keeps on flashing before you get to the Train Tunnel, you'll have cops spawning up ahead on the dirt track. So it's best to destroy the annoying Police Helicopter before you get there.

 

I usually destroy it when I reach Madrazo's mansion, and after that it's a matter of staying off roads so that police cars will not spawn on you and see you.

 

Now, I'll say again, my in-game crew is made solely for the Criminal Mastermind run, it's public and there's always people in it requesting for teams for the challenge. They are from different forums too, so it is adviced that you join, or at least check it out and post requests of your own.

http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/crew/heists_masterminds


Disclaimer: I wrote this guide about only of 70% of my own experience. The rest I wrote from tips from other players that I played with, or from other people of this thread.

Edited March 28, 2017 by NeoLedah

[Shootinalloveryourface]

http://gtaforums.com/forum/296-guides-strategies/

[NeoLedah]

I see. Thank you. I keep posting on the wrong sections lol, my bad.

Would be nice if a mod moves this over there, and makes it a sticky. I put a lot of work and experience into this guide and I want people to use it as best they can.

[paperbagdude]

This will be useful when I've finally gathered my crew.

 

Great job!

[Gotthejuice187]

This will be useful when I've finally gathered my crew.

 

Great job!

Ill join u?

[grovestreet2010]

Excellent guide!

 

 

I hope that one day me and my friends are able to complete this challenge.

[Gallioni]

Excellent guide, this should be pinned ASAP.

[StangOne50]

Nice write up bro.

[Giantsgiants]

Great guide, though I'm kinda confused by this quote from the prison break section:

 

 

 

BEFORE THE GROUND TEAM GETS IN THE PLANE: They should both get out of the truck and run around until the minimap stops flashing, then get in the plane. This prevents Infinite Cop Glitch. If for some reason when the team starts losing the cops, but gets spotted by a chopper later on, there's a high chance that the Infinite Cop Glitch will trigger anyway. If so, just fly around for an indefinite amount of time until you finally lose them.

 

What do you mean by "run around"? Do you mean get out of the truck and run around the airstrip in circles on foot before getting in the plane?

[Shootinalloveryourface]

I see. Thank you. I keep posting on the wrong sections lol, my bad.

 

Would be nice if a mod moves this over there, and makes it a sticky. I put a lot of work and experience into this guide and I want people to use it as best they can.

You can ask them ive seen it happen a few times

[NeoLedah]

Great guide, though I'm kinda confused by this quote from the prison break section:

 

 

 

BEFORE THE GROUND TEAM GETS IN THE PLANE: They should both get out of the truck and run around until the minimap stops flashing, then get in the plane. This prevents Infinite Cop Glitch. If for some reason when the team starts losing the cops, but gets spotted by a chopper later on, there's a high chance that the Infinite Cop Glitch will trigger anyway. If so, just fly around for an indefinite amount of time until you finally lose them.

 

What do you mean by "run around"? Do you mean get out of the truck and run around the airstrip in circles on foot before getting in the plane?

Not necessary to run all over the airstrip. Just running for about 10 seconds should be enough to make the minimap to stop flashing. Just make sure that there are no cops in the vicinity. The Demolitions can help on this with his/her buzzard, by destroying any police choppers/cars nearby.

Edited March 25, 2015 by NeoLedah

[Eggobites90]

Awesome insight

[he1nz]

Excellent work NeoLedah ☺

[DaTwista]

Thank you and I've bookmarked!

[livejoker]

Holy sh*t - will read tomorrow.

This needs more attention. Great job, OP, serious.

[XJpostman]

I plan on trying all of the heist missions before going for the 'criminal mastermind' so I get a feel for them but this guide will definitely help a ton. Thanks OP!

[sSphInXx]

Great job bro, i will be jpining you!

[NeoLedah]

Added some neat little counts of the Mastermind progress, to keep track of your awards.

Also I added a lot more information, the ones I consider most important would be at the Pacific finale. A single person can pick all the money, it doesn't have to be both the Hacker and Demolition picking the money.

And added some more info below the Helicopter video for the Pacific Finale.

Edited March 27, 2015 by NeoLedah

[dexutd]

We Finally did it and filmed the last heist

 

[Ghost XB]

(Slow Clap) This guide is actually pretty good. Should be pinned.

[NEEGOLAZ]

awesome guide! if any xbox one players want to attempt this over the next week or so, message me

[ugotsmoked]

Chopper no longer spawns.

[NeoLedah]

Been experimenting. I absolutely see it the first time me and my teams get there, but always, ALWAYS someone kills himself on the first few ledges. After that, every single time we go back, it's never there. Seems that it only spawns the first time. I'll experiment it a little more over the next days

[Freddy1Krueger]

Sorry you are wrong about the Insurgent being better than the Kuruma in Heist set up missions. How many Enemies in the set ups use Explosives. Drive the Insurgent into a heavy enemy area and you will get shot to bits in it

[NeoLedah]

It's not about them using explosives. It's about the team itself using explosives, and getting too close to explosions. Mistakes can happen. If you're gonna make it through this challenge, you've got to be absolutely sure you're using the safest possible methods.

The Kuruma may have nigh invulnerability to bulletfire, no bullets can penetrate it, but it's still susceptible to explosions like a normal car. The Insurgent doesn't have that problem, as it can withstand up to 4-5 explosions, maybe even more, just like a Tank.

 

Even if bullets can penetrate the Insurgent, it's very rare. And if you're wearing the Heavy Utility Vest + Bulletproof Helmet combo, the damage you take is not really that high, and it won't be such a quick damage as if you were on foot either. It's like a 70/30 chance of bullets penetrating the Insurgent, from my experience anyway.

 

Also, I think the enemies can have a higher chance of shooting through the front windows if you face directly at them. I always face the car sideways when we're about to take down a heavy enemy area. The sideways of the car are better protected.

Edited March 29, 2015 by NeoLedah

[Freddy1Krueger]

Use them both in the Valkyrie mission and you will see the massive difference. You can sit in the Kuruma or Insurgent in the base and you will get shot more in the Insurgent

[DjiemOwNU]

Haha ! I'm pretty proud to be part of an official depth-in guide !

You did an awesome job writting all this !

[Ghost XB]

Sorry you are wrong about the Insurgent being better than the Kuruma in Heist set up missions. How many Enemies in the set ups use Explosives. Drive the Insurgent into a heavy enemy area and you will get shot to bits in it

Yeah I agree. Enemies rarely have explosives but they can all shoot at you through windows. Insurgent's just better at ramming through cops because of its mass but in the long run the Kuruma's better. Kuruma also has better performance so it can outrun cops & is faster at getting to mission objectives.

[Thesyndicatehasarrived]

Great guide needs to be pinned

[NeoLedah]

Use them both in the Valkyrie mission and you will see the massive difference. You can sit in the Kuruma or Insurgent in the base and you will get shot more in the Insurgent

 

I don't think you've read my argument about the explosions. I said the Insurgent is better to prevent friendly fire from the team's own explosions, just in case someone has the bright idea of using grenades or sticky bombs near the team. Also, in some missions, there's those big green/red gas tanks, and there's always a chance that the driver MIGHT drive into them, or close to them.. Also, sometimes, you'll drive right next to an enemy car that's about to explode, catching you in the explosion if you're using a Kuruma.

 

Even with all these warnings I've put up about not using explosions, there's always a few instances when somebody's gonna try using explosives. I know because even I ignore my own warnings sometimes! Even I use explosives from time to time.

 

As for the bullets, I'll say again. Yes, you will get shot sometimes when on the Insurgent, but only SOMETIMES. It both will not be such a big damage, if you're wearing the Heavy Utility Vest + Bulletproof Combo, and also you'll have more than enough time to heal up, if you've got the Snacks inventory open.

Edited March 29, 2015 by NeoLedah