GTA 5 – Steam Deck + PC Guide to GTA Online

We will try to cover everything there is to cover regarding GTA Online.

Just one pre-requisite: you have to finish Story mode with Franklin and save at his house for this guide to work as we need story mode to create invite only sessions. You may also need the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack”. Every new buyer of GTA V should get that. If you don’t have it then you could still grind whatever you know works for you and then skip to buying the nightclub section in my guide.

You have to force Proton Experimental on your Steam Deck. I couldn’t get past the character creation screen on Proton Stable. Anyway I had read on the news that Valve had fixed the GTA Online problems in Proton Experimental, not any specific other version.

We will also be using remote play with a PC. If you don’t have this setup and you only got a Steam Deck I guess it’s gonna be harder for you or more challenging, but remember: GTA Online is all about the challenge so you’re still good even with only a Steam Deck and no other computer(since the Steam Deck is a computer).

First off let’s assume you start from the beginning with a new account.

That’s what this guide is gonna be about.

This guide is gonna cover Multiplayer(ofc, Online is Online), Walkthroughs as I’ll be giving instructions on what to do at times, Gameplay Basics cause I’m definitely that sort of person to explain everything you need and what you don’t need(if you’re pro). Weapons at times so you can ie. shoot some from your car too. Vehicle weapons I guess are also gonna be covered.

Introduction, Get to Rank 5 in Whichever Way You Can

Note: Credit goes to TheBeginningOfTheNewAge

Getting to rank 5 can be hard for a newbie to GTA Onine.

You should avoid spending the 1 million you were given by the game so if you buy anything that isn’t free, make sure that it costs very little like $1000 or less.

Just getting to Rank 5 is gonna be a challenge. Hope you get there fast.

This is a work in progress guide. Your comments are gonna help me know what I’m missing. The guide will get heavy updates if necessary where the structure will change a lot.

The whole guide is released as CC0 1.0 Universal so that you can copy it wherever you want and without needing to give me credit. I don’t want you to be required to give me credit for anything. If you really want to show me appreciation buy another copy of this game and give it to someone who hasn’t played it yet.

Some General Know How – Good to Know Stuff

When you get $ after each mission you do, make sure to put it into the bank. So open your phone with “up arrow” on Steam Deck, look at which button I mean, I’ve highlighted it on my deck:

Or by pressing “M” on PC.

Then press downarrow(both Deck and PC), choose “Money & Services”.

Go to the bottom where it says “www.maze-bank.com” and choose it. Press “main menu” and “deposit” then choose the highest amount you see, then select “Yes”.

Ok? Your cash is now banked. You can get out of your phone now.

Interested in knowing how much $ you got on you and in the bank while out on the streets?

Press Z on PC or hold down the “select button”#1 on the Steam Deck. On Steam Deck its downarrow which also works in a nightclub to quickly check nightclub popularity.

When owning a nightclub to check the popularity while out on the streets you can call Tony and you’ll get the % amount when Tony picks up. You can also increase popularity by choosing “Request Club Management” which will start a mission. You can also request a vehicle to be delivered near you.

#1 This is an image showing the “select button” on the Steam Deck which you need to hold down for it to open up the interaction menu.

[We Are at Least Rank 5] It’s Time to Try the Simeon Job “Rockford Roll” to Gain Some RP for Advancing Ranks

We are gonna try to focus on missions where you don’t have to waste ammo. Otherwise its gonna drain our precious money.

Right now I’m testing a Simeon job called. “Rockford Roll” on easy cause I don’t know the mission and how cost effective it is to make money here.

In this mission you can steal the car and then go inside a tunnel under a bridge. I provide both a zoomed in image and a zoomed out one so you can find the spot. Stay there until there are no more wanted levels / “stars”.

If nobody joins you, start the mission alone and ignore the “alert” warning while attempting to play solo. Solo works just fine, I complete all my mission attempts solo.

General tip: You can use this tunnel for escaping the cops whenever you need to.

Still having a hard time finding the tunnel. I took a shot nearby and made it easier to see:

To start the job again(so we can get some serious RP) press “menu” button on Steam Deck and “P” on PC as “pause menu”, go to “ONLINE” tab and then choose Jobs. Here:

Then select “Play Job” and then “Rockstar Created” and then “Missions” and then “Rockford Roll”. This time around choose hard for the highest amount of a payout.

Once you’re done with the mission choose “Freemode”. Some missions let you press on the replay button but this one doesn’t. When you are back in freemode just start up the mission once again on Hard difficulty so you’ll get your $10 K each time you complete it.

Do that until you have $ 1 Million + $ 80 K. Then we are going to the next IMPORTANT step in this guide.

When you check your cash it should say that you have at least: $1 080 000

Time to Buy a Nightclub – At Least $1 080 000 Required

So you need 1 M and 80 K to buy your first serious money making property, the nightclub.

Try to be at least rank 9 when starting this section. If you are not yet rank 9 make sure to follow the previous sections to rank up…even if you gotta repeat one mission a lot of times.

Ok, so you’re at least rank 9 and now its time to purchase a nightclub on the ‘bottom of the map’:

• Open your phone and choose Internet.
• Then on the main page choose “Foreclosure MAZE BANK”.
• Choose “ENTER SITE” button.
• Press on “NIGHTCLUBS” so you don’t get so confused by so much stuff on the screen.

On the bottom of the map you can press on a nightclub icon, it should say “Elysian Island Nightclub”. Buy it and you’ll get Tony as a contact if you don’t have him already(though I don’t know if its possible to have him already as a contact)

Right after purchase you can set a waypoint to the place, do that. If you missed it just exit your phone and then go to your map and search for “Nightclub”.

Some cutscenes and then you need to become a VIP/CEO to access the computer. If you got the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” you should be able to get to “View All Properties” and select “Maze Bank West Executive Office”

• Then press on “dynasty8executivereality.com” and it will take you directly to your phone browser…
• Then press on “ENTER SITE”.
• Then press on “Maze Bank West”. If you pressed wrong just search until you find it.
• Then press on “FREE” and then press on “BUY” and then again press on the final “BUY” button and you should get it. If Rockstar’s servers got problems just try again another time until it works.

Right after purchasing you may become CEO immediately. Then you can sit down at the computer. If you don’t become CEO immediately or you don’t know how to check if you are one, please post a comment about it.

Now as CEO you can sit right next to your computer. If you don’t own the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” you can tell me about it in the comments section. Everyone should have it, if not, then I wanna know about it.

You’re gonna need to return to this computer as CEO/VIP to complete both these first setup missions.

We can start with “Set Up: Staff”.

You can open the interaction menu and go for “Quick GPS” and select “Nightclub Staff” and it should select one of the few staff locations so you don’t have to manually scroll on the map.

After picking up your first staff member, select the quick gps and nightclub staff thing and it will pick a new staff member.

In this “Set Up: Staff” setup the only skill you’re gonna need is average driving. You can crash into stuff and it will still be fine. Just don’t crash so much though that your car starts burning. If that happens just try again.

Now that we’re done with “Set Up: Staff” it’s time for:

“Set Up: Equipment”. I also didn’t get shot in this setup. If you followed the tutorial you should have a personal vehicle by now.

You can call it by opening the interaction menu(M on PC) and selecting “Vehicles” and “Request Personal Vehicle” or you can ignore this step and just run to a vehicle and steal it and then go to your destination.

The “Quick GPS” won’t work in this setup. There’s already gonna be a yellow line to point you to your destination instead.

Personally I called the Frogger helicopter which I got for free thanks to the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” and jumped out of it hoping I would get a parachute. I didn’t and I died and that’s ok since you got infinite lives on this mission.

When you steal the truck its gonna be too tall for some places so the top part will fall off and that’s ok. We’re getting it for the speaker hardware it contains. If you lose the speakers on the top of the van, that’s ok too, you’ll still pass the mission cause most speakers are on the sides anyway.

It’s gonna be a slow long trip back to your nightclub. That’s why Rockstar is making so much money on shark cards. Few people want to do stuff like driving a vehicle across the map…stuff that can make some people very impatient and lose interest in the game. Luckily for us we are here to farm hard 😀

As you complete this mission you’ll immediately get a new one after the cutscene.

This mission can be stressful after reaching the airport since you gotta follow a plane. Though I didn’t fail at any time on the mission and I don’t expect you to fail neither. If you failed let me know.

When we’re done with the mission the nightclub will be live and the popularity will be full. Each in-game day we’ll get $50 K, but we need to keep the popularity up. There are probably other guides which explain stuff better about the nightclub.

Nightclub’s Other Activites: Bunker – “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” Gives Us a Bunker Far Away

Regarding the previous section it was not clear enough how you’ll make money. By having the popularity to 100% you’ll get $50 k each in-game day. To increase the popularity you can walk around the nightclub and wait for somebody to message you about something that needs to be done.

When you do it you may earn a reward as well(maybe $5K or $10K, can’t remember exactly) plus the popularity goes up again, hopefully so it becomes 100%. If it doesn’t you can still go to the computer and select “Nightclub Managment” and then press on “Promote Club” and it will start a mission that after you complete it the popularity might go up. Do that until you’re at 100%.

Now this section is about other activities…that may help the nightclub in gathering goods in the “underground” parts of the nightclub which Tony can later help you sell for some serious $.

Assuming you got the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack”, you can get one more business for free. Namely a “bunker” and specifically the:

“Paleto Forest Bunker”.

Get it for free, don’t buy anything extra for it, since we want to keep our $ for later projects that may cost a lot of $.

Once you are on the property map select “BUNKERS” and then go to the top of the map and select the free one you see there: “Paleto Forest Bunker”.

You may wonder what this has to do with the nightclub? It’s related, we are later gonna set a technician from the nightclub to gather goods related to that bunker.

Why do we get the free one at the top of the map? To encourage us to buy shark cards and make Rockstar make a little more money from this game instead of grinding hard like we are doing right now.

Though grinding hard and having golden patience is gonna pay off in “the end”(when is “the end” you may ask? Depends on what you wanna do really…) when we’ll own more $ than we can spend.

On your computer there is a “Warehouse Management” tab and of the many things it says “Sporting Goods” is the one related to the bunker.

We’re gonna need to travel all the way to that bunker up north either by car or by helicopter(I’m taking the helicopter by the way), the Frogger I got from the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” that I was given while creating this guide for this Steam game. I’m gonna do that right now. You can exit out the garage if you want, a quicker way to exit.

If your helicopter spawns on the other island with water in between don’t be afraid to take a dive and swim across. There are no sharks in GTA Online as far as I know. Only in store mode. There’s a chance the Frogger will spawn inside the “Merryweather” Private Militia. Another idea is to move further away from Merryweather and call the Frogger from there and then not having it spawned in that hostile area.

Ok, after a lot of trouble I finally got to the bunker by helicopter. Also Merryweather soldiers won’t hurt you if you stay far away from them, keep your distance and they won’t shoot(I guess), then get your helicopter and fly to the bunker.

A cutscene will play and then go directly to your laptop. We need to setup this place first(like we did with Nightclub) in order for the Nightclub to use it to gather goods from.

On the computer it’s pretty obvious what we should do. Press on “Set Up” and then on “Confirm” and its on! Not ever during any part of this setup did I encounter any enemies.

The only enemy was time which was translated to 30 minutes of time I get to get some supplies to the bunker. It took like 12-14 minutes for me. You may do faster or slower but you do got enough time(I think).

Now let’s get back to the Nightclub. We’re gonna try to add the bunker to the warehouse goods gathering under the Nightclub. They are gonna work on getting some Bunker goods to the warehouse(even if the bunker doesn’t have any, yeah don’t ask me about this game’s “logic”, anyway its a game)

Once you are back, take any money from the safe and deposit them. Also if you can/want you can do a mission to increase the popularity of the club if its not already 100%

If a popularity mission fails just continue where you left off.

Now go to the Nightclub computer and select the “Warehouse Management” tab and then select the left-most man and then select “Sporting Goods” and press “Confirm”.(did both on my Steam Deck and I just realized that I love touchscreens more than I thought I would)

This is a passive thing you’ve enabled now that adds to the overall amount of money we’ll make in total. After a while some goods will get gathered here and we’ll be allowed to sell them.

We get one more business for free in the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack”, namely “Counterfeit Cash Factory” or “Cash Creation” as its called in the Nightclub computer.

Continue saving up money. We’ll need some to hire a 2nd technician later($141K to be exact)

Nightclub’s Warehouse: MC + Cash Printing

Thanks to the “Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack” we also get a free club house and from the club house we can get a free business that creates fake cash wish we earn money from.

Open up the phone(uparrow) and choose “Internet”, then go to “FORECLOSURE MAZE BANK” and “ENTER SITE”. Then press on “CLUBHOUSES” so we only see Motorcycle Clubhouses. We’re gonna focus on the middle of the map and a little bit down, to the west of the Senora desert and east from Fort Zancudo, on the clubhouse called:

“Great Chaparral Clubhouse 101 Route 68”.

Press on “FREE”, press on “BUY” and then press on the new “BUY” button, but don’t close the phone window yet. After purchasing it press on “SET WAYPOINT” and then close your phone. We need to visit the Clubhouse in order to buy the cash creation business.

Before leaving if you got any cash in the safe, collect it and bank it and you can choose to do a popularity mission or walk around the club in case there’s an easier mission to increase popularity, or be glad you’ll make $45 K next and go immediately to visit the Clubhouse, your choice.

After you’ve arrived and entered your clubhouse, a cutscene will play. After that go to the computer in the clubhouse, you can’t sit down yet cause we’re still CEO/VIP. So go into the interaction menu(M on PC or hold down “SELECT button” on Steam Deck)

In the interaction menu choose SecuroServ CEO and go to “Retire” and select it.

Now go back to the interaction menu, scroll down and choose “Motorcycle Club” and then “Start a Motorcycle Club”. Then you’ll be the President of an MC club. Now sit at your computer.

Once you’re in go to the “Counterfeit Cash” category and select the one that costs $0(“Grand Senora Desert”), you can’t miss it. Buy it for 0$ and exit the computer.

Get ouside the clubhouse now and open your interaction menu and go to “Quick GPS”.

Select “Counterfeit Cash Factory”, exit the menu, get in a vehicle and travel to the destination.

Once you’re there, get inside and open the computer as usual and select “Set Up”. There’s no timer to hurry us up. Once you get “SETUP COMPLETE” or whatever it said, it’s time to go back to the Nightclub again. Hope you saved up that cash and didn’t spend it anywhere. You could travel to the nightclub or you could do “a trick”(trick, not a glitch! I don’t do glitches unless modders **** me off so hard I can’t do otherwise) go into the interaction menu again, scroll down and set the “Spawn Location” to “Nightclub” and exit the menu. Then go to the “big menu” by pressing the “Start button”/’P on PC’, select “ONLINE” and choose “Leave GTA Online”.

When it loads on a story mode character go to the “big menu” again, choose “ONLINE”, next “Play GTA Online” and finally select “Invite Only Session”. After a while you’re back in your Nightclub.

Got money in the safe? If yes, collect then bank as usual.

Before going to the computer enter the interaction menu and select “SecuroServ”, then “Start an Organization”.

Now sit down at the computer and go to “Warehouse Management”. Time to hire your 2nd “Warehouse Technician” for $141 K. If you’re good at saving money you should have enough.

Select your technician and then “Cash Creation”. We’re done now.

One more Nightclub tip: If you’re doing any Nightclub Limo mission that you get from within the Nightclub while walking around, you’ll get like $39 K for it, don’t drive too fast and don’t crash the car: a tip is to try to drive as slow as the other cars are driving(unless you’re on the highway I guess) but never stop at red lights or just generally don’t stop like the other cars do, continue driving.