GTA 5 – Yacht Guide

There are good and bad purchases to make in GTA Online and the yacht is often mentioned as something that’s overly expensive and practically useless, maybe even a waste of money. It is expensive, sure, but how bad can it be? Well… let’s find out 🙂

Other GTA Guides:

• 100% Completion Guide!
• Beginner’s Guide (GTA Online).
• Advanced Nightclub Guide.
• Advanced Guide for MC Business.
• Advanced Smuggler’s Run Guide.
• How to Make Easy Money Everyday (Solo Guide).
• Mobile Operations Center (MOC) Guide.
• Guide to Combat Aircraft.
• Import / Export Guide.
• How to Use Mods?
• Terrorbyte Guide.

Intro

All credit goes to ShelLuser!

During the last mega-event in which pretty much all businesses paid out double cash I managed to make quite a bit of money. And when I learned that the yacht was sold with a 40% discount I figured that I could always grab one now and maybe customize it later. One thing led to another and soon enough I had my own fully customized yacht.

Which is something I’d definitely recommend if you’re planning to get one for yourself: wait for a good discount to kick in because that can save you some serious money.

Of course the real question is if this thing is worth it, also considering its regular price: this can easily set you back 10 million GTA$ (and more) and you’ll get a property that’s basically an apartment in the water; it doesn’t really ‘do’ much. In comparison: for that same amount of cash you can get yourself a fully equipped Facility with a fully customized Avenger and you’ll probably have some spare change to grab a military vehicle such as the Insurgent as well!

Still… depending on the type of player you are a yacht could can be worth it. It’s great for a bit of relaxation and / or roleplay in my opinion, and depending on your yachts location the scenery view is often pretty good!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and first take a closer look at the yacht..

Buying a Yacht

You can buy a yacht from the dock-tease in-game website as shown above and you get to chose between three different versions (or rather three different sizes):

• The Orion: this is the smallest yacht which will cost you 6 million GTA$. Although all yachts look roughly alike this one doesn’t have a hot tub and also doesn’t ship with a helicopter (it does have an helipad though).
• The Pisces: this is the medium sized yacht and costs 7 million GTA$. It’s pretty much comparable to the largest version but it provides less vehicles which you can use.
• The Aquarius: this is the largest yacht and it’ll cost you 8 million GTA$. It’s shipped with a helicopter, a speedboat, a dinghy and four sea sharks (jet ski’s). This yacht also provides a second helipad where you can land with your own helicopter.

Options

You can customize your yacht in a few different ways. First you can chose between golden or chrome railings, you can pick a lighting color (green, blue, pink and yellow are available) as well a lighting type; you can either keep the light ‘inside’ the yacht or you can apply light strips on the exterior.

The yachts customization options: model, rail fittings, lightning, yacht color and the name…

Next you can pick a color scheme for the yacht: this will determine the colour of your yacht and all the supplied vehicles. Finally you can pick a specific country which will add that countries flag to your yacht.

Once you buy a yacht it gets placed in a random location (mine was south of the Los Santos International Airport) but you can relocate to somewhere else. However, this will cost you 25k every time you move it. Keep in mind that a yacht doesn’t really move: you simply get a short cut scene after which you’ll be teleported to the new location you picked.

Warning though: if you landed with a personal vehicle on your yacht and you’re going to relocate the yacht elsewhere then your vehicle will either end up on the shore of your yacht’s last location or sometimes it can also drop into the water and get destroyed! So it won’t get teleported together with the yacht, which is somewhat disappointing I think.

A Tour of My Yacht (Exterior)

My yacht is the Aquarius variant which is the largest out of all three yachts and just like many other players I positioned it at Vespucci beach, this makes it much easier to get there. But yes, how do you get to your yacht anyway?

Well, as you can see above you get a new contact called “Captain” who is one of the two NPC’s on your yacht (the other NPC is the bartender). When you call him you can ask him to place either a boat or a helicopter near the shore so that you can quickly get to your yacht. Of course this will cost you some cash.

I wouldn’t bother with this if I were you though.. See: you need to pay 1k for the captain to place your yacht’s helicopter at the shore. But if you call Merryweather then you can get a helicopter pickup for the same price: a helicopter will land, you get it and then the pilot will take you to your destination. Much more relaxing than having to fly the helicopter yourself 🙂

Once you’re on your yacht you can also call the captain to tell him to place one of your personal vehicles on the shore, this is somewhat comparable to the vehicle service of your assistant in the CEO office.

My favorite method of getting to my yacht involves either the Blazer Aqua as shown above, or by getting over there using my Stromberg. The Stromberg is a car which can transform itself into a submarine whereas the Blazer can retract its wheels so that you can use it as if it were a jetski:

Docking

The yacht’s entrance is at the back, this is also where you’ll find several other vehicles that were shipped with your yacht, usually a boat, a dinghy and several Seashark jetski’s. The problem though is that those vehicles are ‘docked’ which keeps them perfectly into place next to your yacht. If you approach your yacht with one of these vehicles you’ll get a prompt which allows you to dock the vehicle. Unfortunately you can’t dock a boat of your own, so if you leave one here then it will eventually drift off or….

If it gets into contact with the other boats too much then it can even explode and ignite other vehicles to explode as well, which is what just happened here. So you might want to be careful with placing your own boat(s) too close to the yacht.

The lower deck

Once you entered the yacht you climb up the stairs and that brings you to the lower deck as shown here. You have the entrance to the inside of the yacht (indicated by the blue corona) and next to the stairs is the hot tub:

The hot tub in the background, and you can also see the staircase leading down to the entrance level…

The mid deck

Go up one level and you’ll reach the mid-deck. You can’t enter anything from here but the sides of the mid deck provide access to the front of the ship:

There you’ll also find the second helipad which can be used to land your own helicopters:

The front side of the yacht with the second helipad and chairs at the bow of the ship.

Top deck

If you climb up the stairs one more time then you’ll get to the top deck. Here you can access the bridge of the ship (see the blue corona) where you can find the captain. You need to look him up whenever you want to relocate the ship.

You can’t really go anywhere from here, both side corridors are a dead end, but here you’ll also find the first helipad which features a rather luxurious helicopter:

Entering the Yacht’s Cabin (Main Interior)

Entering the yacht’s cabin…

When you enter the blue corona on the lower deck then you’ll enter the inside of your yacht; the cabin. This will trigger a small cutscene (as shown above) which is basically the same animation as you’d get to see whenever you enter an apartment.

Note that you won’t be able to access the cabin if you have a wanted level and the police are aware of your location.

On the left side of the cabin you’ll find a corridor which leads to three bedrooms.The first two are guest bedrooms and the last is your own personal bedroom. In these rooms you’ll find several free weapons (or ammo) for you to pick up: a sniper rifle, a homing launcher, a combat MG and even some proximity mines which can be fun to have.

The bedrooms provide all the features you’d normally get such as a bed (duh!), a clothing cabinet where you can change your outfit and it also has a bathroom where you can take a shower. I like the attention to details though I think it’s a shame that it doesn’t allow you to use the bathtub which is also part of your bathroom:

The shower on the right can be used, but this bathtub is fully static 🙁

If you go up the stairs as shown in the previous screenshot above you’ll eventually get into what I’d like to call the “recreation room”; it’s basically comparable to the living room of a regular apartment:

You can watch TV, use the bong or just sit down somewhere doing nothing 😉 This room also provides access to the lounge which features the bar and your own personal bartender:

I have tried to get drunk a few times but nothing really happens other than the screen going wobbly and your character walking a bit odd:

To jump in or not to jump in, that’s the hiccup 😉

Accessing the Bridge (Second Interior)

The bridge is basically one single room where you’ll find a monitor which skips through the silhouettes of every available location for a yacht in San Andreas, and here is also where you’ll find the captain (as shown above).

If you talk to the captain you’ll be taken to a screen where you can chose another location to move your yacht to. Every time you move your yacht it’s going to cost you 25k, as shown here:

There are 12 locations where you can place your yacht, the map shows a preview of the new location.

Sharing spaces?

So what happens if you get into a lobby where another player has placed their yacht in the same location as yours?

Well, this is actually nicely done I think: every location can contain up to three yachts. When several yachts share the same location you get to see one or two neighboring yacht close by. So this means that the map has room for 12 x 3 = 36 yachts, meaning that even if every player in a lobby owns a yacht then they can all still be placed around the map. Not too shabby.

Fun fact: If you enter a lobby where your regular location is already filled up with 3 other yachts then yours will be moved to an available location that is closed by. The fun part here is that you can often still move your yacht back to its normal location and for free!

So What Can We ‘Do’ on a Yacht?

First you can lean over railings. If there’s a (high) railing available then you can walk up to it, hit the control (or button) shown in the prompt and you’ll lean over to enjoy the scenery. It’s obviously pure cosmetic but I still think it can be somewhat fun.

You can even recreate your own Titanic scenery this way by using the bow of the ship 😉

Hot tub & yacht options

Next is the hot tub. There are several locations available where you can either sit down or lean over and if you do so your character will show some random animations. If you’re close to the ash tray then they will smoke a cigarette. If you’re sitting where I am then your character will look around, pull some water towards them and even splash some water in their face a bit. All small details for sure, but still entertaining I think.

The context menu gives you access to several settings for your yacht as shown above. You can sound the horn, activate the yachts air defenses and also customize who gets access to your yacht and in which way. Finally you can set if players should automatically get to wear swimwear when they enter the hot tub or if they continue to wear their current outfit.

Maybe good to know: if you activate the air defenses then you will no longer be able to use your own weapons. It’s just too bad that these defenses aren’t available if you’re on a mission, and guess what? If you’re being chased by the cops then that accounts for a “mission”. So unfortunately you can’t set up your yacht so that it will blow police helicopters out of the sky, which I think is a little disappointing.

The yacht also gives you access to a real (VIP) mission: Piracy prevention. You basically need to protect the upper deck of the yacht from all other players. The defenses get shut down so you’ll have to rely on your own weapons. It might be a good idea to bring a crew along for this 😉

Hitting the bong & getting some drinks

The ‘rec room’ which I mentioned earlier features almost everything you’d find in your living room, including a bong for you to enjoy. Once you take a shot at this your screen will start to look really funny:

You can order a drink from the bartender, but also grab some wine yourself…

Enjoying the scenery

I don’t know about you, but I think that this is a really impressive looking scenery!

Despite all my criticism for GTA 5 (and GTA Online) I also strongly believe that when it comes to creating appealing open worlds then no company does it better than Rockstar. It’s not perfect, sure, but just look at that screenshot above!

And you might have guessed it: there’s plenty more where this came from. You can enjoy these sceneries either from the deck of the yacht but also looking out the windows can be very entertaining:

I really think this isn’t bad at all…

Concluding…

Although the yacht doesn’t really ‘do’ anything I still think it’s a very nice property to have. Depending on where you locate this thing the scenery you get to see will most likely look a lot better than what you get from your apartment windows.

Of course there is a hefty price to pay for all this so I definitely don’t recommend to grab a yacht early on in the game. Seriously… the yacht was literally the last available property I bought, and only because it was on discount and I had earned quite a lot in the double money event week.

But I will go so far as to say that I’d rather have a yacht instead of one of those mansions in the Vinewood hills (you know: the ones where you can’t access the garage from the mansion itself?).

Best of all… if you’re bored with the scenery then all it takes is 25k to move your yacht to a different location. Though I personally would recommend to leave it near Vespucci beach which makes it much more accessible.

So there you have it…

A tour of what a yacht looks like and what you can do here. Although I definitely agree that the yacht is extremely expensive I also think that the price can be easily justified, but it depends on the type of players you are. If you don’t enjoy looking at sceneries or goofing around a bit then the yacht is probably not the best thing to grab.

But if you can appreciate the thought of having an apartment on the water located somewhere around San Andreas then who knows… it could be fun 🙂