Ibex's Survival Guide

From Gangster Nation Wiki

Slowly updating the survival guide to take into account changes in gameplay. Some information may not be accurate anymore but I'll get to it soon.

Let me start off by saying by no means am I the best or most experienced player on Gangster Nation. Two rounds ago I only had one account. I reached the rank of Capo and finished with 29 kills( 8 before Deathmatch began). I have played many other online games and know how difficult it can be starting off not knowing anything or anyone in a game. Everything stated here is my personal opinion and the way I play the game. If you disagree with anything in the following guide please feel free to write your own. I may be incorrect on certain things and its possible there are better or more effective ways to play. I have no idea exactly how the game is coded so take that into account. If you know I am incorrect about any statement please let me know and I will fix the error. That being said, here is my contribution to the players of GN take it for what its worth.

Note : Since writing this another round has passed. I finished last round as top ranked player. I had one account for the entire round until deathmatch started. I owned a majority of the casinos for most of the round and was the first player to reach richer than ever for the round.

Contents 1 Ranking 2 Guns and Ammo 3 Money 4 Kill & Detectives 5 Backfire 6 Targets 7 Not Being a Target 8 Casinos 9 Credits 10 Organized Crime 11 Random Things That I Didn't Feel Like Making A Entire Category For But Still Can Be Helpful 12 How to Win at/Bankrupt A Casino

Ranking

Ranking is the key to GN. The higher ranked you are the more money and respect you can bring in. The only reason I see not to be ranked as high as possible is if you want to be an awesome killer. The five rank rule prevents high ranked players from becoming the best killers. So here are my tips to ranking and my reasoning behind them.

• Always steal from the tramp. Sure it gives you the smallest rank increase but it also has the shortest turn around time. For example stealing from the tramp only gives you 1 rank point. Robbing the bank of England could give you as high as 10 rank points. 10 times the points but 8 times the turn around time. Doesn’t matter which you do right? Wrong. It doesn’t always give you 8 rank points. It varies; sometimes as little as 1 rank point for robbing the bank and you still have to wait 8 minutes. If you are very active player while you are on and keep up with wait times always steal from the tramp in the long run it will pay off more. If you are not as active and miss wait times a lot choose the highest crime you can do at 100%. Stealing from the tramp is best if you are on top of things.

• Always do a crime as soon as its available. This will give you more chances to do crimes while you are on.

• Plan your crimes according to the chance of you going to jail. If you have 3 or 4 crimes available do the ones with the least chance of you going to jail first. Example: If I have just signed on and all my crimes are available this is the order I would do them :

1. Street Crime- Steal from the tramp (assuming I have 100% success)
2. Chase - don't go to jail even for a fail.
3. Extortion - less likely to go to jail than others.
4. Car Theft
5. Robbery or Fraud - both have high chance of jail

This way you do not waste time in jail with crimes available.

• Beers help a lot in the lower ranks. Once you hit thug try to swap beers with other thugs. Do this as often as you can. I wouldn’t waste money on buying beers at first you need money for more important things. In higher ranks the beers don't really help that much in the overall scheme of things. Receiving beers after the rank of Enforcer is more or less a waste of the beer and money you paid for it.

• BUST BUST BUST BUST BUST!!!!!! You cannot bust too much. I know it’s a pain in the ass at first but it helps so much. Each successful bust gives you at least 1 rank point. Busting is a mainstay of ranking at higher levels. The new jail system is harder to bust in but you get rank points for each successful bust now instead every few. Slowly increase the ranks you attempt to bust. Always bust ranks lower than you. Never attempt to bust a person more than twice in a row.

• Drug Dealing will rank you a decent amount each time you do it if done correctly. You receive rank points each time you sell a type of drug. Make sure you buy at least 1 unti of each type before traveling. You might lose a bit of money on the transaction but you gain the rank points from the sale. If you can maximize travel times while you are on. Use business class travel to make drug runs to get the most rank from it while you are signed on.

• Personally, I keep 3 or 4 tabs open while I am ranking hard. First tab has the main page with everything on it I check wait times here. Second tab has jail open go here to bust. Third window has street crimes open on it. And so on... this saves a few clicks of the mouse and makes it easier for me to keep up with wait times and busting. i find it quicker to rank this way than doing everything in one tab.

Guns and Ammo

• Buy the Tommy gun as soon as you can. All the bullets in the world aren’t gonna help you if you have a crappy gun.

• Bullets --- Personally I never had more than 65,000 I think it is a waste to have more than that on you at any one time. Probably no one is going to shoot 25k bullets at you at one time so this gives you more than enough if you have double backfire. The most I shot at someone was 13k so I still had enough if someone attacked me. Stockpiling bullets is good if you are in a family to help out newer members or members restarting but other than that there is no reason to keep 100k + bullets on you at one time. I can understand you stockpiling bullets if you are constantly selling them . I found that to be too much of a pain so I never really sold bullets.

• Buying bullets- Bullet factories are stocked at the top of each hour. Stay on top of the time and be aware so you can get there first. People can buy a factory out in less than a minute. If you can get on around 03:00 - 05:00 GN time there are usually a bullet factory with a couple thousand bullets in stock.

Money

For new players this is probably the most difficult thing to get a hold of in the beginning. Once you have ranked high enough money is fairly easy to come by. You can make over $1,000,000 in just a couple hours of playing. At first you are going to have to work at it though.

• Keep your money in the bank. It can't be extorted from here. If you have to buy expensive stuff do it quick. The less time you have money in your wallet the less chance it will get extorted.

• Don't gamble until you have enough money to lose. The casinos on GN are very much geared to the casino winning. Your chance of winning is low. I wouldn't gamble at all until I have money to burn. You most likely will lose at all of the casinos. So don't blow your wad of cash in hopes of easy money.

• If you have a skill that helps other GN players use it. Good pic makers always seem to be in demand. Apparently you can make a decent bit of money from this. If you can design good profiles do that. A lot of people can't be bothered and would rather pay someone to make their pics and profiles.

• VOTE every single day at least once. You get free money and bullets. Besides voting brings more players into the game. That is how I found this game. More players means more money. More money means more chance of you getting some of it.

• Beers are a great way to make money. Selling beers can bring you a good sum of money each day. I swap beer until I hit Piccioto and then try to sell all of my beers after that.

• Currently as it stands with no Hospital black widows and salad lunches are going to play a bigger role in GN. With no other way to heal yourself, salad lunches will become a high priced item. I'm going to predict they soon will be more expensive than beers. Black widows will increase in price also. But be careful; players will know that you sent them one if they are not killed by their attacker. This could come back to haunt you.

• Bullets have a set supply each day. If you want you can buy as many as possible and sell them for a profit. Factories are restocked at the top of the hour. Watch the clock buy them as soon as they become available. Check the states page for bullet supplies in other states. This is only updated every five minutes so move quick if you want to insure that you get the bullets available. Best tip is get on late at night 03:00 - 05:00 GN time and buy all the cheap bullets you can Sell them later when more people are on.

• Drug runs are a good way of making money. Drug prices vary from state to state. If you can buy a type of drug low and sell it for a higher price in another state you profit. Heroin usually has the best profit margin. The prices do fluctuate so check them before each run.

• Credits can always be sold through the auction house. If you can you should buy them and sell them for in game cash. This is probably the easiest way to build up a good bankroll on GN. Besides it helps the game out too.

• Games of chance (dice game, pick a number, ect...) Doing these can pay off pretty well. Basically you give a number of people a chance to win money. I'll give you a basic example. In a dice game you have six players each pays a certain amount to enter(lets say $100k for this example) and chooses a number 1-6. You roll a die and whoever numbers comes up wins the payout(Let's say $500k for this example). After receiving all f the money and transferring the payout you have netted yourself $40k.Not bad for rolling dice. They should be done when a lot of people are on giving you the best chance of filling up the game. Don't forget about the 10% transfer fee when creating the buy in and pay off. Be creative. The most creative games usually get the best responses.

• There is a huge variety of things you can do to make money. You have to be creative. There are several things I have thought of that no one on GN currently does. If you need a killer idea for making cash I can give you one. It will cost you though.

Kill & Detectives

Note: I have not updated this section since kill and detectives have been changed. I will as soon as I have the time.--Ibex 21:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is probably the riskiest aspect of GN. If you screw it up have fun starting over. Every kill you attempt comes with the risk of dying yourself. There isn't a foolproof way to kill. You do need skill but there is an element of luck involved. Here are some tips to help you out in kill.

• Never start a kill with less than 100% health. That would just be stupid.

• Always use all of the extras and full five hours when searching with Detectives. This will cost $600k but give you the beast chance of finding someone.

• Higher ranked players were harder to find last round. I'm not sure if this is the same this round but I haven't heard anything otherwise. So assume the higher rank your target is the more likely you won't be able to find them. Last round I searched for the same player with 10 sets of detectives and never found him.

• If you do find a player with Detectives don't dilly dally around. Go kill him quick because once he moves you have to search again.

• Some players send out multiple sets of Detectives. Full set for 1 hour, a full set for 2 hours, and so on up to five hours. I always thought this was a waste of money. I'm not even sure if it is better. I generally only set 1 set at a time for 5 hours. True you might find the player quicker but you also just have spent a ton of money to find him a few hours earlier.

• How many bullets do I shoot? That's the million dollar question. This is where kill gets tricky. The correct number of bullets you should shoot depends on your target's backfire.

Note: the rest of this section is all personal opinion. It is all information that I believe to be true and have acquired from previous kills. NONE OF IT IS CONFIRMED! I have no idea exactly how kill is coded. I may be wrong on some or all of the things I state here. Do not blame me if my advice fails you and you die in backfire.

Seems to me kill is not the same as last round I would not use any of this information to kill anyone at this point!!!!

• I believe the two factors that decide the success or failure of a kill are: rank and the number of bullets you fire.

• If you outrank your target you will have a much easier time killing them. Shooting and kiling a higher ranked player than you is more difficult.

• The number of bullets you fire at a player is not only your offense; it is also your defense.

• 1200- 1500 bullets should kill anyone Associate and lower as long as you outrank them.

Since hospital is no longer up I'm not sure how exactly how kill functions at the current moment. The following tips are based on last round.

• If you believe a player has random backfire the more bullets you shoot the better. Testing backfire (shooting 100 bullets at someone) on someone who has random backfire can have disastrous results for you.

• If you believe a player has 2x backfire shoot a low number of bullets. Last round they would go into the hospital for one hour to heal. The you could shoot 50 bullets at them heal yourself and continue to shoot them until they died. Not sure how it works yet this round.

• The game stats page is only updated every five minutes. I would always kill someone as soon as it would update. Deal with all the money and sign off before anyone else knew the player was dead. This is very helpful if you are killing someone with many friends.

• Kill isn't meant to be easy. That is why detectives are expensive. If kill was simple players would be dying all over the place and the game would lose a lot of gameplay value. Deathmatches are fun for a bit but its not something that has inherent replay value. Killing other players is an aspect of the game that should have a great risk and value associated with it.

Backfire

Note: I have not updated this section since kill and detectives have been changed. I will as soon as I have the time.--Ibex 21:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is your only defense against attacks from other players on GN. Choosing your backfire setting is an important decision on GN.

• Random Backfire - This shoots a random number of bullets at an attacking player. I believe it can be anywhere from 1 up to your entire stock. NOT CONFIRMED I have seen as few as 7 bullets fired and as many as 17,000 fired last round. Random is just that random. It can save your ass or leave you dead. A very good setting in defense of players who like to test your backfire. (Some players will shoot a very low number of bullets at first to gauge your backfire)

• 2X - Simply put twice the number of bullets the attacker fires. Excellent setting for defense against a player who shoots a reasonable(1500+) number or high number of bullets at you. This setting could be defeated easily last round. Not sure how it is going to work this round with hospital down. To defeat this setting a player just need to shoot a low number(100) of bullets at you. You would go to the hospital injured. After one hour the player then could shoot at you with 50 bullets. If he was injured he could heal himself. You no longer went to the hospital He continued to shoot 50 bullets at you until you died.

• Same number as attacker - I think this is the safest option at the moment. Good defense against both type of attacks low and high number of bullets.

• Half the amount as attacker - I have no idea why on earth anyone would choose this option.

Targets

• Killing a person can be quite expensive. $600k for detectives, a few hundred thousands in cost of bullets it all can add up. Make sure your target is worth it.

• High money targets- I define these as players with more cash on them they should. Typical example is a Associate or lower who is a millionaire. Usually the pay off for this kind of kill will net you a good bit of cash. Around $400k minimum. It can be a lot more. Millionaires can have up to $10 million on them. Currently since reset just occurred and money isn't crazy as it was when I first started playing these targets will be few and far between.

• Revenge target- Killing someone who scammed you or you just don't like. This is more about satisfaction than profit.

• Opportunity target- This is someone who hasn't followed my advice on how not to be a target. Low ranked owners of a casino would fall into this category. A Thug who owns a casino would be an opportunity kill. Not only do you get the kill but you have a chance of getting a casino also. I also would target players who have credit auctions going while not online. Find them buy their credits kill them. Basically you are getting their credits for free. Just successfully passed an OC with someone you don't know and they signed off? That is an opportunity you can take if you want to play that way. A boss of a family with no RHM. If you are looking to start a family this is the best chance you will have at it. Be aware it takes a while for the actually family to dissolve after you have killed a boss with no RHM. I believe its around an hour or so.

• Practice target- Kill doesn't offer many chances to practice but if you want to get your feet wet try to find a practice target. This would be a player who doesn't play anymore and is low ranked. A thug who hasn't signed on in over a month would be a good example. Some payers do nothing but kill low ranked new players. I don't really see the challenge or satisfaction in this. I think killing 1 or 2 non active players is all right but more than that you are taking the easy route.

Not Being a Target

No one likes dying. Starting from scratch again is a pain. Here are some tips on how not to be targeted by others.

• RANK as fast as you possibly can. The higher you are ranked the harder you are to kill.

• Keep your wealth status low. Until you have ranked fairly high ( I'd say Contabile or above) I would always have less than a million dollars on you. How do you get around this? Stock Market is a brilliant way. Stock market is currently down but the value of stocks did not show up in your wealth status. I don't know if this is going to change when stock market comes back. You can buy booze and narcotics these do not show up on your wealth status either. You may lose a little money but its better than losing all of it. Buy credits in auction house. You can sell them later if you need cash.

• Travel as often as possible. Traveling lowers your chances of being shot. If you know someone is after you try to travel as often as possible. I know some people need to sleep but thats a risk you are going to have to take. I always try to travel after doing an OC. 3 different people might know exactly which state you are in and lord knows who they told. I never really tell people where I am. I usually tell anyone I don't know I am somewhere that I'm not if they ask. Why do they need to know where I am? Knowing exactly which state someone is in makes them a very good target because you have to search in one state only.

• Don't be an ass!!!! This covers so many areas of GN. Don't spout off at the mouth. Don't spam people. Don't spam forums or the jail wall. Arguments with other players usually end up in death. The less of an ass you are the less likely people will kill you just because you are an ass.

• I would suggest not scamming anyone. People tend to die very quickly once they are know as scammers.

• Trust only those you know you can. Since this is just a game people will do things on here that they would not necessarily do in real life.

• I never played Lotto last round. Seemed like anyone who won was dead within a few hours of winning last round.

• Respect other players until you make a name for yourself. This is basically the same as not being an ass.

• If you are low ranked and own a casino get rid of it. Sell it to someone. You probably don't have enough money to run it effectively anyway so you are better off selling it.

• If you are selling credits cancel your auction before you sign off. Someone might kill you shortly after buying your credits just to get their money back.

• Keep a low profile until you have ranked up a bit. The less people notice you at first the better chance you have to rank up.

• Don't start a family as soon as you have reached Enforcer. You are still a relatively easy target and people love to wipe out families.

Casinos

• Casinos can make you a ton of money if you can get one hold on to it.

• I always watched the recent deaths to see if a casino owner had died. If they do go bet on their casino and bankrupt it thereby making it yours. You only need to win once. So, start off with a $1 bet. If you lose double it to $2 and so on. Keep doubling until you win. This works 99% of the time.

• Raise your maxbet while you are on and lower it before you leave. This will attract gamblers hoping to bankrupt you. Advertise it on chat or classifieds.

• Never have your maxbet bet higher than you have in the bank. If you do one bet can bankrupt you that would be bad.

• The casinos all have a bad chance for you to win as a player. War is the best chance to win at little under 50%. Racetrack is the worst at only 25% chance of winning. Slots may even be worse than that I have no idea. Personally, the only casino I'll ever play is war.(not really true anymore lol)

• Strategy to playing War- I wait for someone to raise the maxbet to at least $1 million. Then I take out at least a million in cash and begin to play. $25,000 is my base bet. If I win I bet again with a base bet. If I lose I double my current bet. If I draw I bet again with current bet. Continue to do this until you win and return to base bet level. It would look like this:

Bet result

25k win

25k loss

50k loss

100k tie/draw

100k win

25k win

25k loss

50k win

25k win

ect.....

This usually works and can make you a good bit of cash. Be warned I have lost all of my money doing this before. 8 loses in a row. And if the maxbet changes while you are playing you can get screwed.

Credits

• Credits are the only thing you can recover from a dead account. Buy these and use them as a type of life insurance policy for yourself.

• Credits can be used to make game play much easier and more effective. I use them quite often.

• Donating(actually buying credits with real cash) has a great benefit on the game. The cash generated from the sale of credits helps the Staff improve many aspects of the game. The more the Staff has to invest back into the game the better it can be. This is a great way to show your appreciation for the game and the great job that the staff does here.

Organized Crime

• The only two things that effect the outcome of an organized crime are the ranks of players involved and the options chosen by the players.

• The higher the ranks of players involved the higher the chances of success and the higher the payout. I passed one with 2 rank 23s, 1 rank 22 and one rank 21. The payout was $5.8 million each. Sadly, payouts have been lowered so no chance of getting that again.

• Always choose the best options. 50 minute planning time for leader. Guns for weapons expert and bullet proof clothing for protection expert. I'm not sure if the value of the car matters but I would think so. So a $17,000 car with 0% damage would be best unless you somehow you are able to steal the elusive $18,000 car which I have never seen.

• Once your O.C. is planned and counting down do not announce it to anyone. The O.C.s have a pending time now that completes every five minutes. If you announce when your O.C. will complete anyone will know exactly when you will receive the money. This makes you and your fellow O.C. members a perfect target for extortion. Players could target you exactly as you receive your share and you will have no chance to bank it.

• Do not travel during the O.C. if you are not in the appropriate state when it completes the chances of success are lowered. If you do travel by accident you can go back before the planning timer has finished without any consequences.

Random Things That I Didn't Feel Like Making A Entire Category For But Still Can Be Helpful

These are things that can be helpful in the game but don't really warrant an entire section.

• Once you Car Theft success % for stealing a upper class car with no damage hits 35% Always do those two options.

• Make sure you have room in your garage before stealing a vehicle.

• Increase the size of your garage. The more cars you can hold the more cars you can sell for full value. The extra money you make from selling for full value will pay for the garage increase price very quickly.

• Sell vehicles for full value as soon as you can. (24 hrs after you steal it???) Not sure what it is currently.

• If your garage is full and they are all still hot(less than 24 hrs old) crush and sell parts of the lowest value car or increase the size of your garage.

• Extortion happens. Don't get mad. Your money should be in the bank. I have sent back money before but only very large amounts. People may or may not send it back.

• Robberies are hard at first slowly build up your weapon and location. Air Rifle and Office for Giovane D'Honore and up. Sub machine gun and Hotel for Soldati and up.

• I seem to have the best results with robbery when I use the sub machine gun at the bank. It seems to average better money than using the $30k gun at the bank.

• Frauds are extremely difficult to pass at first just keep trying you still get rank points for fails. Even at the top rank you only pass about 50% of the time if that.

• There is no pattern to Chase.

• The only thing success or failure of an OC depends on is the items you buy(always buy the best) and ranks of players in the OC. Time and player positions don't matter.

• Do not mention you OC complete time in chat. Everyone will know when the money is coming to you because of the processing time. They can then target you and your fellow OCers for extortion.

• Keep an eye on auctions. If there is an item you want do not bid until towards the end of the auction. You will just drive up the price. Try to be the last person to get a bid in seconds before the auction ends.

• If you are actively jail busting people always keep a few thousand dollars in your wallet. This will increase the number of people in jail who get caught trying to extort you. You nay lose a little money but it will increase the number of people available to bust.

• When posting in forums take into account humor and sarcasm do not always come across as intended in typed messages. Misunderstandings can happen when taken from another person's point of view.

• Learn to type...... I can't tell you how many times I've ignored someone because I have no clue as to what they are trying to say. I understand English isn't everyone's first language but usually its people who have a complete grasp of the English language and are just to lazy or stupid to type properly.

• Don't ever ask for respect.....By asking you defeat the point of respect!!!!!!

• Don't post messages about yourself. Best fraud, oc, robbery, ect. is okay. Posting rank ups is fine too; everyone likes to be told good job. But no one gives two shits if you think you are the sexiest player or have the best profile pic. It makes you look like a pompous ass, If it really is true others will post for you.

• If you are going to lie make sure it isn't easily proven wrong. There is no possible way someone who just signed up 2 hours ago has 4k bullets to sell. There are numerous examples of idiots who do not understand the game before trying to lie to people. Its bad enough to lie but to not even be able to lie well is pathetic. So, if you are going to take that road and lie cheat and steal make sure to be good at it

How to Win at/Bankrupt A Casino

No way is fool proof but I think I have a very good method for bankrupting most casinos. Considering I owned 27 out of 40 at one point last round and never had one bankrupted I think my methods are pretty sound.

Slots

Brute force and time. Take out 100 times the amount you are going to bet. Bet this amount every time. I usually open about 10 tabs and put slots on each one. CTRL and page up will shift through them and all you have to do is click pull handle. You hand will really hurt after doing this for 10 minutes. This may have changed from the past when slots were player owned but 95% of the time you will win money on slots this way. Just keep betting until you hit big. I drained Sinatra's bank account of 4 million on a $500 maxbet slots over the course of 7 hours one night. It works but it takes a hell of a long time. This method does not take into consideration getting extorted. So if you are low ranked you will probably not win this way because extortions will drain you. You also must bet over 100 times to get paid. Betting 20 and 30 times will probably only lose you money. In order to even attempt this you should probably increase your click limit to at least 50 if not 75.

War

War is very streaky. It can be really hot or really cold or nothing. If it is cold you will lose your ass on a war table. I have lost 12 straight bets before. I have also won 14 in a row. So the method I use on War is bet small amounts until you win a couple in a row then increase your bet to maxbet. Once you lose go back down to small bets until you win a couple in a row again. This usually will put you ahead. Keep to the system. You will usually hit a streak of 6 or 7 winners in a row.

RPS

If straight bet RPS maxbet and usually leave it on the same choice the whole way through. Another method is to change your choice every time you lose or draw to what would have won. Example if you draw on scissors change it to Rock. If you lose on scissors change it to paper. You are looking for several of the same ones in a row. RPS can pump out 7 or 8 of the same results in a row.

Racetracks

GOOD LUCK almost impossible. Nothing but pure chance and luck on this casino. Easier just to kill a person that owns one and then pick it up when he has no money.

Both RPS and WAR are very streaky look to capitalize on it. If it is paying out continue to play. I usually quit when I"m at 20x the maxbet ahead. So if maxbet is 100k I quit when I"m 2 mill ahead. The most important thing is to stop when you are ahead and not to chase your losings with more losses.