#tm-01 khanjali

[trombone-minivan]

Various shitter-piloted Khanjali's caused me a fair bit of pain at times. It's quite frustrating to fight one of these on foot, but all the more satisfying to kill one by smacking a Nightshark with five sticky bombs on the grille into it.

One of my earliest GTA memories is getting basically spawntrapped by two sweatlords in an APC, together with a random whose Organization I was in. Many years and experience later, I bought one, only to never really use it.

The IPUC is one of those workhorse vehicles that have carried me and sometimes several more people through countless missions, sales and fights. I'm noticing a distinct lack of turreted vehicles in my PS5 collection, so I might have to get one.

Ah the Dune FAV, in a certain context one of the most universally despised vehicles in the game. And it's all due to Rockstar's shoddy game design of one sell mission, of course. 15 minutes for 4 times 5 drops that are each a cross-country trip away? For real though. But it seems like I may have underestimated the little Dune FAV. I'm not sure how useful a drive-by Atomizer could be, but for Literally Free, it's worth the shot.

What could I even add to what has been said about the Nightshark. It was always a good armored vehicle, but it really came into its own when the mosquitoes appeared. For some reason, throwables hurled out of a moving car get launched like your arm is an artillery mortar. This rather quickly led to a MkII-fighting strategy popularized by a certain youtuber, which I like to affectionately call The Big Yeet. Many a time I've pressed R1 followed by left on the d-pad, and seen a memebike and its rider explode into smithereens. Until the day GTA 5 servers die, the spot next to Franklin's car in my Agency will be reserved for the magnificent rocket-ignoring mosquito-deleting armored SUV.

The Chernobog was a really cool idea that was executed poorly. Having a dedicated missile carrier to counter aircraft was a good addition in theory, but it was armored with wet paper towels and took ages to set up while having a unique radar icon that magnetized bandits right to you. It wasn’t until a few years later when the localized off-radar ability was introduced that it became even remotely viable, and even then, nine times out of ten it was better to just use the explosive sniper anyway. None of us ever bothered using the Chernobog in combat and we instead spent our time Cargobobbing cars under its missile turret and using it as an atom smasher.

You knew you’d won a shitter stomp when they pulled out the ol’ ragetank. The TM-01 Khanjali was the surest sign that its owner was angry at something, be it getting dogpiled by a crew or getting ventilated by laggy overpowered NPCs. The real fun of the Khanjali was in wedging telephone poles between its chassis and turret and spinning really fast to make the physics engine freak out and launch the tank across the map.

When I saw there was a car being added with a controllable gun turret on the roof, my first impulse was to paint it up like the car from Super Spy Hunter for the NES. The Weaponized Tampa made heists and PvE missions downright hilarious, being able to scream around corners with guns blazing. Who cared if it could hardly hit the broad side of a barn?

In yet another example of the developers being horribly out of touch with their fanbase, the Caracara was added to get an F-150 Raptor into the game, but specifically as a knockoff of a 6x6 conversion of one. And then they added a gun turret to the back for kicks. It was fun to use as a party Technical, don’t get me wrong, but many of us were much more welcoming of the later Caracara 4x4.

Gee Barrage, how come your mom lets you have two gun turrets? This truck was my first choice to bring to heists when playing with randoms, because having not one but two mounted guns grabbed their attention and ensured there was no fighting over who got to play with the big shooty. It was like one of those fancy minivans with the TVs in the back.

Before we had the Khanjali, we had the APC. Being slightly faster and fully amphibious made it loads of fun to bring to missions that had you recovering cargo from the ocean. Seeing one of these with a proper driver and gunner duo was actually pretty scary, and since you needed a crew to operate one of these effectively, I found it fitting to do this one up with glitched Benny’s wheels and a shiny purple paint job to pay homage to the Third Street Saints. Did you know that that was why my character wore purple headphones?

The Insurgent Pick-up Custom, affectionately known as the Gunsurgent, was the best way to calm down a noisy session all the way from its Pegasus predecessor’s introduction in 2015 to the present day. Even memebikes had to watch their step around it. Whenever this big guy came out of the garage, it was officially go time. Turned out there weren’t many problems that a rolling block of steel with a Ma Deuce on the roof couldn’t solve.

Despite being lauded for its stealth capabilities, having the same radar icon as an average street car, it was always easy to spot a Vigilante coming because you’d see said icon doing a pirouette every couple of blocks. Not many drivers could handle the Vigilante’s boost function, and its low ground clearance made it prone to getting violently hung up on bits of terrain that other cars would completely ignore. It was even more groan-inducing trying to use its missiles and watching them go sailing straight underneath the vehicles you were trying to hit. The Vigilante was amazing at pushing other cars around, though, especially that cursed Humane Labs monkey van, and parking it against a wall to launch cars with its rocket boost was a ride you could charge admission for.

Never in the history of GTA has a vehicle had a redemption arc as glorious as that of the Dune FAV. On release, it wasn’t anything special, as its occupants were exposed and its mounted gun had a very limited traversal, and it only became more hated as time passed because the developers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to bind the proximity mine function to the same button as the horn, making it all too easy to blow yourself to smithereens when trying to give a friendly beep. This problem was exacerbated in the Dune FAVs used for bunker sales, as now the mine button not only took the place of the horn button, but also that of the one used by every other bunker sale vehicle to drop a shipment, so giving that friendly beep on your way to deliver was going to cost you a hell of a lot more than just 500 GTA-bucks. Many of my friends and crew writhed at the sight of these buggies for years until the release of the Up-N-Atomizer physics gun, at which point the lowly Dune FAV got a new lease on life by being the only vehicle in the game that allowed the driver to use the Up-N-Atomizer as a drive-by weapon. Filled with newfound vigor, the Dune FAV made its triumphant return to the battlefield, bringing joy and physics fun to everyone, and we all lived ragdolly ever after.

For quite a while, I looked down my nose at the humble Nightshark. It was just a smaller Insurgent, right? Why would I bother owning one when I already had an Insurgent? But then it went on sale, and I gave it a try out of boredom, and my game plan was changed forever. This thing was a feisty little mountain goat. It was kind of like a small Insurgent, yes, but that smaller size meant it had much more get-up-and-go than its bigger brother, and it was much more comfortable when taken off the beaten path. I actually kept mine in the back of my Mobile Operations Center, where it could be summoned without having to wait for the mechanic to pick up the phone, as an emergency escape vehicle. This foresight proved quite useful, as one of the Nightshark’s most important qualities proved to be that it was able to tank a memebike’s full complement of missiles and keep running. This, combined with its lack of a unique radar icon, made it ideal for defensive play, and once we learned that breaking the driver’s door off made it easy to score eject kills, it became ideal for just about everything.

[photog-crafty]

The Chernobog was a really cool idea that was executed poorly. Having a dedicated missile carrier to counter aircraft was a good addition in theory, but it was armored with wet paper towels and took ages to set up while having a unique radar icon that magnetized bandits right to you. It wasn't until a few years later when the localized off-radar ability was introduced that it became even remotely viable, and even then, nine times out of ten it was better to just use the explosive sniper anyway. None of us ever bothered using the Chernobog in combat and we instead spent our time Cargobobbing cars under its missile turret and using it as an atom smasher.

You knew you'd won a shitter stomp when they pulled out the ol' ragetank. The TM-01 Khanjali was the surest sign that its owner was angry at something, be it getting dogpiled by a crew or getting ventilated by laggy overpowered NPCs. The real fun of the Khanjali was in wedging telephone poles between its chassis and turret and spinning really fast to make the physics engine freak out and launch the tank across the map.

When I saw there was a car being added with a controllable gun turret on the roof, my first impulse was to paint it up like the car from Super Spy Hunter for the NES. The Weaponized Tampa made heists and PvE missions downright hilarious, being able to scream around corners with guns blazing. Who cared if it could hardly hit the broad side of a barn?

In yet another example of the developers being horribly out of touch with their fanbase, the Caracara was added to get an F-150 Raptor into the game, but specifically as a knockoff of a 6x6 conversion of one. And then they added a gun turret to the back for kicks. It was fun to use as a party Technical, don't get me wrong, but many of us were much more welcoming of the later Caracara 4x4.

Gee Barrage, how come your mom lets you have two gun turrets? This truck was my first choice to bring to heists when playing with randoms, because having not one but two mounted guns grabbed their attention and ensured there was no fighting over who got to play with the big shooty. It was like one of those fancy minivans with the TVs in the back.

Before we had the Khanjali, we had the APC. Being slightly faster and fully amphibious made it loads of fun to bring to missions that had you recovering cargo from the ocean. Seeing one of these with a proper driver and gunner duo was actually pretty scary, and since you needed a crew to operate one of these effectively, I found it fitting to do this one up with glitched Benny's wheels and a shiny purple paint job to pay homage to the Third Street Saints. Did you know that that was why my character wore purple headphones?

The Insurgent Pick-up Custom, affectionately known as the Gunsurgent, was the best way to calm down a noisy session all the way from its Pegasus predecessor's introduction in 2015 to the present day. Even memebikes had to watch their step around it. Whenever this big guy came out of the garage, it was officially go time. Turned out there weren't many problems that a rolling block of steel with a Ma Deuce on the roof couldn't solve.

Despite being lauded for its stealth capabilities, having the same radar icon as an average street car, it was always easy to spot a Vigilante coming because you'd see said icon doing a pirouette every couple of blocks. Not many drivers could handle the Vigilante's boost function, and its low ground clearance made it prone to getting violently hung up on bits of terrain that other cars would completely ignore. It was even more groan-inducing trying to use its missiles and watching them go sailing straight underneath the vehicles you were trying to hit. The Vigilante was amazing at pushing other cars around, though, especially that cursed Humane Labs monkey van, and parking it against a wall to launch cars with its rocket boost was a ride you could charge admission for.

Never in the history of GTA has a vehicle had a redemption arc as glorious as that of the Dune FAV. On release, it wasn't anything special, as its occupants were exposed and its mounted gun had a very limited traversal, and it only became more hated as time passed because the developers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to bind the proximity mine function to the same button as the horn, making it all too easy to blow yourself to smithereens when trying to give a friendly beep. This problem was exacerbated in the Dune FAVs used for bunker sales, as now the mine button not only took the place of the horn button, but also that of the one used by every other bunker sale vehicle to drop a shipment, so giving that friendly beep on your way to deliver was going to cost you a hell of a lot more than just 500 GTA-bucks. Many of my friends and crew writhed at the sight of these buggies for years until the release of the Up-N-Atomizer physics gun, at which point the lowly Dune FAV got a new lease on life by being the only vehicle in the game that allowed the driver to use the Up-N-Atomizer as a drive-by weapon. Filled with newfound vigor, the Dune FAV made its triumphant return to the battlefield, bringing joy and physics fun to everyone, and we all lived ragdolly ever after.

For quite a while, I looked down my nose at the humble Nightshark. It was just a smaller Insurgent, right? Why would I bother owning one when I already had an Insurgent? But then it went on sale, and I gave it a try out of boredom, and my game plan was changed forever. This thing was a feisty little mountain goat. It was kind of like a small Insurgent, yes, but that smaller size meant it had much more get-up-and-go than its bigger brother, and it was much more comfortable when taken off the beaten path. I actually kept mine in the back of my Mobile Operations Center, where it could be summoned without having to wait for the mechanic to pick up the phone, as an emergency escape vehicle. This foresight proved quite useful, as one of the Nightshark's most important qualities proved to be that it was able to tank a memebike's full complement of missiles and keep running. This, combined with its lack of a unique radar icon, made it ideal for defensive play, and once we learned that breaking the driver's door off made it easy to score eject kills, it became ideal for just about everything.