Auto Shop or Arcade?

[paflanagan]

Hi,
I was thinking of buying an auto shop since it's on sale. I wondered if anyone knew if the Auto Shop or Arcade make more of a passive income?

[Caped Crusader]

The Auto Shop would definitely be the better choice of the two for easy solo money. While the Arcade does generate money in a safe in the office there, it's tied to how many of the arcade games you purchase and those do add up to get them all. Don't know the exact total cost off hand, but certainly a few million, maybe close to $10m.

The Auto Shop has customer rides you can mod up and deliver, which is kinda decent money (for the low time investment and easy deliveries), thinking in the context of a relatively new player. There's also mini-heists tied to the Auto Shop that can be done solo or with up to 4 players.

That said, if you have at least one friend you might be able to call upon, the Arcade can be a truly excellent money maker via the Casino heist. The preps for that can be done solo, but you need at least one other helper to launch the heist finale (2-4 player team).

[paflanagan]

Thank you. I think I will go for the Auto Shop then. I appreciate your opinion.

[Caped Crusader]

Happy to help, though please do keep in mind that Casino heist with the Arcade for down the road. It's my personal favorite of all the heists. Godspeed.

[paflanagan]

Got it. Just looking for stuff I can solo. Like warehouses, The Nightclub, Bunker.

[in]

Originally posted by Caped Crusader:

The Auto Shop would definitely be the better choice of the two for easy solo money. While the Arcade does generate money in a safe in the office there, it's tied to how many of the arcade games you purchase and those do add up to get them all. Don't know the exact total cost off hand, but certainly a few million, maybe close to $10m.

You don't need to buy more machines for extra income. Just place same one all over the place.

[zOldBulldog]

Neither arcade nor autoshop give you decent passive income. The arcade produces some but it is so little that it doesn't matter.

The Arcade will be needed for the passive income strategy once you own: the nightclub, a Motorcycle Club (MC), a CEO warehouse, a bunker, and cocaine, meth and cash printing businesses. It will not generate passive income but through the Master Control Terminal expansion it will let you source those businesses from a central location, while the Nightclub generates passive income from owning those businesses even if you don't source them. But... you will still have to make sales on those businesses, so in the end you will need a private session with friends to make quick sales of those businesses every once in a while or you will find yourself much too active doing solo sales.

The AutoShop on the other hand has the contracts, that although active are a lot of fun and can be quite profitable this week due to the 2x payment. I would totally buy the AutoShop now and spend a lot of time doing contracts. Don't bother with the staff (they ruin any cars you try to sell and thus your income from the legitimate side of the business) or the cosmetic enhancements. The living quarters might be worth it so that you can spawn there.

[Caped Crusader]

Originally posted by in:

You don't need to buy more machines for extra income. Just place same one all over the place.

Apologies. That's news to me. Am rather surprised Rockstar didn't tie the revenue to the number of unique owned machines, or that's what I recall hearing when the Arcade was added.

[1/0]

Auto shop rn cuz it's discounted and the contracts are 2x. Make some $ then buy the arcade.

[Argonaut_Jay]

Go with the auto shop. It's got discounts going right now so things are cheaper to buy. The legit side of the business doesn't generate a lot of cash but it's easy to do solo. Just don't hire any staff, they suck and crash cars on delivery. Deliver the cars yourself instead. You make the most money by doing the mini heists that can be done solo fairly easily and they're fun too. It also has a board that updates daily for you to collect cars and take them to the dock to be scrapped for cash which is decent pay. It also acts as a garage, and mod shop for you to mod your own cars and you can bypass the requirements set on mods. Definitely worth it for solo play.

[kr3m]

Originally posted by Caped Crusader:

Apologies. That's news to me. Am rather surprised Rockstar didn't tie the revenue to the number of unique owned machines, or that's what I recall hearing when the Arcade was added.

There's more old school cabinet slots than there are unique cabinets to fill them. Players have to double up on at least one game if they want to fill up an arcade..

The arcade is the better choice in my opinion, but the autoshop IS currently on sale.. so that should be factored in too.

Pros to Autoshop:
Free Snacks.
Purchase includes 10 car garage already.
Your car shop discounts your part purchases.
Your car shop unlocks paint jobs otherwise locked.
Your car shop rewards you with FREE Classic paint jobs, FREE Crew paint job, and FREE Crew logos.
Contract Jobs become available.
You can repair and deliver customer vehicles to make $30~$50k.
All Autoshop locations are in Los Santos.

Cons to Autoshop:
Each vehicle repair/deliver costs an initial deposit, so the payday at the end of each mission is partly recouping lost funds.
Contract Jobs are like micro heists.. couple short preps, the finale, portioned payout.. except the portion of pay per job is far less than if time was invested in Arcade. Ex) 4 Contract Jobs = 8 preps and 4 missions; which would be an equivalent amount of time as prepping and completing a casino heist.

After 4 contract jobs, you're making more than 1m if Contract jobs are double pay like they are this week only. If the contract jobs aren't double pay, you'd make more money setting up and knocking down casino heists.. which you can net 1.5m+ if you're using default cuts to yield the most as host.


Pros to Arcade:
Free Snacks (talk to bartender).
Safe that can make up to $5k per day and holds max $100k. (You can fill your arcade with Gang Wars to max out your profits.)
You can set up and complete Casino heists as host, giving you say of the final cut.
You can purchase a weapons station (upgrade to mk2 weapons)
You can purchase a control terminal to run all of your businesses from your arcade (you can, but should not start deliveries from Arcade).

Cons to Arcade:
Garage sold separately.
Bad locations to potentially chose from any where North of Los Santos. These are offered at a lower rate, leading to more players buying these instead of waiting till they can afford better.

This week, Autoshop is going to help pay for itself if you grind out the Contract Jobs (especially Union Depository).. so try to get your money back, and hang on to ~1.5m for when arcades go up on sale..

[paflanagan]

Thank you everyone for the great advice. I appreciate it all.

[Zero McDol]

To add:
- Auto shop deliveries are 20k - 50k.
- Imo, it's good to have at least one staff member for deliveries that are almost on the other side of the map. Run enough deliveries and you'll know which ones to give to the staff member and which ones to deliver.

[JobeGardener]

They both get repetitive and boring after a while so you are best going with your gut.

[paflanagan]

I bought the Auto Shop. Not impressed so far but we'll see. If I can afford it, I may buy the Arcade if I get bored again.

[globefish23]

Also remember that you can get up to $300k per day with the Exotic Exports in the Auto Shop.
$20k per car plus $100k bonus if you deliver all 10 cars from the list.

The spawning locations are fixed and you can do it in an invite-only session.