Shell's Terrorbyte review

Everything you wanted to know about the Terrorbyte to consider buying one yourself. I know it has been reviewed plenty of times before, but so many reviews leave out important details...

Editorial (intro)

Hi gang!



I consider the Terrorbyte my greatest achievement in GTAO so far, it took me a lot of work before I had the money to purchase it and even then I had to settle for less at first because several options will cost you even more money (which isn't exactly fun). But boy was it worth the effort...

Sometimes I get asked if I consider the Terrorbyte worth the money and even though it's a horrible grind to get one it opens up a ton of fun (and money making) options.

Now, I'm well aware that I'm late to the party and that there are plenty of reviews already out there. But my problem with several of those is that they leave out important details. Sure, not necessarily a big deal, but for someone who wants to learn more about the TB before buying those details can still matter.

Buying the Terrorbyte

You can buy the Terrorbyte from Warstock Cash & Carry for around 1.3 million GTA$, but that's without any customization. Prepare to put down a lot more if you also want the extra options such as turret station, drone station and the workshops.

Paywalls

... if only things were this easy. See, before you can even buy the Terrorbyte you need to purchase a Nightclub. Prepare to spent even more money since a nightclub sells for around 1.5 million (give or take) and will also take you plenty of effort to set up.

It gets worse: If you actually want to benefit from your nightclub instead of it becoming a money sink (you need to pay costs for the nightclub to remain active) then you'd better make sure that you have several MC businesses (and the bunker) available. This will allow nightclub technicians to grab cargo from your businesses and store them in your nightclub. Once full (or if you're satisfied with the amount) you can then sell that cargo to make some extra cash. Note that these nightclub sales are independent of your businesses; so you can continue to sell goods from your businesses and then eventually also sell from your nightclub.

But back to the Terrorbyte...

Terrorbyte options

Turret station

The turret station can be controlled from inside the Terrorbyte and it allows you to defend yourself from air attacks, at least that's the theory. It has the ability to lock onto multiple targets at once and can then fire a missile towards all those targets.

It's a fun feature but also somewhat useless because the missiles aren't that effective. I did a fun dogfight with a friend once (he tried to attack me using a lazer while I was inside the Terrorbyte) and he dodged all my missles with ease!

So the only time when this might become useful is if you're doing a mission. Which unfortunately won't be possible because as soon as you start a freeroam mission of some sort (think about a gang attack) then the Terrorbytes nerve center becomes inaccessible.

... which, for me at least, makes the turret station pretty much useless. I don't regret buying it because it seriously looks cool on the outside, but other than that.. nah.

Drone station

This is a seriously fun feature, but just as with the previous one there are some caveats attached...

Here I'm looking at my Terrorbyte (see blue marker) from quite a distance!

Next to the turret station there's also a drone station, both require you to sit down behind a screen. I really love this feature, but I also think it's severely lacking on some fronts.

So what is a drone? Simple: a tiny flying machine which you can use to spy on other players and look around your area while you're sitting safely inside the Terrorbyte. As you can see in my screenshot a drone can be seen on the map but is very hard to spot by other players because of its small size.

There are several fun things you can do with a drone... First it allows you to go into "screenshot mode" so that you can make a screenshot, comparable to what you can do on a phone. It's a fun feature for sure, but a bit useless for us Steam users because all you need is F12. And if you want to apply some special effects then why not install a program such as The Gimp (= open source image editor)?

You can fly around the area of your Terrorbyte but with a limited distance. The maximum distance is approximately 2 blocks give or take (also depending on the size of the block of course). But as seen above you can put some decent distance between yourself and the drone. If you go out too far then you'll get a warning about a possible signal loss after which the drone will eventually be lost.

Because a drone is quite slow you can speed things up a bit by using its boost option. This allows you to fly faster for a short amount of time, and it has a cooldown (or rather: build up ;)) before it can be used again.

And then finally the fun options... A drone can stun NPC's as well as other players (comparable to the stun gun in Story mode) and it can also self destruct, which basically blows it up. Unfortunately there is a delay build up before a drone goes b00m, which can make it a little less effective. But still fun.

Once a drone gets lost for whatever reason then there will be a 1 minute cooldown before you can sent in a new one (with the exception of official missions).

It feels unfinished...

I really enjoy this feature but still think it's not really finished. For example: if I fly a drone into a store then there's suddenly no clerk around anymore for some weird reason. Another issue is that several NPC's simply won't appear when you're flying around.

For example: the lake near the dam is often used by a group of NPC's (next to the tunnel into the sewer). If I go there using a regular vehicle I see the group spawn. But as soon as I fly around with a drone then the area is usually empty.

That really feels a bit unpolished.

Weapons workshop

This is where you can buy several weapons, ammo and even customize some weapons in order to upgrade them to their "Mk II" variant, this usually makes the weapon more powerful and adds several new custom features such as armor piercing bullets.

However... before you can use any specific features you will need to unlock them using your bunker. So basically your bunker staff needs to be set to research (or research and producing) after which you need to keep the bunker supplied in order to unlock a new feature every once in a while. Those unlocks happen in random order, so don't expect instantly usable results for your hand gear. To add insult to injury some unlocks are merely specific patterns which you can apply to your weapons, which seem pretty useless to me ;)

But even if you don't have anything unlocked in the bunker just yet then this setup is still very much worth it. I upgraded my Combat MG (as seen above) as well as my Heavy sniper and those were really good investments! It is expensive (I had around 800k when I started, now I'm down to 40) but your weapons will become noticeably better. For example: I can now snipe someone from quite a distance without having to crouch to get a steadier aim, and my Combat MG has also become noticeable more powerful (my only "complaint" is that it sounded much cooler before).

Also good to know: any weapon you customize like this can always be reverted back to its former status. So if you're really not satisfied then there isn't any problem.

Specialized workshop

This section is combined with the weapons workshop inside the Terrorbyte and it allows you to store (and customize) an Oppressor Mk II. Love it or hate it, each to their own, but I personally really enjoy the concept of having a vehicle inside your other vehicle and being able to take it with you like that.

Two more options!

The most important feature of the Terrorbyte is obviously your own personal wardrobe ;)



It's fun, it's freely available so you might as well enjoy it. Of course the main problem I have with this is that your personal saved outfits are not directly accessible, just like inside any clothes store. An oversight which I seriously dislike because it makes it a lot harder to customize your outfits (for those of us who care about that of course).

Second you also have a player scanner available:



You can access this while driving by using the lights control. It's pretty useless though, if you target a player it will simply show you some statistics about that player. And as a direct result of the key mapping you can no longer control your headlights while driving. Not a big issue, but I'd rather control my lights than try to scan players for pretty useless information about them.

So what can we 'do' with all this?

The main reason why the Terrorbyte is so extremely versatile is because you can have it delivered to your surroundings, as you can see in the picture on the left. Once selected then it will take a little while (comparable to requesting your personal vehicle) after which the Terrorbyte will be parked somewhere nearby. That is... sometimes it can appear almost next to you, and at other times it can spawn one or two blocks away.

The other useful option is having your Oppressor delivered. This is basically the same as having a personal vehicle delivered (note that if you have an oppressor out then this will be your personal vehicle).


And of course you can also send the Terrorbyte away. This makes it a lot easier to move it around the map. Why? Simple: I hop onto my oppressor, fly to another area and during the flight I send my Terrorbyte away. Then when I'm on the new location I request delivery again (do note that there is a cooldown) and I'm done. It'll be a lot faster than driving the Terrorbyte itself.

Maybe also good to know: personal vehicle settings carry across sessions. So if you flew around with an oppressor before logging off then you only have to request your personal vehicle using the context menu in order to get it delivered again. This even works if you went offline and just logged back on again. Of course this applies to any personal vehicle, not just the oppressor!

A grinders dream come true!

The second reason why a Terrorbyte is worth every penny is because you can access all your businesses from within the nerve center to start missions. Just access the main touchscreen panel and you'll get the options seen above. Here you can buy crates, source vehicles and steal supplies for any of your businesses (MC businesses, bunker or the hangar). The only downside is that you can only steal supplies and not buy some. This can become an issue for veteran players because at some point in the game it will become more profitable to buy supplies rather than to steal them. Simply because this will fill up your entire supply level as well as save you a lot of time (which you can use to do other things, like doing some more missions).

New client missions

Speaking of missions... There are 5 missions available to you which are exclusive to the Terrorbyte:

• Robbery in progress
  
• Data sweep
  
• Targeted data
  
• Diamond shopping
  
• Collectors pieces (2 players only!)
  
• Deal breaker (2 players only!)

I'm not going into detail about all these missions but some of these are very lucrative; you can earn around 32k within 5 to 10 minutes (depending how good you are). And some are quite fun. In Robbery in progress you check the security network for a bank robbery and then you go in to rob the bankrobbers ;)

Diamond shopping will see you go back to Vangelico jewellery to intercept a diamond shipment which one of Paige's clients is interested in.

There are some really fun missions in here, just like there are some horrible ones :) Apart from the last two all missions can be easily done solo, but it will be more fun if you're with some friends (you need to hire them as associates). Also good to know: the whole team gets the same payout, now that's nice isn't it?

Pro's and cons

The Terrorbyte is a beast of a vehicle, but it does have its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

• Almost indestructible; drive up to a player and they might be tempted to shoot some rockets at you. It won't do 'm any good because it takes about a dozen before you blow up this baby.
  
• You are "indestructible": even if someone manages to blow up the Terrorbyte (think about an orbital strike) then they won't blow you up with it, assuming you're in the nerve center. In fact: you won't notice anything until you try using your equipment (or get automatically removed) ;)
  
• Access to all your business deals without having to go to the office or one of your businesses. I usually park my TB somewhere in between my crate warehouses and it saves me quite some time.
  
• A full operations center; once you have a mission you just step onto your oppressor, fly out to do the mission and then come back to your Terrorbyte.
  
• Free insta-clearing of wanted levels. It doesn't matter if you got a 1 or 5 star wanted level, nor does it matter if the police can or cannot see you. Once you hop inside the nerve center then they'll be gone, just like that. Of course the downside is that this way you never get to shoot down an LSPD chopper while on your own ;)
  
• Fully customizable; you don't need to go to LS Customs, just hop into the Terrorbyte garage below your nightclub, hop into the vehicle and you can open up the vehicle workshop to fully upgrade and/or customize your Terrorbyte. Do note that these customizations mostly apply to color and tire schemes.
  
• You can hop between the nerve center and the cab (drivers seat) without having to leave the vehicle.
  
• There are still plenty of players who are not familiar with the Terrorbyte nor its functions (drones) :)

Disadvantages

• Massively expensive through paywalls: first a nightclub, then a Terrorbyte and if that wasn't enough you have to pay extra for all the options and customization too. Get ready to spend up to 5+ million GTA$.
  
• Spawning takes a while and can be quite a distance. Sometimes it spawns right next to you, the other moment you have to walk 2 blocks. That can become annoying.
  
• The handling is decent, but still a bit sluggish. It doesn't go nearly as fast as a brickage (which is sometimes used during crate sell missions) nor does it plow easily through traffic.
  
• You can't use its options (drones / turrets) during missions. During contact missions you won't even be able to spawn the Terrorbyte at all, same applies if you're hired by another organization.
  
• The weapons workshop doesn't provide access to all weapons (minor con IMO).
  
• The Terrorbyte, and definitely the Oppressor, both have a bad reputation. Don't be surprised if you suddenly see plenty of players leave your session as soon as you take off on your oppressor (this can also be a pro I suppose, depending on your play style).

In conclusion...

I love my Terrorbyte, and the Oppressor Mk II, but I am obviously heavily biased because I worked quite hard to get my hands on these toys. It also doesn't help that I mostly play in public solo sessions, either together with some friends or on my own, which takes away any threats for "broomstick attacks" ;)

Even so, this thing is honestly a money machine and a grinders west dream ;)



Here I was out in the Senora desert and decided to source a car. Basically all I had to do was grab it and drive it home because it had spawned very close to me, couldn't be easier :) Which is the main advantage of the Terrorbyte: you can take it with you anywhere on the map and then start missions from there. If you keep your oppressor inside then you'll always have a fast vehicle available which helps you to get to places really fast.

So yeah, in my opinion this is definitely worth the grind and the money. It'll be brutal to get here, but once you do then it will become very easy to make some decent cash.

And there you have it, thanks for reading!

[Fever]

lol accomplishing a 2.5 mil slot machine win is something! No but yea, I was making money with slots in the beginning just to get me going. Now I'm grinding Nightclub warehouse, import/export and client jobs. Good times!

[SUPER-TANK]

I Honestly think Terrorbyte is amazing. I did not buy weapon workshop since I already own one in the MOC.
Next target would be avenger

[Trobby]

@Caped Crusader @ShelLuser Those cheaters enjoy the game in a different way: griefing and killing. They do it for their Ego because "that kd ratio is very nice"

[Caped Crusader]

@ShelLuser I think that's very true about the sense of accomplishment when you work towards something as opposed to just using an easy path. Having north of 1000 hours in GTA Online now, I really do miss the early days where I had to make a plan about what I was trying to get next and the satisfaction of reaching that goal, whether it took a few days or a couple weeks. If you skip the step of working towards something, even in a video game, I think you're missing out on a healthy portion of the experience. However, my goal in GTA Online isn't to own everything, just the stuff I think will be good fun in one way or another, or alternatively a cool challenge to learn.

[ShelLuser]

@EE That doesn't bother me at all. What those guys fail to realize is that the fun in this game also comes from working to accomplish something. That keeps the game fresh for me. If you can get everything you want "just like that" then I'm sure you're going to get bored out of your mind in no time. I can seriously enjoy an allnighter fully on my own with this game, it'll be morning before I even realize it (is why I usually keep a clock running on my other monitor).

But those cheaters? lol.. if they're no one around to bother then they'll be bored out of their mind in no time. Because what else is there for them to do or accomplish? Nothing, that's what :)

[E]

too bad people spawn 100mil and buy it all in 1 go hahaha

[GeDopte]

Good Job

[Caped Crusader]

A very well written and comprehensive guide. Thank you for creating it!