🏝️ Coral Island

What it is

Coral Island is the island off the coast of San Andreas with its own government, its own immigration rules and its own air and sea defence. It is not part of San Andreas, and living in San Andreas does not make you a citizen. To set foot on it legally you need a visa, a residence permit or citizenship, and to fly there you check in at the Coral Island Flights desk at Sandy Shores Airfield.

The island is run in character by the Government of Coral Island. Its Department of Immigration and Citizenship decides visa applications on the government website, its officers check papers at the border and can remove people who should not be there, and Coral Control watches the sky and the water around the island with a radar. Uncleared aircraft and boats that fly or sail in are hailed on the radio, warned, and, depending on how the government has set its defences that day, fired on.

This guide covers the visitor's side: how to get a visa, how to pay for it, how to fly over, what the defence system says to you if you arrive by your own aircraft or boat, and how to ask for clearance. The government, the police and the border desk have their own procedures that belong to them.

How to start

Everything begins on the government website, coral.roleplayproject.net. You sign in with your Roleplay Project account, choose the character who will travel and fill in an application. You can save it as a draft and come back to it. When you submit it, a fee becomes due and you are given an application number.

The fee is paid in game, never on the website. Either check in at the Coral Island Flights desk at Sandy Shores Airfield, where the check-in panel lists any Coral fees you owe with a Pay button, pay at the Immigration and City Office in Puerto Coral, or type /coralfees anywhere to see what you owe and /coralfees pay to settle it. Fees are taken from cash first and then from your bank. An application is not looked at until its fee is paid, and one left unpaid for seven days expires.

An immigration officer then reviews the application within the processing time for that visa and may ask for more information. If it is approved, the visa appears on the website with its number and a verification code. Anyone can confirm that a visa is valid from its number and the holder's surname; the site only discloses the validity, the type and the dates.

Coral Island Flights desk1758.66, 3297.40

Sandy Shores Airfield. Check in for the flight, pay Coral fees and enrol your fingerprints here

The visas

A business visa needs a host company or business contact on the island. A work visa is tied to the employer named on it and lapses if that employment ends; you must tell the Department within seven days. Applying for an advertised job with the Government of Coral Island itself costs nothing, and a work visa is issued free when an offer is accepted.

Renewal costs the same as the visa being renewed and can be requested from seven days before it expires until fourteen days after. A tourist visa can be renewed once; after that you make a new application.

Citizenship

You can apply to become a citizen when you hold or have held a residence permit, have spent at least thirty qualifying days on the island in the last hundred and eighty, have no active warrant, no conviction in the last thirty days and no entry ban, and are sponsored by a citizen. The website records your qualifying days for you. You attend an interview with an immigration officer and, if approved, take the oath of citizenship at Government House within thirty days. Days spent on the island count whatever visa you hold, but a work visa on its own does not lead to citizenship; you need the residence permit as well.

Step by step

1. Apply on the website

   Go to coral.roleplayproject.net, sign in with your RPP account and choose the character who will travel. Pick the visa, give your San Andreas address and answer the declaration about warrants and convictions honestly. The Department reads the Los Santos records and will see them.

2. Pay the fee in game

   Open /coralfees to see the reference and the amount, then /coralfees pay to settle it, or check in at the Coral Island Flights desk at Sandy Shores Airfield and pay from the panel, or pay at the Immigration and City Office. Cash is taken first, then bank. Nothing happens to your application until this is done.

3. Wait for the decision

   Tourist visas are decided within a day or two, work visas within three days, residence permits within five. Keep an eye on the website: the officer may ask for more information, and the visa, its number and its verification code appear there when it is approved.

4. Check in and fly

   Walk to the Coral Island Flights desk at Sandy Shores Airfield and press E to check in. The check-in panel shows your documents, your visa or status, your fingerprints, any Coral fees you owe and the fare, and it checks your immigration status before it sells you anything: no visa, no flight. If your fingerprints are not on file yet, take them at the desk. When everything is clear, choose Pay $500 and board; cash is taken first, then bank. Government of Coral Island officials fly free. The desk on the island's airstrip flies you back free of charge and lands you on the apron at Sandy Shores Airfield.

5. Behave on the island

   Officers can check anyone's papers with a border check (/border [id]). A person whose conduct warrants it can be removed by an immigration or police officer with /deport <id> [reason]; removal revokes every visa they hold, flies them back to Sandy Shores Airfield and bans them from the island for thirty days.

6. Keep your visa current

   Renew from seven days before expiry until fourteen days after. Overstaying is an immigration matter, and unpaid immigration fees show up on every border check you are ever given.

The government website

coral.roleplayproject.net is more than the visa office. When you sign in you get an account area with your applications, a tracker for each one, your documents (visas, licences, clearances and letters) and any cases you have open. The e-services are applied for online and, where there is a fee, paid in game with /coralfees pay, at the Coral Island Flights desk at Sandy Shores Airfield or at the Immigration and City Office, like a visa fee.

Firearms licences and premises liquor licences are not online: they are applied for and paid for in person on the island. See Coral Island law.

Anyone can read the public pages without signing in: the visa checker (from a visa number and the holder's surname), the fees page, the Gazette, the newsroom and noticeboard, the laws and the bills before the Transitional Council, consultations, public alerts, the border status, the President and Cabinet, careers and vacancies, and statistics.

Arriving by air or sea

You do not have to take the airline. Any aircraft or boat can make the crossing, but the moment you do, Coral Control's radar is watching you and the island's defence rules apply. This is the part that catches most people out, so read it before you fly.

Two rings are drawn around the island from its centre, whatever your height:

Coral Control does not draw the rings on your map. What you get instead is a strip at the top centre of your screen showing which zone you are in, the warning count and a countdown to the next step, and a radio panel at the top right that speaks to you in your own language. Every transmission is also written into chat so you can read it back after the panel fades.

The hail and the three warnings

If you are uncleared and heading towards the island when you cross the 2.5 km line, this is what happens, in order:

1. The hail. "Coral Control to aircraft bearing 311 NW at 2.4 km, callsign ABC123: you are entering restricted Coral Island airspace. Turn back or request clearance with /coralaccess. We may fire on uncleared aircraft." Boats hear the same with "vessel" and "waters". The strip reads WARNING 1 of 3.

2. The second warning, twenty seconds later if you are still inbound, or at once if you cross the sovereign line. "Second warning. You are 2.0 km from Coral Island and still inbound. Turn back now or request clearance with /coralaccess."

3. The final warning, another twenty seconds or the sovereign crossing. "Final warning. You are inside sovereign airspace at 1.4 km. Turn back now. Air defence will engage." The strip pulses red and an alarm plays.

4. What happens next depends on the government's posture that day. On a quiet day the ladder stops here: the final warning repeats every forty seconds and an operator decides what to do with you. When the island is closed, or under lockdown, missiles follow ten seconds after the final warning and keep coming every eight seconds until you turn back, land, are cleared, or are shot down.

Under a lockdown the whole ladder is compressed: the lockdown message is your first warning, the gaps shrink to eight seconds and missiles can follow about twenty six seconds after the first word. Every uncleared craft already inside the airspace hears "Coral Island is under lockdown. All uncleared craft will be engaged. Turn back now or request clearance with /coralaccess."

Asking for clearance

/coralaccess <reason> (or /coralclearance) asks Coral Control for permission to come in. You must be in a boat, helicopter or aircraft, or already inside the 2.5 km airspace on foot or in a vehicle, and you must give a reason of up to 200 characters. You hear "Coral Control: clearance request 41 received. Hold your position or stay outside the sovereign zone while an operator reviews it."

While the request is pending the warnings pause for up to two minutes and the strip shows an amber RESTRICTED notice instead of a countdown. An operator on the island sees your request with your craft, its plate and every occupant's immigration status, and either approves it, giving you a timed clearance (two hours by default) and the message "You are cleared into Coral Island airspace and waters for 120 minutes. Proceed.", or refuses it with a reason, after which the warnings resume five seconds later.

Three things to know:

• You cannot ask once the final warning has been given. "Too late to request clearance: you are already under final warning or being engaged. Turn back now."

• One request at a time, and one a minute. A request nobody answers expires after five minutes, and the warnings resume if nobody has decided within the two minute grace, because operators are not always online.

• A clearance attaches to your plate, or to your character if you asked on foot. Coral Control reloads its list of clearances every minute, so a clearance granted on the website reaches it within a minute.

You can also arrange clearance before you set off: apply on the website for permission to land (aircraft) or advance notice of arrival (boats, or yourself without a craft). When it is granted, your plate or your character is cleared for the arrival window you asked for.

Turning back

Turning away always works. Once you have opened the distance by about forty metres and are heading away, Coral Control stands you down: "Coral Control: contact turning away, air defence standing down." Bouncing on the ring is not free, though: if you turn back towards the island afterwards the ladder resumes where it left off, with the next warning due at once.

Landing inside the sovereign zone stops the missiles, because nobody shoots at a parked plane, but it flags you to the border desk with a note on your record. Taking off again restarts the ladder at the step you had reached.

Who is cleared without asking

Passengers on a Coral Island Flights crossing, government officials and Coral Island Police Service officers, anyone holding an active clearance (from /coralaccess or from the website), and anyone an operator has marked cleared for the visit. Holding a visa does not by itself clear your aircraft: a visa lets you through the border desk, a clearance lets your craft through the airspace. If you are flying yourself with a visa in your pocket, still ask for clearance.

Tips

Related commands

Worked example

See also

• Coral Island law for the island's criminal code, drugs, driving, firearms licensing and courts.

• Rigged casino, whose VIP Club runs events on the island with a sponsored tourist visa.

• Licences and flight school for flying your own aircraft and ATC clearances at Los Santos airfields.

• Custody and the law for what happens if the island's police arrest you.

• The laws for the Los Santos side of your record, which the Department reads.