What it is
Trucking is the city's haulage trade. You take a contract from the depot board, load the cargo, drive it to one or more stops before a deadline and get paid on delivery. It starts small, with a rented van and a few boxes of parcels across town, and grows into articulated long hauls of fuel, hazmat, livestock and shipping containers from the docks to Paleto Bay.
The network has 171 active stops in three regions (city, county and north): hubs and terminals that supply cargo, and industrial yards, farms, shops and sites that accept it. Nine cargo classes each have their own way of loading, their own speed limit, their own trucks and trailers and their own pay rate. Some contracts appear because a shop is genuinely low on stock or a fuel station is running dry, so what you deliver changes the city.
The road matters. Speeding against the cargo's limit, letting a refrigerated load warm up, leaving livestock parked, breaking down, losing a trailer or running out of driving hours all cost you at settlement. Police can pull you over and inspect your paperwork, and other players can break a seal and steal your load.
How to start
Go to the trucking depot for your server. The board opens when you walk into the marker. It has seven tabs: Contracts, My Truck, Dispatch, Records, Endorsements, Company and Handbook. You can close it at any time, and /endshift always closes it; pressing E in a truck near the depot sounds the horn and does not reopen it.
What | English server | Balkan server |
|---|---|---|
Depot | Paleto Bay Trucking Depot, on the north-east side of town | Los Santos Trucking Depot, in the docks south of Elysian Island |
Rental bay | One bay beside the depot. A rental is refused while another vehicle is still standing in it, so move your truck out of the bay | A rental yard with four slots |
Trailer rentals | None. There is no trailer bay at Paleto Bay, so trailer rentals are refused and a contract that needs a trailer needs your own | Three trailer slots in the yard |
Pallet loading at the depot | No forklifts. Dry goods, refrigerated and hazmat pallets load in the bay on a timer | Forklifts at the depot |
51.81, 6486.21English server. The board, with the rental bay just south
60.73, 6463.99English server. One vehicle at a time
798.06, -2988.62Balkan server. The board, the rental yard, the loading stack and the forklifts
1700.40, 3300.10Weighbridge for long hauls through the county
-2540.50, 2320.70Weighbridge at Chumash
A brand new driver needs a class C driving licence and nothing else. The board shows local parcels and dry goods contracts at level 1; everything else shows a lock with the reason (level, endorsement, vehicle, trailer, licence or driving hours). You can open the board anywhere with /trucking, but away from the depot it is the handbook, your records and endorsements only. Contracts are accepted at the depot.
Rentals are charged only once the truck has spawned: van $450, light rigid $900, heavy rigid $1,400, tractor $2,200, plus $500 to $900 for a trailer where the depot rents trailers. A rental is returned at the depot with the Return vehicle button or with /returntruck.
The old Haulage freight yard has closed; the trucking depot replaces it.
The licences that gate the truck classes come from the driving school: class C for vans, class B for rigid lorries, class A for tractor units. See Licences and flight school.
Every run issues a manifest item. /manifest shows it as a document listing the cargo, the units loaded and delivered, the seal, the weight, the placard and the stops. Police read the same document at an inspection.
Step by step
- Open the board and pick a contract
Walk into the depot marker. On the Contracts tab, filter by tier and region. Each card shows the net you will receive, the expiry and any lock reason. Click one to see the route as a timeline, the requirements and the full pay breakdown.
- Choose a vehicle and accept
Pick a rental that fits (the board only lists trucks you are levelled for that can carry the cargo), or your own inspected truck from the My Truck tab. Press Accept. The rental spawns in the rental bay, the manifest lands in your inventory and, for sealed cargo, so does the seal.
- Load at the stack
Parcels are boxes: E at the ghost boxes on the bay to pick one up, E at the truck to stow it. Dry goods, refrigerated and hazmat are pallets: at the Los Santos depot use one of the forklifts; at the Paleto Bay depot, which has no forklifts, they load in the bay on a timer. Fuel, livestock, vehicles, construction and containers are timed loads: park within 10 m of the bay, stay under 3 km/h and wait for the progress bar.
- Drive
When the last unit is aboard the run goes en route. The HUD strip shows the next stop, the distance, the deadline, the cargo's speed limit after the weather, the seal, the weight and the damage. Reefer runs show the trailer temperature; the rest banner appears after 75 minutes of driving. A waypoint is set to the next stop.
- Deliver at the bay
At each stop, park the truck within 25 m of the bay, get out and press E on foot within 15 m. Boxes are carried to drop spots, pallets go by forklift where there is one, timed cargoes run their overlay. Multi drop contracts unload only that stop's share.
- Get paid
The last stop settles the run. Chat prints the breakdown: gross, the 15 percent government cut, penalties and what you receive. XP, records and achievements follow. If the stop supplies something, a backhaul contract back towards a hub is offered to you privately for ten minutes.
- Return the rental or keep going
Drive back to the depot and press Return vehicle, or take the backhaul.
/endshiftalso ends a shift and closes the board; with a run still active it asks you to confirm within 30 seconds and abandons the run.
Cargo classes
Cargo | Unit | Load style | Vehicles | Level | Needs | Speed limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Parcels | Box | By hand | Van, light rigid, box trailer | 1 | Nothing | None | The starter cargo |
Dry goods | Pallet | Forklift | Van, light and heavy rigid, box or curtain trailer | 1 | Nothing | None | Sealed |
Refrigerated | Pallet | Forklift | Light and heavy rigid with a reefer body, reefer trailer | 2 | Nothing | None | Sealed. Starts at -18 C and spoils if it warms above -5 C for five minutes |
Livestock | 5 head | Ramp | Heavy rigid or stock trailer | 2 | Livestock endorsement | 70 | Fails if parked more than 20 minutes |
Construction | Tonne bundle | Crane | Heavy rigid, flatbed or log trailer | 3 | Nothing | 90 | Heavy |
Fuel | 100 gallons | Hose | Tanker trailer only | 3 | Tanker endorsement | 80 | Sealed, placarded |
Hazmat | Pallet | Forklift | Box or tanker trailer only | 4 | Hazmat endorsement | 80 | Sealed, placarded, fragile |
Vehicles | Car | Ramp | Car carrier only | 4 | Nothing | 90 | Fragile |
Containers | TEU | Crane | Container chassis only | 5 | Nothing | 90 | Sealed, the heaviest and best paid |
Speed limits drop in bad weather: 10 km/h in rain or fog, 15 in thunder, 20 in snow. Parcels and dry goods have no limit of their own.
Trucks, trailers and your own rig
Class | Licence | Rental | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
Van | Class C | $450 | Mule, Jogger vans, Boxville from level 2 |
Light rigid | Class B | $900 | Mule with a box body, Benson, Pounder |
Heavy rigid | Class B | $1,400 | Mule reefer, Pounder heavy, Sandking and Bison flatbeds |
Tractor | Class A | $2,200 | Packer from level 4, Phantom and Hauler from level 5 |
Trailers: box and curtain (24 pallets), short box (16), reefer (22), fuel tanker (50 units), tanker (40), container chassis (2 TEU), car carrier (4 or 6 cars), flatbed (18) and log trailer (16), stock trailer (12). Long trailers need a 20 m bay, so some stops refuse them.
Your own truck. Any catalogue truck you own or have company keys for can be driven for pay, and it pays 15 percent more than a rental (10 percent more for a company truck). Park it within 25 m of the depot, couple the trailer if the contract needs one, and press Inspect on the My Truck tab. The check covers the model, the trailer, your licence, any endorsement the cargo needs and body health of at least 600. A pass is good for 30 minutes.
Coupling. Reverse a tractor slowly to within 6 m of a trailer's kingpin and a prompt appears; E attaches it and raises the legs. Reversing under 8 km/h with a trailer on draws a guide line. If the trailer comes off, recouple it: you are warned after 30 seconds, and a trailer more than 150 m away for a minute counts as lost and fails the run.
Endorsements. Bought on the Endorsements tab: livestock at level 2 for $1,500 (class B or A), tanker at level 3 for $2,500 (class A), hazmat at level 4 for $4,000 (class A). They are real licence entries, so they show in your wallet and on the MDC, and a suspended one fails both the board check and a roadside inspection.
How pay works
The price on the card is fixed when the contract is posted, so you keep the price you accepted even if the market moves. The base depends on the tier, the distance, the number of units, extra stops, the cargo class, the current spot rate for that cargo and region, and whether the contract is a priority job.
At settlement the base is adjusted for you: rental x1.00, own truck x1.15, company truck x1.10; plus 3 percent per level above 1 and extra at levels 6 and 7; your reputation with clients from 0.85 to 1.15; and 0.9 if you are over your driving hours. Then the 15 percent government cut and any penalties come off. A completed run with no theft or spoilage never pays under $250.
Penalty | Cost |
|---|---|
Late | 10 percent per five minutes started, up to 50 percent |
Seal broken | 30 percent |
Missing units | In proportion |
Spoiled reefer or failed livestock welfare | 60 percent |
Speeding | 2 percent per event, up to 20 percent |
Overweight at the weighbridge | 25 percent |
Long haul weigh-in skipped | 15 percent |
Body damage | Damage percent times the cargo's fragility, worse in bad weather |
Tiers. Local: the region's hub to one or two stops within 2.5 km, level 1. Regional: a hub in one region to stops in another, level 2. Long haul: a terminal or hub to one far stop over 8 km with a tractor and trailer, level 4, weigh-in needed when the cargo is placarded, containers or over 20 t. Multi drop: four to six stops of parcels or dry goods, level 2. Backhaul: offered when your run finishes at a stop that supplies something, private to you for ten minutes.
Kinds. Spot contracts top the board up every minute; 15 percent of them are priority (higher pay, half the time, level 5). Demand contracts come from shops under 25 percent stock, fuel stations under 15 percent reserve and business supply orders. Convoys are posted fifteen minutes before 12:00, 18:00 and 21:00 UTC with four slots, the same origin and destination and 1.2x pay; level 3 to join, level 6 to lead. B2B and company contracts come from haulage companies.
The spot rate for each cargo and region rises when contracts expire untaken and falls as they are delivered, so an unpopular cargo pays more. The board's Spot rates card shows them.
On the road
Event | What happens |
|---|---|
Speeding | Over the cargo's limit by 8 km/h for six seconds is one event. The HUD limit cell shows the current limit after the weather. |
Refrigerated | Starts at -18 C. After three minutes with the engine off it climbs half a degree a minute; with the engine on it cools a degree a minute back to -18. Warning at -10. Five minutes above -5 spoils the load. Keep the engine running when you stop. |
Livestock | Stationary for more than twelve minutes starts the welfare clock; eight more minutes fails it, treated as spoiled. |
Trailer loose or lost | Detached for 30 s and 22 m away is a warning; 150 m away for a minute fails the run. |
Breakdown | Under 300 engine health there is a roll every kilometre. The engine dies for three minutes unless a repair kit or |
Driving hours | 90 minutes of driving per shift. Warning at 75. Over 90 you cannot take new contracts and pay drops to 0.9 until you rest for five minutes with |
Tolls | Paid with |
Interiors | Going into a building pauses the run and extends the deadline by the time inside, up to ten minutes. |
Death | Fails the run. |
Weigh stations. Two weighbridges, on Route 68 and on the Great Ocean Highway at Chumash. Stop on the pad in a catalogue truck and choose Weigh in. Over the truck's maximum gross prints a warning and costs 25 percent at settlement. A long haul that needed a weigh-in and never had one loses 15 percent.
Police inspections. An officer can pull you over and run a roadside inspection: manifest, licence, endorsement, placard, weight, seal and whether the load is stolen. Fines are $1,500 for no manifest, $3,000 for no licence, $2,500 for a missing or suspended endorsement, $1,200 for no placard, $2,000 overweight, $1,000 for a broken seal and $5,000 for a stolen load. A clean inspection earns you reputation and the "By the book" achievement. The run carries on either way.
Haulage companies
A company that sets up a haulage yard (/setupshop trucking on a company property) gets a Company tab on the board: a fleet of up to twelve company trucks and trailers, a driver list, open postings, invoices and settings for the driver split (40 to 90 percent, default 70), whether it accepts B2B and hazmat work, a dispatcher radio and a weekly yard lease.
Shops, factions and other companies post hauls with /haul post, offering $500 to $60,000 for a load between two stops, and the offer is held in escrow. A haulage company with the right to accept it takes it on and its dispatcher assigns a driver with /dispatch assign. The driver accepts it at the depot like any other contract; the dispatcher radio hears accepted, loaded, late, inspected and delivered lines, and the Dispatch tab map shows every company driver on a run.
At settlement the escrow pays out: offer minus the 15 percent cut minus penalties to the company, the driver's split transferred to the driver, and any penalty refunded to the poster. Reputation is kept for the driver and the company, globally and per client, and feeds the pay multiplier on every future run: on time +3, late -2, spoiled -6, seal broken -5, cancelled -3, a clean inspection +1.
See Companies for how company ranks, permissions and payroll work in general.
Progression
Level | Name | XP | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Courier | 0 | Vans, parcels and dry goods, local and backhaul |
2 | Box Van | 400 | Boxville and light rigids, refrigerated, livestock endorsement, regional and multi drop |
3 | Rigid | 1,200 | Heavier rigids and the reefer body, construction, tanker endorsement |
4 | Artic | 3,000 | Packer and the level 4 rigids, vehicles, hazmat endorsement, long haul |
5 | Heavy Haul | 6,500 | Phantom, Hauler and the rest of the tractors, containers, priority contracts |
6 | Convoy Lead | 12,000 | Lead convoys, 3 percent more pay |
7 | Legend | 20,000 | 6 percent more pay and the Legend of the road achievement |
Each run pays 100 XP plus 4 per unit, 10 per kilometre, 40 for on time and 60 for a priority job. /trucking records keeps six personal and server records (longest haul, heaviest load, most units in a day, fastest LS to Paleto, most runs in a day, best on-time streak) and /trucking top shows leaderboards for XP, runs, distance and on-time deliveries. Twelve achievements run from First delivery to Legend of the road, and three daily tasks belong to trucking: complete a run, make two on-time deliveries and drive 50 km on runs.
See also
Getting a job compares trucking with the other civilian jobs.
Licences and flight school for the class A, B and C driving licences.
Companies for running or driving for a haulage company.
Shops and fuel pumps for the shops and fuel stations whose shortages create demand contracts.
Mechanics and vehicles for breakdowns and callouts on the road.
Tips
Related commands
/truckingEveryoneTrucking status, hours, records, leaderboard and handbook.
/manifestEveryoneOpen your freight manifest.
/returntruckEveryoneReturn your rented job vehicle.
/endshiftEveryoneEnd your current trucking shift.
/haulEveryonePost, accept and manage client hauls.
/dispatchEveryoneDispatch drivers and use the company radio.
/paytollEveryonePay the toll to open the border barrier.
/callmechanicEveryoneCall a working mechanic out to your vehicle. They see your position and bill a callout fee when done.
Worked example
Priya Nair has a class C licence and $1,000 in the bank. It is 19:10 on the English server, and she walks into the Paleto Bay Trucking Depot marker.
The board opens on Contracts. She picks a local parcels run to Paleto Blvd Hardware, 6 boxes, a short hop across town. The card shows the gross, the 15 percent government cut and the net she will receive.
Under the rental picker she chooses a Mule ($450) and presses Accept. The rental bay is empty, so the van appears there, the $450 leaves her bank and a manifest lands in her inventory. Parcels are not sealed.
Six ghost boxes appear at the loading point. She presses E at the stack, carries the box to the van, presses E to stow it, and repeats five more times. On the last box the HUD strip appears: "1 of 1, Paleto Blvd Hardware", with the distance and the deadline.
She drives through town. Parcels have no speed limit, but the damage cell is on the HUD, so she takes the corners gently.
At the hardware store's dock she parks within 25 m, gets out and presses E within 15 m of the bay. Drop spots appear along the bay; she carries each box across.
The last box settles the run. Chat prints the gross, the government cut, penalties of $0 and what she receives. She earns XP, the First delivery achievement and a tick on the daily task. No backhaul is offered because a hardware store supplies nothing.
Back at the depot she presses Return vehicle, and the bay is free for the next driver. On the Balkan server the same run starts at the Los Santos Trucking Depot on the docks, with forklifts and a yard of rental slots.
What you see: the depot board with the rental picker, the ghost boxes at the loading point, the HUD strip with the deadline counting down, the drop spots at the store's dock, and the pay breakdown in chat.