Ever since the discovery of void warps and TLaD’s growth in popularity from last year, a lot of strategies have been found and shared around the community which have changed the speedrun significantly from what it used to be. Today I’m willing to share all strats found over the last year that I find useful and that have improved the run, in both Any% and 100%.

HOW TO VOID WARP In TLaD, void warping is almost exactly the same as it is in IV, with minor differences with the timing of fully entering the cab.

-Place a marker, get into a taxi and start holding Enter (SELECT DESTINATION). When Johnny closes the door*, pause the game and undo your marker. Unpause, skip fare and watch the warp happen.

*the timing for this is precise, and you will have better success if you lock your FPS to a low value (25-26 is what most top runners use). It’s different depending on which side of the taxi you’ve entered. For the driver’s side door, pause the game a few moments after the door is shut. For the passenger’s side door, pause when Johnny starts pulling the door. (PRACTICE!) Notes: -It is not possible to void warp if there’s a scared passenger getting out through the opposite side, so avoid a situation where that would happen. -It’s of course possible to void warp without a door, you just have to nail the timing. This takes practice, but it’s extremely useful to learn.

Liberty City Choppers You will land right next to the truck you need to take during the mission.

Off Route (driver’s side) You can warp inside the police station, which skips having to climb the fence and prevents a fight with the cops. All you have to do is spam F (enter vehicle) near the Prison Bus and trigger the cutscene.

Note: Sometimes after the void warp, Johnny will get hit with a ravage of bullets from the federal agents at the site, which can kill you. Some people believe this is caused by a wrongfully placed marker. I would recommend not doing anything with your camera while the taxi is falling down into the void and hoping you’ll get a good landing.

Video by @possessedwarrior

Coming Down You can get the taxi as close as possible to the building Ashley is in.

Marta Full of Grace (passenger’s side) The cab will drop you literally right next to the marker.

Collector’s Item (driver’s side) Unfortunately, warping into the Libertonian is not possible. However, you can opt for a warp to the last marker. Lock your FPS to 120 or lower during the loading screen to prevent a softlock.

100% VOID WARPS In 100%, void warps are more prominent and sometimes game changing. Here are some of the more useful ones.

Politics seagull (airport terminal) By warping inside the airport terminal, you can snipe the seagull from Politics and avoid a wanted level. You can do this at any point during the run, not just during the mission. Changing view distance to 100 and holding C (LOOK BEHIND) prevents cops from spawning close to you.

This is the best way to handle it:

Colony Island seagull void warp The fastest way to handle this seagull is with a void warp. Use this marker and run in front of the cab to stop him, HAIL, then shoot the seagull. This shouldn’t give you a wanted level.

Knowing Me, Knowing You (Stubbs’ Dirty Laundry) The taxi lands right next to the Infernus you need to take during the mission.

Notes: -If you do what I do in this video, by luring the cab driver out, the taxi will stay outside the mansion with the engine on when you get back from the shop and you can take it and drive away. -The taxi kinda floats around during this mission. Don’t worry about it.

Beachcomber (Angus’ Bike Thefts) Place a marker on top of the target to warp right next to him.

Notes: It’s optimal for the bike to not fall over, so don’t shoot him off.

Zorst Fumes (Angus’ Bike Thefts) Arguably the strangest void warp in the entire trilogy, this allows you to warp up on the motorway when you otherwise couldn’t. Place the marker on top of the target, and void warp. Once you spawn on the street below, get into the cab again and wait until the “vehicle” marker appears on the taxi screen (This will NOT happen unless you specifically did the void warp). Select it (not a void warp) and you will appear in front of the convoy/behind them depending on how they’ve moved. Shoot whoever is shooting you and steal the Hellfury.

Make sure you have a lot of health for this.

If you’ve failed the mission somehow after the void warp, you don’t need to repeat most of the steps, as the vehicle marker will appear right away during the next reattempt.

Video by @Stig:

Why it works:

Notes: -If you spawn ahead of them, the bikers will shoot you, and sometimes they accidentally shoot the target and knock him off the bike. Kill the attackers and steal the bike. This is absolutely the best scenario for this mission. -If you spawn behind them, the target will flee and the rest of the convoy will attack you. Kill them and chase after the target. This is the worst possible scenario for the mission, as they are the deadliest. -Try to shoot the target from inside the taxi in both scenarios to try and prevent him from fleeing. This is difficult, but possible. -If the target flees, steal the taxi and chase after him.

Short Stay Parking (Angus’ Bike Thefts) - ~10 seconds over the old method Driving up this multi storey car park is awkward, so I’ve come up with a more spectacular approach, which, conveniently, is also the fastest way to handle the mission. Use the consistent Maverick spawn above the Booth Tunnel to fly to the top floor of the car park.

Video by me:

MARKERS AND OTHER STRATEGIES It’s War - Abusing checkpoints Much like in The Ballad of Gay Tony, you can trigger checkpoints in TLaD earlier than you’re supposed to, and skip an entire stage of the mission by failing it afterwards. On It’s War, look for a taxi immediately after the mission start and place a marker somewhere around here:

After cabbing, pause and unpause to fail, then restart the mission from the phone, and you will respawn in the industrial area where the shootout begins.

Marta Full of Grace - FIB Buffalo strategy This used to be one of the hardest locations to find cabs in the Any% run, but if you steal an FIB Buffalo from the shootout, the likelihood of finding a taxi is much higher, as I have noticed from several attempts and performed in several of my runs, to great success. Here is how I usually handle the shootout and the aftermath:

Notes: -DO NOT kill the first two agents right away, this will cause the game to crash. Avoid blowing up their car as well, as this will often lead to an undrivable Buffalo. -DO NOT steal their Buffalo either. It has very little health. -As you exit the wanted circle, keep looking down until you lose the cops, then look for a cab. I’ve had the most success on the road I drive to in the video. -You can find excellent cabs at the intersection if you’re lucky (before losing the wanted level), so look out for those as well.

Shifting Weight - Slomo skip It’s possible to skip the slow motion at the gas station in Shifting Weight by destroying one of the police cars chasing you. Select the pipe bombs with the hotkey (default is 9) and drop them at a specific point. As a reference, I use the second to last tree before the gas station for when I should hold the fuse, and I drop the bomb when the bike lines up with two white lines on the street. See below:

New Roman’s Holiday You actually don’t need Malc or the car at all in this mission. Once you meet with him, look for a cab and use the marker below to teleport to the drop off.

Call Roman (5552222) while looking a certain way to manipulate his spawn (you can hang up as soon as the blue dot disappears from the radar), run up to him and drop him off at the marker.

Here is the best way to handle this mission:

Get Off Your High Horse (Angus’ Bike Thefts) Place a marker behind the target to spawn on the overpass. Shoot the rider from inside the taxi (he’s the one ahead of the other two).

Communication Breakdown (Stubbs’ Dirty Laundry) This isn’t exactly new, but I haven’t seen any posts about it. The target can spawn in one randomly chosen location from a pool of 7. For all but one of them you can taxi to him directly. If he spawns near the Dukes hospital, use the marker below to avoid the cab from running into him and failing the mission. Always hail your taxi before triggering the cutscene.

Note: If the target spawns next to the Chinatown gun store, in Algonquin, use the passenger side of the cab (otherwise the cutscene will start as soon as you exit and you don’t get a chance to hail).