Coach
| Coach | |
|---|---|
| [[:File:| ]] | |
| Appearance(s) |
[[Appearance::GTA 1 GTA London 1969 GTA III GTA Vice City GTA San Andreas GTA Advance GTA Liberty City Stories GTA Vice City Stories GTA IV (beta)]] |
| Vehicle type | Civilian bus |
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The Coach is a recurring bus that first appeared in Grand Theft Auto 1, recurring in all third generation GTA games.
Description
Like the Bus, the Coach is one of the heaviest vehicle in the games, and is also probably the longest, giving it a very wide turning radius. It is reasonably fast for its size and has decent brakes. It's also highly durable and has a distinctive ability to carry a large number of passengers. Being essentially a charter bus, the Coach features a sleeker design and more spacious interior than the Bus. Even though they consistantly exist in virtually almost every metropolitan city, the coaches are usually rare to be found; both in driving and parked up in the game. Coaches are supported by various in-game Coach Companies throught all GTA's which are advertised on the side of the vehicle.
GTA 1 and GTA London
In GTA 1, the Coach appears to be a municipal bus and is always silver. Unlike the Coach in future games, this version has no special features and is of no real use. There is, however, a side mission involving the Coach, in which the player must stay above 50mph to stop a bomb from exploding - a reference to the movie Speed.
While never appearing in traffic, the Coach has also been utilized in at least one mission in GTA London 1969 (Mission 19: Phone 2 in Northwest Bow #1) as a means of trapping a targeted passenger and blowing the bus and its passenger up. The game's rendition is no different from the Coach in GTA 1, but is stretched to appear slightly narrower in width and longer in length.
GTA III and GTA Liberty City Stories
The GTA III and GTA Liberty City Stories renditions of the Coach assume a modern design, with a curved front and partially rounded body. Due to its size, the Coach is capable of seating a large number of passengers (up to 8, as seen in the GTA III mission, The Fuzz Ball). The vehicle runs on six wheels, has tinted windows (which do not allow the player to see inside), has two passenger access doors on both sides, and can be sprayed in two-tone color schemes. It appears to be based on an MCI J4500 or a E4500, however the doors have been moved.
GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas and GTA Vice City Stories
The GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas and GTA Vice City Stories renditions of the Coach are essentially older versions of the GTA III Coach, similar to 1990s MCI coach models like the 102-B3, with the doors moved. These buses have a more boxy design, with colored stripes running along the sides. Other design aspects of the vehicle are unchanged from its "future" version. The GTA Vice City and GTA Vice City Stories renditions feature slightly higher front bumpers than the GTA San Andreas rendition, a problem likely stemmed from a programming error. As with the GTA III and GTA Liberty City Stories renditions, these other Coaches can still hold a large number of passengers (7 in San Andreas), and may be seen stopping at designated bus stops in GTA Vice City. In GTA Vice City, there exists an undocumented bus driver mini-game for the Coach. Stealing the bus and stopping at bus stops will cause passengers to board, awarding the player $5 for each passenger.
GTA Advance
The GTA Advance rendition of the Coach, like the other Coaches, resembles a large, long bus, but visual details of the vehicle are vague due to the game's GTA 1-style top-down angle. It presumably shares the general design of the GTA III/GTA Liberty City Stories Coaches.
Being a bus, the performance of the vehicle is, as expected, very poor, being only faster than the Wong but slower than a Belly, and is only capable of traveling at only one third of that speed when off-road; its reverse speed is equally poor. Its size and weight also makes the vehicle susceptible to toppling, but its value at the crusher is substantially high, at $4,096, at par with the Fire Truck, but still ranked below those of the similarly sized Wong, Belly and SWAT Van.
Beta (GTA IV)
A vehicle similar to the Coach may have been cut from Grand Theft Auto IV before release. A Coach is seen in a commercial about Higgins Helitours on GTA IV's in-game TV programming (immediately after the end of The Serrated Edge) but it is not available to ride or drive in the game. It looks similar to the GTA III and GTA Liberty City Stories renditions.
Trivia
- In most of the III era games, when driving a coach in first person view, the coach cannot be seen if it is on fire which causes an unpleasent surprise for most people.
- A Coach from GTA Vice City can be found in Rockstar North's Manhunt as a wreck.
- The Coach plays the following radio stations by default when entered:
- West Coast Talk Radio in GTA San Andreas.
- In GTA Vice City Stories, the Coach can sit up to 12 passengers, as doing the "pedestrians follow you" cheat proves when entering the bus.
- When the pedestrians are in a mob outside the bus, they slide through the pedestrians to get in the bus.
Locations
- GTA 1
- In all 3 cities, on any of the larger roads with 4-6 lanes.
- GTA III
- Bus depot, Portland View, Portland
- Can be found throughout the city, on main roads
- GTA Vice City
- Can be found spawned randomly at any bus stops around the city
- GTA San Andreas
- Can be found parked outside The Welcome Pump bar in Dillimore, Red County
- Car park adjacent to TV station building, Missionary Hill, San Fierro (sometimes locked)
- Can be found on the main road, Tierra Robada
- Can be found outside Los Santos International Airport
- Can be found driving on The Strip in Las Venturas
- Can be found driving around Ocean Docks, Los Santos
- GTA Liberty City Stories
- Found mostly at southern Staunton Island
- Found in the coach park in Trenton, Portland
- GTA Vice City Stories
- Though there are bus stops everywhere in Vice City, Coaches are not seen picking up passengers. The only way to obtain this vehicle is to go to InterGlobal Films. Once Victor Vance gets on the bus, the mission Crash! is activated.
Performance
GTA III - Vice City Stories
Coaches existing in the III era bare a very low pick-up speed due to their heavy weight and large size. In games such as GTA San Andreas, steering wise, coaches struggle around curves with a sharp radius as the length is quite great making it virtually impossible to pass small towns safely such as Prickle Pine or Fort Carson. However, a positive aspect of the coach is that it can cope with multiple moderate crashes before destruction, making it quite a sturdy vehicle. As well as this breaks react reasonably quickly for such a large vehicle. Due to low pick-up speed,the Coach would not be recommended for high wanted level escapes.
GTA IV
Coaches cannot be judged in terms of performance in the current games of the IV era due to the fact that they are not obtainable for gameplay use, as stated in one the previous sections. However the performance can be determined by a similar functioning vehicle, the Bus.
See also
External link