GTA Online has a slew of annoying and time-wasting missions, like the one where you need to follow a Merryweather Valkyrie. Here is how to avoid it, every time.
In GTA Online, weapon preps for Cayo Perico can either send you to raid an office or a Merryweather training drill in order to acquire unmarked guns. If you get the latter, you will likely waste time following the slow Valkyrie or memorise the training grounds positions in order to assault them before the helicopter arrives.
Even if you find and clear the grounds before the Valkyrie's arrival, the mission can bug out and the helicopter might land in the wrong place, forcing you to do it all over again. Workarounds that offer ways to avoid this prep mission are numerous but they rely on one of two things - hopping sessions or blowing the Valkyrie up.
Neither of these workarounds are ideal because hopping sessions takes time due to GTA Online loading at the pace of a snail in the sun while blowing the helicopter up requires a costly upgrade for your Kosatka. Thankfully, there is a third way to avoid the mission altogether and for me, it has worked 100 per cent of the time.
The workaround
Avoiding Merryweather HQ heist prep is actually quite simple. All you need to do is to spawn Kosatka close to the location of the HQ and the game will automatically assign the office assault every time you choose the Unmarked Weapons heist prep.
In order to be close enough, you will need to be around the docks in southeastern Los Santos, which will cause Kosatka to spawn in the waters nearby. As long as you launch the mission from that position, it will always be the office assault.
Rockstar Games
You can see the exact location where you need to be in the image above. The upper circle marks the spot where your character should be when summoning Kosatka and the lower one marks the spot where it spawned for me. As long as the submarine is close to the docks, you will not get the mission to tail the Valkyrie.
Additionally, this location is fairly close to the office buildings so you can fly over with your Sparrow extremely quickly. Good luck with robbing El Rubio!
