I played 'the Los Santos connection' mission from Madrazo for the first time today and my God it was epic. Would love to play it again with friends rather than the idiotic randoms I played with. My only problem with this (and most GTAO missions) is the crappy payout.
There were six of us in the mission playing on hard, and some asshole died and used up the only team life (or maybe he died twice, didn't really notice how many team lives we got.) at the first Vagos stop where we got the coke. Next there was the fuel depot and everyone was still alive when we got there, but that's when the shit hit the fan. Initially we were fine and managed to fight our way towards the laptop to hack it, but after one guy managed to get the info from the laptop and backup showed up. Everyone except me and one other guy who drove straight to the airport were alive. I got there to find the last guy sniping at the smugglers from a distance and got up close to take them on.
They had a fucking army in that hangar, but we had managed to get all the guys inside except for the two on the elevated platform guarding the last of the coke. I had avoided getting to the Buzzard because I knew I'd get shot before I got to it or while I was shooting at the guys in the hangar, but the sniping dude went for it after we had thinned out the ranks of the enemies. Still though the last two managed to kill him while he was flying above the runway. I killed the last two guys only to see several cars headed my way with air support from another Buzzard. Managed to get to cover and killed some of them while blowing up all their vehicles with sticky bombs.
I thought the mission was over, but next I had to go after the kingpin who was fleeing in a Shamal! He flew away as I had to deal with what was left of his men AND their fucking Buzzard. After I sniped the Buzzard's pilot, I made my way towards the first Buzzard that the last guy I was playing with tried to use. It was badly damaged and I was sure there was no saving this mission since either my chopper would crash, or the kingpin would get away.
Caught up to the bastard as he was flying above Raton Canyon and as soon as he was in range of my missiles I shot the son of a bitch down. All I had to do now was to get to Madrazzo's. The helicopter went down just a outside of his house and I walked the rest of the way.
I loved that mission, but all that work for a measly 13k? I know everyone bitches about the crap payout, but it really is a justified complaint. With all the money spent on ammo and new guns and weapon upgrades as I level up, I'm burning more money than I'm making.