Hacking Tips and Tricks for 2021

First of all be aware that your target may know you are coming. There are a lot of telltale signs you are being invaded. This includes: putting your phone away, focus not slowing time, the game continuing to run during the pause menu. Your target may try start an online contract to make sure the game knows that they know they are being invaded, this will give them an approx location of where you are (the largest extent of the hacking circle). Keep this in mind when invading a player.

Second I see a lot of players jog or sprint around, usually behind me. There is a time and place for sprinting but jogging should never be done. No NPCs ever jog. Walking should be your method of travel within any line of sight of the player. If NPCs near the player get spooked and start to run it is a perfect opportunity to run with them and blend into the crowd.

Generally though, you don't want to get too close to your target so there is a way to stay a safe distance away and still hack your target in most areas of the game. Cameras. I cannot tell you how useful cameras can be, they are invaluable. I recommend getting within 150-100m of your target and hopping on a camera to hack them.

But what if you're a motor-head? You can pretend to be a regular car driver right? I'm going to stop you right there. No, no you can't. Player driven cars have a very distinct noise as they rev far higher than regular NPCs and controlling your speed is very difficult. Do yourself a favour and try a hit and run on your target. Build up some speed and go for a ram. As you ram them you can get the hack done, if they are lucky enough to profile you it doesn't matter. They're ragdolled and you're at full speed in a car. The maths says you're away.

A few final tips:
Profiler range is 40m
You can hack a target in a vehicle from much farther than on foot
The police cannot chase an invader, ctOS scans will happen but amount to nothing
The Destroyer sniper rifle (from criminal convoys) 1 shots all vehicles
Please correct me if this is wrong!! As the hacking target, sitting in a vehicle that your hacker destroyed (e.g. with the Destroyer) registers as them attempting to damage you. You can sit in the vehicle and wait for them to lose!

Now you've hacked your target you have to find a nice spot to hunker down for a few minutes.

Generally so nearly anywhere is a reasonable place. There are obvious exceptions but I don't want to patronise you. (A literal field)

Ideally you want some verticality, lots of NPCs, lots of corners, lots of bushes.

If you are really struggling to find a nice spot you can run the timer right down to the last second, don't panic and set off the hack before you're ready.

Some bushes in the game are hollow, if you are able to take cover in a bush it can be a good idea. By bush I don't mean the stick thin ones that barely cover 1/5 of your body, I mean the big thick ones that if you take cover in can hide your entire body and the only way to find a player in it is to shoot into the bush or run into them. Be careful, not all of these bushes will be flush against the cover.

Having lots of NPCs is a good idea, if your target is a little gung ho or low on reputation the cops may arrive, distracting the player for a good bit of time. If this happens to you though, you're probably best off dying so long as the hack isn't that far in.

Having lots of verticality is a great idea! It divides your target's attention and allows you more freedom to move about during the hack. One strategy I enjoy using to waste my target's time is to find a large lift to raise and have it nearly done lowering by the time my target arrives. Stopping them halfway up and down with a blackout isn't a bad idea either.

But if all else fails you always have vehicles to hide in or around!

Now your target is 100% aware of you and is coming to murder you but fear not! You have many ways to avoid detection.

The most classic trick in the book, find a vehicle or something you can corner around. There you go. Just corner around it and keep your target on the opposite side of your cover. This is more or less the oldest trick in the book so don't expect this to work against the eagle eyed veterans, although it can still work against them on occasion. Don't be afraid to give this a go!

One of the game's very obvious ways to hide with a vehicle is the "Hide in vehicle". Unless you are very lucky with your character's model on your target's side and have a very dark interior and pretty much 0 lighting and they don't accidentally profile you, its usually a pretty bad idea. I wouldn't recommend trying to do it but I can't stop you!

Boating is a nice idea though! Finding yourself a nice large tour boat can be good cover and a good getaway if things go south. Hell, you could just take a speedboat and sail the high seas as your target chases after you.

Hanging around NPCs is a pretty bad idea as you really don't fit in but I think this point is a bit of a given.

As I mentioned in the first section of the guide there are lots of telltale signs you're being invaded. Mainly watch out for Aiden putting his phone away without your input and focus not slowing time.

Once you realise you're being invaded try to start an online contract and this will show you a rough area that your invader is in.

First off if you have the Destroyer sniper rifle, equip it. If not the U100 or your weapon of choice will do. The Destroyer is your best friend. It one shots everything. Any vehicle in the game will instantly be wrecked (even the convoy) with one shot, excellent for stopping drive-bys and stopping your invader getting away.

Try to not let on that you know you are being invaded. So keep that gun in its holster, you can always whip round and quickscope your invader later. And keep jogging it gives your invader time to catch up to you so you can find them. Try not to run into everything in front of you as you stare behind yourself as well.

Be aware that in a vehicle your invader can hack you from much farther away so its probably a good idea to get out of one.

Honestly there isn't too much to do here, keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary, try to keep clear of cameras if you can, the usual.

Quick tips:
You can in fact pretend to be AFK
Open areas are a good idea
Only players ride motorcycles
When the circle shrinks if the player is on the edge the circle will move to make sure the hacker stays within the circle, beeline in the direction it moves
You can stop the hack by using a Jam Comms, this will give you some extra time to pin down your invader

People, please. Stop starting a hack midway down an L-Train track with the intent of dropping down when your target goes up to check for you, its painfully obvious and you will normally be shot from the stairs up to the L-Train by a sniper rifle or ACR.

Blackouts when your target gets close, bad bad bad plan!!! The lines that come off of Aiden can be seen by your target too. Makes it a little easy to find you doesn't it. Only use blackout when your target is a good distance away.

Driving past your target to get the hack and then starting to turn and drive along the pavement or some other non-ai behaviour. Seriously, they do it in full view of me.

Don't waste time shooting your target, you cannot kill them (you will in fact fail the contract if you shoot them too much), but you can ragdoll them with a well placed shot from a grenade launcher.

Try not to run in a straight line from your target, duck and weave, duck and weave

Take care to hack your target, not something else like a steam pipe. It's quite the eventful giveaway!

Be creative!

This section will be quite wordy and possibly long so read at your own risk!

As kouwei32 commented, you can use IEDs (or if you're a risk taker a grenade launcher) to control the movement of NPCs. You can use this to distract your target and attempt to jog, run, parkour, you name it. As a dozen or so NPCs start running it'll be hard for them to spot the one runner that didn't have a reaction as well as a different running animation to the rest. This strategy does rely on the target looking at what you want them to, an experienced player may not take the bait.

Another strategy suggested by kouwei32 is a classic if you've seen old compilations of Watch_Dogs hackers. You can scare off the NPC behind the counter of a shop and take their place. Be careful not to scare off anyone else by taking cover behind the counter before taking out your gun otherwise it might be pretty obvious where you are. This strategy works way better than it really should and I'd recommend giving it a go, if they don't deduct who you are or accidentally profile you then your target will be smacking themselves after the hack!

As briefly mentioned in an earlier section you can use a car or van as a hiding spot. Not in the traditional sense of course. You can use it as cover and corner around it as your target wanders about to try to find you. This requires you to be alert at all times as people are unpredictable. They might jump of top of your vehicle or start blowing up random vehicles, be prepared for anything. One tip I will give for this strategy. If you think you need to corner you probably need to corner. I've caught a lot of people trying this but hesitating to corner quickly enough. And if you think someone is trying this on you then try to catch them out.

An old favourite for me has to be the trick involving 2 vehicles and a gun store. This probably won't get you a full hack if you stand inside the store (that's why if you see me hacking you I'll probably be hiding in a bush just next to it :D) but it goes roughly like this. If your target is not moving, afk or money farming or whatever, then don't hack them. Find yourself a gun store nearby and position 2 vehicles at both entrances. Stick one at the back door so that you cannot enter (you may need to blow this up so that they cannot just drive it away) and one just in front of the front doors. Now get the hack off and leg it to the car parked out front. Jam it in the door so that you cannot enter the store or vehicle. If you do this with some trickery you can exit the car on the outside of the building (i'll leave that up to you!) Enjoy the fireworks! *Disclaimer, this is a pretty bad strategy that is poorly explained if necessary I will make a video to show it off in the future.*

But if you feel like there was something in my guide I didn't mention, or have a creative way of hacking others feel free to share it in the comments!

I'll update this guide in the future as I remember and thinking up more tips and tricks and to make improvements and a TLDR

First guide I've writing so I'm sorry if its a bit wordy and messy

Thanks for reading!

I'll try to update this every few months, I don't play Watch_Dogs all that often any more but I'll hop on once in a while to get some ideas for this guide!