Thruster

"Since the dawn of time mankind has looked to the skies and longed for a way to hover there, totally exposed, deafened by an unstable mixture of jet fuel and naked flame, idly strafing the rush hour traffic. Well now that dream has thrust its way, crotch first, into reality. So what are you waiting for? Please note: This vehicle must be stored in a personal facility and can be modified at the Facility Vehicle Workshop."

- Warstock Cache & Carry description.

The Mammoth Thruster is a special vehicle featured in Grand Theft Auto Online as part of the The Doomsday Heist update.

Grand Theft Auto Online
The Thruster appears to be loosely inspired by the, with a simplified mechanism and jet thrusters rather than fans.

The vehicle is depicted as a one-man jetpack intended for Military/Government use. On the lower area, the vehicle has two frontal rigid supports with small sections on which the operator stands, while the rear has two retractable stands that work similarly to the retractable undercarriage on most aircraft. On the upper area, there is a "half-capsule" body that houses the functional components and the safety belts for the operator, while two large vetoring nozzles are seen on each side of the main body. Similar to regular aircraft, the Thruster features two control sticks, where the right one is used for general maneuvering and the left one for the yawing functions. The Thruster lacks any sort of dials or similar components other than a small console with buttons on the right side, which the character uses for igniting the engines upon entry.

The Thruster is painted with a primary color for the body and the engine compartments, as well as a secondary color for the frames and the portion of the engine compartments around the turbines.

The vehicle can be equipped with dual weapons mounted on small stub wings, being either three-barreled .50 caliber Miniguns resembling gatling guns or missile launchers that resemble the ones available for the Rogue.

Vehicle
Piloting the Thruster is comparable to piloting a Buzzard or a Havok, as it is light, fast and versatile. The player can almost squeeze through areas where a helicopter cannot reach. However, one should be careful while piloting it, as crashes may damage the engines and suffer from constant shutdowns in a similar way to heavily-damaged aircraft, while hard impacts may cause it to explode, killing the operator in the process. When the stands are retracted, the Thruster hovers slightly above the ground and will maintain that distance all the time, acting as a safety measure to avoid a direct crash to the ground in case the player loses a considerable altitude. Leaving the vehicle while the stands are retracted results in an automatic deploy to land safely, provided the player is at ground level.

A notable characteristic of the Thruster is that if the player holds LB and RB (Xbox One) or L1 and R1 (PlayStation 4), the vehicle gets into an upright position, allowing to move with better response and strafe quicker. It also helps when losing control by hitting an obstacle, as it avoids the vehicle to pitch or even roll uncontrollably, especially on closed environments such as parking lots or tunnels. In this mode, its speed is reduced in favor of control, which can also help at avoiding obstacles or when stopping at a desired landing spot quickly. Note that in this mode, the direction the character faces is controlled by the camera.

The vehicle employs two vectoring turbojet engines, which provide the necessary lift and tilt forward or backward based on the pitch direction. Two directional nozzles can be seen on either engine and functions when the vehicle is yawing to a side, emitting a barely-visible smoke while countering the turbulence and a noticeable smoke when strafing with the method mentioned above.

JATO
The aircraft can be equipped with two thrusters, which are intended for a near-instant take-off and quick acceleration. JATO thrusters propel the aircraft for 3 seconds and are recharged upon landing.

Defense
Because of its "open-cabin" nature, the Thruster offers little protection to the operator against gunfire and has little armor, only capable of sustaining a few rounds from small/medium weapons before it starts smoking. Heavier weapons and explosives can destroy the vehicle quickly, making it unsuitable for aerial fights against other armed aircraft, as well as nimble weaponized vehicles like the Oppressor.

Countermeasures
The vehicle can be fitted with countermeasures to improve its defensive capabilities against homing missiles, each one with their own attributes:
 * The Chaff countermeasure disrupts the targeting system from missile launchers, rendering them unable to lock on the aircraft for five seconds. They have a delay of five seconds before being used again and only have 10 uses.
 * The Flare countermeasure drops various flares from around the rear of the aircraft, which can "disorient" the homing missile in order to avoid chasing the aircraft. They have a delay of three seconds before being used again and only have 20 uses.

Weaponry
The Thruster can be only equipped with a single set of weapons operated by the pilot:
 * Machine Gun: the first option are two front-facing miniguns, which work similarly to the machine guns from most land vehicles and aircraft such as the Buzzard Attack Chopper and the Annihilator.
 * Missiles: the second option are two missile pods, which can be fired in either homing or non-homing mode. These missiles cannot be fired continuously, similar to the P-996 LAZER, Hydra, Rogue and Buzzard Attack Chopper, since they have a short "reload" time after firing two missiles in quick succession. Their tracking capabilities are somewhat on par with most weaponized aircraft. These launchers carry a limited number of missiles (30) and when empty, the lock-on targeting still functions but the weapons do not.

Grand Theft Auto Online
The Thruster can only be modified at the Weaponized Vehicle Workshop inside a Facility.
 * * Denotes items that can only be unlocked for purchase via Research in the Bunker property.

When purchased, the Thruster comes painted in the following colors by default:

Doomsday Heist

 * Thrusters are featured prominently towards the conclusion of The Doomsday Scenario, being utilized by both Avon Hertz and the GTA Online Protagonists to fly out of the Mount Chiliad nuclear launch facility through a missile silo. The protagonists would engage Avon in an aerial dogfight with the Thrusters before dropping them off at the IAA meeting point at the Galileo Observatory following Avon's death.

Adversary Modes

 * Air Quota (vehicle lists 1 & 2)

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * Can be purchased from Warstock Cache and Carry for $3,657,500 or for $2,750,000 after completing The Doomsday Scenario as the Heist Leader, provided the player already owns a Facility.
 * As a Personal Vehicle, the Thruster may be delivered by the Garage Mechanic to the side of a road near the player. However, it is unavailable for use during Heists.

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * After Act 3 of The Doomsday Heist, a miniature model of the Thruster appears in the lounge room's desk.
 * The Thruster's name and Warstock Cache & Carry description appear to reference ; another example of Rockstar's crude humor.

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * Despite the changes introduced with the The Diamond Casino & Resort update that prevent the use of Passive Mode within weaponized vehicles, the user can still utilize passive mode on the Thruster, even if it is equipped with a weapon.
 * The rocket capacity can be severely affected with the attack button. By repeatedly pressing the button, even when the pods are in cooldown, its capacity is potentially decreased to just 16 missiles. The reason for this issue is that the game wrongly count two "shots" from each cooldown time, which have the same rate as firing the two rockets simultaneously in normal conditions.
 * Because of an issue with the Thruster's hitbox, small rockets from the Homing Launcher, various weaponized vehicles and armed aircraft are unable to hit the vehicle when moving at its maximum speed. Only larger rocket models, such as the ones from the Chernobog, Akula and FH-1 Hunter, are able to hit the vehicle with no problem.

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