- Upgrades are not acquired through completing activities and diversions like they were in SR2, you buy them from your phone and they unlock as you gain respect levels.
- In the beginning of the game, I would recommend fully upgrading a weapon or two before concentrating on the other upgrades from your cell phone. The .45 Shepherd is a good candidate for this - upgrade the rate of fire, clip size, and bullet type from Friendly Fire and get the Dual Wield Pistols upgrade from your cell phone and start launching your enemies into the air with aplomb.
- Also, if you upgrade your flashbangs to level 4, you get the Fart in a Jar. In addition to being hilarious, they are also part of an achievement.
- To get the most out of the upgrades that give you permanent bonuses to your respect and cash gains, buy them as soon as possible after they become available.
- If you buy the Collectible Finder upgrade and you see something on your minimap that you can't really go and pick up at the moment (due to being chased by the police, etc.) you can open your map and drop a bookmark on its approximate location using X (on the 360) and come back to it later. You can use five bookmarks at any one time, but they do NOT persist if you turn the game off, so remember to go back and get whatever it was before you do so.
- Consider doing the Assassination and Vehicle Theft stuff in the Saintsbook as you go along with the main missions. Certain events happen that make Vehicle Theft more annoying past the beginning of Act 3, and there are a few Assassinations that require you to go raise your noteriety with specfic gangs or law enforcement groups that may or not still be around depending on how much of the map you've taken over or the decisions you've made in the story missions. Doing this is not required, it just makes fully completing these two diversions a little easier. Plus it feels less grindy if you only do a few at a time.
- Assassination related: if you're having trouble causing enough of a ruckus in an area with a specific gang (either because you've taken that neighborhood over and there are hardly any gang members around or you bought the upgrades that decay your noteriety with that gang faster or both) use the Annihilator RPG. It seems to piss people off in a hurry.
- Vehicle Theft related: get the cell phone upgrade that gives you nitrous in every vehicle you drive, it helps.
- If you're having trouble with some of the harder versions of Snatch and Trafficking, two things can really help: the immunity to damage upgrades from your cell phone (duh) and a Bear (the SWAT team APC). Simply take the Bear from your garage, drive it over to the activity you want to use it with, park it a little ways away, and start the activity. Ditch whatever car they give you, climb into the beast, and laugh.
- Two good things to know about the Professor Genki SERC activity: your health doesn't regenerate like it normally does, and the "hunters" (brutes) that appear when you hit your cash target respawn infinitely. Shoot the first brute that appears until the game wants you to go up and do the QTE thing to kill them, DON'T do it, then run your ass off towards the exit.
- For Insurance Fraud, drive to a highway instead of sticking to the intersections that give you an adrenaline boost - there aren't any stoplights to slow the cars down or turns for them to make, so you know exactly where the cars will be coming from at all times. Run against the flow of traffic, ragdoll right as you're about to get hit, and try to steer yourself in midair to get hit over and over by the same car or other cars. The more hits before you land and stand up, the more cash you get.
- For Mayhem (and Tank Mayhem), the key is your combo meter. Do everything you can to keep that thing up. The best way to do this is to hit clusters of things with explosives. Use grenades if the game doesn't give you the RPG. Look for groups of trash bags down alleys, shrubs and fences around houses, newspaper stands in front of stores, cars with multiple people in them, etc. If the area you're in seems a little barren, find a car and drive to greener pastures - the time you waste driving is more than made up in cash as you run merrily through a neighborhood blowing up fences instead of getting frustrated in an empty industrial district.
- In Heli Assault, stay low and stick with the car you're supposed to protect. You don't have to chase after every car full of bad dudes that appears - often, the game will put them in a place that makes it difficult for them to even reach the target car and they disappear by themselves. Make any other helicopters that appear your first priority.