Mass Effect 2

[LightSpectra]

Two questions:

1) Should I pick up all the party members I can before doing main quests? Or is it not a big deal that I pick them up just as I'm going along?

2) Should I buy every upgrade I come across? Or do some become cheaper on other planets or something?

 

[Dachs]

1) You can't go to Horizon until you've picked up Jack, Grunt, Mordin, and Garrus. And once you do have all of them, you can't do anything until you go to Horizon and complete the mission there. After that, I recommend getting Samara, Thane, and Tali as soon as possible. Thane is ridiculously useful against Collectors (and has a sniper rifle, so equipping him with the Incisor gives him basically 100% headshots), Tali is ridiculously useful against mechs (and, on higher difficulties, all mercenaries), and Samara is useful against husks and for setting up Warp detonations. In addition, you pick up weapons on all of those missions; the Tempest and Viper are very handy, the Scimitar somewhat less so.

2) The only thing that makes upgrades cheaper is charming/intimidating the vendor for a one-store discount. Plus, it's not like in ME1 where you could basically buy anything anywhere; there are only five of each upgrade in the entire game (six for some of them with DLC, and seven for the AR), and each one is only available in one location, whether by salvage/research or by purchasing it. And since weapon upgrades do more than anything, including ammo powers and suit parts, to increase weapon damage, they are highly desirable and should be acquired at the first reasonable opportunity.

 

[LightSpectra]

For some reason, when finishing Mordin's quests on Omega, I'm getting +5 Renegade. As far as I know I'm not doing anything to invoke that. Any hints?

 

[Dachs]

You get an automatic 5 Renegade for completing the mission, along with an automatic 5 Paragon. No particular reason. Same thing happens after the Reaper IFF and Collector Ship missions, and if you romance Kelly.

 

[Maniacal]

You can do something at many of the stores to get a discount, if there is some guy to talk to. But afaik each item only shows up at the particular store.

And picking up the party members is part of the main quest, and yeah recruit them when you can but don't feel rushed. After you take someone on a mission go and talk to them on the ship (and feed your fish after every excursion! (or wait on buying the fish until later, I forget the point but Kelyl will offer to feed them if you are nice enough ot her long enough into the game).

 

[LightSpectra]

Any way to avoid that? I'm trying to go full paragon, no renegade.

 

[Maniacal]

Don't worry about it, there are a few things were its hard or impossible to escape getting a very few renegade points, but you will have absolutely no problem maxing out paragon.

 

[Dachs]

Any way to avoid that? I'm trying to go full paragon, no renegade.

No, there isn't. Which is why I said "hell with it" and used the Renegade options when they were cooler.

You pretty much have to max one of them or the other in order to pass some checks after completing loyalty missions, though.

 

[LightSpectra]

Damn. This game is no good for a perfectionist.

 

[Dachs]

You're working with a terrorist organization, and you expect to be able to escape from this without Renegade points?

 

[LightSpectra]

That's just how Shepherd rolls.

I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favorite thread on CFF.

 

[Maniacal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3or9lrQ2_ms

I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favourite interrupt. The guy who made this has a few other funny movies, and a few rather mediocre ones.

 

[LightSpectra]

I'm trying to figure out why exonerating a falsely accused quarian and then bullying the racists into leaving her alone gave me +10 paragon, but I got +25 paragon by lying to every storekeeper that theirs is Shephard's favorite. One would think the latter would be like, +5 renegade.

 

[Maniacal]

Paragon and renegade aren't just for black and white actions. You get renegade points for disobeying (or trying to anyways) Cerberus at times, and Paragon for being a good minion.

 

[Dachs]

Personally, I get my Spectre status back from the Council and then get the discount from Citadel Souvenirs that way (still requires Charm, but no endorsement), and use the Intimidate options at Rodam Expeditions and Sirta Foundation to get those discounts, then give my only endorsement to Saronis Applications, because I like the clerk there the best.

Although the Intimidate option for Rodam Expeditions is funniest if you have Legion with you (annoying to have to wait that long, annoying to use Gibbed's save editor to hack him in early), and the Intimidate option for Citadel Souvenirs is one of the best ever. HEY! EVERYONE! THIS STORE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST THE POOR!

 

[Maniacal]

xD I'll have to remember that for my renegade's 2nd playthrough to bring Legion.

 

[Akka]

Unlike ME1, Paragon and Renegade in ME2 aren't simply "good boy" and "bad boy" points.
They are much closer to "negociaton" and "intimidation".
A startling example :
Somewhere, there is a bad girl that attempt to use you to bully someone into giving her store.
If you chose the "Paragon" option, you soothe, small talk and trick (with a smile) the said bad girl into thinking she got her way, and she ends up jumping into the police trap while believing you did her bidding.
If you chose the "Renegade" option, you yell at her for being a b... and refuse to help her and give her a morality speech.

As you see, Renegade is no more just "being a jerk", it's just "being forceful" (though it sometimes mean being a jerk, of course ), and actually it was much better in the dialogue than ME1 for this.

 

[LightSpectra]

What does Joker say after you recruit Thane? I missed that because I forgot to talk to him in between getting Thane and Samara.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'm trying to figure out why exonerating a falsely accused quarian and then bullying the racists into leaving her alone gave me +10 paragon, but I got +25 paragon by lying to every storekeeper that theirs is Shephard's favorite. One would think the latter would be like, +5 renegade.

Yeah, paragon and renegade sometimes don't make much sense. In ME 1 you also frequently get more renegade points if you resolve a situation with threats of violence than with just shooting everybody.

 

[LightSpectra]

Yeah so I just found out that I'm going to get the bad ending to Mass Effect 2 unless I skip the last three loyalty missions I had to do, because I was not aware that the endgame inevitably comes two missions after you get the IFF. So I can either leave these missions unfinished or I can get the bad ending, which is bad for me because I'm a perfectionist. Alternatively I can load a save from before I get the IFF, which means I'll have to replay three hours of the game that I didn't find particularly enticing in the first place. Though I wouldn't mind doing Samara's loyalty mission again, replaying the IFF mission, Jacob's loyalty mission, and all the planet scanning again is really tedious.

FML.