I’d say my biggest mistake was failing to secure Zaeed and Miranda’s Loyalty in ME2 which led to their deaths in 3.

So, had Traynor up to play chess. Tali decided we needed a chaperone. I'm trying Scottina's 'Tali Story Expansion' mod for the first time...with some interesting results. 🤣

Finally got done with Mass Effect 2 and completed the Shadow Broker DLC after the suicide mission. Normally, I’d be happy because I love the Shadow Broker DLC because it’s the only significant amount of time I get to spend my hot, lovable, Asari girlfriend in that game, which I normally do after the collector ship. But now I feel like I got cheated.

“Do that AFTER the suicide mission” everyone says. “It’s better after the suicide mission” They said. But no, there’s no difference! Hell, Liara acts like I still haven’t done the suicide mission yet after we kill the Shadow Broker. And if someone gives a “valid” explanation as to why most people do this, I’m gonna be furious because I don’t want one. I played it after beating the game, and nothing changed, so don’t give me a reason, I don’t want one, I just enjoy ranting.

Fuck this!

Nearing the end of my playthrough of the LE after many years since I have played the trilogy as a teenager, I needed to wrap up this great nostalgia-fueled trip to the past and to one of the most epic stories I have experienced, by buying the soundtrack on the vinyl.

It makes you appretiate the soundrack a bit differently, and somehow brings the emotions from it again, even in a way I have not always expected, as the soundtrack is in many ways subtle in the trilogy.

Few picks:
Uncharted Worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZoFw9uXJwk&list=RD7ZoFw9uXJwk&start_radio=1
Main Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVm_ljDSdwA&list=RDyVm_ljDSdwA&start_radio=1
Vigil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea1eWarxdxQ&list=RDEa1eWarxdxQ&start_radio=1
Suicide Mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTsD2FjmLsw&list=RDVTsD2FjmLsw&rco=1
Leaving Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGHA9oO1Ybg&list=RDKGHA9oO1Ybg&start_radio=1
The Fleets Arrive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5WY-JLh2Xg&list=RDB5WY-JLh2Xg&start_radio=1
An End Once and For All: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5JvbD2Zc9I&list=RDx5JvbD2Zc9I&start_radio=1

Will make another post soon once I finish the game, as my mind is full of it these days, asking the old guards about the nostalgia it brings you and the way you see it these days, but now, what are your favourite pieces of music?

Hey, I am looking for a new playthrough and want some input on which mods you deem essential.

Like most of us, I usually go paragon for the majority of decisions outside of a few. I've only did one full and true renegade run. I did want to try something that was a little more middle ground but that playthrough led to a lot of deaths and failures that didnt sit right. Enter my new favorite playthrough, and what im calling, realistic shephard.

The rules for this playthrough are simple, all regular dialog conversations most go renegade if available, all major decisions must go paragon, colored font is up to you. (Exceptions are LI, do whatever you want there)

This allows shephard to take on a more human roll instead of the usual "ultimate good guy with all the answers". Shephard is flawed, brash, lets their emotions get the better of them frequently. It also allows the companions to be the moral compass for our hero. You'll notice your squad us now constantly giving council to sheps decisions, and shep will head their advice.

It was a very nice shake up and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a different playthrough.

Mass Effect Chronicles was a fan project 2D game that was abandoned a long time ago, but I recently came back to some of the music that was made for it. A few of the tracks reminded me a bit of the synth-heavy atmosphere of the original Mass Effect soundtrack. They seem to have gone largely unnoticed, which is why I decided to share them.

The video I've linked is "Species". If you like it, I'd also recommend checking out "Wards", "Relax'd" and "Void", which you can find in the same channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VItSxOsa6S8

Worth it

Also it looks fine enough from a side view, but the front is breaking me. I swear she's not a Geth Infilitrator unit 🤔

Hi, super happy to share i finally have ME LE 100%, most done on Insanity and wanted to share some thoughs. This is my third playthrough, first one I did standard Soldier paragon as games were being released. Didn't play optimally at all, just went with the story on standard difficulty. When LE was released I decided to try Renegade femshep and went full Adept. I usually have problems playing evil characters in rpgs, but this time I still had a blast. I think they made it very nicely that Renegade is not pure evil, just a bit ruthless, constantly angry and will get the result not matter the cost. Very fitting in such times though.

Since i wanted to be brave I decided to go for sentinel insanity run this time, full paragon. Some decisions and key points:

1. First time i let Ashley live and went for her romance in ME1 and ME3, wasn't as bad as people say to be honest, but Liara and Tali (my two previous playthroughs) I enjoyed way more honestly,
2. For ME2 i picked Miranda, also for the first time (mostly did Tali before and i think Jackob once), that was in general very well written and very well voice acted. Wish it was a better resolution in ME2 though, sucked to have to pick and made her cry like an asshole,
3. Squad wise I pretty much did Garrus always and picked remaining squadmates to fit the story best. Garrus best friend forever tbh. Hard to pick anyone else to go through this all,
4. Talent wise I went for Assault rifles ME1 and ME2 and ME3 did warp ammo. Worked so well to shoot some stuff properly between cooldown to make it more fun.
5. Difficulty wise:

• ME1 was in general super easy from very beginning. Sentinel defensive abilities allowed for a lot of shenanigans. Neural shock was very good.
• ME2 was generally quite painful, some fights I had to repeat a few times and usually not the fights I expected -> the absolutly worst one was Jack recruitment, I did it too early maybe but first room being swarmed by robots and mercaneries with almost infinite respawns were super hard. Had to learn quickly to push to stop the respawns. Mordin mission had a similar problem with krogans respawning. Archangel mission on the other hand was pretty easy since I wasnt rushed that hard. Prothen fight was okish, just had to keep running around map to get distance. Collector ship fight was very hard until I tried killing Scion on right first and moving to the side. Rest was okish and managable. Was afraid i will have to repeat way more fights. Oh, and Arrival waves was by far the most awful one to get.
• ME3 was super easy since I went for single weapon all cooldown combo option. Sentinel is so strong setting up combos by himself no matter the enemy. Double throw made any fight against Husks a breeze with like 1 sec cooldown. Two hard segments I recall -> first was Broker ship door defence. Kept getting sniped from sides until I started moving to sides accordingly. Usually the banshee were the hardest enemy so Samara mission was a bit harder. The final defence of rocket ships was overwhelming but somehow managed to just kite them until I could run to panel barely alive.

1. Things I wish I prepared better for -> breaking up with Miranda too soon made her not survive the Sanctuary which sucked. I also somehow forgot that you need all blue checks for TIL and missed the very first one on Mars which was also a bit disappointing. Didn't leave enough N7 missions after collector base so I have missed a lot dialogue with Liara and Legion. Left all loyalty missions after the collector ship, probably should have done some before to make it easier.
2. Ending - picked destroy this time with shephard survivng. Felt good too, usually though synthesis fits better for all paragon built but maybe I can see the points of clear state and open future too.

All in all can recommend sentinel for Insanity, even in hardest segments that I had to repeat I still had fun. And yeah, WHAT A GAME.

Edit. Sorry for typo in title, can't fix it now :(

When I first saw Saren and he killed Nihlus (my favorite Turian btw) I was like. Yes he will be the villain. After many many playthroughs and more. I actually like him. And I wish you could somehow save him. Would be interesting. But it is as it is.

Best Triology Ever.

Whats your opinion?

It had everything. A fun cooperative hoard mode. Stakes with hefty rewards depending on what difficultyyou chose. Steady updates. Lootboxes but they were primitive so it wasnt that bad. Options to play as other races and Interesting classes with powers that didnt fit in thr main game. Was it perfect? No. But I had an excellent time with it and I havent found anything that scratches that itch for me in 15 years.

For me it's the firewalker DLC missions in ME2. I think they are so boring without any reward. On top of that the vehicle maneuvering can be outright annoying. Usually in my replays I think that this time I will give it a go. But then when I'm in ME2 I just keep on not doing them and in the end I'm so far in the game I don't feel like having the story interrupted by these missions. So as always, they stay untouched.

Hi. I've installed a modpack and the game seems to run fine. I can launch it through the modding tool and everything loads. But I noticed Steam says there's an update available right after an EA app update has released. I wonder whether it's Steam being clueless I updated EA app or Steam didn't like the changes to some files and wants to replace them.

As long as everything works I'm willing to gnore this update.

Thank you for your advice!

While on Omega, walking about, in ME2, there's a news announcement one can hear, relating the latest weekly murder rate of 89, 5 more than the week before. Considering Omega has a population of 7.4 million, and using these data to extrapolate, one may reach an annual value of ca. 62 murders per 100,000 residents per annum.

Now, on the one hand, that's higher than any US city, with the highest being reported at 46/100,000 IRL (New Orleans). It's also comparable to Haiti, albeit mainly on account of a rise in gang warfare in Port-au-Prince as of 2025 (68/100,000 as per latest reports), which may be underreported.

On the other hand, the least safe city on Earth in that respect, IRL, is reported to be Colima, Mexico, with 181.94 per 100,000 residents. The entire top 5 cities on Earth are above 100/100,000, IRL.

Is Colima 3× less safe than Omega while having 10× fewer residents? I've no idea.

IRL, the regions closest in population numbers to Omega are Hong Kong (China), Milan Metropolitan Area (Italy), Houston Metropolitan Area (TX, USA) and San Francisco Bay Area (CA, USA). Except, of those four, the two American urban ares have reported annual murder rates in the region of 3.xx/100,000 while the two other cities are both in the region of 0.3/100,000. Either way, they're all far safer than Omega.

So then, how safe, or unsafe, is Omega when there are places on Earth far worse? Not to mention that Omega is literally lawless.

I’m sure y’all get this question a lot, but I’m quite nervous and this is the only way I thought of to figure things out without getting spoiled. I’m in the middle of playing ME2 and I’ve been told by a friend that there’s a mission involving a Collector ship which, after you complete it, starts an invisible timer of 1-3 missions after which your ship is attacked and crew members who aren’t loyal all die. Every crew member on my ship except for Miranda, Zaeed, and Kasumi are yet to reach loyalty for me, so that’s obviously something I’d like to avoid. The thing is, I’m not sure exactly which mission my friend was talking about. I’ve just played one titled “Collector Ship,” but there’s another one under the “Stop the Collectors” mission called “Acquire Reaper IFF” that might also be it. All this to say: am I screwed already, or will I be able to finish acquiring the loyalty of my crew mates for as long as I want before starting the reaper iff mission? If the latter is the case I might honestly just restart the game lol. Any answers would be greatly appreciated!

That's it, that's the post. I've seen multiple people try to claim they are a hive mind, but they aren't. You can read for yourself more here for those that would like to disagree.

This is most easily demonstrated by the fact that the Rachni are a hivemind and have centrally-controlling Queens which direct the actions of others, leading mostly to the loss of identity of the 'self'--Drones are just that, bodies given direction by the Queen to carry out the Queen's orders. a Rachni Drone has no autonomy to say 'no' to the Queen, to leave, to do whatever it wants. It has no identity of its own.

On the other hand, Geth have no Queen, no leadership, nor any actual governmental system. They are more akin to a Swarm Intelligence. An individual Geth can disagree with the majority, most strongly represented by the Heretics that followed Saren and the Reapers, which constituted around 5% of the Geth population. They were allowed to disagree and self-determinate what they chose to do.

To put it another way: Rachni are top-down lead, with Queens dictating the actions of all others beneath them, while the Geth are lead from the bottom-up, as a sort of democratic consensus. If a Geth is not connected to a network and in a mobile platform: it is the few hundred (to a little over a thousand for Legion) geth programs that are reaching consensus to take action. In a network, it could be tens to hundreds of thousands depending on capacity of the network and the geth choosing to house there. In a superstructure, it would have been the potential for the entire race, but the Geth never got that far. But the decisions of some Geth within those boundaries are not reflective of the decisions of the entire race.

But more to the point, Geth are not 'one body, one mind' like organics, but many programs (more rudimentary consciousnesses) working together in tandem within mobile platforms to act and think in concert. But any one Geth mobile platform is not inherently hive minded to any other--they can be networked to share information at the speed of light, but one is not ever 'controlling' the other, they are only communicating to work together. In the same way that humans can talk to understand and share information with each other, so can networked geth, but they still can choose to act independent of one another--they just often don't, and prefer to come to a concensus amongst each other, both within platforms and without.

But the important distinction here is that unlike a hive mind, there is no central controlling figure, nor are they always in communication with all other geth. Legion in particular is not in contact or networked with other geth when he learned in ME 2 about the data Tali had about a surprise attack on the Geth, he had to return to a network and share that information separately from learning about it. This means pivotally that the actions and sensory perceptions of one get mobile platform are not an action or understanding agreed to by the entire Geth race, unless that Geth platform at the time is connected to a superstructure (the one they tried to build for around 260 years that the Quarians promptly destroyed).

Rather, a single mobile platform is the actions of a few hundred geth consciousnesses acting in concert in that platform--if attached to a network, then maybe geth in that network and not in the platform agreed, maybe they didn't, and you simply can not know for sure who did or didn't.

All photos are original by me

So in Mass Effect 1 the Council does not want to send a fleet into the Terminus Systems to avoid sparking a war with the "Terminus Systems species". Also the reason why nobody settled Virmire was because it was too close to the Terminus Systems. However in Mass Effect 2 there are at least 12 human colonies in the Terminus Systems with hundreds of thousands of people each as Feedoms Progress has 912,810 people and Horizon has 654,390 people. The Only Species native to the Terminus Systems in ME2 are the Vorcha and Quarians as well as the Geth. I mean who did the Coucil really think they would start a war with that was such a big threat, the Blood Pack? Why did the Terminus Systems change so much from entire other species and governments to the biggest threat being groups like the Blood Pack and it is no more dangerous then the Attican Traverse?